There are other countries where the iphone is basically sold by every carrier in the country --- like Australia and Italy. For sure, if the iphone was capturing 40% of the Australian smartphone market --- we would have heard and read about it (especially because Australians are English speaking).
Secondly, in every single news report about the iphone sales in France --- they are on par with UK and Germany sales (since they have about the same population size). Even if Munster is right that the iphone is capturing 40% in France's smartphone market --- it only means ONE thing, the French smartphone market is vastly smaller than every single industrial country in the world.
It is very simple math --- for example, if both UK and France both sell 2 million iphones and they both have the approx the same population size ---- and the iphone has only a 15% market share in smartphone in UK but 40% market share in smartphone in France. Then there is only ONE math solution --- the French smartphone market is much smaller than UK and the rest of the industrial world.
At this point I would continue to give AT&T their spot in the limelight for a bit longer as the other carriers transition in.
AT&T certainly has gone through growing pains, but so will all of the other carriers.
The bigger the share of "smartphone" users, the more natural incentive their is to keep the network robust and feature rich. So it seems one or two carriers would naturally dominate the market anyway. It's probably a little expensive to maintain these networks.
It's also natural that, following exclusivity (due to co-development) Apple would induce competition in the provider market by allowing all service competitors access to the device and now you've got the service providers fighting to prove who does the job better of matching their service to Apple's device.
That's a really good position for Apple to be in.
Regarding Apple TV, the biggest stigma is definitely a question of, why pay for a cable bill and Apple TV downloads? Find a way to make deals with producers/ networks to make a "subscription" option and allow people to replace their cable service. GO big, more movies, more TV, more content are what my friends say. (I fantasize about not having to go to the theater at all some day LOL I really do love my home theater )
Apple has done a great job with TV but their movie library is pretty dated and thin. Most people don't want to pay a premium to own everything they watch or not watch things they don't want to own. Sports and News are 2 things that need to be addressed as well.
I don't watch allot of TV (So I guess that's why I don't have cable and just have an ATV) although I am occasionally frustrated by the delivery of certain shows only after the DVD launches or a week or two after the show airs the service is reliable and most shows are quite prompt to deliver.
There is definitely room for improvement, but ATV is a killer platform. Personally I'd also like to see casual gaming added to the lineup of new features. My other "brain-drain" fantasy is to have Audio Surf on my ATV with my iphone/ tablet controller.
I agree with this, but with one revision. Every place you mention ATTs network changes, substitute "change the relationship between the carrier and the handset manufacturer." Apple's great achievement with the iPhone was not it getting ATT to support visual voice mail. It was getting them to keep their hands off the design of the phone itself. The whims of the carriers have done more to restrict innovation of cell phones than any lack of talent on the part of the manufacturers.
The new phones we are starting to see are the result of the carriers allowing the manufacturers a little more freedom to innovate. What will be interesting is that Apple has now shown the willingness to compromise the iPhone and remove wi-fi from the Chinese version. Will that be used against them if/when they try to negotiate with Verizon or other carriers who may see that as a sign that Apple is willing to give up some control to gain marketshare?
This is exactly true, the reason peoples' experience with phones is really bad is because all the Carriers think they know what is best for their customers and they want the ability to charge extra for each and every feature. Therefore that do not allow the cell phone companies to truly innovated. Also because of this, every cell phone companies have various versions of their phones to support all the different carries so you can image the mess this create making sure it all works with all the different carries.
However, you have one version of the iphone worldwide so it one plateform Apple have to make sure works verse hundreds of versions.
Yes, Verizon has had Blackberry phones for some time now that had a 2nd GSM radio, in addition to the CDMA, for international travel. However, I don't think the phones would switch to GSM if you were in the US in an area with no Verizon CDMA signal as that would require a roaming agreement with US GSM carriers.
So if you are talking about a 4th generation, LTE-capable phone, you are probably going to need to support 3 standards, vs the 2 the referenced Blackberry supports: LTE, CDMA (for use in the US in areas where LTE isn't yet available), and GSM (for roaming outside of the US until other country's LTE networks are built out). The space and power requirements to support all three may be prohibitive.
The only other option for a LTE phone would be for Verizon to sign a roaming agreement with a US GSM carrier and have a phone with only LTE and GSM, but I wouldn't see them doing that until their LTE network is substantially built out because too much of their customer's calls and data would then be traveling over another carrier's network.
Of course they could just go with a CDMA/GSM phone like the Blackberry, but then why would Verizon rush to deploy their LTE network?
