Apple, iPhone and Corporate America..

[DeaconGraves]

I haven't decided yet. It hasnt even been released. I still may stick with my Pearl / Tmobile.

as much as i want this phone, and i still plan on getting it (because tmobile service sucks here, and the phones i get through them are garbage or always refurbished).....i really had to consider this.

I'm getting 8GB, plus a nice little screen for $200.

Not calling you a liar. Just showing where I got the impression you were buying one.

If you truly don't. Good for you. I'm just of the mindset that you vote with your wallet when it comes to business. And if you think you're getting screwed then you shouldn't buy it (and better yet, find like minded people and make sure they don't buy it).

 

[KMK420]

So get the iPhone here then

I learned my lesson with international usage when i went to Amsterdam.

Texting to USA, from Amsterdam and making late night stoned calls = A lot of money.

 

[JBaker122586]

Just don't get an iPhone.

It will make me feel a little dirty knowing that I own the same phone as poor whiney people like you.

 

[KMK420]

Not calling you a liar. Just showing where I got the impression you were buying one.

If you truly don't. Good for you. I'm just of the mindset that you vote with your wallet when it comes to business. And if you think you're getting screwed then you shouldn't buy it (and better yet, find like minded people and make sure they don't buy it).

I understand...but you also have to understand how consumer america works; i could be on CNN for 5 hours straight telling people this, but for the simple fact they want it - they will buy it regardless.

 

[KMK420]

Just don't get an iPhone.

It will make me feel a little dirty knowing that I own the same phone as poor whiney people like you.

Aw, someone grew E-Nuts!

Lol, grow up. People like you start with other people behind a computer screen because there are no consequences.

 

[Andrmgic]

Does anyone have a link or a quote for that well thought-out post that explains why SMS text messages are treated differently than data plans?

I'll see if I can find it and paste the text in here

edit - Found it

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/5690830/

For the lazy, here is the text -

I hate articles written by non-engineers.

The cost difference is because SMS and data connections are two totally different delivery methods.

SMS

SMS is part of the circuit switched (voice) realm. It's a dedicated connection, a page, like an incoming ring. Therefore it is traditionally charged as a voice call... that is, by time. After all, it is true push notification, and works no matter where you are in the world.

That is, an SMS must be able to find your phone and "ring" it with the data. That takes a valuable amount of telephone carrier signaling bandwidth.

Let's say you have a 450 minute voice plan for $40. That means each minute costs you about $0.08. An SMS is like an incoming call and therefore should really count as a minimum of a minute... or 8 cents. But instead, you get 200 SMS for $5... or about 2 cents each.

DATA

Data is part of the packet switched realm. That means there is no need for a dedicated connection. Data connections come and go as needed.

Most importantly, it's initiated by the phone. There is no need for the carrier to find you wherever you are in the world, to send a response. You sent the request, so the response goes back the same way. It's a no brainer connection, and can even go straight to the internet from a tower in some cases.

Since it's not a dedicated connection, data is charged by amount (bytes) instead of time as voice or SMS are.

The upshot is, you can't directly compare time charges to amount charges.

As for the price of the data plan, it is the same as every other smart phone. It is standard AT&T policy, Apple had nothing to do with the prices.

 

[ninethirty]

Apparently you need educated...

..about a whole lot of things:

#1. Apple generally builds luxury products, and there's a premium charge for that too. Like others have said, if you don't like it, or agree with it, show Apple what you think by not spending dollars. A lot of good it will do, but hey, you can feel like you're not a phony, right?

#2. Apple built a phone. They did NOT build a cellular network. This means that AT&T calls those shots. Apple probably had some say in it, but the same way that Apple tells AT&T what the phone is worth, AT&T tells Apple (and us) what the plans will be.

#3. You don't have to tell your friends to stop text messaging you, you could just pay for a higher plan. If you haven't noticed by now, prices of services in life, go up. Movies probably cost about $5 when you were a kid. They were .25 when my parents were kids. Now they're $10-15 depending on where you go. Deal with it... it's called inflation. Your job should be compensating you yearly for the increase in cost of living, and if you have a job that doesn't treat you in this way - perhaps it's time to find a better one, yah?

#4. Money. Yeah... the world runs on it.. and Apples shareholders expect Apple to make more of it. This is never going to change and if you can't understand this, you might as well quit now.

Anyway man, no disrespect meant, but it's like you've been living in a fantasy world and you don't understand how any of this works. Yeah, it would be nice if things were a little more in our favor, but it could be a lot worse. Look at the plans Rogers is offering Canadians... it blows. AT&T ain't that bad in the grand scheme of things.

And the point of your post is?

This is called a forum. Do you need educated on how they work?

