AT&T Crippling BlackBerry for iPhone? 211
0xdeadbeef writes "BlackBerryCool got a tip that not only was AT&T removing GPS functionality from their version of the BlackBerry 8820, they're doing it so it won't show up the iPhone. While carriers crippling phones to stop them from competing with pay-per-use services is nothing new, this might be the first time they've done it to make their other products seem less diminished."
sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust me on this one
Improved services attract consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
They are forgetting something. There is competition. They should strive to make all of their products and services more valuable to consumers.
Here is what we have so far..
1 An i-phone which is cool who's bill comes in a box shipped by UPS Oh and by the way is has a monopoly carrier.
2 A Blackberry. They are obtainable from several carriers, but AT&T cripples them worse than other carriers.
3 A Blackberry on another carrier.
4.. The rest of the market
If you avoid #1 due to the carrier issues and monster bills, you are now likely to avoid #2 for both the service and carrier reputation. Just what were they thinking? They don't hold a monopoly on Blackberries.
http://www.bbhub.com/2006/09/18/rating-the-major-
I'm not so sure why AT&T would want to do this (Score:3, Insightful)
I could understand if Apple wanted this to happen... but how does this help AT&T? AT&T doesn't/shouldn't care if people are buying Blackberries over iPhones on the basis of GPS, so long as the Blackberry comes from AT&T. If they believed that GPS was the tipping point, those customers are now buying nothing from AT&T.
Doesn't seem so smart to me.
how retarted. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure they are disabling the GPS simply because the GPS sucks. The is the same company that 3 years ago refused to allow phones on it's network that did not have GPS's in them.
Sure, that's exactly it. Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like this is rare. Heck, Verizon's locked down the OBEX capabilities on most of their Bluetooth phones so they can sell their wireless sync service. Even Apple had to bite the bullet here - since there's no subsidy on the phone and Apple pockets all the money, don't you think they'd love to sell unlocked iPhones that would work on every GSM carrier? Or sell CDMA models through Verizon or Sprint? Of course they would. But to get AT&T to sell 'em and modify the network (build out EDGE capacity and add the Visual Voicemail system) they had to agree to a multi-year exclusivity deal.
So basically, the 8820 being modified because of Apple? I call BS. And if you want your Blackberry and you want it on AT&T, find yourself an unlocked version and just DIY. It's GSM, you can do that. It'll be unsubsidized, but at least that way it'll be a fair fight with the iPhone.
Wait - even though iPhone is unsubsidized it's still locked. Never mind!
Re:USA - Europe - Middle East -... (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the world uses 900 and 1800MHz for GSM. The US uses two different frequencies, 850 and 1900.
Most phones sold in the Europe are tri band or quad band these days, covering all the frequencies needed to roam internationally. I've happily been using various UK phones in the US since 2002, and roaming in Europe and Africa man times before then.
You are right though, that just because you have a compatible phone, networks can still play unfair. Even your home network when you see roaming costs, like Vodafone UK charging $20/Mb for roaming data!
Re:USA - rest of world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually this all seems silly to me. Silly if true, I should say. I bought an iphone because I liked it, some other phone having gps isn't going to make me like it less.
Posted from my iPhone
Re:USA - rest of world (Score:4, Insightful)
Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone? (Score:0, Insightful)
I've never heard of anyone I know even talking about buying one.
I've never seen anyone walking around with one.
The sales figures for the phone so far are embarrassingly low even for a product that you would have thought hundreds of thousands of Mac fans with huge amounts of disposable income would have bought without hesitation.
I can't imagine AT&T doing anything like this for a marketplace flop like the iPhone.
um-- a bit backwords (Score:3, Insightful)
Poppycock (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USA - rest of world (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in America. I have an uncrippled phone, because I opted to buy my own. I could either buy an uncrippled phone, or let the telco subsidize my purchase, but they want to cripple the phone so I would end up paying more money in the long term. Ultimately, I decided that to replace my uncrippled phone with one crippled in ways I didn't care about, but that was superior in other ways.
Let's be clear, you can bitch about the loss of rights companies force on you. Just be prepared to pay full-price for those things. Alternatively, you can buy a phone where they cripple the bluetooth, just use USB to move things, and say, "Hey, bluetooth isn't worth $150 to me to buy an uncrippled version."
It's actually more freedom in the US.
Re:sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, it's been some years now since consumers had anything like the power wielded by corporations. They pay the government and the government works for them. We, in turn, exist to give the corporations what they want, which is profits. Our desires don't enter into the equation.
The "free market", if it ever existed, is a deeply flawed concept. No matter how its done, the story always ends the same way. We are the consumables.
Re:USA - rest of world (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have yet to see an iPhone in the wild. I work in IT with 20 geeks that have well paying jobs. I have a lot of gadget freaks in my family and there are many blackberries at family events. Yet somehow, none of them have iPhones.
BTW, my personal observations are just as representative as yours. That is to say, neither of our observation reflect the market penetration of the iPhone.
Re:Faulty Consumers (Score:3, Insightful)
Regarding TFA... AT&T is free to do what they want with their products, though I don't understand why they'd choose this option. iPhone is a consumer product, Blackberry is a Business User product. They are targeted at two separate and distinct markets. Who cares if they have different features, it's expected.
Re:Faulty Consumers (Score:3, Insightful)
How about how many iPod users want to be able to listen to FLAC files, or be able to use their iPods the way that they want them without violating the end user license. Speaking of end-user licenses, those are some of the best examples of the way the free market has betrayed consumers. Now, we buy a product and we have to sign a quasi-legal document that tells us how we are allowed to use the product, which we NOW OWN.
I'm sorry, fans. Apple make some very cool products, but as a corporation they are just as uncaring about what their customers want as any HMO or oil company. We're supposed to buy the products they want us to buy instead of the ones we want to buy, and we're supposed to be grateful.
It really is the free market itself that failed. No matter how you shake it, the free market is always going to coalesce around powerful entities, who will increase their power and limit our choices. All free markets are doomed to end in commercial authoritarianism, with a few rich people and lots and lots of sub-middle class workers. That's exactly what's happening now.
Re:They are oligopolies (Score:3, Insightful)
We're supposed to trust them to behave the laws of free markets when it suits them, but when we point out that they're not serving us as consumers, we hear your nonsense about how they aren't really bound by the laws of free markets because they aren't really corporations, but "industrial organizations".
A half-literate sixth grader can see that's all so much bullshit, but the free market radicals that write the economics articles and show up on television telling us that the current economy is "booming" don't have a clue.
We are the consumables, and it's only getting worse. There have been times in our nation's past when we've taken big business to the woodshed and taught them some lessons. My great grandfather was one of the iron-headed union guys that helped workers organize to a point where they could even out the field a bit, and he had the scars across his skull to prove it. It's long past overdue for us to do it again. Ronald Reagan started the most recent spate of hatred of the working class in America, and George Bush has put in the most recent knives. It'll take a Democratic administration or two before we get back to anything like balance, but it will happen.
Remember, it's the decades that there was a balance and mutual respect between big business and labor when our economy was doing the best. Nowadays, we hear about what a great economy we have, but it's really only good if you're a member of the owner class. If you're a worker, you have been repeatedly and brutally violated over the last 6 years.
Re:Has Anyone Even Seen An iPhone? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have one, niether of my brothers has one, my mother doesn't have one. My boss doesn't have one, none of my best friends have one. In fact, I have yet to see *anyone* using one while outside. However, I realize that this is strictly empirical data, so I'm not going to judge its sales success that way that you seem to have done.