I have absolutely no technical knowledge of cell phone networks, but my memory tells me that before cell phones became popular, there WERE several multi-network phones you could choose from to use on the network you had. These 3 system phones weren't subsidized and not cheap like today, but they existed. So my question is why isn't this form factor feasibly possible to day?
if the only iphone i could have was pink, with orange glitter and neon green tassels, and a permanent screen picture of perez hilton french kissing a poodle in order to be with a carrier other than at&t, i'd stand in line to do it.
You have to take crap customer service or poor product functionallity with a grain of salt these days. Especially with any tech. Based company. There's no way to make everyone happy all the time, and all of us will have a pissed off moment at some point with one of them.
But i have never experienced a company like at&t that has absolutely nothing good about them. Not their customer service, their product, not their internet user interface. To call them pathetic would be an insult to pathetic people.
I have had my cell phone account with at&t for over 15 years, and internet service for over ten, and have come to the point, that as soon as i am able, i will switch to other carriers for both. By the time my wireless account agreement, (the two years i had to get despite being a 25 year customer,) is up android should be up to speed.
I dig my iphone, would hate to get rid of it, have had apple computers since the iigs, and will continue to have their products. But if it means switching to something else to get away from at&t i'll do it in less than a heartbeat.
I hope that revolutionary gorilla freedom fighters tear down their cell towers. Gandalf the good turns their data lines into over-cooked spaghetti. Has neo infiltrate their infustructure from within and turn it into a smoldering carbon slag-heap of william gibson after-thought.
There are quite a number of people who very much want to own an iPhone but realize that AT&T is not a strong carrier in their area and in the end if you can't even get a reasonable signal then having the iPhone is of little consolation.
Do you actually think the other carriers would turn down a non-exclusive contract that would allow them to offer a iPhone to its customers??? Really??
I have absolutely no technical knowledge of cell phone networks, but my memory tells me that before cell phones became popular, there WERE several multi-network phones you could choose from to use on the network you had. These 3 system phones weren't subsidized and not cheap like today, but they existed. So my question is why isn't this form factor feasibly possible to day?
It's totally possible, but it's all about getting your money. That's just how the world works and it sucks.
It's totally possible, but it's all about getting your money. That's just how the world works and it sucks.
I agree with your analysis with one exception. I'd replace "the world" with the "greed of capitalism" AND add the unfortunate consumer apathy, that exist, to do anything about it.
People really do have the power to change the way the world works, when it comes to buying and selling. Don't buy it and the seller will adapt. As it stands now the sellers have the upper hand because they know how to use our apathy against us.
Dealers know their addicted users will buy their wares at any price and there's always those people who will rationalize the greed against the masses, wether illogically or for personal gain. The tobacco companies have been playing this game for years.
In defense of AT&T, I have not experienced any problems with AT&T at all. No dropped calls, internet speeds are great, email response fast and texting good.
Maybe AT&T just has good coverage here in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, I don't know. My only complaint is minor @ this point & is not being able to text picts & video but I take AT&T @ their word that it will come soon.
Uverse has also been great. Any problems I have had have been fixed the same day or the next. The people I've dealt with have been courtious, proffessional and seem interested in making me happy.
Again maybe it's just the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, your milage may vary.
Hopefully Apple does support CDMA, or hopefully we get 4G. I know here in Canada, Telus and Bell are CDMA networks upping their 4G coverage in hopes of picking up the iPhone. I'm eagerly waiting myself - I want an iPhone but hate Rogers - what to do.
Telus is telling their customers that they are getting the iPhone for sure. No official announcement until October, but they claim it is a done deal.
I don't know. AT&T has never been very good when it comes to infrastructure.
Really? Just look at the web browser stats - the iPhone outpaces desktop Linux! That's an unprecedented amount of mobile data.
In the comments of previous articles talking about Verizon and coverage, a few people have pointed out as an advantage that CDMA has greater range which translates into fewer towers for Verizon. Well, that's an advantage until you get a new device on your system that increase the load by several orders of magnitude! In that circumstance, fewer towers just make such congestion issues even worse.
Unlike AT&T, Verizon has the luxury of seeing just how much data the iPhone generates - whether they can adjust in time to avoid the problems AT&T has had will be interesting to see. Hard infrastructure like cellular towers and backhaul circuits don't just fall out of the sky. Being former Bells, Verizon and AT&T (and remember, it's really SBC - not the AT&T people traditionally think of when you say AT&T) have a leg up on other carriers (like TMobile) when it comes to circuits.
