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

[chrmjenkins]

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.

Doubtful. Wood is a notoriously poor conductor of electricity as it exhibits no regular lattice structure.

 

[Savethehodag]

I've had both AT&T and Sprint (via Virgin Mobile) and T-Mobile is vastly superior, better coverage, rarely lose a connection, better rates. I would rather keep using my $20 dumbphone than switch carriers.

 

[pittpanthersfan]

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

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it doesn't make business sense for Apple to develop a unique/special device for a carrier that is about to be gobbled up or filing for Chapter 11.

 

[macUser2007]

I've had both AT&T and Sprint (via Virgin Mobile) and T-Mobile is vastly superior, better coverage, rarely lose a connection, better rates. I would rather keep using my $20 dumbphone than switch carriers.

Yep. I like T-Mobile the best, too. I use a couple of Nexus S on it, and it costs me about $100 less per month than 2 iPhones did on AT&T.

Frankly, people sticking with AT&T or Verizon do it simply because they don't know any better.

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.

lol

 

[macbook pro i5]

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

I just love your sig

 

[aleksoctop]

So the guy's like "iPhone's okay...i mean we got some REALLY GOOD ANDROID devices that we think are pretty much better than iPhone, but yeah, Apple should build us a version of iPhone so it can run on our stupid network!"

1. Apple doesn't like Android...well, at least Steve didn't, which is safe to assume Apple doesn't.
2. If the comment about the "HTC Amaze" sounds like that, does Andrew Sherrard realize that this doesn't challenge or encourage Apple as much as discourage Apple from ever wanting to cooperate with T-Mobile USA?
3. Andrew Sherrard might've just cost T-Mobile USA the iPhone.

I would be VERY careful how I address Apple if I was the Senior Vice President of T-Mobile USA.

 

[pika2000]

Once AT&T buys T-Mobile, AWS is gone. So why should Apple spend any resources supporting something that is going to go poof?

On the other hand, I'm glad the Nexus Prime will have penta-band HSDPA.

 

[skiltrip]

Apple hates T-Mobile. Too much bad blood there. Apple could have built a handset for them if they wanted to. They just simply have no desire to. At this point, they got Yellow, Blue, and Red. Who needs Magenta?

I also think Apple believe ultimately in one way or another, T-Mobile is going to be eaten by AT&T, so why do the work for a short term thing.

 

[blue22]

cry me a river Andrew...

Sorry T-Mobile, I had stuck with you for the past 4+ years, enjoying your service all the while hoping you'd get your act together enough to land the iPhone by now.

But alas I just couldn't wait any longer, especially with the AT&T merger on the lurch. Ultimately I had to make a choice if I wanted to (finally!) get an iPhone in my hands, in a move that didn't require me to wait another 8-12 months on just a wing and a prayer, or one that found me back on AT&T's network. Luckily there are two more options now besides them and 2G/EDGE speeds won't suffice.

*sigh*

It was fun while it lasted T-Mobile, but I had to move on. Maybe in 2013 we can dance again, provided that you're even still around?

 

[nostaws]

I am a tmobile and iPhone customer. I would like faster data speeds, but I spend most of my life near wifi anyway.

 

[blue22]

T-Mobile gambled and lost...

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.

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. Hindsight is 20/20, but it really hedged its bets on the wrong frequency.

Andrew Sherrard can deflect to Apple all he wants but I too agree that the culprit here in all likelihood was the pending merger being the #1 reason why Apple didn't invite T-Mobile to the iPhone4S party this autumn.

Apple hates T-Mobile. Too much bad blood there. Apple could have built a handset for them if they wanted to. They just simply have no desire to. At this point, they got Yellow, Blue, and Red. Who needs Magenta?

I also think Apple believe ultimately in one way or another, T-Mobile is going to be eaten by AT&T, so why do the work for a short term thing.

The text in bold is what had me rolling. LOL!

 

[cvaldes]

Is this the same for the UK or is it just usa?

Just the USA.

T-Mobile UK has been selling the iPhone for years if you haven't noticed.

Apple hates T-Mobile.

Not really. T-Mobile is an official iPhone carrier in something like 10-11 markets in Europe.

There's probably some sort of technical compromise for T-Mobile USA that Apple doesn't want to make, like using a different baseband processor, adding another power amplifier, optimizing the antenna for the different frequencies (which would negatively impact the antenna for the more commonly used networks).

 

[Rodimus Prime]

There's probably some sort of technical compromise that Apple doesn't want to make, like using a different baseband processor, adding another power amplifier, optimizing the antenna for the different frequencies (which would negatively impact the antenna for the more commonly used networks).

or the most likely one.
T-Mobile was not willing to whore itself out to Apple. Spirit bet the farm on it. T-Mobile could not bet that high nor was it willing.

It would be a cake walk for Apple to do it. The chip they are using already can do it and adding the extra freq would not be that hard. Hell a lot of phones already do it so yet again a non issue.

