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T-Mobile: Apple's Decision When We Get the iPhone

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Apr 12, 2001
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In a statement released yesterday, Andrew Sherrard, T-Mobile USA's Senior Vice President of Marketing, blamed Apple for T-Mobile's lack of an official iPhone offering. He said the main issue remains Apple's unwillingness to build hardware compatible with T-Mobile 3G and 4G networks.
T-Mobile thinks the iPhone is a good device and we've expressed our interest to Apple to offer it to our customers. Ultimately, it is Apple's decision. The issue remains that Apple has not developed a version of the iPhone with technology that works on our fast 3G and 4G networks. We believe a capable version of the iPhone for our 3G and 4G networks would offer an additional compelling option for our customers on a fast 4G network. However, the iPhone is not the only option to experience the benefit that smartphones offer.
Click to expand...
Sherrard goes on to compare the iPhone to other smartphones that do support T-Mobile's network, saying that the phones are capable of faster speeds, have bigger screens, and a more advanced camera on one particular phone, the HTC Amaze 4G.

In a defense of T-Mobile that echoes an open letter to their customers last month, Sherrard said "we firmly believe that T-Mobile's portfolio will give any iPhone a run for its money... With our portfolio of Android, Windows, and BlackBerry smartphones, fast 4G network, and competitively priced worry-free unlimited talk, text, and data plans, we believe it's a great time to be a T-Mobile customer."

Article Link: T-Mobile: Apple's Decision When We Get the iPhone
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/21/t-mobile-apples-decision-when-we-get-the-iphone/
hobo.hopkins

hobo.hopkins

macrumors 6502a
Jul 30, 2008
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He might say that T-Mobile's offerings will give iPhone a run for its money, but he can't really believe that. No phone will sell as much as the iPhone 4S, and everyone in their right mind knows that.
 
J

jffmrk

macrumors newbie
Apr 20, 2010
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How can he say that Apple has not built an iPhone compatible with their network, but in a previous statement say that they have over a million iPhone's running on their network...
 
G

gpat

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Mar 1, 2011
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Day X: Check out the Android vs iPhone charts on our website!
Day X+1: OMG WE GOT IPHONES COME N GET EM
 
Mike Oxard

Mike Oxard

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Oct 22, 2009
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"T-Mobile thinks the iPhone is a good device"

Just like the rest of the world then.
 
lshaner

lshaner

macrumors regular
Mar 7, 2007
155
1
Most likely the iPhone 4S could be made to support T-Mobile with nothing more than a Firmware/Modem update -- e.g. a software change.

The reason I say so is because the iPhone 4S's carrier support is based on a digital signal processor, and it really shouldn't be more than a matter of firmware/software to instruct the DSP to use T-Mobile's required 1700 MHz frequency. (The 2100 MHz frequency is already there).
 
pittpanthersfan

pittpanthersfan

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Everyone knows that T-Mobile U.S.A. is not long for this world. Even if the acquisition by AT&T falls through, T-Mobile will go bankrupt and be gobbled up by the remaining parties at firesale prices anyway. :eek: Hindsight is 20/20, but it really hedged its bets on the wrong frequency.
 
BC2009

BC2009

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jffmrk said:
How can he say that Apple has not built an iPhone compatible with their network, but in a previous statement say that they have over a million iPhone's running on their network...
Click to expand...

The iPhone's running on T-Mobile's network are folks willing to run EDGE (2G) data so they can use in iPhone with T-Mobile. Many second-hand US iPhones end up being sold to T-Mobile customers. The problem is that the iPhone will only support EDGE/2G on that network.

Now try to think of this from Apple's perspective.... AT&T is acquiring T-Mobile and they have stated they would have to replace customer's phones to handle the change in network frequencies. Does Apple really want to do the engineering to handle the T-Mobile frequencies and change their production line to produce another model if that frequency range is likely to go away if the merger goes through? Mind you, the merger is looking less likely now than it was when such a proposal / decision was being made, but if Apple's goal has been to produce a single iPhone for all carriers with the iPhone 4S, then having a T-Mobile-specific phone did not make sense.
 
chrmjenkins

chrmjenkins

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Oct 29, 2007
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The Qualcomm chip in the CDMA iphone 4 and all iPhone 4S has AWS capability. Apple has not enabled it. I would say that presumably they have no plans to offer it in the face of a potential merger between the two.
 
longofest

longofest

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jffmrk said:
How can he say that Apple has not built an iPhone compatible with their network, but in a previous statement say that they have over a million iPhone's running on their network...
Click to expand...

Exactly! WTH are all of those unlocked iPhones doing on TMobile if the iPhone is so "incompatible"

Edit: n/m... As others have pointed out, it only runs at edge speeds.
 
