Posts Tagged ATT
Gone, but not forgotten.. ATT strikes back with ineptitude.
I can’t get rid of this stupid iPhone. As my sister said “getting rid of that thing is like getting rid of AOL!”
I gave ATT a few days to get my contract and stuff back to normal – ie, back to before I got the iPhone. After 4 days, my account is still claiming I have the iPhone contract.. yet is aware that I am using my old BB. MMhmmm.. about that iPhone contract – shouldn’t it like.. NOT WORK with my BB? That’s how ATT seems to sell it – as if it is some separate beast..
Figuring it would be a quick fix, I called ATT last night before heading to the Verizon store. Funnily, the ATT stores close at 7pm, yet Verizon stores are open till 9pm. I talk to Regina for a bit and explain the situation. She has to talk to her manager. This goes on for a while – she can’t do anything without her manager. Sure, fine, she seems new, no problem. After a good 10 minutes of awkward questions (“did you eat dinner yet?”) she finally announces that ATT cannot help me over the phone, that the store has complete control over this issue – as it is an error on their behalf. Fine, just another nail in the coffin, ATT.
I hang up and go check out the Verizon store. Busy place even after 8pm on a Tuesday. The Tour is a popular item. I played with it a bit – and yup, its a 100% mashup of the Bold keyboard in a Curve sized body. Its a really nice looking device. Typing is different, but good. I checked out the Storm, and ugh what a mess that thing is. Not a fan, could never deal with it. Touchscreen just is not for me. Also played with the Pearl Flip – nice device.. much faster than my 8100 but not as nice as the Tour, etc. The size is kinda funny – oddly large when its opened – but its lightweight and has Suretype (which I do enjoy). Went back to the Tour – tested out some web action, camera, and other toys. Its a powerful phone. I figure I could get used to the keys and be happy. Not wanting to “take a number” to talk to a rep, esp since my ATT account is in limbo, I left, content.
Swung by ATT today. Talk to the doood who sold me the phone initially. Apparently my contract was already in their sites – was sitting on a desk – and he pulled it right up and acknowledged the error. “Didn’t you get a new Blackberry or something?” he asks. “No.. you could not give me my upgrade price due to the iPhone contract.. and I still can’t get that”, I calmly added. Further explaining that “I need to know what my pricing will be before I buy a phone.”
He seems to understand, however.. he could not FIX my contract error without his manager, who was.. “out”, possibly back in 20 minutes. Ugh. He says they will take care of it and will let me know. Ok.. so I go and play with the phones a bit more. Bold – still the best keyboard of all. Really awesome. Unfortunately the phone is a really gigantic. Sure feels nice, but way too big. Curve 8900 – typed a bit and came to decide that I’d be happier with the Tour keyboard. I made less errors in less time, so figured that’s sign enough. I did test out Youtube on the 8900 and it worked just fine.. though I am not sure if that was via edge or wifi. As I am playing, the sales guy goes up to my cancellation guy and tells him he screwed up. Yeah, rub it in, smart guy, but no one’s fixing my issue..
I left after about 10 minutes and have decided to give them a whole day to fix this. No call yet, and the store is now closed as its after 7. Tomorrow afternoon I will give them one final chance to give me my old contract back.. and then it will get ugly. Little does ATT know.. that as soon as they fix this, I am cancelling them and moving over to VZW. This stupid debacle has sealed it.
I quit. Back to mobile device limbo..
My month ran up, and I had to make the decision – deal with the phone for 2 years, or just return and hope to find something that suits my needs better.. and the choice was pretty simple. I went to ATT and returned it, no questions asked – and reactivated my Pearl for the time being.
Now that I am back on my BB, there are some things I must give the iPhone credit for. The GPS/Gmaps integration is terrific. Being able to delete/read my junk mail via IMAP in Gmail – awesome. Very good call quality, as well. I don’t have any regrets, however.
Sure, my Pearl barely can run Gmaps anymore and uses cell tower triangulation. Sure, it doesn’t want to use IMAP w/Gmail.. and yeah, calls aren’t great. But most of these are going to be fixed with probably any new device, so I will make do in the short term. Oh, and yeah I was back to a crappy camera. Oh wait, I there was no change in crappiness, except now I had a flash again, and could upload photos directly to FB again after taking a shot – or send right to Google Talk, or BBM, or even Twitter, if I gave a crap about Twitter.
What’s next?
