Many months ago, I wrote about adding data packages to AT&T Pay As You Go accounts. I had hacktivated my iPhone to use the PAYG SIM to see how long it took to go through an entire 5MB data feature package. Answer? A few minutes. In case you don't see where I'm going with this, let me add that I just got off the phone with AT&T a few seconds ago. They have now officially added a new feature data package: for $19.95 you get unlimited data for 30 days.
The way this works is as follows. You go to an AT&T store and buy a $100 prepaid SIM. This SIM is good for one year of use. You get a phone number, you get $100 of credit. Calls cost you either $0.25/minute or $1/day of use plus $0.10/minute. You pick which one when you set up the account.
Posted May 11th 2008 6:00PM by Mat Lu Filed under: iPhone
AT&T has been teasing us with free iPhone wifi. First it was on then it was off, and AT&T didn't seem to be saying anything. Well the New York Times finally got somebody to say something official and apparently the launch of the service was "human error" but AT&T "has long planned to offer free Wi-Fi to customers with iPhones and other phones that have Wi-Fi capability" as a "way of differentiating the AT&T network and giving customers another reason to choose us over a competitor."
The upshot: free iPhone (and other smartphone) wifi is coming from AT&T, but they're not saying when. My guess is that they may roll it out to coincide with the launch of the 3G iPhone.
As usual, we have no idea if this is the real thing, a prototype, or just a little Photoshop fakery. The most obvious difference between what Engadget saw first and what's posted here is the color on the back, but then again, why wouldn't Apple release iPhones in different colors? They've certainly done that with iPods.
None of this guarantees anything, but I will say that if I was shopping for an iPhone, the AT&T memo would be enough for me to hold off on a purchase until mid-June at least. There is an iPhone update storm coming, and the thunder and lightning seem to be getting closer together.
RBC analyst Mark Abramsky says that the iPhone will exceed its projected goal of 10 million devices sold in 2008 -- possibly by selling upwards of 14 million. How is Apple going to get these sales figures? Well, Abramsky suggests that AT&T could subsidize the iPhone by up to $200 for the 8GB model. This would mean the 8GB iPhone could sell for as little as $199 (previously rumored here); and possibly increase sales by 50 to 100 percent. According to Abramsky, this would mean Apple would have to drop revenue sharing with AT&T.
Mr. Abramsky also believes that Apple will start to sell unlocked iPhones (or iPhones without a specific carrier) without a premium over the AT&T iPhones. He suggest that unlocked iPhones could increase the adoption rate by two to three times for Apple's phone.
All of Abramsky's conjecture hinges on Apple and AT&T agreeing to end their 5 year exclusivity agreement early. We here at TUAW see no real reason for either company to agree to that, at least not in the States.
Last week we posted about AT&T offering free WiFi access for iPhone customers at several of their hotspot locations, including a few Starbucks stores. According to MacRumors, AT&T has disabled this free service. However, since AT&T never made an official announcement of this service, it seems possible that the free service was launched early (possibly for testing). AT&T representatives have declined to comment on the issue.
If you got a glimpse of the free future and have now seen that wireless door slam shut again, let us know.
A MacRumors tipster has discovered a treat for iPhone users from AT&T. It would seem that AT&T is offering free wireless internet access via an iPhone in Starbucks (we posted about the Starbucks-AT&T deal a little while ago) as well as in Barnes and Nobles and 71,000 other locations.
MacRumors notes that you must enter your mobile iPhone number as a means of verification. A picture of the portal home page is available on MacRumors.
Posted Apr 30th 2008 12:00PM by Mat Lu Filed under: iPhone
It's not surprising that the hearing impaired also want to share in the iPhone experience, but until recently they had to sign up for the same voice plans as everyone else. Now, however, AT&T is introducing the $40/month Text Accessibility Plan which offers:
Unlimited SMS messages
Unlimited data usage (email and web)
$.40 per minute pay-per-use voice
Visual VoiceMail
To qualify you have to complete "the disability certification forms" found here (download link). New users activate their iPhones in the normal way through iTunes and then have to contact AT&T's National Center for Customers with Disabilities to change over the Text Accessibility Plan.
Everyone seems to think that Apple will be announcing a 3G iPhone this coming June, so now it is time to start rumormongering about something else. Fortune is reporting that, according to sources close to the story, AT&T is planning on taking a $200 hit on every iPhone sold (with a 2 year contract, of course). That's right, AT&T is going to knock off $200 on the 3G iPhone to ensure that everyone and their toddlers have (and use all the wonderful features that AT&T's network has to offer) an iPhone or two in their pocket.
This rumor doesn't seem too outlandish to me, given the realities of the cell phone market. Most cell phones are given away for free, since the carriers make their money from the monthly fees. The only wrinkle in the story, of course, is that Apple also receives a cut of the money from the monthly contracts. We'll see if that impacts AT&T's plans at all.
It was only a couple months ago that Starbucks announced that AT&T would take over hotspot services from T-Mobile. Now the WiFi hotspots are rolling out to some of the Starbucks stores. David Chartier, of previous TUAW and now ArsTechnica fame, recently posted an article on his personal blog about the portal and what it offers. He also took the picture that you can see above.
According to David, AT&T is giving WiFi users 2 free hours of access per day. But AT&T didn't stop there -- they designed an iPhone-specific portal to sign onto the service. A local Starbucks manager told David that all 7,000+ Starbucks stores in the US should be "finished by summer."
I should note that this iPhone portal isn't specific to Starbucks -- every AT&T WiFi hotspot features the same interface -- and all devices are eligible for the 2 free hours of access (not just iPhones and iPod touches). Any WiFi device should be able to logon to the service. It is nice to see AT&T finally giving connectivity away for free.
