New AT&T specific features rumored for future iPhone update

[AppleInsider]

Apple and its exclusive US wireless provider AT&T could soon deliver new carrier-specific features to iPhone users through a future software update in a bid to increase customer satisfaction.

At least one of the enhancements, according to those claiming knowledge of the matter, would be similar to the Visual Voicemail feature made popular on the iPhone two years ago, in that it may require AT&T to tailor changes to its network.

In particular, the two parties are said to be mulling the possibility of enabling the following capabilities through an update to the iPhone's software that could arrive before year's end:
Overage Alerts: A proposed new setting under the iPhone's "Phone" preferences would allow users to customize a push notification -- in the form of a badge, message, or sound -- to be issued when they're in danger of exceeding their monthly anytime minutes.
New Voicemail Options: A new "Voicemail" setting, also proposed as an addition to the touch-screen handset's "Phone" preferences, would provide a means for users to disable the custom Voicemail greeting -- as well as AT&T's standard Voicemail introduction -- heard by other users.

Similarly, the same feature would also make it possible for users to automatically bypass Voicemail greetings, AT&T's standard introduction, and other automated instructions when placing calls to other AT&T customers.
The proposals are said to be a collaborative effort between AT&T and Apple based off customer feedback. In addition to boosting customer satisfaction with both the iPhone and AT&T's wireless network, the additions could also serve as a steppingstone for additional carrier-specific features, those claiming knowledge of the situation say.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[ivan.rnn01]

There's nothing special about that.
Every carrier, having allowed MMS in June (after 3.0 had sprung), did.

[msantti]

I wonder what the monthly fee is for these new features?

[technohermit]

I was hoping for a personal cell tower that I could carry around with me. Maybe then I could get decent service. Guess I'll just have to wait.

[GregAlexander]

Hardly seem like iPhone-specific features.

A warning message that you were reaching your limit?
And turning off part of your voicemail message?

Isn't that a bit.... crap?

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by technohermit

I was hoping for a personal cell tower that I could carry around with me. Maybe then I could get decent service. Guess I'll just have to wait.

We need our mobile telcos to offer VoIP roaming, at half the price (or double the minutes), via the regular Apple phone app interface.

ie: When I'm at home or office on Wifi, my calls can come and go via wifi. As I go out of VoIP range (or the call loses quality) it switches seamlessly to regular cell service.

That's pretty well my own personal cell tower.
And that could be quite a unique feature.

(It's a long shot, but perhaps the iPod Touch will offer Apple VoIP next week... with a similar boost to iPhone phone app)

[walshbj]

How exciting.

If they want some actual good-will credit they could start wih free SMS / MMS during nights and weekends. Like they do with voice.

The damage to their name is severe and will take drastic steps to repair.

[bloggerblog]

Ridiculous!
How about free MMS and Texting.
And as for Apple, when will we be able to browse recent callers while we're on the phone?

[CryhavocQ]

I'm underwhelmed.

[w00master]

*Yawn*

[Napoleon_PhoneApart]

I'm slipping into a coma...

[JaxBearsFan]

I just *love* the "we're listening to our subscribers" bull crap that gets rolled out with miniscule features that barely anyone will find useful.

B.S. If AT&T "listened" to their customers, their network would be a lot better and texting would be much cheaper. Instead iPhone subs get this.

Am still happy with my experience, signal is great where I live. But every mobile company sucks, and implementing "features" like this certainly don't help the company/customer relationship at all.

[bdkennedy1]

Wow, those are some earth-shattering features there. How about something useful like being able to block a phone number?

How about giving me the same freedom I had with my landline? That would keep me as a customer.

[probably]

These are probably weak moves at mending iPhone attrition when exclusivity dies.

Making the product 'feel' more integrated, I suppose.

[djnchi]

Is this a joke.. Who the hell wants this? Ummmmm I know what I want! Better 3G service.

[ipodrulz]

I think Apple should released another type of notifications to join badge, sound, and message.

