Turned Off iPhone Gets $4800 Bill from AT&T 951
Tech.Luver writes "Jay Levy says he has been stung by Apple's iPhone pact with AT&T after he took an iPhone on a Mediterranean cruise.
They didn't use their phones, but when they got back they had a 54-page monthly bill of nearly $4,800 from AT&T Wireless.
The problem was that their three iPhones were racking up a bill for data charges using foreign phone charges. The iPhone regularly updates e-mail, even while it's off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on. ""
Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Off means off (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why things should actually be OFF when you turn them off. What if it interferes with hospital equipment like other cells, even if it's off?
I'd say hospital equipment shouldn't malfunction when presented with interference on a widely used spectrum, but that's just me.
There is no "Off" ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Then how is it legal to carry it on airplane or somewhere where it requires to operate in complete radio-off mode?
Soo.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The law needs to clarify things like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:2, Insightful)
How the hell is an END USER supposed to jump to the conclusion that OFF doesn't mean OFF. Every other phone I have EVER seen is actually OFF when you turn it OFF.
You're completely off base. This is a seriously major design flaw, of that there is no question.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
This had better get fixed (Score:3, Insightful)
The only correct resolution is for Apple & ATT to eat these charges until the iPhone's GSM radio can be set to OFF when not inside the coverage of the selected carrier.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the article says they were off, but it also says the took the phones for voice calls, so where they really off? or did they just not use the data part?
Re:So (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Soo.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Soo.. (Score:3, Insightful)
He probably didn't have the international data plan; that's why he left the phones turned off.
Re:This had better get fixed (Score:1, Insightful)
Besides, there's three legitimate ways they could have avoided the charges, you can just turn it off, but that wouldn't make much sense since you couldn't use it as an iPod. You can also go into the email settings and turn off auto-check, but since you obviously don't want any roaming charges, it wouldn't make much sense to keep the radio on. That's why there's the airplane mode which will shut off the radio and everything that has to do with it.
Seriously, what else does Apple need to do. Does Airplane mode need to be in big bold letters on the main menu with a note that says, "Hey! USE THIS IF YOU GO OVERSEAS." I would hope that if you buy an iPhone you're knowledgeable enough to look up the airplane mode.
Sheesh.
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are kidding, right? This is absolutely no user error. It should be safe to assume that turning the thing off implies radio off.
Re:This had better get fixed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The law needs to clarify things like this (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL, but the customer is most likely out of luck if he tries to challenge this. After all, this is in the terms & conditions that he supposedly agreed upon.
This is another major blow to iPhone, on top of the recent price cut. Now we have an Apple spokeswoman admitting freely that the simple act of bringing it out of the country without using it actually cost "and arm and a leg". I have to point the blame to ATT for greed and Apple for letting this happen. How much more can you rip off from your early adopters (which are presumably loyal Apple customers)?
Re:ihpones (Score:2, Insightful)
Surfing the Med (Score:3, Insightful)
"In countries outside the plan, charges can run from $5 to $20 per megabyte, said Ben Wilson, editor of iPhone Atlas, a Web site owned by the online news company CNet."
I'm guessing that the middle of the Mediterranean is outside of the covered countries. It also says they were checking a total of seven different email accounts. 7 accounts * 20$/MB could add up pretty quickly, 35MB per email account would do it.
Re:The law needs to clarify things like this (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean who would have thunk that the button the iphone manual labels "Sleep/Wake button" would actually put the device in "sleep" mode and not turn it off?
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? So you think that $4800 is perfectly reasonable for taking your phone abroad for a month with the default settings as supplied by the phone company, and not actually using it at all?
Re:This had better get fixed (Score:5, Insightful)
Not the iPhone, but AT&T! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then AT&T bought them out, and I got a nasty surprise in the mail - instead of my normal <$50 bill, it was doubled. And the bill was no longer itemized; there was no way to do the math myself.
Then the next bill came - GULP! Four hundred God damned dollars! And still not itemized.
AT&T is run by thieves. I'm using a cheap Trac phone now until I can find another carrier. AT&T are now in my "Die, damn you" list of evil corporations. Sony replaced Microsoft as first place in my list of Pure Evil (TM) corporations when they trojaned my PC with their BMG XCP rootkit, now MS has slid to #3. AT&T is now a very close second to Sony. May their President, CEO, board of directors, and stockholders all catch cancer and aids and die horribly, and may that God damned company go bankrupt and be liquidated.
