AT&T CEO says apple app store bad for consumers.

[iphonedude2008]

No that doesn't work

This shouldn't be compared to windows vs mac apps, which are far more sophisticated than phone apps. What he's saying is that when you buy an app or subscription, it should work on another phone and you shouldn't have to rebuy it. In other words, app stores should use the same programming languages rather than each make its own SDK and proprietary programming language. Duh, this is good for consumers. Stop sucking up to the apple way.

That would cause developers to make app compatible with hundreds of phones and OS's, kind of like android is. This would not make developers happy. If they made webapps, well, there goes Ned for Speed and Madden 11.

 

[schwell]

http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/16/apple’s-app-store-is-bad-for-consumers-att-ceo-says/

Carrier run app store. AHAHAAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHA **** YOU! AHAHAAHAHAAAHHAAHHAHAAAAHAHAHHA

Regardless of the motives he has a good point. Just as others have pointed out regarding games.

From a consumer point of view it would be great to purchase once and use on multiple paltforms or at least have the ability to pay an incremental amount to use on multiple platforms.

Call it a is a silver lining in the cloud.

 

[unlimitedx]

Regardless of the motives he has a good point. Just as others have pointed out regarding games.

From a consumer point of view it would be great to purchase once and use on multiple paltforms or at least have the ability to pay an incremental amount to use on multiple platforms.

Call it a is a silver lining in the cloud.

Yes.. AT&T's multiple platforms.. basically AT&T wants to replicate App Store's success

 

[milani]

Why is it that every two-bit CEO feels some obligation to constantly assess Apple's corporate strategy? I just don't get it.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

To be fair, cell phone companies have insane bills for building, running and maintaining theirs huge national networks of cell towers and everything.

These companies are not as profitable as it might seem.

Apple has no such infrastructure to support and they make all the billions and AT&Ts saying that a potential avenue to increase some profits by selling software to the market is impossible because of the monopoly.

The more profit AT&T makes the more us consumers benefit by having improved network coverage nationwide.

 

[spacepower7]

One would qualify as a fool if one were to believe the iPhone kept AT&T "afloat" or "viable" for the last four years.
iPhones subscribers are a small portion of AT&T's total profits.

Hmmm

That's the second stupidest thing I heard today. Almost 15 out of 16 million smartphone subscribers on ATT are iPhone users. ATT has about twice as many smartphone users as Verizon, most of which are Android not blackberry.

Sprint and T-Mobile smartphone users are tiny.

Smart phones are the biggest part of profit except maybe text plans.

 

[spacepower7]

Regardless of the motives he has a good point. Just as others have pointed out regarding games.

From a consumer point of view it would be great to purchase once and use on multiple paltforms or at least have the ability to pay an incremental amount to use on multiple platforms.

Call it a is a silver lining in the cloud.

That's called marketing.

All the networks working together.....BS

You can switch apps from device or platform but have to pay huge fees to switch a carrier. They seem to never mention that..

Ohhh and your HTML 5 app/game does not work without an Internet connection, and we now sell limited data plans so if you are away from wifi then pay me huge

Let's piggyback on other peoples innovation !

 

[unlimitedx]

To be fair, cell phone companies have insane bills for building, running and maintaining theirs huge national networks of cell towers and everything.

These companies are not as profitable as it might seem.

Apple has no such infrastructure to support and they make all the billions and AT&Ts saying that a potential avenue to increase some profits by selling software to the market is impossible because of the monopoly.

The more profit AT&T makes the more us consumers benefit by having improved network coverage nationwide.

Other countries have providers that provide great coverage at a far more reasonable price than in the US.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

One would qualify as a fool if one were to believe the iPhone kept AT&T "afloat" or "viable" for the last four years.
iPhones subscribers are a small portion of AT&T's total profits.

Cingular ATT would have had to combine with T-Mobile already to not have been gobbled up by Verizon if the iPhone was never exclusive.

Verizon had a masterstroke long term plan to establish itself as reputation for having the most phone reception in the USA above all else. In 99-00 when everyone was trying toncome out with fancy Nokias and cool ringtones and cases, Verizon was sittin on the ugliest phones with little minutes and then years later.... BAM! They reaped the rewards and then eventually closed the deal by launching the network/hear me now compaign that solidified their status in America as the premium carrier.

Tmobile gets the cheapos and some young girls. SPRINT gets weirdos who don't really pick carriers by tradition logic and have loyalties on a whim. They have a weird and small and niche customer base. They got the old nextel crowd.

ATT would have been like as expensive as Verizon with the coverage of Tmobile.

Now instead they are "the network iPhone is on" and it makes them ultra professional seeming.