I went into ATT with the intention to change from the iPhone to the Curve 8900, and if that didn’t work for me, I could return it in a month. Well ATT wanted $300 for the device in store – which I laughed at – and left without. Last I checked my 2 years of servitude would provide me the 8900 for $99 according to their website. However, it seems I don’t have any upgrade eligibility after signing the iPhone contract that is now nullified. Hmm. ATT might be getting a phone call very soon. It shouldn’t take 4 days to revert me to my old “free agent” status.
So for the moment, the 8900 cannot be had at a price I am willing to pay. That leaves me no choice but to strongly consider the BB Tour, over on Verizon – which was released the day after I reverted to my Pearl. As it turns out, as well, I could get my service for $70 on VZW too – instead of the $85ish I pay at ATT. That’s a good chunk of savings.
That decision is still pending. For now, I have my “connection” back and can stop using SMS again.
3 weeks in – losing.. patience..
More weeks, more apps, more observations.
3 whole weeks have gone by – the honeymoon is over folks! Latest obsevations..
- Touch screen has some trouble in humidity. Getting into the car on a rainy nasty day, the screen barely responds to my fingers.
- 3G SUCKS in some areas, even with “full signal”. Its a funny thing – you expect broadband speed because the phone says 3G.. yet at times (especially north of Boston) it feels much slower than EDGE.
- When this thing’s memory is chewed up, it does not tell you, does not show you, and has VERY irritating behavior. For instance.. you cannot compose, or reply to an email. You click on stuff and it simply does nothing. At least TELL me there’s a problem, Apple. I don’t mind rebooting (I used a Blackberry for years, remember) – so don’t pretend everything’s fine and simply ignore my requests. And when apps crash – how about an error message?? I have seen most of my apps crash – some repeatedly – but with no explanation. WTF, Apple? You think my not having a clunky error message, your phone is more user friendly? Tell me what the hell is wrong, so I know how to fix it. Is there “an app for that”?
- Camera – still garbage unless perfectly still, in bright sunlight. Now there’s all this talk of adding cameras to ipods and whatnot – oy. From a photo nerd, this is a sad, sad thing. I am still shocked at the camera’s deficiencies (have to use the touch screen, slow to load, slow to shoot, tendency to warp photos, horrid low-light performance)
- AT&T’s own iPhone app, “myWireless” – you know, the one to access your account and everything you need from your fancy phone? It has not worked for over a week. Simply sits there saying “loading”. Thanks ATT. Nice work. Really.
- App Updates – two things here. When you have several updates from the App Store, you can only run one at a time. So.. you go to App Store, hit Updates, and pick an app to update. Then you exit the App Store so it can load the new app. Then you have to load up the App Store all over again, and repeat. This is assinine. Why isn’t there an “update all”??? Found out there is, but only via iTunes – and if you are trying to use this as a laptop replacement, uh, yeah, fail.
- A word on Safari. Its a great browser, when it stays open. Have experienced several crashes, because all of its “tabs” apparently can consume a pile of memory. Why not have a “close all windows” option for me? Hmm? Cause if I exit to do something else, you keep my last web page in memory – I don’t need that.
- The IM issue. In my last post, I mentioned that I could buy an IM client that used Push notification to kind of be “online”. It occurred to me later that Apple gets a chunk of that money. So I am essentially paying Apple to keep their phones crippled? Oh, HELL no. So shortly after that, a free chat client has come out, that could potentially give me “live” IM access to Google Talk, via Push notifications. YAY, right? I installed it and came very close to “signing in” when it occurred to me – my precious email login credentials are suddenly about to be stored on some server that I know nothing about. I don’t even know who’s running it, or how secure it is! I am not OK with sharing my personal information with random 3rd parties. Sorry, Apple.
- About that hardware.. It crushes my old Blackberry – I don’t contest that. However.. it is not so “magical”, I am finding. Using anything that tries to ‘autofill’ is mind bogglingly annoying. The thing chews up all of its cycles trying to guess what you are typing, to the degree that it stops accepting input from your typing. Using Google Search is a joke.. takes forever to type your terms, and have the time it falsely submits your query without asking. It is painful. Sending a photo over email – same thing, things get amazingly sluggish as you try to select your recipients.
So.. I have one more week with this thing, before I head back to the ATT store to see about a return. I have some concerns from the “drop” as the shitty plastic backing got a bit chewed up. Could someone tell me why that isnt rubberized still? Oh yeah, it wouldnt be as sexy.
Using this phone very often leaves me as irritated and frustrated as my old run-down Blackberry did. That is not acceptable.