But it's still not gong to be easy. I don't think we will see the iPhone on Verizon until the 4G stuff is more widespread, and that isn't going to be for another year - at a bare minimum. I just don't see them pumping significant resources into shoring up their CDMA network - it's not worth it in the long term. And for the effort they would have to expend they might as well just build out their 4G network. So if you are looking for an iPhone on Verizon, I wouldn't be holding my breath - I don't see it happening for another year. At least.
If anything, I see Apple doing a WiMax phone (hello Sprint!) next if you are looking for something with a new radio. WiMax at least is being deployed outside the US in several large markets, and the fight between the GSM 4G stuff and WiMax is far from over - despite what some would try to have you believe. Wimax is out there now - my friends in Las Vegas have it use it for their home Internet. It's not too far away from me in Maryland. I would love to ditch the cable co...
If this was true then why would such an ordinary phone have 40% of the French smartphone market? Doesn't sound so ordinary to me.
Dave
Because Apple have excellent marketing team. And because Apple's marketing people do extraordinary outstanding job, selling iPhones.
They bring home 70% of the success of this phone. And they don't hope on features or on some special quality of the product (which are just solid enough to support their efforts) while they're getting it go like hot cakes.
Do any networks/stations "broadcast" in 1080? (I don't think so.) So what would be the point in Apple going 1080 in Apple TV? (Well, maybe I'm wrong and there is a point, in which case I am eager to be enlightened.)
Braodcaster use 720P and 1080i, personally, on my HDMI 24" computer glossy monitor, I can tell instantly what a broadcaster are using. The 720p actually looks sharper then 1080i.
I'm out the minute that the phone is open to other networks. I have frequent dropped calls and a very poor data network coverage. I don't live in a metro area, so just getting basic coverage is important for me. While I'm sure that getting 3G service in some metro area's is exciting for a lot of people, I'd really just like to see a strong voice network where I live. I know, they're trying to help the most people at a time with each upgrade, but I'd still like to be able to make a call on my phone in my house that sits in their preferred coverage area.
... I'd still like to be able to make a call on my phone in my house that sits in their preferred coverage area.
ditto that. i'm a mile from a billboard that touted "more bars in more places". Not in my place, and the local ATT store is very familiar with the small poor-signal zone. But in two years there's been no improvement, despite numerous reassurances from att's tech support. I can't conduct calls inside my home here in florida without a $300 signal booster. Then it's fine. But I shouldn't have to pay that to get adequate service.
Comments
There are other countries where the iphone is basically sold by every carrier in the country --- like Australia and Italy. For sure, if the iphone was capturing 40% of the Australian smartphone market --- we would have heard and read about it (especially because Australians are English speaking).
Secondly, in every single news report about the iphone sales in France --- they are on par with UK and Germany sales (since they have about the same population size). Even if Munster is right that the iphone is capturing 40% in France's smartphone market --- it only means ONE thing, the French smartphone market is vastly smaller than every single industrial country in the world.
It is very simple math --- for example, if both UK and France both sell 2 million iphones and they both have the approx the same population size ---- and the iphone has only a 15% market share in smartphone in UK but 40% market share in smartphone in France. Then there is only ONE math solution --- the French smartphone market is much smaller than UK and the rest of the industrial world.
AT&T certainly has gone through growing pains, but so will all of the other carriers.
The bigger the share of "smartphone" users, the more natural incentive their is to keep the network robust and feature rich. So it seems one or two carriers would naturally dominate the market anyway. It's probably a little expensive to maintain these networks.
It's also natural that, following exclusivity (due to co-development) Apple would induce competition in the provider market by allowing all service competitors access to the device and now you've got the service providers fighting to prove who does the job better of matching their service to Apple's device.
That's a really good position for Apple to be in.
Regarding Apple TV, the biggest stigma is definitely a question of, why pay for a cable bill and Apple TV downloads? Find a way to make deals with producers/ networks to make a "subscription" option and allow people to replace their cable service. GO big, more movies, more TV, more content are what my friends say. (I fantasize about not having to go to the theater at all some day
Apple has done a great job with TV but their movie library is pretty dated and thin. Most people don't want to pay a premium to own everything they watch or not watch things they don't want to own. Sports and News are 2 things that need to be addressed as well.
I don't watch allot of TV (So I guess that's why I don't have cable and just have an ATV) although I am occasionally frustrated by the delivery of certain shows only after the DVD launches or a week or two after the show airs the service is reliable and most shows are quite prompt to deliver.