Menu Bar Notifications

The geniuses at Apple must be able to figure that out ... and it's a feature that's going to make a huge difference.

[quinney]

...and one more thing. All iPhone users on AT&T get automatic streaming of all
future apologies from "Seth the blogger guy"

[girlzoom]

If you call any AT&T customer now, you can enter # and it will skip their outgoing message. So what is the big deal with the "NEW" feature?

[wizard69]

I have to agree with the general tone of this thread, not much to get excited about. If AT&T really wanted to spruce up it's image it would stop charging for services that cost them virtually nothing (txt).

On the otherhand I can't really say AT&Ts service has been all that bad for me. The contract is a little stiff but that won't change until competition opens up. The only service I would really want from them is tethering but I don't see that happening at a reasonable price anytime soon. If there is anything that would lead to a congested network it is easy tethering for Mac Users.

So like others this would barely get me out of bed.



Dave

[dcgin]

How about some notification of missed calls...like flashing light

[netdog]

Originally Posted by GregAlexander

ie: When I'm at home or office on Wifi, my calls can come and go via wifi. As I go out of VoIP range (or the call loses quality) it switches seamlessly to regular cell service.

Actually, that wouldn't be unique in the USA. I can't remember which of the two, but it's either Sprint or T-Mobile that already offer this. Best of all, due to a lack of back end billing software to handle the switchoff, if you start your call on WiFi and then move off into the cellular network, the call remains absolutely free.

[bongo]

Well Fido's been sending me text messages when I'm 75% and 100% through my minutes SINCE 2003. It doesn't need a fancy badge. It's just a f*king text message!

Do you want to increase customer satisfaction, ATT? Bring back rollover minutes.

And "seth the blogger guy"... biggest piece of bull s*t I've ever seen. Can your CEO speak english? How about filming HIM apologizing.

[nicksageek]

I read elsewhere that the seconds we spend listening to the voicemail instructions cost us money. I'm for one happy to see these options provided!

[aplnub]

Originally Posted by djnchi

Is this a joke..

Has to be a joke. The only thing telling me it is a joke is that Seth the Blogger Dude from "Welcome back Kotter" has not addressed this yet.

Originally Posted by bdkennedy1

Wow, those are some earth-shattering features there. How about something useful like being able to block a phone number?

I am so with you there. Just the ability to block a number. Kinda like Google Voice lets me do but Apple canned that because it made the experience on the iPhone better than what Apple could give.

Originally Posted by Napoleon_PhoneApart

I'm slipping into a coma...

I think AT&T pushed me next to you with this announcement.

Originally Posted by w00master

*Yawn*

Ditto that...with many laughs.

[StarsOnly]

Did I oversleep again? Is it April 1st?

Were these things even 5th and 6th on anyone's list of "Need to Have?" were these things even ON anyone's list?

"Responding to customer complaints." This is like owning a car that will only run is certain parts of town and the company says: "Hey, here's a new lug wrench and jack."

I'd like my phone to ring when I'm in a major service area. (We can start with places like where I live: Downtown, and then work out to the fringe areas like 20' from downtown later. Baby steps.

And getting my VM the within the hour it was left, not six days after. That would be nice.

I've been Apple loyal since the IIGS days . I like my iPhone, I have some complaints about it for sure, and some of those I think are pretty much basic no-brainers for the designers, but nothing can be all things to all people. That's just the nature of consumer technology. But as soon as my two year commitment is up and Android has come more into it's own I am gone from both the iPhone and AT&T.

The iPhone is just another example of the customer abuse/our way or no way model that Apple has increasingly adopted over the past ten years. And there isn't even a description for how much they suck. I have such a deep seated hatred of them I've had to rejoin my anger management group.

Thank God I didn't throw out my tin cans and string.

[anonymouse]

Originally Posted by wizard69

I have to agree with the general tone of this thread, not much to get excited about.

Yes, the only thing interesting about this 'news' is that AT&T seems to think it's at all meaningful.

Can't wait to hear what Seth has to say about it, though!

