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- Like AT&T, O2 Feels the Strain, but Doesn't Whine About iPhone Customers
Shortly before Christmas, my iPhone started misbehaving. I’d get an odd little notification message popping up on the screen telling me it “Could not activate cellular data network.” Despite not usually getting odd little errors on the iPhone, I didn’t worry too much about it. After all, I assumed, it is the holiday season; people are calling family and friends more than at any other time (well, except, perhaps, for New Year’s Eve). I just assumed it would right itself.
24 hours later it was still misbehaving, but by that time I’d finally snapped and decided to look into it. A call to O2 resulted in a recorded message that was played before the usual welcome message; “We are experiencing some difficulties,” an overly sympathetic voice cooed, “We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this might have caused.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course).
I didn’t stop there — I asked the mighty Google for more information, and it turns out those ‘difficulties’ affected quite a number of O2’s customers, both iPhone and otherwise, judging by the 20-odd page discussion that was raging on O2’s official support pages.
Tech news site V3.co.uk published several notices from O2 during the outages, which began rather hopefully:
We’re sorry that some mobile customers have had problems with data today – these services will be back up tonight.
…but ended on a decidedly more sullen note;
The system fault has been fixed and internet connections are gradually being restored. MMS and Visual Voicemail remain affected. We’re working on these as a priority.
Thankfully the problem was cleared up reasonably swiftly. Something to do with incorrectly assigned IP addresses, or leaves on the line (trust me, if you’re British that’s hilarious!)
While some tech sites are reporting on the data outages in London in much the same tone they would AT&T’s lackluster services in New York or San Francisco, I must offer my own (admittedly anecdotal) evidence to the contrary; my partner and I are both iPhone-toting, data-hungry technophiles who just happen to live in London. And this is the first time this year we’ve experienced any truly memorable disruption to O2’s data network. For clarity: I’m not saying we haven’t suffered the occasional dropped-call here and there. We have — at a rate of perhaps one dropped call every other month. You see, when all is said and done, the O2 network is normally exemplary (as it should be, considering how much we pay them).
Still, O2 has been reaching out to its customers, cap in hand, doing that quintessentially British thing…apologizing. In a Reuters report published today O2’s Chief Executive Ronan Dunne is quoted saying:
Where we haven’t met our own high standards then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact. But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse.
The story is much the same here in the UK for O2 as it is for AT&T in the States; smartphone ownership is on the rise and smartphone owners use a lot of data, relative to the amount consumed by so-called ‘feature phone’ customers. The network carriers simply aren’t prepared for this. Historically they’ve never had to provide this much bandwidth and their business models (typically structured into five year plans that don’t change much in-between revisions) simply don’t make adequate (if any) provisions for the scale of network investment and improvement that data-hungry devices like the iPhone demand.
Still, that doesn’t stop their execs bragging about the upgrades that have taken place. From Reuters;
The company [O2] had invested 30 million pounds ($48 million) in its London network to meet demand [...] and 200 extra mobile base stations had been installed.
Sounds impressive, no? But I wonder… that’s an awful lot of money, and an awful lot of new base stations. That sort of massive investment into network expansion was likely planned years ago as part of the company’s long-term growth strategy. Indeed, such a huge investment plan could easily have predated the 2007 introduction of the iPhone, and the subsequent explosion in smartphone adoption.
However, I’m not beating up on O2. It might be feeling the same pain AT&T has so publically suffered in recent months, but at least it’s not reacting the same way AT&T’s CEO Ralph De La Vega did, with barely-concealed threats of data-caps and tiered pricing plans for smartphone users.
AT&T’s message (at least how it comes across to me) has mostly been along the lines of, “You iPhone customers are a nuisance, you’re to blame for all our network problems, so you’ll have to pay us more money!” Conversely, O2’s message reads, “You iPhone customers chew through a terribly high volume of data that sometimes causes us problems – we’re sorry we weren’t ready for that, and we’re working on it”
Color me biased. But tell me you don’t think AT&T could learn something about good PR from their British counterparts.
