Average iPhone User Consumes 273MB of Data Monthly

February 15, 2010 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

Consumer Reports published an analysis of the wireless bills of 100,000 customers and found that that the average iPhone owner uses almost twice as much data as users of most other smartphones, and five times the average amount used by Blackberry owners. And a small proportion ofiPhone users upload and download three or more times what the average iPhone owner uses, with one in twenty-five using upwards of a gigabyte per month. Read more…

ATT Dropping Fewer Calls

January 28, 2010 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

AT&T says its dropping fewer calls and is seeing an improvement in their network thanks to new carriers at existing cell sites, an ongoing backhaul renovation, and the recent roll-out of 7.2Mbps capability across most of its 3G footprint, reports Engadget.

AT&T claims that dropped calls network-wide has been reduced from 1.41 percent to 1.05 percent between December ‘08 and ‘09. Read more…

Teen Arrested For Leaving Threat On Apple Store Computer Screen

January 15, 2010 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

A teen in New York has been arrested for leaving a threatening note on the screen of a computer at an Apple Store. The 17-year-old boy was joking around with friends when he typed a note on screen promising “a bloody death” to anyone working in the store via a “bomb loaded with C4, strapped to my chest.” The note was then signed with the name of one of his friends’ fathers. He claims he typed it just to be funny, and then forgot to delete it when he left, but the District Attorney in Staten Island says it’s no joke — the kid faces up to seven years in prison.

I can’t help but think they’ll let him off the hook eventually. Sure, it was a stupid (really stupid) thing to do, and they should come up with a punishment that teaches the kid a lesson, but time in prison labeled as a terrorist seems a little much for showing off to friends in an Apple Store. Maybe they can have him do some in-store lip synching performances as a community service.

[Via Tuaw.com]

Apple Refuses To Return Repaired iPhone To Owner

January 01, 2010 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

Apple will not return a stolen iPhone to to the original owner after the thief took the phone in to get serviced due to the victim’s failure to file a police report.

After getting her iPhone stolen, one reader relayed to Consumerist the tale of her failed attempts to try to get it back from AT&T and Apple. The crime happened on the subway in New York city, after which the victim promptly called the police who searched the area to no avail.

Several weeks later the victim received an email from Apple notifying her that someone had filed a request to replace her broken phone through Apple Care. Read more…

AT&T Resumes Online iPhone Sales To New York City Residents

December 28, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

AT&T has resumed taking iPhone orders from New York City residents through its website after blocking the sale of the handsets to New Yorkers this past weekend for reasons the carrier has been unwilling to explain in detail.

The sales suspension drew hundreds of headlines from technology websites on Monday, fueling suspicions that the move was yet another sign that the exclusive US iPhone carrier was unable to support the brunt of the handset’s popularity in dense metropolitan areas.
Read more…

AT&T Website Stops Selling iPhones In New York City?

December 28, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

What kind of Christmas present is this? The Consumerist is reporting that AT&T has stopped selling the iPhone in the New York metropolitan area, at least via the company’s website, due to high data congestion (or possibly due to online fraud). Update: While Consumerist’s post still cites ‘network congestion’ as the reason for the NYC sales hold, we’ve been told by other customer service reps that the real reason is a spike in fraudulent purchases; other sites have gotten the same story.
Read more…

AT&T Says iPhone Usage Based Pricing is Inevitable

December 09, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

AT&T told investors at a USB conference in New York that it will give high bandwidth users incentives to “reduce or modify their usage”.

Amidst poor public perception due to a network issues, AT&T has decided put iPhone users who watch video on tighter leashes, according to an Associated Press report.

AT&T head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega declined to comment on when these “incentives” would happen but said that usage-based pricing for data is inevitable.

“We need to educate the customer … We’ve got to get them to understand what represents a megabyte of data,” de la Vega said. “We’re improving all our systems to let consumers get real-time information on their data usage.”

De la Vega says three percent of “smart” phone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity with a majority of the high-bandwidth activity being video and audio streaming.

I can’t help but think announcements like these worsen the public perception of AT&T. The last thing unhappy customers want to hear is that if they watch video or use Skype they will be paying more.

Via iclarified.com

OnLive cloud gaming service demonstrated on Apple’s iPhone

November 16, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News
OnLive

OnLive, the Internet-based interactive streaming service hyped as “the future of video games,” is also capable of running on mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone, the company has claimed.

At the Wedbush financial conference in New York, OnLive CEO Steve Perlman demonstrated his company’s game streaming service simultaneously on two iPhones. Perlman detailed the event on his company’s official blog.
Read more…

Apple Genius says dropped AT&T calls in NYC ‘consistent’

October 01, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News
genius-090930
Image credit Gizmodo

A man who took his iPhone 3G in to a New York City Apple Store because of a large number of dropped calls was allegedly told that a 30 percent failure rate is average for a local AT&T customer.

In a diagnosis issued by the Genius Bar, the proposed resolution for the issue was for the customer to contact AT&T, because “the problem is consistent with the service provided” by the wireless carrier. Not included in the report, however, is what a Gizmodo reader claimed he was told by the Apple Store Genius: That a 30 percent dropped call rate is average for the New York area.

The man took his iPhone 3G to the Apple Store in SoHo, located at 103 Prince Street in New York City, to see if his dropped calls were as a result of the hardware. The man said that roughly a third of his calls disconnected. Read more…

Three New iPhone Ads Make debut On Prime-Time Tv

September 22, 2009 :: Posted by - SoSly :: Category - News

Were you watching the two-hour season premiere of House last night on Fox? Maybe you were watching one of the other prime-time shows, but if you had your eyes on the screen during some of the commercial breaks, you probably saw at least one of the three new iPhone ads that hit the airwaves last night.

Each of the new ads highlights a total of six apps, up from the three that were formerly the focus of the older ads. The first ad I saw last night, “Dine,” looks at Zagat to Go, QuickOffice, TripCase, New York Subway 09, Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List, and Gap Style Mixer. [Note: all app links will open the iTunes App Store]

The next ad I viewed was “Nature,” featuring iXpenseIt, Daily Finance, Guitar Toolkit, Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook, iBird Explorer Plus, and the ever-popular Pizza Hut app. I didn’t get a chance to see the third advertisement, “Pass,” until I visited the Apple website this morning. It’s a 30-second quick look at Fandango, G-Park, VocabWiz College Vocabulary, 365 Crosswords, Classics, and ABC Animals.

I’m happy to see that Apple is maintaining focus on the number and variety of apps in the App Store, instead of resorting to the narcissistic, touchy-feely, celebrity-filled tripe that T-Mobile has been using for their Android-based MyTouch 3G ads.

Via tuaw.com