In article <45a535d1$0$4883$88260bb3@free.teranews.com>,
Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:

> At 09 Jan 2007 22:12:40 -0800 Mij Adyaw wrote:
> > Apple may have made a serious mistake in not offering the phone on
> America's
> > Most Reliable Network. It is interesting that they chose GSM rather
> than the
> > technically superior CDMA.
>
> They didn't choose GSM, per se, they chose to partner with a _carrier_
> who happens to use GSM.

No, they looked at *the entire damn globe* and determined that quad band
GSM allowed the most coverage. Cingular has just recently made the push
to all GSM, and it may even bite them because they were pushing a lot of
current subscribers to upgrade their old phones by the end of 2006. If
Cingular had any brains they would extend their non-GSM service past the
end of March until the time the iPhone ships. Otherwise, if I'm going
to be locked into a contract for a phone I don't want, I might as well
just switch to T-Mobile.

> I expect AT&T (what Cingular will be called by the time anyone is able to
> buy one) saw the iPhone as an excellent opportunity to reinvent their
> image while launching America's Most Renamed Network.

Which is funny, because I was originally an AT&T customer. That's how
my phone is still branded! :-) And the only image I saw being
re-invented is how *terrible* most corporate executives are on stage; go
watch the Macworld keynote and see the Cingular guy suck all the energy
out of the room.

> Can you really believe that Verizon would sell a phone that the
> manufacturer wouldn't let them cripple? I'm amazed Apple got any
> American carrier to cater to them. I half expected Apple to launch their
> own MVNO for the phone (a la Amp'd or Disney) just to avoid having to
> work with a carrier over design and pricing issues.

Cingular was at least smart enough to see what partnering with Apple got
them. Most phones are commodities that everyone has and are often
"disposable". While it's all good fun to lock people in over common
phones, the real money is in an exclusive phone and a sweet, sweet
$90/month contract. Balk over the $500 iPhone price tag all you want,
but it's nothing compared to how much money is coming in on the plan
itself.

> Anybody think Apple's going to let AT&T silkscreen a blue globe on the
> back? ;-)

Yeah, branding is going to be a really interesting issue to play out. I
saw the screen displaying the Cingular name and, honestly, I'd rather
they tag the back of the phone than take up screen real estate. It's
not like people are going to be changing carriers so often that we need
to see it displayed on the top of the screen all the time.

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