There is definitely room for improvement, but ATV is a killer platform. Personally I'd also like to see casual gaming added to the lineup of new features. My other "brain-drain" fantasy is to have Audio Surf on my ATV with my iphone/ tablet controller.
I agree with this, but with one revision. Every place you mention ATTs network changes, substitute "change the relationship between the carrier and the handset manufacturer." Apple's great achievement with the iPhone was not it getting ATT to support visual voice mail. It was getting them to keep their hands off the design of the phone itself. The whims of the carriers have done more to restrict innovation of cell phones than any lack of talent on the part of the manufacturers.
The new phones we are starting to see are the result of the carriers allowing the manufacturers a little more freedom to innovate. What will be interesting is that Apple has now shown the willingness to compromise the iPhone and remove wi-fi from the Chinese version. Will that be used against them if/when they try to negotiate with Verizon or other carriers who may see that as a sign that Apple is willing to give up some control to gain marketshare?
This is exactly true, the reason peoples' experience with phones is really bad is because all the Carriers think they know what is best for their customers and they want the ability to charge extra for each and every feature. Therefore that do not allow the cell phone companies to truly innovated. Also because of this, every cell phone companies have various versions of their phones to support all the different carries so you can image the mess this create making sure it all works with all the different carries.
However, you have one version of the iphone worldwide so it one plateform Apple have to make sure works verse hundreds of versions.
Yes, Verizon has had Blackberry phones for some time now that had a 2nd GSM radio, in addition to the CDMA, for international travel. However, I don't think the phones would switch to GSM if you were in the US in an area with no Verizon CDMA signal as that would require a roaming agreement with US GSM carriers.
So if you are talking about a 4th generation, LTE-capable phone, you are probably going to need to support 3 standards, vs the 2 the referenced Blackberry supports: LTE, CDMA (for use in the US in areas where LTE isn't yet available), and GSM (for roaming outside of the US until other country's LTE networks are built out). The space and power requirements to support all three may be prohibitive.
The only other option for a LTE phone would be for Verizon to sign a roaming agreement with a US GSM carrier and have a phone with only LTE and GSM, but I wouldn't see them doing that until their LTE network is substantially built out because too much of their customer's calls and data would then be traveling over another carrier's network.
Of course they could just go with a CDMA/GSM phone like the Blackberry, but then why would Verizon rush to deploy their LTE network?
I have absolutely no technical knowledge of cell phone networks, but my memory tells me that before cell phones became popular, there WERE several multi-network phones you could choose from to use on the network you had. These 3 system phones weren't subsidized and not cheap like today, but they existed. So my question is why isn't this form factor feasibly possible to day?
if the only iphone i could have was pink, with orange glitter and neon green tassels, and a permanent screen picture of perez hilton french kissing a poodle in order to be with a carrier other than at&t, i'd stand in line to do it.
You have to take crap customer service or poor product functionallity with a grain of salt these days. Especially with any tech. Based company. There's no way to make everyone happy all the time, and all of us will have a pissed off moment at some point with one of them.
But i have never experienced a company like at&t that has absolutely nothing good about them. Not their customer service, their product, not their internet user interface. To call them pathetic would be an insult to pathetic people.
I have had my cell phone account with at&t for over 15 years, and internet service for over ten, and have come to the point, that as soon as i am able, i will switch to other carriers for both. By the time my wireless account agreement, (the two years i had to get despite being a 25 year customer,) is up android should be up to speed.
I dig my iphone, would hate to get rid of it, have had apple computers since the iigs, and will continue to have their products. But if it means switching to something else to get away from at&t i'll do it in less than a heartbeat.
I hope that revolutionary gorilla freedom fighters tear down their cell towers. Gandalf the good turns their data lines into over-cooked spaghetti. Has neo infiltrate their infustructure from within and turn it into a smoldering carbon slag-heap of william gibson after-thought.
+1+1+1
I wonder if AT&T's price will drop to stay competitive or if the $200 3GS will be found on other carriers as well.
I disagree...
There are quite a number of people who very much want to own an iPhone but realize that AT&T is not a strong carrier in their area and in the end if you can't even get a reasonable signal then having the iPhone is of little consolation.
Do you actually think the other carriers would turn down a non-exclusive contract that would allow them to offer a iPhone to its customers??? Really??
Dave
I couldn't agree more! I'm one of those people.