So yes you fool, iPhone did and is keeping ATT afloat.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

Other countries have providers that provide great coverage at a far more reasonable price than in the US.

How small are these countries Geographically?

 

[kdarling]

Previous App Stores

Some posters seem to think Apple invented app stores. Some history:

The Palm app store and Handango, among others, existed almost a decade before Apple's store.

IIRC, the second largest app store in the world is still the Java Mobile jar store. Many of those apps work on any J2ME handset. With tools like J2ME Polish, apps can have nice looking GUIs and still be cross-device compilable.

Carriers like Verizon have long had their own lucrative app stores for dumb handsets. Verizon's is extremely popular. For example, over 10 million of their dumbphone users downloaded their version of Shazaam in less time than the same occurred with the iPhone version.

CDMA handset BREW apps had already paid out over $1 billion in developer royalties in the years before the iPhone was revealed ! (It's over $3 billion now.)

Ringtone sales alone were a half-billion dollar a year business worldwide until recently. Recording companies count on ringtones to make up for falling CD sales, in fact.

So app stores have been around for a long while. Some have been very profitable for carriers as well, and no doubt they miss that income.

 

[kicko]

I dont agree with him but i do like the point from a consumers point of view but i dont expect to buy a game on my xbox and all of a sudden think i can get a free copy of the same game because i just purchased a ps3.

I think the cell phone carriers need to recognize what they do and move ahead with it. Mobile carriers will eventually do to ISP providers as they have done with landline companies... basically eliminate them slowly. Mobile carriers need to just focus on the service they do provide rather then selling devices or apps.

 

[Small White Car]

Yeah!!! Like, when I switched from Windows To Mac, MS gave me a new free copy of Office for Mac! That's the way it should be!

Oh, wait.....

Adobe lets you swap Photoshop for the other version.

Funny, I like that method. Your joke seems to indicate you find it silly and prefer to be locked in like the other companies do. An odd opinion.

 

[Consultant]

Most of mobile software sales are from Apple App Store, due to ease of use, and high quality iOS platform. Java applets do not make real apps in the iOS age.

One would qualify as a fool if one were to believe the iPhone kept AT&T "afloat" or "viable" for the last four years.
iPhones subscribers are a small portion of AT&T's total profits.

WRONG:

Last AT&T wireless annual report: "more than 46 percent of our postpaid subscribers have integrated devices." (that means smartphones)

Almost all income of AT&T are from wireless segment. Significant amount is smartphones, and most of that are from iPhone.

http://www.att.com/Common/about_us/annual_report/pdfs/ATT2009_Full.pdf

 

[anonymous guy]

AT&T is just mad they couldnt strong-arm YPmobile, AT&T Maps, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Live Video, AT&T Barcode Scanner, etc. as default unremovable apps on the iPhone.

 

[kdarling]

Last AT&T wireless annual report: "more than 46 percent of our postpaid subscribers have integrated devices." (that means smartphones)

Not entirely. At the top of page 9 they define "integrated devices" as "wireless devices with full Internet and texting capabilities", which includes non-smartphones ("quick messaging phones" in AT&T-speak).

In later reports such as this one, they change it to "Integrated devices are handsets with QWERTY or virtual keyboards in addition to voice functionality and are a key driver of wireless data usage.)"

Almost all income of AT&T are from wireless segment.

The chart at the top of page 3 of that report said less than half (45%) came from wireless. But yes, in the near future wireless will be the majority, no doubt.

Significant amount is smartphones, and most of that are from iPhone.

Note that AT&T also had about 600 million dollars tied up in iPhone subsidies, each case of which doesn't get paid back until about the 20th month of a customer's service.

http://www.att.com/Common/about_us/annual_report/pdfs/ATT2009_Full.pdf

 

[rjohnstone]

Hmmm

That's the second stupidest thing I heard today. Almost 15 out of 16 million smartphone subscribers on ATT are iPhone users. ATT has about twice as many smartphone users as Verizon, most of which are Android not blackberry.

Sprint and T-Mobile smartphone users are tiny.

Smart phones are the biggest part of profit except maybe text plans.

Really...

AT&T has more than 90 million subscribers just in their mobile unit alone.
They also have landline services, Cable TV services as well as supply primary internet backbone connectivity to more ISP's and corporations than I can count.

Put down the kool-aid and have a drink of reality.
The iPhone did not and will not make or break AT&T.

 

[milani]

AT&T's CEO is advocating a "buy once and use everywhere" philosophy. So, what he's saying is that if I buy AT&T data I should be able, according to the CEO's own philosophy, to use that data on any device I choose. Huh. Interesting.