Mods, this isn't flamebait it's an informative FLAME. As I'm posting AC you know I'm not karma-whoring.
As I'm too busy unsucsessfully chasing women [slashdot.org] to blog about evil corporations [mcgrew.info] lately, this is probably all I'll have to say about these bastards.
-mcgrew (sm62704)
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Airplane mode? (Score:3, Insightful)
If there were a selection called "Hotel Mode" that did the same thing, would you expect him to choose that when boarding an aircraft? No.
How about a simple "Off". Trying to be too cute with the operations makes people like this frustrated. And gives the company bad press.
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
My
So yes, I expect life-saving equipment to ignore and reject cellular signals, just like I expect the equipment to handle any other exposure to which it would commonly be subjected, Like electrical surge, static discharges (to the case, obviously), elevated Oxygen levels, and fluid splashes.
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:1, Insightful)
"User didn't realize 'Off' doesn't actually mean 'Off'" is an example of awful interface design, not user error.
Apple's design philosophy has generally been to make everything intuitive enough that a user doesn't NEED to memorize a series of arcane printed instructions in order to perform basic tasks. And what task is more basic than powering the device on or off?
and he brought it with him, because... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea right. MY guess is that he did indeed switch it on occasionally. If only to show it off to his fellow iPassengers.
B.
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Need "budget mode" for devices (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'd appreciate is a device that lets you enter an EXPECTED monetary budget for its use, and safeguards to make sure you don't use the device in a manner that exceeds your expectations for how expensive its use should be.
The instant it began international data roaming, sirens should have sounded alerting the user that the device is now operating in a mode contrary to the user's financial expectations.
I'm sure it has an alert when it's battery needs recharging. No such luck when it starts draining your bank account.
Re:Sleep/Wake Doesn't mean "Off" (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people has the iPhone killed when it was supposed to be off?
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
and that's totally acceptable. A user shouldn't be able to just glance at their phone to determine if it's off, or if it's "sleeping", but not sleeping so soundly that it won't rack up a $4800 bill.
Defective by design, my friend.
Re:Off means off (Score:2, Insightful)
The policy was introduced way back when they had analogue phones, because they may have done (not too sure, but thats what i heard), but they keep it because phones are just annoying. I have used my phone in an ICU with the permission of consultants and nurses without a problem, the operating theatre was next door.
I am pretty sure the same applies for aircraft too, but you can't normally get signal at 30k feet anyway so why bother, and you might miss annoucements if you are on the phone during takeoff and landing.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
User interface design 101: a UI should be intuitive for users and not contain surprises.
Strange, Apple's UI people are usually pretty good. But if you really can have a phone that looks like it's switched off but isn't, and it really does require a counter-intuitive and confusing alternative action by the user to switch it off fully, then they dropped the ball big time on this one and the user is quite right to feel aggrieved at the small fortune in costs he has personally incurred as a result.
Not the full story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still no real solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Airplane mode? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:and he brought it with him, because... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, the "switched off all the time" part... I got nothing on that.
Re:So (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea, but they're all mac users so they will never admit to it.
Re:The law needs to clarify things like this (Score:5, Insightful)
For the same reason that someone who signs a contract without reading it and/or insisting on changes, deserves to be screwed.
Just out of interest, how long do you think it would take the average person to read in full, understand, and if necessary seek legal advice on every binding agreement they enter into during their lifetime?
There is a reason that legal systems recognise concepts like unequal bargaining power, contracts of adhesion, and unconscionable terms: they do it because if the legal system took the same naive view that you propose, the world would grind to a halt.
Re:ihpones (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The law needs to clarify things like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is bullshit.
It doesn't sound like the unit was powered off. It sounds like the screen was off, and like my old RAZR, the unit will continue to operate in the background while the screen is off. Stupid, lazy consumer didn't bother reading the manual, which clearly discusses how to POWER THE PHONE OFF COMPLETELY and WHAT AIRPLANE MODE IS, which accomplishes the same task this guy required.
