Verizon to get iPhone January 2011

[pangaea]

My understanding is that making the ipad 3g on ATT exclusively allowed Apple to sell the iphone on another domestic carrier.

That's not true at all, you can use it on any carrier, as long as you can find a MicroSIM card for them... which only limits you to ... ATT. Crap. Nevermind.

Although I do give ATT kudos for not making iPad users lock into to a subscription. You can change data service from month to month.

As to when the exclusivity runs out on the iPhone, the bottom line is that no one seems to know for sure. When the 1st Gen iPhone came out, the story was ATT had a 5 year exclusive. But it seems like every few months, a new "Verizon iPhone" rumor rears its head.

 

[toylandcruiser]

After all the problems Apple has with the new iPhone I have to wonder why anyone would care if they are available on Verizon or not when there are so many other great phones on the market.

(written by an iPhone 3G user)

The whole thing has been blown waaayy out of proportion. Every smart phone has issues with losing bars when there is a death grip on it. The iphone has always and will always be the standard that all other phones are held to.

 

[NorCalLC]

I've been with verizon for 8/9 yrs now and thru 4 different states. I've had dropped calls (few and far between) on every phone model including my HTC Eris. Which by the way, has its own problems. Locking you out when the phone gets too warm/hot (it's heat sensitive).

I almost switched to at&t for the IPhone but realized, their customer service was lacking compared to Verizon (rep couldn't answer my question about data usage so he tried to sell me high speed internet) TOOL!

I never know what to believe with the IPhone/Verizon rumors because it goes back and forth. I also don't think I would buy one now, but mainly due to the ever changing choice in phones. That's actually my biggest gripe, phones being outdated too quickly. But that's progress.....

 

[eugene]

The whole thing has been blown waaayy out of proportion. Every smart phone has issues with losing bars when there is a death grip on it. The iphone has always and will always be the standard that all other phones are held to.

Not every smart phone has issues loosing bars, thats why Apple had to find a couple specific models that they could get to in controlled conditions, the majority of (well designed) smartphones only drop a barely measurable amount. This is what I mean when I say people will believe anything Jobs says no matter how he has to stretch the truth. A well designed smartphone puts the antenna someplace where the "death grip" doesn't affect it, i.e. someplace where its not covered by the hand during normal use. For example my droid its in the 'chin' where your hand doesn't cover it and even then if I try to intentionally cover it I can only get a db or two drop, not enough to drop bars or cause reception problems. Companies like RIM, Nokia, Motorola, etc actually know how to design antennas and don't have the iphone issue. Thats one reason Jobs will never get any of my $, he has to stretch the truth too far that I consider it a downright lie.

 

[pangaea]

Since it's kind of topical, a great article came out in Wired today about the tumultuous relationship between Apple and AT&T:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_att_fail/

 

[toylandcruiser]

Not every smart phone has issues loosing bars, thats why Apple had to find a couple specific models that they could get to in controlled conditions, the majority of (well designed) smartphones only drop a barely measurable amount. This is what I mean when I say people will believe anything Jobs says no matter how he has to stretch the truth. A well designed smartphone puts the antenna someplace where the "death grip" doesn't affect it, i.e. someplace where its not covered by the hand during normal use. For example my droid its in the 'chin' where your hand doesn't cover it and even then if I try to intentionally cover it I can only get a db or two drop, not enough to drop bars or cause reception problems. Companies like RIM, Nokia, Motorola, etc actually know how to design antennas and don't have the iphone issue. Thats one reason Jobs will never get any of my $, he has to stretch the truth too far that I consider it a downright lie.

But see i dont have the issue at all. The funny thing is, Apple is the one that brought the "issue" to up. I have one and i have had zero problems with it. No other smart phone has sold as many phones as Apple has in this short amount of time.

I just tested my wife's blackberry and it lost all but one bar. I let go of it and it went back to 5 bars.

 

[pangaea]

Not every smart phone has issues loosing bars, thats why Apple had to find a couple specific models that they could get to in controlled conditions, the majority of (well designed) smartphones only drop a barely measurable amount. This is what I mean when I say people will believe anything Jobs says no matter how he has to stretch the truth.

What is fair to say though is that every smartphone out there has reception issues. I've been using them in various fashions since the Palm Treo (which had a big external antenna btw) and without fail a simple candy bar or flip phone gets MUCH better coverage in marginal areas.

Driving down out of the mountains to Denver on 285, my wife's Nokia or a friends Motorola flip phone would get coverage almost 10 miles before any of my smart phones with all 3 phones on Verizon.

 

[TJDIV]

Interesting thread:

I spent 2 hours on the phone with AT&T today about our service being down. All of AT&T up here has been junk. The iPhone rocks. We can debate apples to apples all day long. I've used my share of smart phones, still pissed that I can't dial WiFi calls with the iPhone for free without Skype (soon to not be free anyway). I would love to rock the HTC Incredible and roll over to Google, much the same way that I'm set up with Mac. I'm literally 49/51 on that...so why make any changes?? Seriously, had a bad experience with iPhoto, dug deeper into Picasa and was happy with how they've improved that. Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups, the fact that I'm in the Web Dev / Web Marketing biz... :REOutShootinghunter

So, ****** do ya do? I'm just going to sit and wait a few weeks. There is something up with Apple and the reception issues, but a remedy is forthcoming and it'll all be a distant memory (hey, anyone remember that oil spill in the Gulf?)

I'm betting that Apple will come through, and that I'll have an iPhone4 and be fine with it. Thanks for letting me vent off a frustrating day

Fingers Crossed

 

[eugene]

What is fair to say though is that every smartphone out there has reception issues. I've been using them in various fashions since the Palm Treo (which had a big external antenna btw) and without fail a simple candy bar or flip phone gets MUCH better coverage in marginal areas.

Driving down out of the mountains to Denver on 285, my wife's Nokia or a friends Motorola flip phone would get coverage almost 10 miles before any of my smart phones with all 3 phones on Verizon.

I have the opposite experience, my smartphones have no reception issues. In the mountains of WV I get a signal on my droid and did on my q9m when my wife's LG Env doesn't. My previous 'dumb' phones has reception issues there as well but smartphones do better.
But thats just two people, you and I, if you research and find that many people are very happy with the reception on their droids and other smartphones, they have higher expectations due to the higher price tag and generally the smartphones meet those higher expectations. The iphone is the only smartphone which doesn't meet expectations, partly due to the overhype on it setting the expectations higher and partly due to form over function design.

 

[DrMoab]

So...has anyone with an iPhone 4.0 actually had it drop a call when you hold it um...er...wrong?

Listened to an interesting podcast with Leo Leporte where he had a dude on who is an RF antenna tech. He claims that in all their tests they could in fact cause it to lose bars but not drop calls. He also stated that the fix that Apple is going to push out is just a patch that will use a different algorithm to show how many bars you have.

I think this is going to be interesting.

 

[pangaea]

So...has anyone with an iPhone 4.0 actually had it drop a call when you hold it um...er...wrong?

Listened to an interesting podcast with Leo Leporte where he had a dude on who is an RF antenna tech. He claims that in all their tests they could in fact cause it to lose bars but not drop calls. He also stated that the fix that Apple is going to push out is just a patch that will use a different algorithm to show how many bars you have.

I think this is going to be interesting.

I'm not sure. All the feedback I've heard from iPhone4 users (directly, not heresay) is that it has better overall reception, excluding the so called death grip. Can't say for certain about the dropped calls.

However, supposedly, the 4.0.1 software that was just pushed out earlier this week fixes the algorithm you're talking about.