 

[Penguinwrangler]

SMS =/= Data Plan. Period. They will be billed differently FOR-EV-ER.

Until such a time as the American teenager learns to send e-mails (Data) rather than text messages (SMS) this will be a source of income for the wireless companies and an ignition for thousands of familial disputes.

So basically, your rant should have been directed at...yourself.

 

[Spongey817]

Read this again.

Thank you, sir.

 

[KMK420]

Apparently you need educated...

..about a whole lot of things:

#1. Apple generally builds luxury products, and there's a premium charge for that too. Like others have said, if you don't like it, or agree with it, show Apple what you think by not spending dollars. A lot of good it will do, but hey, you can feel like you're not a phony, right?

#2. Apple built a phone. They did NOT build a cellular network. This means that AT&T calls those shots. Apple probably had some say in it, but the same way that Apple tells AT&T what the phone is worth, AT&T tells Apple (and us) what the plans will be.

#3. You don't have to tell your friends to stop text messaging you, you could just pay for a higher plan. If you haven't noticed by now, prices of services in life, go up. Movies probably cost about $5 when you were a kid. They were .25 when my parents were kids. Now they're $10-15 depending on where you go. Deal with it... it's called inflation. Your job should be compensating you yearly for the increase in cost of living, and if you have a job that doesn't treat you in this way - perhaps it's time to find a better one, yah?

#4. Money. Yeah... the world runs on it.. and Apples shareholders expect Apple to make more of it. This is never going to change and if you can't understand this, you might as well quit now.

Anyway man, no disrespect meant, but it's like you've been living in a fantasy world and you don't understand how any of this works. Yeah, it would be nice if things were a little more in our favor, but it could be a lot worse. Look at the plans Rogers is offering Canadians... it blows. AT&T ain't that bad in the grand scheme of things.

1 - you completely misunderstood me and went off thinking i'm sitting here "whining" and im going to end up going back and buying it. like i have said already, i LIKE the iphone.. and my financial situation + my current cellular issue is making it prime for me to switch carriers. i like PDAs, or "pcphones". this is a very attractive phone, but i still firmly believe that apple and att could have worked something out where data would be including sms, even for a slightly higher rate. second, by "not spending dollars" really makes no difference in the end either way...whether i spend it or not...because if i dont, others still will. if i do, others will also. simple as that, so if it was for the -priciple- of the matter, maybe, but that isn't financially smart for me right now.

people keep blabbing about how "ohh you want to direct this to att, not apple" yet the main reason they SELL the unit at the price it is ($199) is because you enter in a binding contract with the CARRIER they have PARTNERED with. in other words yeah you ONLY spent $200, but ATT has you locked down for 2 years. thats more money for both att AND apple, you all should know that with the margins they make on wireless service (ringtones, sms, etc., data, etc) now if apple was providing a device at a decent amount, why cant they just SELL it with no service attachment? exactly. partnership once again. even if, at some point they allow the iphone to be bought flat out no service required, i can guarantee that price tag of $200 jumps quickly to near the $4-500 range. then do you see the value? either way, both apple and att are making money off your iphone purchase. they are interconnected; yes certain "complaints" should be directly to the appropriate company but come on now... you all are blind if you don't know how corp. america works by now..yeah they have their own companies interests in mind but they also slide deals with other companies to increase profit or whatever they want.

2 - i understand the concept of inflation. i do not need your irrelevant explanation of hollywood movies to assist me. my job compensates me based on my requirements, and with my history i think i make fairly good money. nothing GREAT, but i'm actually really young to be in the company where i am and in a year or two i could be makin a lot more. the problem is not that; the problem is that regardless of how much you make, they should reasonably price things..and they dont. inflation is not an excuse for price gouging.

your explanation was very demeaning, and then for you to say "no disrespect"...all that showed was that you can disrespect someone, then apologize for it in the same paragraph.

and trust me, i know a lot more about these things than you think, i just don't feel like going all that in depth most of the time. not to mention you misconstrued about most everything i said anyway.

 

[KMK420]

SMS =/= Data Plan. Period. They will be billed differently FOR-EV-ER.

Until such a time as the American teenager learns to send e-mails (Data) rather than text messages (SMS) this will be a source of income for the wireless companies and an ignition for thousands of familial disputes.

So basically, your rant should have been directed at...yourself.

"Even if you are not talking on your cell phone, your phone is constantly sending and receiving information. It is talking to its cell phone tower over a pathway called a control channel. The reason for this chatter is so that the cell phone system knows which cell your phone is in, and so that your phone can change cells as you move around. Every so often, your phone and the tower will exchange a packet of data that lets both of them know that everything is OK.

Your phone also uses the control channel for call setup. When someone tries to call you, the tower sends your phone a message over the control channel that tells your phone to play its ringtone. The tower also gives your phone a pair of voice channel frequencies to use for the call.

