Only bummer is Jobsco can’t control the crappy network service AT&T is attempting to provide (which is soiling the reputation of the iPhone and hurting it’s growth.) I am a resident of a suburb of New York City. Each day thousands of iPhone users and I struggle through a dark commute. The AT&T service basically is non - usable for 80% of the ride (see image below: the box represents little or no service). This is inexcusable and destroys almost 2 hours a day of productive time.

Sad thing for Apple is there is little utility for a fantastic device if it can’t access the web. FYI: Verizon subscribers have connectivity the entire way. (I tested this myself on a droid for 2 weeks).

Further bad news for Apple: I have watched as many familiar train faces have shown up with new Verizon blackberries or Droids. Folks are to putting down their iPhones for a better network, or even worse, starting to carry two devices (this wastes money and kills the elegance of a single device, charger, platform, etc. Thanks to AT&T, technology has once again made people’s lives more complicated- shame on them). This New England commuter use case demonstrates further why Apple needs to build a CDMA iPhone folks could use on the superior Verizon network. I would pay full price at this point for a CDMA and contract free Verizon iPhone, as I am sure many others would from DC to Boston.

Simply stated AT&T service is horrible on my commute from Fairfield county to New York City. This is an affluent demographic that would likely pay full bullet for a data plan for the forthcoming iPad…but no one will till there is a CDMA version of the iPad or they buy a MIFI. AT&T’s argument that most recent network speed (not coverage consistency!) test that declared them winner (which is suspect in my mind…they clearly test in favorable environments and definitely do not test the common use cases of millions of commuter each day.)

AT&T got lucky with the iPhone. It covered up a glaring wound in their network… and they better bend over for Steve to keep the exclusivity so all the iPhone hardware loyalists theoretically stay locked in to a second tier network. As soon as there is a CDMA iPhone, you can bet on a mass exodus from ATT.

Its too bad amazing hardware doesn’t make up for crappy network coverage. For the love of god, Verizon and Apple, will you please get this deal done, its a no brainer!

I just read an interesting post regarding the Droid release on Fone Frenzy.

The thing that stood out for me was that Motorola, not Verizon paid for the anti-iPhone campaign. So why do we care? Simply stated, Verizon doesn’t risk incurring Cupertino’s wrath and ruin the prospect of having a CDMA iPhone running Verizon.

An excerpt form the post:

“My sources have confirmed that Apple and Verizon have been testing a CDMA iPhone on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Yes, you read that correctly, Verizon and Apple have been testing the first 4G phone on Verizon’s 4G network. The tests have been taking place for the last couple of months but with no confirmation on the release date.”

One might safely assume that Verizon still wants the option of having iPhone on its network after all!

1. Will the phone have a solid way to backup photos and videos to the desktop? No point in creating all the content if we aren’t able to integrate it into our desktop editing and archiving apps. Sure there will be youtube and picassa integration, but what about easy integration on the desktop?
2. Will the phone play nicely with itunes? Pre has had their problems…iTunes is the dominant leader. An easy sync solution here would be wildly popular.
3. Will the Verzon network break with a game changing device like at+t’s did? Only time will tell…
4. Will Verizon let us tweak and customize our own phones? They have a not so stellar past of maintaining walled gardens to prevent anyone else form monetizing the platform.

When we see this thing live in the flesh, we will know some of these answers. Looking forward to playing with one!

We were just ranked #9! Link is here or read our blog post.

1. Do you think Apple would be more, or less, successful if they adopted a more open strategy (i.e. allowing other MP3 players in iTunes)?
I agree 100% that “open always wins”. However, that implementation of that maxim is very dangerous as we have seen in the past with issues with apps not playing well with others or hurting OS performance in the windows world (and early mac OS systems. Remember the days of rebooting with extensions off to one by one rule out the offending extension?). The reason why consumer technology has been littered with frustration and failure was the lack of well thought out user experiences. Think about how many remote controllers you have with 60 buttons. Think about how many user manuals you have over 60 pages. Most tech manufactures ship a product that puts a huge onus on the technical proficiencies of the ned user. Yet most  folks simply dont have the attention or time to learn the ins and the outs of each device. People are tired of needing a secret decoder ring for each OS, device or service. Apple is popular despite its poor behavior because people know they are getting simple. (to me, the most innovative feature in the first iPhone  was its 4 page manual…it spoke worlds to how well Apple had designed the experience.

The “command and control” perspective that JobsCo employs does work with technology, as Apple has illustrated time and time again. As  we all would agree, Apple is a design company first and foremost, and what they do very well is bury complexity with design so that a broader audience of end users can adopt technology and realize the productivity benefits more easily. Things “just work” for the consumer because Apple constrains what the user can do. That being said, I think they can become more successful by becoming a more open ecosystem as you suggest.

I believe Apple’s next truly great design accomplishment will be to design an environment for their products where openness can be embraced (and where the end user assumes the risk, as you suggested in your piece). As you suggest, I believe that Apple will be forced by the market  (more consumers are getting more tech savvy and demanding more open solutions and folks like Leo, Scoble, and Peter are helping them identify the freedoms they seek). I believe Apple will find ways similar to the ones you suggest to become more open and still maintain the stability of “it just works” for the 90% of folks that dont care and are happy to be told what they want/need.

2. Do you think Apple should face serious antitrust action?

They should and they will and they will become better for it.

3. Do you think Apple’s dexterity and competence forgive their bad behavior?

To some extent (see above), it does. They have to make design decisions that restrict freedom to insure that the end user experience will be solid. Restrictions or constraints are key issues when designing great software (good read “Getting Real” form the 37 Signals team) and how you handle them will greatly effect the outcome. (For instance, unrestricted freedom results in the registry nightmares many Windows users often suffer.) I applaud Apple’s identification that design itself is a differentiator in the very highly complex world of consumer technology. Their steadfast commitment to easy and intuitive solutions will help them continue to dominate as technology becomes inherently more technical. People have less time for secret decoder rings, so Apple products will continue to grow in market share. However, as you have identified two new realities should result as we rely more and more on technical solutions:

1. Apple finds a way to design a more open user experience so that these monopolistic behaviors can be eliminated (some of them can go right now!).
2. The rest of the consumer technology industry should step up and take the design challenge to begin to design experiences that are easy and intuitive…and don’t require a CSS competency to figure out.

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the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy yellow moon

so fans so good. Now for something less generic:

my crimes patrick lives in pali Alto California

conclusion:
I really wish jobs and co would build am iPhone with a real keyboard

I cant wait till someone figures this out for project planning and contextual information linking!