Verizon: Can You Hear Them Now?
July 15, 2008
Verizon’s contract with union workers in the Eastern region is set to expire on August 2nd. The Daily Press reports that workers are voting on a provision to strike if progress has not been made on negotiations by the end of their contract. The usual issues are at stake: benefits, health care, wages, and protection of union jobs.
Union officials have yet to announce the results of the vote to authorize a strike. But you can be sure that if workers do decide to strike, they won’t need to ask “Can you here me now.”
Million Phone Weekend For Apple
July 14, 2008
Despite activation problems and site outages, Apple managed to sell one million iPhones over the weekend. That is nearly double the conservative estimate prior to the launch. With phones flying off shelves in 21 countries, lines formed prior to the July 11th launch and remained long throughout the weekend. Stores are reporting mostly sold out conditions. Demand remains high.
Many potential consumers have been posting to internet message boards that they intend to wait for lines to die down and software/server glitches to be corrected before purchasing a unit.
It is interesting to note that it took Apple nearly 75 days to sell their first million phones, and were about to do that in just one weekend with their newest offering. In addition, 10 million apps were downloaded to iPhones during the first three days.
The iPhone madness continues.
Apple Sauce - Stores and iPhone Upgrades Crushed By Heavy Demand
July 11, 2008
Apple Stores were jammed this morning. Two stores in LA which we have been monitoring since 5am were packed with over 400 customers each (with more arriving every minute). Lines were moving slowly, though Apple employees seemed to be working as quickly as possible to help them. The one AT&T store that we checked had only 20 people waiting. If you wanted an iPhone today, hopefully you got up early, or are prepared to call around to find out who still has them in stock later. We’d suggest trying some of the potentially less crowded AT&T stores.
But waiting a day or two might be an even better idea. Users upgrading or activating phones this morning were met with long delays and multiple errors in iTunes when attempting to update/activate their phones. As a result, lines at the stores moved slowly and users upgrading their 1.0 iPhones ended up with locked and nonworking devices for hours until they were able to make a successful connection. Frustrated users flooded internet message boards with their displeasure.
Of course, for Apple and AT&T, this means success. Customers clearly have an pent up demand for a device such as the iPhone 2.0. However, it seems unlikely that Apple and AT&T couldn’t have anticipated this sort of response and been more prepared for it. They could have released the 2.0 software a day or two before the launch of the new phone to release demand on the servers. They should have stress tested the servers for this level of demand? Error messages could have been constructed which let customers know why their phone updates were failing and what to do about them.
More than a few people in line this morning were not there to buy a new phone, but rather to receive tech support for the version 1 phone which was disrupted by a failed software upgrade. This resulted in some tension and hostility in the long line of waiting customers. These are not feelings usually associated with Apple and more could certainly have been done to avoid the mess this morning, both in the stores and for users at home.
No doubt that all of this will soon settle down and sentiments from customers in love with their new iPhones will prevail over launch day glitches.
Good luck to all new iPhone users. May the force be with you.
Telecom Spies Off The Hook
July 10, 2008
The industry is conflicted over the House and Senate decision to give telephone companies immunity for the warrantless wiretapping of customer phones post 9/11. Although the companies were instructed by government officials to spy on their customers, doing so without a court order opened the carriers to massive legal risk.
Democrats were expected to make this an election issue. However, they ultimately approved the immunity in exchange for documentation that the carriers were instructed by government officials to spy on their customers. This opens suspicion that once blame is shifted from the carriers it will be focused on the parties who requested the wiretapping. For now, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and others appear to be off the hook.
Nearly 40 legal cases are currently pending against many of the nation’s carriers. It is unclear how this decision will affect these proceedings. Some loopholes may allow certain cases to continue. It is also possible that the congressional decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court based upon constitutionality.
Stay tuned for the sequel.
3G Dead On Arrival
July 9, 2008
The hype is hot as Apple prepares to launch its 3G iPhone on Friday. However, only a small portion of the total iPhone users will be able to take advantage of ATT’s 3G speeds in the areas they live and work. 3G just isn’t available everywhere yet. And it isn’t as fast as users may want. Apple has clearly held back on features that consumers want, because the 3G network that it will run on just isn’t robust enough to support high bandwidth applications.
Technology, such as the iPhone, has advanced faster than the networks which support them. That means that users will still have to wait while that YouTube video downloads and forget about uploading a 10 Megapixel photo from your camera-phone. We have the ability to produce products which our available carriers just aren’t equipped to support at the moment. Read more
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