 

[charlituna]

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.

This. Remember the whole set out thing has been going on for months. Apple was looking at someone picking up T-Mobile or DTK just canning the division. So it makes little business sense to move on a T-Mobile iPhone until they know T-Mobile is going to be around and in what form

 

[toxic]

This. Remember the whole set out thing has been going on for months. Apple was looking at someone picking up T-Mobile or DTK just canning the division. So it makes little business sense to move on a T-Mobile iPhone until they know T-Mobile is going to be around and in what form

sure, but it doesn't explain why Apple couldn't do it before the proposed merger. the exclusivity with AT&T was over and re-engineering for Verizon is more involved than adding GSM frequencies.

I think AT&T is throwing its weight around, and Apple couldn't commit to T-Mobile without something like Sprint's going all in to make up for future losses (in AT&T contracts).

 

[claus1225]

he probably has an iphone 4s hidden in his pocket

 

[Pjlancer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I believe it is T-Mobile's early support of google's android operating system that is blacklisting them with getting an apple iPhone. Did not jobs just say he would do what I takes to kill android. Isn't just funny that iPhone cemented AT&T /Cingular as a key cell company,but android nearly killed t-mobile.

 

[lllll]

The problem is that T-Mobile is not building a cellular network that everyone can use. So too bad T-mobile. Hello Sprint, how are you?

 

[macinnv]

I would think a carrier moving to AWS bands would be a good thing for congested US bandwidth. But based on the wisdom of MacRumors posters, maybe the FCC should take that spectrum back and T-Mobile can then survive independently by moving to 1900 mhz spectrum?

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The problem is that T-Mobile is not building a cellular network that everyone can use. So too bad T-mobile. Hello Sprint, how are you?

Sadly I would rather use a T-Mobile android with 8 mb/s than a Sprint iPhone based on the speeds I've been seeing on MacRumors.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

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I believe it is T-Mobile's early support of google's android operating system that is blacklisting them with getting an apple iPhone. Did not jobs just say he would do what I takes to kill android. Isn't just funny that iPhone cemented AT&T /Cingular as a key cell company,but android nearly killed t-mobile.

Yet sprint and Verizon got the iPhone and they both threw support early on at Android. I fully expect Apple to be investigated over the matter.
I expect there are some back room deals going on to help them merger happen and would not be surprised in the least if Apple was not helping it along.

 

[Rend It]

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The AWS band might be the limitation, but only in the sense that Apple would have to invest a lot of time and money testing iPhones on T-mobile's network. The electronics and antennas on smartphones are not that frequency specific. If you think designing phones for CDMA, GSM, and AWS frequencies is difficult, just look at how many frequencies are in the LTE specification.

The merger is also irrelevant because AT&T would inherit that spectrum if the buyout is approved. In other words, an iPhone that works on AWS would work on SOME carrier, whether the deal goes through or not.

I think Apple simply weighed the costs of testing on T-Mo and the potential amount of new revenue, and determined it wasn't worth it. C-Spire is a different situation because it's a very small regional carrier, and it runs just like the two major national CDMA carriers, which obviously had extensive testing before the 4S launch.

 

[macinnv]

Yet sprint and Verizon got the iPhone and they both threw support early on at Android. I fully expect Apple to be investigated over the matter.
I expect there are some back room deals going on to help them merger happen and would not be surprised in the least if Apple was not helping it along.

Agreed. A backdoor deal between ATT and Apple executives must have occurred. I doubt the Justice Dept would investigate this unfortunately.

 

[DeathChill]

Apple apparently was testing prototypes that worked with T-Mobile's 3G so I doubt the frequency is the issue; more likely the business side.

http://www.mactrast.com/2011/04/new-iphone-tested-for-t-mobile-usa/

 

[aristotle]

Sorry but T-mobile only has itself and possibly the FCC to blame. Why can't carriers in the US play nice and use the same frequency bands at the same time? In Canada, we have the following carriers with iPhones with overlapping frequency bands:
Rogers, Bell, Telus, Fido, Virgin and Koodo. The last three are the cheap brands of the first three respectively but you still have different plans and pricing structures to choose from.

We also have AWS carriers called Wind and Mobilicity but most people do not bother to touch them with a ten foot pole because they lack cool handsets and their coverage is limited to only a few of the major cities in Canada.

I like being able to access my service outside of Vancouver. I was a Fido customer but now I'm on Telus.

@macinnv: You cannot be serious? US != World. The majority of sales for iPhones are going to continue to be from outside of the US going forward even with Sprint onboard. You need to broaden your horizons a bit.

I like visiting the US but Americans do seem to be a bit myopic and forget that there is a big world outside of their borders sometimes.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

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.

You do know that Apple/iOS is not #1 in market share for smart phones, right? A market isn't based on a single phone offering. After all, everyone in their right mind should know that Android has a larger market share overall by far (43% versus Apple's 28%).