Posts Tagged “AT&T”

Like many brick and mortar businesses, Starbucks seems to be struggling with new media – specifically, how to treat WiFi. Is it a cost center? A profit center? A way to retain customers? A way to fill seats without monetizing them? The results are decidedly mixed. If the WiFi experience for coffee shops was a Magic 8 Ball, it would report “ANSWER HAZY…TRY AGAIN LATER.” But with any endeavor that involves customers, it’s a rule of thumb to keep things consistent. Nothing ticks off customers more than finding a situation where you pay for something at store A, and find it for free at store B – especially when the two stores are selling under the same corporate entity. Which is what makes a generally marketing-savvy company like Starbucks’ latest moves all the more puzzling. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had my iPhone for a week now. This is the point in time at which flaws and annoyances begin to rear their ugly heads. I’ve got to say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see that these are few and far between. What I’m left with, as of today, is a feeling of amazement – that I’m still somewhat in awe of how seemlessly the interface functions, how easy everything is to use, and how Apple seems to have thought of just about everything.

If I have a gripe, I suspect it will be with battery life, but that’s only because I’ve been on it so much. Not sure, short of using an OLED screen, what they could do to fix this, but from what I hear, the 3G S is a lot better than the 3G in that respect.

By comparison, at this stage of the game with the Windows Mobile phone, I was busy making excuses for the OS, doing my best to explain away the problems, like some newlywed who’s desperately trying to believe that their spouse is “just a little stressed” and not really abusive.

Ouch.

That leads me to what I think is a huge mistake that Apple and AT&T are making regarding the marketing of the iPhone. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, June 19th, I was fortunate enough to score a new, black 32GB iPhone. No, I didn’t wait in line at the crack of dawn. I didn’t pre-order it. I just walked into an AT&T store around 2PM, and waited (only about 30 minutes) and walked out with my new phone. When I’m gonna buy into something that requires a (2 year) commitment, I typically wait for version 3.0. This is because I’ve learned – the hard way – that the first release of anything is usually the “one-point-UH-oh” release. In version 2, they get the bugs worked out from the first one, but it’s version three where the product really hits the sweet spot. So I waited to jump on the iPhone bandwagon until the 3G s was released (a.k.a. iPhone version 3.0/iPhone OS 3.0). I’m happy to report that the product lives up to it’s marketing hype – and then some. Read the rest of this entry »

…I knew you could. Every now and then, there are pardigm shifts – “game-changers,” if you will, that remake the landscape and Change Life As We Know It.™ I suppose the first one was the asteroid strikes that sent the dinosaurs packing. Like that one and hundreds since, most paradigm shifts occur in ways that are hardly noticeable – at first. It’s only later that you realize what kind of tectonic shift occurred because of one, seemingly insignificant factor. For instance, the advent of television largely killed what was left of live, variety shows in theater (vaudeville), radio plays (serials, dramas, comedies, game shows), and hurt movie theaters. Home video tape players almost killed movie theaters off, and the internet and Tivo have conspired together to remake the television landscape.

Other inventions or innovations are a lot more obvious. You can instantly understand how they will change everything. Today, I learned about one such innovation, and lemme tell you, it’s Katie bar the door time in Telecommunications Land. I speak of the imminent release of Google Voice. Read the rest of this entry »

…THAT is the question. I live Amarillo, Texas (Centrally Located Between Two Oceans!™). We are served by AT&T, Altel (now owned by Verison), Sprint, and…that’s about it. No T-Mobile. No other choices. That wouldn’t be so bad, but of all the cell phone vendors we have here in the Panhandle, how many offer 3G service? None. Nada. Zip. Bupkiss. Nyet. Zero.

Color me frustrated. Read the rest of this entry »