S

Shanpdx

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Sep 24, 2008
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Blazer town!
t-moible gotta wait till the iPhone 5

once qualcomm adds all the frequency to the Chip

It is not really waiting for Apple, waiting for technology to available for all the frequency in one chip.

not sure how the 4G differs on all the four

*Verizon
*Sprint
*ATT
*T-mobile

and still the merger is pending and no clear path ...

----------
chrmjenkins said:
The Qualcomm chip in the CDMA iphone 4 and all iPhone 4S has AWS capability. Apple has not enabled it. I would say that presumably they have no plans to offer it in the face of a potential merger between the two.
Click to expand...

are you sure about it? do not look at the iPhone 4S specs say so, there are some underlying technology difference between them - if i understood
 
Rodimus Prime

Rodimus Prime

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Oct 9, 2006
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chrmjenkins said:
The Qualcomm chip in the CDMA iphone 4 and all iPhone 4S has AWS capability. Apple has not enabled it. I would say that presumably they have no plans to offer it in the face of a potential merger between the two.
Click to expand...

And not doing so could land them in some legal trouble with the DOJ. I would not be surprised if it is looking into to see if they did not turn it on to help force the merger threw.
 
jamesryanbell

jamesryanbell

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Mar 17, 2009
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If it doesn't run iOS5, it's a lesser phone. I'll keep my 4S with HSPA+ on AT&T, and I'll be just fine.
 
M

macinnv

macrumors regular
Jan 17, 2011
223
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Phoenix, AZ
We can at least put to rest the theory that AT&T, by pulling the strings over at T-Mobile, have effectively said no to Apple on the iPhone.
 
Plutonius

Plutonius

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Feb 22, 2003
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Maybe because T-Mobile will not agree to buy a minimum number of iPhones like Verizon and Sprint did. You will never see a T-Mobile iPhone until T_Mobile agrees to guarantee some money (which they will not since T-Mobile USA wants to be sold).
 
chrmjenkins

chrmjenkins

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Oct 29, 2007
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macinnv said:
Good find Jenkins, wish the AWS bands could activated by jailbreaking or something!
Click to expand...

Most likely disabled in the radio firmware plus the hardware lacks antennas tuned for that frequency, so even if the firmware was the only thing standing in your way, reception would be sub-optimal.
 
andiwm2003

andiwm2003

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Mar 29, 2004
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chrmjenkins said:
Most likely disabled in the radio firmware plus the hardware lacks antennas tuned for that frequency, so even if the firmware was the only thing standing in your way, reception would be sub-optimal.
Click to expand...

yeah, but reception would still be better than ATT in and a mile around my house. a block of wood has better reception on T-Mobile than any phone on ATT here in Cambridge.:mad:
 
M

macUser2007

macrumors 68000
May 30, 2007
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pittpanthersfan said:
Everyone knows that T-Mobile U.S.A. is not long for this world. Even if the acquisition by AT&T falls through, T-Mobile will go bankrupt and be gobbled up by the remaining parties at firesale prices anyway. :eek: Hindsight is 20/20, but it really hedged its bets on the wrong frequency.
Click to expand...

Everyone?!

While I think this different frequency game in the US is kept up mostly to prevent users from being able to jump easily between carriers, T-Mobiles frequency is weird, indeed.

At the same time, Samsung doesn't seem to have trouble providing phones for T-Mobile. Apple is just being lazy.

For what it's worth, T-Mobile has be best rates (way better than AT&T, in my experience -- I was with AT&T for about 7 years) and it actually has better coverage than AT&T in West Side of LA. T-Mobile data speeds are also significantly better than AT&T.

I hope the merger is stopped -- the US badly needs some real competition, and T-Mobile is the only GSM alternative to AT&T.
 
wordoflife

wordoflife

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Jul 6, 2009
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So the iPhone is going to C Spire (or Cell C) ... whatever the heck it's called, but not T-Mobile? Wow.
 
Kaibelf

Kaibelf

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macUser2007 said:
At the same time, Samsung doesn't seem to have trouble providing phones for T-Mobile. Apple is just being lazy.
Click to expand...

Samsung has released over 20 Android handsets in the past year. That makes their offerings very diluted, cheap, and doesn't denote quality to consumers. Hence the resorting to cheesy names like the Fascinate, Devour, Instinct, Behold, Intensity, Exclaim, Rant, etc. Apple's not being lazy at all. They aren't cheapening their brand by making a lot of silly variations, and needlessly impacting their VERY well-run supply chain by catering to every subset of nearly-bankrupt carriers who bet on the wrong technology. ;)

wordoflife said:
So the iPhone is going to C Spire (or Cell C) ... whatever the heck it's called, but not T-Mobile? Wow.
Click to expand...

C Spire runs on the right frequencies, and their roaming is handled by Verizon's network. :apple:
 
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