I have absolutely no technical knowledge of cell phone networks, but my memory tells me that before cell phones became popular, there WERE several multi-network phones you could choose from to use on the network you had. These 3 system phones weren't subsidized and not cheap like today, but they existed. So my question is why isn't this form factor feasibly possible to day?
It's totally possible, but it's all about getting your money. That's just how the world works and it sucks.
It's totally possible, but it's all about getting your money. That's just how the world works and it sucks.
I agree with your analysis with one exception. I'd replace "the world" with the "greed of capitalism" AND add the unfortunate consumer apathy, that exist, to do anything about it.
People really do have the power to change the way the world works, when it comes to buying and selling. Don't buy it and the seller will adapt. As it stands now the sellers have the upper hand because they know how to use our apathy against us.
Dealers know their addicted users will buy their wares at any price and there's always those people who will rationalize the greed against the masses, wether illogically or for personal gain. The tobacco companies have been playing this game for years.
Maybe AT&T just has good coverage here in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, I don't know. My only complaint is minor @ this point & is not being able to text picts & video but I take AT&T @ their word that it will come soon.
Uverse has also been great. Any problems I have had have been fixed the same day or the next. The people I've dealt with have been courtious, proffessional and seem interested in making me happy.
Again maybe it's just the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, your milage may vary.
Hopefully Apple does support CDMA, or hopefully we get 4G. I know here in Canada, Telus and Bell are CDMA networks upping their 4G coverage in hopes of picking up the iPhone. I'm eagerly waiting myself - I want an iPhone but hate Rogers - what to do.
Telus is telling their customers that they are getting the iPhone for sure. No official announcement until October, but they claim it is a done deal.
I don't know. AT&T has never been very good when it comes to infrastructure.
Really? Just look at the web browser stats - the iPhone outpaces desktop Linux! That's an unprecedented amount of mobile data.
In the comments of previous articles talking about Verizon and coverage, a few people have pointed out as an advantage that CDMA has greater range which translates into fewer towers for Verizon. Well, that's an advantage until you get a new device on your system that increase the load by several orders of magnitude! In that circumstance, fewer towers just make such congestion issues even worse.
Unlike AT&T, Verizon has the luxury of seeing just how much data the iPhone generates - whether they can adjust in time to avoid the problems AT&T has had will be interesting to see. Hard infrastructure like cellular towers and backhaul circuits don't just fall out of the sky. Being former Bells, Verizon and AT&T (and remember, it's really SBC - not the AT&T people traditionally think of when you say AT&T) have a leg up on other carriers (like TMobile) when it comes to circuits.
But it's still not gong to be easy. I don't think we will see the iPhone on Verizon until the 4G stuff is more widespread, and that isn't going to be for another year - at a bare minimum. I just don't see them pumping significant resources into shoring up their CDMA network - it's not worth it in the long term. And for the effort they would have to expend they might as well just build out their 4G network. So if you are looking for an iPhone on Verizon, I wouldn't be holding my breath - I don't see it happening for another year. At least.
If anything, I see Apple doing a WiMax phone (hello Sprint!) next if you are looking for something with a new radio. WiMax at least is being deployed outside the US in several large markets, and the fight between the GSM 4G stuff and WiMax is far from over - despite what some would try to have you believe. Wimax is out there now - my friends in Las Vegas have it use it for their home Internet. It's not too far away from me in Maryland. I would love to ditch the cable co...
If this was true then why would such an ordinary phone have 40% of the French smartphone market? Doesn't sound so ordinary to me.
Dave
Because Apple have excellent marketing team. And because Apple's marketing people do extraordinary outstanding job, selling iPhones.
They bring home 70% of the success of this phone. And they don't hope on features or on some special quality of the product (which are just solid enough to support their efforts) while they're getting it go like hot cakes.
Do any networks/stations "broadcast" in 1080? (I don't think so.) So what would be the point in Apple going 1080 in Apple TV? (Well, maybe I'm wrong and there is a point, in which case I am eager to be enlightened.)
Braodcaster use 720P and 1080i, personally, on my HDMI 24" computer glossy monitor, I can tell instantly what a broadcaster are using. The 720p actually looks sharper then 1080i.
... I'd still like to be able to make a call on my phone in my house that sits in their preferred coverage area.
ditto that. i'm a mile from a billboard that touted "more bars in more places". Not in my place, and the local ATT store is very familiar with the small poor-signal zone. But in two years there's been no improvement, despite numerous reassurances from att's tech support. I can't conduct calls inside my home here in florida without a $300 signal booster. Then it's fine. But I shouldn't have to pay that to get adequate service.