 

[rjohnstone]

AT&T's CEO is advocating a "buy once and use everywhere" philosophy. So, what he's saying is that if I buy AT&T data I should be able, according to the CEO's own philosophy, to use that data on any device I choose. Huh. Interesting.

Technically, yes and no.
You could use it on another device, but according to his philosophy, you would have to get rid of the other device first. There's always a catch.

 

[profets]

To be fair, cell phone companies have insane bills for building, running and maintaining theirs huge national networks of cell towers and everything.

These companies are not as profitable as it might seem.

Apple has no such infrastructure to support and they make all the billions and AT&Ts saying that a potential avenue to increase some profits by selling software to the market is impossible because of the monopoly.

The more profit AT&T makes the more us consumers benefit by having improved network coverage nationwide.

Does Apple or any other company for that matter not have costs? Does AT&T not already have a source of income? A quick search shows AT&T's net income for 2009 was 12.5 billion.

Other countries have providers that provide great coverage at a far more reasonable price than in the US.

How small are these countries Geographically?

What does it matter? Some may be smaller, but still have to have a network that can support a specific number of clients. What about Canada which is geographically larger but has 1/10th the number of cell phone subscribers.

 

[rjohnstone]

Does Apple or any other company for that matter not have costs? Does AT&T not already have a source of income? A quick search shows AT&T's net income for 2009 was 12.5 billion.





What does it matter? Some may be smaller, but still have to have a network that can support a specific number of clients. What about Canada which is geographically larger but has 1/10th the number of cell phone subscribers.

Old argument.
There are many factors that go into building a robust network.
Geography is a major one, so is the ability to get permits to run lines, build towers and buy radio frequencies.
These all vary by country.
The U.S. is one of the worst places from a "government red tape" perspective to build anything.
You have federal, state, county and city governments to deal with.
Each one having their own level of BS and hoops to jump through.
The main reason AT&T service sucks in San Francisco is it takes 3 years to get a tower permit approved.
Each permit is vetted individually. AT&T cannot submit them in batches like other cities.
Verizon is going to run into this issue with LTE in San Francisco.
Their towers are spaced and optimized for CDMA coverage.
This configuration is not 100% optimal for LTE, so they will have to add towers in some existing areas to ensure full coverage and capacity handling.

 

[ravensfan55]

Don't act like it's an isolated mentality. Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint's CEOs would all say the same thing.

As we speak Verizon is trying to start the V-Cast market for Android. If they could have their way, they would put it on the iPhone too.

 

[hcho3]

Is this guy stupid or something? Fix your network before you criticize what apple is doing. Apple was one of the first companies to come out and say. Screw carriers on installing your softwares on smart phones. We will care of the phones and you take care of the network.

Does AT&T CEO honestly think they could ever be able to create an app store just as polish as apple's? No.

AT&T had video sharing ability on their devices for years, but did anyone care? No.

Apple is a genius in marketing and implementing those items and functions to customers. AT&T? Not so much.

Go away AT&T. You blow.

 

[TX65]

Right now, if you own 100 Apps for your IPhone, you are very likely to only buy another IPhone when your contract with AT&T expires.

Now with Verizon coming online, we all know there are 3G and 3GS users getting their IPhone 4 at Verizon and AT&T hates that.

Even if you are happy with AT&T, loyalty is with Apple to the IPhone and AT&T does not like that they cannot push products that are more profitable for AT&T

AT&T CEO claiming it is not good for consumers is a joke because an AT&T app store would hook you to AT&T the same way Apple's App store hooks you to Apple.

The really question is who would you rather be loyal to

Apple or AT&T?

 

[profets]

Old argument.
There are many factors that go into building a robust network.
Geography is a major one, so is the ability to get permits to run lines, build towers and buy radio frequencies.
These all vary by country.
The U.S. is one of the worst places from a "government red tape" perspective to build anything.
You have federal, state, county and city governments to deal with.
Each one having their own level of BS and hoops to jump through.
The main reason AT&T service sucks in San Francisco is it takes 3 years to get a tower permit approved.
Each permit is vetted individually. AT&T cannot submit them in batches like other cities.
Verizon is going to run into this issue with LTE in San Francisco.
Their towers are spaced and optimized for CDMA coverage.
This configuration is not 100% optimal for LTE, so they will have to add towers in some existing areas to ensure full coverage and capacity handling.

The argument is not about coverage, but about revenue & profit. Does AT&T not have a high income and profit that it needs to take a piece of Apple's pie when they put no work into it? Should my ISP at home get a slice of the $ from Apple if I purchase an app on OSX app store?