(BTW, has anyone found any good Seth parodies on YouTube yet?)

[mesomorphicman]

I'm sorry dear AT&T and Apple executives, but this would have to be the weakest and most unenthusiastic announcement possible. Wish I could post audio, so you could hear how loudly I yawned while reading.

How about giving us tethering as was promised in June?

My list of things they need to update/add:

-- Would be nice if I am listening to music on the iPod feature and get a voice mail, if after listening to the voice mail the music I was listening to automatically resumed without me having to go back to the iPod player and restart the song.

-- "Recent calls" list, let me select which to delete, right now I can only delete all.

-- ALLOW RUNNING BACKGROUND APPS!!!!! It is annoying that I/we cannot run two apps at the same time. I cannot listen to music while playing most games - even if I turn the sounds off in that game, cannot listen to Pandora or Last.fm while searching the web, using Facebook, or check/write email at the same time... can't chat on Yahoo and close it to take a photo or check email without being logged off, Yahoo (or any messenger service) can't keep running when closed... this is incredibly ridiculous!! If the battery drains faster so be it, it is my decision to run background apps, so I/we know the battery will drain faster. I/we can take that responsibility, stop tying our hands and treating us like children. Basically the iPhone is a one-third party app at a time device, inexcusable!!!

These should already be allowed and part of the system. I know Apple likes to control everything and thinks they know best, and I like Apple a lot, but sometimes they go too far and act like the Chinese government. Stop treating us like your children and daddy knows best attitude.

[OriginalMacRat]

Features?

Or additional ATT lock in?

[RAmeeti]

Originally Posted by girlzoom

If you call any AT&T customer now, you can enter # and it will skip their outgoing message. So what is the big deal with the "NEW" feature?

Wow. Has everyone overlooked the fact that when people call an iPhone, that they already do not get the standard, press 1 to leave a message kind of crap? Turning that off has never been necessary for iPhone users. Other ATT phones do have that issue but not iPhone users.

[farmdwg]

It is a little too late AT&T. The coverage issues alone have driven me over the edge. I work in Palo Alto (next to Gunn High School) and there is NO AT&T coverage. My buddies have Verizon and they have signal.

So next summer, when my AT&T contract expires, I will be looking to move to Verizon where they will have the new 4G iPhone waiting for me.

AT&T better be AFRAID!! VERY AFRAID... Verizon is licking their chops cause they know when they launch the 4G iPhone they will have a huge uptick in new subscriptions.

BYE BYE BYE AT&T!

[Logisticaldron]

I know I’m in the minority camo here but the union between Apple and AT&T -can- lead to a lot of new innovations that would otherwise not happen or happen much more slowly without said union. Unfortunately, the number of potential useful innovations have not been coming as I would have hoped.

AT&T’s end….
Let me start by saying that MMS and SMS is such a scam. SMS uses the carrier’s alway-on “control channel” while MMS uses the carrier’s data network which we already pay an unlimited fee for. I’d like this rolled into phones that are already paying for unlimited data.

I’d like to see automatic tier bumping along with the notification, so that I’m charged 20¢ a minute past my 450 minutes but that I’m moved to the next tier when that becomes the most cost effective plan for the customer. While this does mean AT&T gets less money from these people exceeding their plans it does allow peace of mind which goes a long way toward customer satisfaction. They can even make the tier stay the following month unless you call to change it.

Apple’s end…
This may not come until v4.0 but I’d like to see a proper notification system. The overlay was great when it first came out, but we didn’t have Push Notifications at that time. it’s woefully out of date. They need to take cues from Android and WebOS, which allow you to see you revisit your notifications. I think using the right swipe to get to the search page wouldn’t be a place to put them if Apple isn’t keen on using the menu bar for this action.