Posted Mar 10th 2008 8:00AM by Mat Lu Filed under: iPhone
Over the last couple of weeks several of the big cell carriers having been rolling out "unlimited" talk packages, including AT&T. Well it appears that they've gotten around to adding the iPhone to the mix as the Apple iPhone rates page now features an unlimited plan. For $119.99 a month you get unlimited talk time (but the same 200 SMS text messages as the other plans). Since all iPhone plans have unlimited data really the only thing you get is the unlimited talk time. Nonetheless, if you're a big talker (and don't live in Alaska) you might want to check out this upgrade.
The biggest challenge I encountered when lobbying for an iPhone at work wasn't the price, or the fact that is only kinda sorta supports Exchange (IMAP, I love you, but you are no ActiveSync) but rather it was bureaucratic in nature. There was simply no way to buy an iPhone using a corporate account. I got around this by buying the iPhone myself, and paying the monthly bill myself (aren't I clever?).
Luckily for well heeled corporate drones everywhere AT&T has announcedEnterprise plans for the iPhone. The rates are pretty much the same, but the beauty is that some faceless, soulless corporation will be footing the bill for you (ain't capitalism grand?).
You know what they say: let the good times class action lawsuits roll! Or something like that. The latest in what I'm sure is to be a long list of iPhone-related class action lawsuits was filed in New York today over the iPhone's SIM card lock-in, as well as what the plaintiff alleges is Apple withholding of information on roaming data charges. The plaintiff, Herbert H. Kliegerman, wants the iPhone unlock code, and he also wants to restrain Apple from selling iPhones without disclosing both that the included SIM cards are locked to AT&T, and that users could incur roaming data charges when traveling internationally. We have a PDF of the lawsuit (sent to us directly by the plaintiff), but considering the facts that:
Kliegerman's complaints seem to have much more to do with AT&T's practices than Apple's
US SIM cards, to my knowledge, are always locked to their particular provider, meaning travelers have always had to purchase some kind of other phone service or an international SIM
I don't think Kliegerman has much of a leg to stand on. Plus, he sent this to us himself, which reeks of digging for 15 seconds in the spotlight - but who am I to shoot down his hopes? Anyone, particularly those who travel and know more about US mobile phone company practices, care to place some bets as to how far he'll get with this?
If you were one of the unfortunate souls caught up in the AT&T activation limbo, some readers are reporting that you might be able to reclaim at least a few bucks for your pain and suffering. As the story goes, AT&T is apparently refunding the $36 activation fee to those who call and present their story of iPhone despair. Of course, it would probably help if you're cordial while explaining instead of reliving the memory entirely, but a refund of such a comparatively small amount of money doesn't sound like too much skin off AT&T's back to make up for doing such a dreadful job handling the iPhone Weekend.
If you try this, let us know what your experience is like. There are no guarantees here, and I was fortunate to get activated right away so I don't have any personal gripes. Good luck with those calls.
First AT&Tbotches what is probably the most significant activation event in mobile phone history, and now they're including the complete data records - and I mean complete - in the first iPhone-related bills they're sending out to customers. Both David Pogue and John Gruber are reporting that their first post-iPhone bill from AT&T includes multiple pages (6 for Pogue, a whopping 45 for Gruber) of every chunk of data they downloaded for the account period. Now this isn't a rational listing like "nytimes.com, tuaw.com, goapeshirts.com," no no - every graphic downloaded from every page and the time and data of every message sent and received laid out in tree-obliterating detail that could only appeal to a rabid accountant.
Considering that every iPhone data plan includes the term "unlimited," no one can really figure out why AT&T went to all the bizarre trouble of listing all this information out. Is it some sort of vague warning for how much we might have to pay should they decide to threaten us with billing by kilobyte or megabyte? Did some AT&T billing engineer think that, since we're downloading 'just the internet,' we'd like to see detailed records of every bit and piece of what we're downloading? Or does some accounting intern simply have a grudge against a tree farm somewhere?
Whatever the case, this latest AT&T blunder reminds me why Apple likes to keep things locked down and under control. No one's going to want to read this stuff, but at the very least: if they just had to make it available, they should have included an announcement with paper bills that this detailed data usage could be accessed online. After all, the vast majority of iPhone customers probably have at least heard of the internets, so they would arguably have little to no problem accessing this useless bundle of info via AT&T's online account access.
Who cares whether Apple or AT&T might shut down your account or slam you with an exorbitant data bill - cre.ations.net figured out how to tether your iPhone to get web access with... well, EDGE. It may not be Wi-Fi or even EVDO, but EDGE should be able to save the day in a pinch, but none of us make any guarantees as to how long AT&T will permit this or what this hack could do to your bill. Proceed at your own risk.
That said, the cre.ations.net hack isn't exactly for the faint of heart either. You'll have to run some utilities, tinker with the command line and stand on your head to get this all set up properly, but once it is, the trick apparently works pretty well. Also, it appears the author wrote this so users across Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista can play along, so you can take liberties with that work notebook and get hacking.
Of course, I would chalk this feature up as yet another that would be great if Apple made far easier by building into the iPhone's software. Many, if not most, smartphones (and even regular phones) can be used for tethered web access, and a software update down the road would make a lot of mobile users happy.
AT&T has been teasing us with free iPhone wifi. First it was 
RBC analyst Mark Abramsky 
Everyone seems to 
The biggest challenge I encountered when lobbying for an iPhone at work wasn't the price, or the fact that is only kinda sorta supports Exchange (IMAP, I love you, but you are no ActiveSync) but rather it was bureaucratic in nature. There was simply no way to buy an iPhone using a corporate account. I got around this by buying the iPhone myself, and paying the monthly bill myself (aren't I clever?).