Переслать - Rumor Has It: Apple "iSlate" Intended as a Kindle Killer
Yhe Apple tablet isn’t going to be a tablet computer at all, really, according to the Quick PWN blog. If you believe Quick PWN contributor Hans’ inside sources, the Apple iSlate, as he maintains it will indeed be called, is more aimed at taking on the Amazon Kindle and its ilk as an e-reading device.Presumably, the iSlate would also offer iPod and media playback functionality, but Hans’ post makes no mention of these features:
Our sources have told us that the rumor about Apple launching a product with the iSlate name is true, but the product won't be an Apple tablet, it will be an eBook reader. The iSlate will be a competitor to the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and other e-readers that are out there. Our sources have also told us that the iSlate eBook reader will run on Apple's upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 software and will include a seperate App Store for eBooks. Apple will be announcing the iSlate eBook reader at WWDC 2010, which our sources says is being held on June 7.
Note also that if Quick PWN’s sources are correct, we won’t be seeing the iSlate or hear mention of it until WWDC, which is being held much earlier than previous rumors suggested, if the unidentified informant is to be believed. Moscone Center booking information suggests WWDC will begin on June 28, not the 7th.I’m suspicious of this latest rumor for a number of reasons. First, the discrepancy between the WWDC dates previously reported and this one doesn’t really make any sense. Then again, maybe that actually adds credence to this rumor, since the source didn’t just go with the accepted date. I suppose the date change just strikes me as odd, but it doesn’t really preclude the validity of this report.
What I’m more wary of is the nature of the device described and the timing of its launch. Even though the e-book market is beginning to take off (if you believe Amazon’s own hype), it’s still nowhere near as strong as the netbook market was and is, and Apple was wary of jumping into that. I doubt it would create an e-reader at this point without making that a secondary feature, rather than the primary focus of the device. And if it isn’t coming until WWDC, then what’s the event next month going to be about? Why do rumors stemming from suppliers and other more reliable sources point to a different production timeline?
The iSlate, if that’s what it really will be called, will most likely have e-reader function and it will probably threaten Amazon’s market dominance in that area. But is that Apple’s aim with this device? I doubt it. Is e-reading the only or primary purpose of the new gadget? Not a chance.
Переслать - The iPod Touch Holiday Sales Spike, or Why Apple is Building a Tablet
Christmas was kind to Apple this year. The iPod touch seems to have been a popular gift this holiday season, at least according to some interesting statistics regarding App Store downloads over the period leading up to and including Christmas day. App download activity information tracked by Flurry Analytics (via MobileCrunch) shows a massive increase in downloads on December 25.
The iPhone also experienced a holiday bump, although nowhere near the surge the iPod touch had. That’s to be expected, since people are far less likely to give an iPhone as a gift, considering the attendant cell service contract and recurring fees associated with the smartphone. This also marks the first time app downloads on the iPod touch have exceeded those on the iPhone. Overall, the App Store saw a 51 percent increase in downloads from November to December. Note that only downloads are being accounted for here, so it isn’t clear what percentage of these figures are free apps and how many are paid. In either case, it’s good news for Apple, and probably for top app developers as well. Thanks to the way the App Store is organized, many of these downloads probably came from the top 25 and 50 lists available on the mobile version of the software marketplace.
Apple’s growth rate exceeds that of the Android market by a fair margin, with its 51 percent increase dwarfing Google’s 22 percent spike. Despite the advent of many competitors, and the variety of Android devices available, the App Store’s growth shows no signs of slowing or reaching a plateau.
Which is why Apple’s plans for a tablet are beginning to make more sense to me. Despite all the buzz online about the device, I had a hard time figuring out who Apple would be able to successfully market such a device to, beyond fanbois and tech enthusiasts. But thought of as another way of extending the App Store’s reach and capitalizing on its success, it begins to make sense. Especially when you consider the latest rumors, which seem to indicate that the device, when it does arrive, will more closely resemble an incredibly versatile PMP than a tablet computer.
As long as the price point is kept low enough, I can definitely see iPod touch owners trading up, and people more interested in the movie and video side of things making a first iDevice purchase. In fact, the pricing structure of the tablet is the most intriguing aspect, as far as I’m concerned, and I can’t wait to see what Apple thinks people will pay for its latest creation.
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