The control channel also provides the pathway for SMS messages. When a friend sends you an SMS message, the message flows through the SMSC, then to the tower, and the tower sends the message to your phone as a little packet of data on the control channel. In the same way, when you send a message, your phone sends it to the tower on the control channel and it goes from the tower to the SMSC and from there to its destination. "

With todays technology and the 3G network, i'm still wondering why they use something like this. This system (SMS) could be easily converted to a LMS, so to speak, and it would cost them pennies. It could all be plain old "data", but wireless carriers make TOO much money on SMS to ever help the customer out. SMS is a very old system that needs updated, and even in today society, the prices are outrageous... i personally believe SMS unlimited plans should be only $5 at max for all carriers after hearing from a wireless carriers managment team on how much SMS REALLY costs carriers, and how that is reflected in plans. (in short, its practically pennies to the carrier, and the amount they're making FAR outweighs the cost..which is completely unfair and unethical to do that..)

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/01/2...ging-customers-on-sms-text-message-rates.html

I text so infrequently that I don't bother with an unlimited text messaging plan, so I just suck it up and shell out the 15 cents a pop whenever I need to jot off a note. But now comes news that my carrier, AT&T, is raising its rates again: 20 cents for an SMS and 30 cents for an MMS (whether you send or receive), leaving some to wonder if we aren't getting really rooked in the deal.

Gthing.net did the math: Turns out, we are. At 140 bytes per SMS (that's the maximum allowed) and 20 cents per message, doing some simple division gives you a truly crazy $1,498 per megabyte. And of course, it's double that if somebody actually responds to your message.

I understand that messaging has its own overhead issues and that it probably ought to be more expensive than standard data transfers, but SMS is now undergoing nothing less than runaway inflation. Cingular/AT&T just raised its SMS rates from 10 to 15 cents only one year ago, and here they jump again. The above bandwidth analogy isn't perfect, but it's illustrative and instructive of just how badly consumers are getting gouged on what is a basic and inexpensive service for the carriers to operate.

Oh, and AT&T isn't alone: Sprint's SMS rate is already 20 cents a message. Verizon and T-Mobile are both now at 15 cents a pop. How long until 20 cents becomes the new industry standard? Humbug, I say!

 

[KMK420]

so, to how much we use -> how much we spend, 140bytes a msg.. $1,500 a megabyte...

it costs att $30 for unlimited data plans (internet/email)...visiting a few websites a day could easily take bandwidth usage upwards of 1-5 megs, probably even more (average web site - non graphic intensive with few pictures - ranges in the 300k-400k range.) multiply say, 50-100 webpages viewed in a week if you love the internet on your phone...lets say all 100 web pages were the average 300k, thats a total of ~30MB.

so ballpark data usage anywhere from 25mb+. how much was that per meg? 15 hundred? $37,500? i highly, highly doubt it costs att that much per megabyte.

wireless carriers, all of them, are literally stealing from us...what i cant understand is why people are actually -defending- the prices.

 

[DreamPod]

You obviously don't know much about business or even what you are talking about, AND you are exaggerating just to make Apple seem even more evil. First you complain that APPLE is the bad guy. It's all about APPLE, APPLE had to have had some say in the price and required data plan (that, you know, AT&T has had for years for all other smartphones....) Later when people give you enough evidence, you back off and say "oh, I *MEANT* AT&T for that..." Riiiight. And I like how you bring up the price of unlimited texts saying you have to pay $100 a month for service, though it's only $5 for the same amount of texts AT&T's old iPhone discount program got you.

And as was mentioned, Apple sells their products as luxury items. That's in fact one thing that keeps Apple's products as popular and hyped as they are - if they had released the original iPhone for $99, it would have been seen as a cheapo device and not gotten NEARLY as much hype, nor have been as popular. Everyone wanted one *because* they couldn't afford it, and it was seen as top of the line. And really, their devices do cost a lot of money to design and manufacture - that original iPod was the first true portable hard-drive MP3 player, it had a lot of specialized hardware. The iPhone was the same way, it was marketed as a deluxe, top of the line luxury device. And now that the iPhone has been seen as a deluxe luxury product and purchased by the majority of the people who can afford it, Apple can lower the price and allow provider subsidies, letting the rest of the people get it. If it had been $200 to $300 from day one, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the hype, and probably wouldn't have sold as many.

Oh, and I love how you compare an EXTREMELY SMALL electronic device with 8GB flash drive, 10 internal radios, accelerometer, and high resolution, high quality dual-touch touchscreen (first of its kind in a consumer product), to a large bulky hard drive. And complain that the hard drive is cheaper and holds more data

Sorry, but you just come off as whining about having to pay more money due to not getting the special iPhone AT&T discount anymore, and having to pay what everyone else does.

