Apple Will Buy AT&T as It's Next Strategic Move

[Savor]

To give Apple more control and power? Uh, no thanks.

Let them do what they do best and that's making premium hardware and software. Providing a telecom service is not one of them.

It is already bad enough they get complaints over holding the phone wrong and having the antenna exposed like that. Imagine all the complaints when it comes to their **** networks?

GOOGLE has a better chance becoming a network carrier.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/30/technology/google_wireless_carrier/

Understand this OP, Google already provides plenty of free services (Google Voice, GMail, GPS, Maps, etc) that deals with communications and search. They have been pondering this idea even BEFORE Android was released. They are one of the richest companies in the world that never has to sell anything tangible. The ideas of VoiP-calling and free texting could drive cost down with our phone plans. Google is a much better candidate to become a carrier than Apple.

 

[tucker3434]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

Would love to know where the op went to business school.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

They also called Steve Jobs dumb for releasing a giant iPod Touch and naming it the iPad.......

 

[jav6454]

They also called Steve Jobs dumb for releasing a giant iPod Touch and naming it the iPad.......

I honestly don't know how on Earth competitors never saw that coming. I was sure the tablet was coming from Apple. I only thought it would have come this year, not the last year; but I did figure the tablet was BOUNDED to happen.

 

[nick9191]

It's just logical for Apple to buy up AT&T and become a wholly integrated cell phone carrier company that makes both the phones and operates the network. This provides the maximum control that Apple desires. It will then be able to lock out everyone on the whole consumer chain and Apple will control EVERYTHING. No longer will Apple have to put SIM chips in the phone, it will just do everything through iTunes. Android phones? No way in hell.

If Apple does it right and reduces the prices for monthly plans, then I'm all in support of it. If Apple simplifies the monthly plans so that they are truly unlimited without all the extra hidden fees for basic features like caller ID, then I'm all for it.

Apple sells a lot more phones outside of the US. Jeez, China is lapping the phone up. Overall, right now I'm sure the majority of the iPhones in existence are within the US, but international day to day sales make up more than half (to say the least).

Apple will control the experience of a small number of iPhone users by buying AT&T. And let's not forget Verizon. If you want to sell lots you need to run on anything, Windows and Android prove that. They're not going to be dropping Verizon.

 

[SethKOne]

It would make more sense to buy T-Mobile. Sure they aren't the greatest network now, but if Apple was to completely tailor the network to support their devices and convinced the legions of iPhone/iPad fans to switched over, they'd be adding a lot of value. Not to mention Apple has the cash to spend on fixing T-Mobile's woes, and they are a very forward looking company so I'd predict a fast road to LTE. The biggest problem would be supporting and selling all those other phones, including Android (what? there are other phones? ) by Apple. Jobs wouldn't like that.

Look how much the iPhone helped AT&T grow. Of course in a sense it's already "too late" with the iPhone being on Verizon and AT&T, but it's an interesting thought, especially since T-Mobile is for sale, unlike AT&T.