Verizon to iPhone, 'iWhatever'

Have had the iPhone for a week now. the Phoen simply rules. Yes the Edge Network is slower, but as the previous poster from South of Philly stated...there are so many WiFi spots that it really dosent matter. The times that I am not WiFi....i am usually driving my car...and probably shouldnt be surfing the internet anyway.

The other thing that people are not taking into account is that while this may be the edge network, it is also OS X....which process data far better and faster than any Microsoft application/OS ever could (or will)...and I swear by My PC (although...I may just have to get a MAC now that I have seen all Leopard can do and I am so disappointed with Vista).

My only disappointment with the iPhone is that there is no MMS thru text messaging. I have to email photos to other peoples accounts (such as userphone#@mms.att.com) but it does work, and other people have to email me...but they are emailing my personal email (that I can easily check on my iPhone).

Well... let me "disclose" that the wife and I both bought an iPhone and we love them, from an "everything but the kitchen sink" feature perspective combined with an extremely easy to use interface (hell, my grandma got on the internet for the first time in her life within five minutes of playing), the iPhone simply blows away the competition. Period.

We both had old cell phones and had been wanting to replace our 2G iPods, so this made perfect sense for us. But this isn't about the iPhone per-say, but the network.

We've been a Cellular One.. err.. Cingular.. err.. AT&T customer for over 12 years now and have honestly never had a problem with the carrier. Although we're only 45 minutes south of Philadelphia, we live in a very "rural" area. There are many places (whole towns sometimes) where those on other carriers get no signal whatsoever. I was given a Sprint phone through work a few years back and the wife was given a Verizon phone through her work. We ended up just forwarding those numbers to our Cingular phones because they worked sporadic at best. For the life of me, I can't remember ever having a "dropped call" with Cingul..err..AT&T.

I also don't really understand all of the fuss with the Edge network. Granted my office has wifi, my home has wifi, hell even the coffee shop in town has wifi, so 80% of the time I'm lucky enough to around an access point. But even for that other 20% I have nothing to complain about. Since we've bought them I've consistently benched between 150-200kbps. Anyone old enough to remember surfing on a 14.4k dialup would find this speed to be respectable and at the very least acceptable. My email works instantaneously, the maps pop up super quick, even most youtube videos load faster than they will play.

For something that fits in your pocket, I really think some of you are asking too much. We are blessed to have this sort of technology yet some people like to piss and moan just because they can. If AT&T coverage is poor in your area than I can understand your gripes, but if not I'm not sure anything that comes out will really ever please you.

This was the reason I switched from Verizon in the first place ... the "whatever" attitude. Only this time it wasn't directed at a phone, it was directed at me as a customer. When I tried to get support on my phone and network problems I basically ended up getting a "so switch to another network, we don't care because we're so huge"

Perhaps they have better customer service elsewhere ... but this left an EXTREMELY bad taste in my mouth. So now I am sitting very happy with US Cellular with excellent coverage (never less than 5 bars in my local area) and amazing people to help you out.

Once AT&T improves their network in my area (or more importantly when I can actually afford an iPhone) I'll be switching ... but until then I am very happy to be with such an awesome cell phone company.

Verizon is playing up the only - and its a Big 'un - strength they have: their network. That's smart.
The problem is that by doing so they're ignoring issues that really matter to some of their customers. With a game-changer like the iPhone that could really bite them, but only time will tell.

When thr iPhone deal with Cingular was announced, everyone chimed in about how lousy they were.

When Cingular switched to AT&T, everyone chimed in about how big a mistake Apple made by not going with someone more reliable...like Verizon.

Now that Verizon’s written an admittedly poorly titled memo, the bashing has begun again, aimed at the very provider everyone thought should have gotten the iPhone deal in the first place.

C’mon, folks. Face it. There’s *no such thing* as a perfect service provider, and the sooner we all just accept the fact every choice we have involves some kind of trade off, well....do the math.

I’ve been on Verizon since long before it was called Verizon (15 years? 16 years?). Yes, I hate that certain features are locked out, and that essentially, their phones are PC-oriented. But would I switch to one of the other providers for worse coverage or worse service? Nope. What fun would an iPhone be if I was constantly ticked off at the service provider behind it?

Try BitPim for your phone problems. Also surf around the Howard forums for phone help.

Anyways...

I hate Verizon's "give me money" schemes. It seems the major carriers market/cater to a different group.

Verizon SEEMS to be going for the people that want reliability and coverage overall. They lock phones to get the masses to spend the 25¢ for the pix/text/video..et al messages, $20 a month for wireless syncing..or whatever you want to do. Sad to think that I have been on Verizon for just over 3 years and have seen them more than double and triple prices on items. I remember when ringtone and music were 99¢. Apps were like $1.99 for unlimited use. Now its...$2.99 for a ringtone or $1.99 for one week program use.

ATT/Cingular/ATT seems to cater/market to the tech crowd. They get the iPhone..they get the better phones overall. Sony Walkman phones..cool Nokia phones..etc. You can change your phone simpley by taking SIM card from phone to phone.

T-Mobile & Altel..well..I havent heard too much from them lately but it seems they are trying to cater to people just wanting to talk on a cheaply priced phone. They both seem to be grasping for air being smooshed between the iPhone and VZW.

Sprint seems to be all about the annoying walkie talkie business/redneck crowd. They seem to be people (at least around here) that want to be seen as much as the person that has a phone strickly for the new Justin Timberlake ringtone they have in their library of 100s. They are the same older Gen that want to be "hip" and leave their cell phone ringers on in a college class or in a business meeting. "OH! Let me get that after it has been ringing 4 - 5 times!"

As for me...ATT is horrible around where I live. I live in between about three major cities and the reception is still horrible. Dropping calls like crazy around here. Sprint has a defined line around here too...get on the major highway and travel 10 minutes north and you instantly don't have any service for a good 10 miles or so. No this is not a forest area either. So my choices are quite limited around here. I hate Verizon for the money grubbing ways but the wife (the talker) has most of her family on the network. It is the best reception where I am at too.

So I guess I will keep feeding the beast!

...althought "iWhatever" is about as bad as all the other i"Insert-item-here" marketing of the last 7 or so years.

I'm glad you Verizon customers have Verizon coverage. There is no Verizon coverage in my state whatsoever. So there is really no comparison between the two.

Verizon cripples phones and you can't swap phones at will like with GSM. Just like you can't just buy neat phones from overseas and use them here.

ATT has HSDPA in major cities, which is much faster than EVDO.

I think you're misunderstanding the idea of "disclosure."

If Verizon sponsored your blog or paid you in some other way, or if they gave you a break on your phone or phone service, that would be a disclosure of a quid pro quo arrangement.

What you really mean here is that you can personally vouch for what Verizon is claiming by virtue of your own experience.

It would be silly of someone to claim "Well _of course_ McNulty would report that Verizon has better coverage, he uses a Verizon phone!"

Not to overextrapolate here, but I think you're being sensitive to the fanboy syndrome, where, for example, anyone who uses an Apple product and has something positive to say about an Apple product has their opinion rejected and branded as fanboyism.

Verizon has nothing to fear... after all, they get their quarter every time I want a picture from my Bluetooth-capable phone to be on my computer... since I'm forced to send it, rather than just transfer.