 

[wako]

HAHAHAHAHA! This is the funniest thread ever! Not that the OP didnt have a point of which I can agree to all of them. It is that he is trashing AT&T's call center when he himself works at Comcast! I mean, lets be honest you guys, BOTH call centers (AT&T and Comcast)are manned by morons. BOTH companies are probably on the top 10 most hated list.

Another ironic point I found is how he is exploding on Apple's greed when he works for THE greediest bastardly company I have ever known! Before when comcast actually had a competitor in my area, they were dirt cheap. Now that they practically run a monopoly in my area and pretty much across the united states, and now my bill for cable has TRIPLED! My life is COMCASTIC alright...

 

[KMK420]

HAHAHAHAHA! This is the funniest thread ever! Not that the OP didnt have a point of which I can agree to all of them. It is that he is trashing AT&T's call center when he himself works at Comcast! I mean, lets be honest you guys, BOTH call centers (AT&T and Comcast)are manned by morons. BOTH companies are probably on the top 10 most hated list.

Another ironic point I found is how he is exploding on Apple's greed when he works for THE greediest bastardly company I have ever known! Before when comcast actually had a competitor in my area, they were dirt cheap. Now that they practically run a monopoly in my area and pretty much across the united states, and now my bill for cable has TRIPLED! My life is COMCASTIC alright...

Not our call center, we're rated as the region's top call center (within the local 3-6 states).

Second, most customers call in expecting the impossible; When you make $10/hour in customer service and $15/hour in technical support to start, knowledge levels vary dramatically.

Any call center has its downside, but for me to go through 5 reps who knew NOTHING about ONE question regarding THEIR OWN POLICY!

Big difference between that and some irate customer who calls in flipping out because his cable signal is low and we can't get a technician out until THE FOLLOWING MORNING...OMG...a WHOLE 12 hours without TV! NOOO!!!

 

[KMK420]

You obviously don't know much about business or even what you are talking about, AND you are exaggerating just to make Apple seem even more evil. First you complain that APPLE is the bad guy. It's all about APPLE, APPLE had to have had some say in the price and required data plan (that, you know, AT&T has had for years for all other smartphones....) Later when people give you enough evidence, you back off and say "oh, I *MEANT* AT&T for that..." Riiiight. And I like how you bring up the price of unlimited texts saying you have to pay $100 a month for service, though it's only $5 for the same amount of texts AT&T's old iPhone discount program got you.

And as was mentioned, Apple sells their products as luxury items. That's in fact one thing that keeps Apple's products as popular and hyped as they are - if they had released the original iPhone for $99, it would have been seen as a cheapo device and not gotten NEARLY as much hype, nor have been as popular. Everyone wanted one *because* they couldn't afford it, and it was seen as top of the line. And really, their devices do cost a lot of money to design and manufacture - that original iPod was the first true portable hard-drive MP3 player, it had a lot of specialized hardware. The iPhone was the same way, it was marketed as a deluxe, top of the line luxury device. And now that the iPhone has been seen as a deluxe luxury product and purchased by the majority of the people who can afford it, Apple can lower the price and allow provider subsidies, letting the rest of the people get it. If it had been $200 to $300 from day one, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the hype, and probably wouldn't have sold as many.

Oh, and I love how you compare an EXTREMELY SMALL electronic device with 8GB flash drive, 10 internal radios, accelerometer, and high resolution, high quality dual-touch touchscreen (first of its kind in a consumer product), to a large bulky hard drive. And complain that the hard drive is cheaper and holds more data

Sorry, but you just come off as whining about having to pay more money due to not getting the special iPhone AT&T discount anymore, and having to pay what everyone else does.

You are again assuming things based off internet "rants".

Apple is a company that ISNT about the customers in my eyes. Simple as that, nothing you will say can change that.

Actually, i never changed my 'story', i just said i should have OUTLINED, for those with small brains *cough* that i blurred the lines and didn't specify who i was targeting things towards when it came to specifics. generally its the same complaint - high prices for things that shouldnt have high prices, not to mention their evil business practices.

you all keep saying i dont understand "businesses". oh, i completely understand how they work...but when they incorporate screwing the customer over as one of their "practices", different story.

aww, its all a computer to me. and i don't want to listen to you exaggerate the "technological" components to the device. i know how much they cost to be made - simple as that.

and i'm sorry as you come off as an idiot who likes to run his mouth about people, and apologize for it in the same post as the other guy did also.

even if you were remotely right, i still fundamentally disagree with you on all levels.

 

[Penguinwrangler]

You might as well close this thread, the OP would like the world offered to him on a silver platter, the realities and practicalities of doing business in the real world be damned!