EDGE and 3G and tripping down memory lane

thirded. snippy the bitch must die.

3G for voice (handovers) is reason enough to want a 3g iphone let alone the data speeds

Sony Erricson X1 for me.

I don't know why everyone hates edge so much. Most of pensacola is pretty snappy on it, and I get near 200kbps much of the time. I have been places where it is slower than molasses on a steaming pan of dry ice, but thats only been in alabama so far :D.
As a matter of fact, I listened to last.fm using my iPhone much of the way from FL to Ohio this past week with very few buffering issues (though in driving around Ohio I could barely hold on to a signal or get reasonable speeds on the highways).
I do not think it is EDGE that is the problem as much as it is the area the iPhone is used in. How many towers are there? What is the quality of the signal? etc.
If this is the case then we do not need a 3G iPhone (though I welcome it, and 3G access in P'cola), as much as we need the infrastructure to be improved. I wonder what the overall experience with TMobile EDGE has been.

Erica,

May I suggest you get a job, so you can afford the $240 a year.

Do you have dial-up, because you can't afford broadband either?

Stop the whining already, and keep your otherwise good postings coming.

AT&T MEdiaNet 200 plan is $19/month and gives 3G for smartphones that support it (ie. ATT Tilt, 8525, BlackJackII, Nokia N95-3 or 8GB). The point is, iPhone isn't your only option if you desire 3G access.

Like others have pointed out, there are ways to get "more" out of EDGE if you must use an iPhone. Personally, I find EDGE over iPhone tolerable, but would always welcome the faster speeds.

Erica, all this complaining about EDGE, paying for data plans, paying for voice plans, etc. and I still don't quite see what your proposed solution is. We all deal with paying for our service and while we all appreciate your contributions (and we really do) to the iPhone community griping about $20 a month service "add-ons" (mind you while many/most of us were used to paying $40+ for Blackberry or PDA Connect unlimited data plans to begin with) and limitations of the device does nobody any good.

If you're going to treat the iPhone and the services attached to it like the bane of your existence, it would be a little fairer to treat every Apple product like such.

In the age of releasing half-finished hardware in the hopes that any outstanding issues can be resolved via software updates, you could raise similar gripes about absolutely any piece of Apple hardware. I, for one, could think of dozens of things wrong about Apple's business model with iPod's, the iTunes store, Apple TV, and $2 ringtones, but instead I take a "It Is What It Is" approach.

Plain and simple, if you don't like paying for a service because of the way it's run ... well the logical thing to do is not pay for it and not use it.

I love what you do here and elsewhere, Erica ... but for the love of God, posts like these are childish and offensive for those of us who don't get paid to spend a few minutes of our time to bicker about having to pay for goods and services we utilize on a regular basis.

I don't know why everyone complains so much about EDGE on iPhone, I use EDGE constantly because the only place I'm around WiFi is at home. It is extremely fast for me. It's a little slower than 8MB/S Cable Internet on WiFi, but its most definately tolerable. It takes at most 10-15 seconds to load TUAW vs. ishcabittle's time of 2 minutes. It really isn't that bad to work on EDGE...

I second that!! ^^^

Well said, Michael.

I don't see what the issue is here. EDGE is slower. We all know this. That's like complaining that dial-up is slower than broadband. You use the fastest access you have available. Sometimes that means it's slow.