Apple and AT&T together...
I don’t use MMS because it’s a scam, IMO, but I know others that do. I think that they need to make sending an MMS to another iPhone on AT&T’s network a much more profound experience. Move it from a 300k image to allow for sending for songs. video, vCards, documents and other kind typical data file so long as it’s under 10MB. If they allowed this it would at least give AT&T an out as to why it too so long to get an option to do what you can do with a simple hack right now. The main reason MMS is currently so limited is because of low powered phones with crappy OSes using a crappy WAP browser. The iPhone doesn’t have this limitation. I thought this is what they were going to do, hence not allowing the original iPhone to get MMS, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.


PS: Tethering should not be included at the same price of the unlimited phone data. It’s a completely different service that uses significantly more data. To have this included means that all iPhone data plans are doubling their default price regardless if you tether or not.

[Logisticaldron]

. . . . .

[alolkoy]

How about making a phone that gets decent reception ATT???

[Logisticaldron]

Originally Posted by alolkoy

How about making a phone that gets decent reception ATT???

AT&T doesn’t make cell phones.

[tt92618]

The one thing AT&T could do to get me happy again is to finally enable MMS. I am amazed, honestly, that it has taken them this long, given that they knew MMS was coming long before 3.0 was released. In the mean time, is it too much to ask that the 'ViewMyMessage" service be maintained in working order? It is already frustrating enough to have to go to their message viewing service and enter the crazy password and ID they auto-generate in order to retrieve an MMS... but having done that, to get a message saying "an error occurred during message read", that is just remarkable.

[Reztek]

But At&t is messing it all up.. I get like 30 drop calls a week and this past week it dropped a call while talking to my boss and guess what he (my boss) told me to get a real phone.. I guess its all boiling down to this iphone is a toy not for work.. And that sucks for me because every time now someone calls me i got to apologize if my phone drops there calls.. And by the way i live NYC and one would think that it works well here I guess not..

[GregAlexander]

Originally Posted by Reztek

But At&t is messing it all up.. I get like 30 drop calls a week .. I guess its all boiling down to this iphone is a toy not for work.. And that sucks for me because every time now someone calls me i got to apologize if my phone drops there calls..

I'm on Vodafone in Australia, and getting frequent dropped calls in good coverage areas. It also seems to just hang - the apps & internet work fine (via wifi) but no incoming or outgoing calls until I restart (or switch off 3G).

I presume the 3.0/3.01 OS has some issues. !!!!

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by Logisticaldron

PS: Tethering should not be included at the same price of the unlimited phone data. It’s a completely different service that uses significantly more data. To have this included means that all iPhone data plans are doubling their default price regardless if you tether or not.

I could only imagine what tethering would do to their network, if MMS is such an issue. Just forget it all together until I can get a call to stay connected while in a building. I have a feeling, not tested yet, but even if I was in a glass house my iPhone would still not have reception.
If AT&T allowed wifi calls like T-Mobile, that would be super duper. It would stop a lot of the reception problems, because the dropped calls/no service at all are mostly when indoors. AT&T's spectrum choice falls short when near big buildings and/or inside of them.

[8CoreWhore]

They're going to translate the voice mail to text! This is what Google Voice does.... Think about it. Visual Voicemail is only "visual" insofar as the name of the person calling. The voice mail itself is not visible - until they convert it to text... which would be awesome. Why else would it be at&t only? That means it's not MMS. Possibly also, call screening. Since the voice mail is being down loaded to the handset, why can't we listen to it and answer the call if we want? These features would be why GV was turned down. It would also explain Apple's "duplicates features".

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by Reztek

But At&t is messing it all up.. I get like 30 drop calls a week and this past week it dropped a call while talking to my boss and guess what he (my boss) told me to get a real phone.. I guess its all boiling down to this iphone is a toy not for work.. And that sucks for me because every time now someone calls me i got to apologize if my phone drops there calls.. And by the way i live NYC and one would think that it works well here I guess not..

Have your boss pitch in on your cell phone bill or give you a different phone before he starts blabbing about how you use your money.
Aside from that, agreed, too many drops. I never got on the "just turn off 3G" side of the fence. It's ridiculous that when the phone goes from 2g to 3g or vice-versa the calls get dropped. Hated that since inception.