Seriously, who the fuck thinks a phone is "off" just because the screen isn't lit up? This is 2007, right? The age of the cell phone cowboy.
There's no flaw here. The vast, vast majority of iPhone users are satisfied that it will happily do its thing while the screen is off, in your pocket. Otherwise, I couldn't be notified of mail whenever I got it.
Next time, if you spend $600 on something, read the motherfucking manual. Apple goes out of their way to write clear, simple manuals for the very reason that people don't want to have to be computer scientists to understand them. Sucks to be you, dude.
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ihpones (Score:5, Insightful)
My phone, a treo, functions basically the same and like basically every phone with a "standby" mode -- when you hit the power button, it turns off, but as the anonying blinky light indicates the cell phone function is still active, meaning it's communicating with the base station. It will receive incoming calls, and receive other updates from the network. However what it doesn't do is automatically make phone calls, or activate GPRS and start downloading crap off the internet, or otherwise doing anything that will cost me money.
That is what is broken about this. Not the difference between "off with wireless enabled" and "really off". It's the difference between "wireless enabled but not used" and "wireless enabled and being used with no consideration of where you are and how much it's going to cost you". It's the difference between merely being connected to the cell network, and using the cell network in ways that result in charges.
It sounds like a matter of defaults. Setting up the phone to by default automatically download emails is a bad decision, because it causes the phone to work contrary to how most people expect -- which is that in standby mode, you aren't accruing data transfer charges.
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why should an iPhone?
Missing the point? (Score:1, Insightful)
This is the sort of thing an average user would notice a $3-$4 charge for on their bill and call the company and then get the explanation. But to suddenly get hit with a $4,800 bill is simply ridiculous...
Re:Not the full story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, when I travel I very often need to have a phone immediately upon arrival at home (whoever is picking me up usually has to wait at a staging area a few minutes away from baggage claim, so I have to call them and tell them to come on ahead).
"Airplane Mode" isn't a proper name for having all external signals turned off. On my Treo, you can turn off the phone portion very easily and still use the rest of the PDA. Sounds like the iPhone is far less intuitive.
AT&T Growing Pains (Score:5, Insightful)
- Sleep/Wake vs. Power Off for iPhone
- 300 page phone bill
These issues are really more interesting than they seem on the surface, not merely as iPhone/AT&T/Apple screw-ups (which they admittedly are) but as a really curious class of screw-ups: growing pains. iPhone is causing AT&T some pain because it's bringing a whole bunch of new users to their expensive cell network services who actually use the service, not merely pay for having the service available for rare occasions where the need is so high it overcomes the pain in the ass factor. Sure, there were a handful of geek Treo users who checked email and surfed web pages every day, but they probably turned their paper-bills off after the first big one and moved on, problem "solved" for them because they really were gadget geeks.People have been using their iPhone for weeks without realizing that there is a difference between sleep/wake and power-off. That's really pretty interesting. iPhone is not different from other devices in maintaining this distinction, PalmOS devices have it, for example. However, with a Palm OS device one learns pretty quickly about the difference because they lock up and you gotta reboot 'em. Even people who have owned an iPhone since June 29 may never have had to power cycle their iPhone, and may not realize that the little Sleep/Wake button is not a "Power Off" button. It would be pretty hard to own a PalmOS device for eight or nine weeks without learning that distinction. Probably nobody at Apple thought of that, because they are all geeks and they are intimately familiar with the intended behavior of the device (e.g. how to turn it off when roaming) so they never saw this happen.
The really interesting part is that nobody at AT&T realized this would happen to people, because it probably doesn't happen to other people using other devices. Why not? Well, it certainly isn't because they don't have devices that automatically fetch IMAP or POP email. It's because they were trained by other quirks of the device to learn the difference between OFF and Sleep right away. This "trained" the users to overcome deficiencies in the AT&T billing process (and policies, really). It shouldn't cost that much to use your iPhone anywhere in the world at this point. Those rates are "rape and pillage" rates and phone companies will need to fix that by coming up with more reasonable roaming policies and prices.
It's interesting that none of the trade press analysts like that keen John C. Dvorak dude haven't stopped to ponder why nobody else in the history of AT&T customer smart phone users ever got a 300 page phone bill. The billing system was the same, iPhone users were just a type of customer with a type of device in the system.
As with the sleep/wake issue, again here nobody at AT&T realized this would happen because users of other smart phone devices are clearly not using them the way iPhone users use the iPhone. iPhone users caught AT&T by surprise because they are clearly surfing the web more often than users of other smart phones, as evidenced by the scale of the paper bill problem. This difference will probably start showing up in the web browser usage statistics within a few months once there are a couple million iPhone users, enough to compare to other platforms. The stats will reveal undeniably different usage patterns, as though it were not a pain in the ass and they could actually read the web pages they fetched.
Suddenly AT&T has a million ordinary non-geek users surfing the web on their phone every day (including google maps). That's what broke their billing system. The sleep/wake issue is just like that. A million smartphone users who haven't had to power cycle their device in two months so they don't even realize that sleep mode isn't "off". It hasn't happened before, apparently.
Re:iphones (Score:3, Insightful)
Standby means no data transfer charges (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the problem. Standby vs truly off should not matter other than 1) battery life and 2) receiving network updates and the delay to reconnect to the network when you decide you need to use the phone function. Standby should not result in $4,800 worth of charges, and I say that knowing full well the difference between standby and off. I'd be pissed as hell if I found out my phone was racking up data charges "on my behalf".
THIS is the problem:
"The iPhone regularly updates e-mail, even while it's off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on."
Making that the default behavior is a stupid decision, and it's one that is even as we speak costing customers money when they may not be realizing it. Automatically using the data connection without regard to the cell phone plan is completely stupid. Does it know the difference between peak and off-peak hours? Does it know what the customer's monthly data quota is? It apparently doesn't know when the customer is in international roaming!
Having that default behavior may have been sensible if Apple knew that the only plans that would work with an iPhone were 100% global unlimited plans. Then they could assume it's okay to download things whenever it feels like. But with the reality of cell phone plans? No way. That's retarded. And it is not these peoples' fault that they didn't expect their phone to work that way.
Re:Try turning it off instead of sleeping the disp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It also has a power-off, where it essentially turns off everything except the sensor to turn it back on again. Not too many people even know this exists, even if they own an iPhone. If you press and hold the lock button at the top right, a screen will appear that says 'slide to turn off'... this is the only way to reboot the iPhone, I think.
Most people press the 'sleep' hold button once, thinking that 'turns it off', but all it does is disable the screen. its still running, and using its antennae.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of interface designers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Re:Sleep/Wake Doesn't mean "Off" (Score:3, Insightful)
It is obvious - it works like every other phone. (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, how is a phone supposed to receive calls if it's really off? There needs to be a difference between a sleep mode and off, and this is obvious on the iPhone.
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ihpones (Score:5, Insightful)
In the home network, there's free data, as I understand, and the roaming charges are high. I have cheap data in my home network, and expensive when roaming abroad. So when I step out of a plane and turn on my phone, I get a nice warning: "You're not in your homenetwork. MMS reception is off". MMS reception is the only automatic data-service on the phone.
Look in the configuration, surely enough: "MMS reception: Automatic (only home network) / Manual / Always".
It would make pretty good sense to add a similar option for the automatic email checking.
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Device returns instantaneously when pressing the WAKE button
2) Carrier already attached at full when pressing the WAKE button
3) The ability to recieve phone calls while the device is sleeping.
Those might be some hints that "hey, just because the screen is off, it's still on." And I suppose you could also add to the list that standby eats up battery because the transmitters are on. I don't buy the ignorance excuse. To rack up charges that large, you'd have to on one mighty long cruise and if that were the case, the fact that you have to charge your iPhone that's been "off" every couple days might be a clue.
Further bunk in this article:
1) Calls the device "off", actually sleeping. Most other Smartphones have the same way of sleeping, only they have LEDs. Maybe that will be in rev B.
2) Says automatically checks email. It can be configured to do so, but it doesn't otherwise. I've heard of people complaining that the iPhone grabs other data while sleeping, I've never experienced this. Only mail when configured to do so.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
Your plan involves getting on a plane, telling everyone to turn off their phones, then trusting your life to their obedience.
My plan involves making sure that the plane won't fall out of the sky and kill everyone if someone forgets they have a phone in their bag.
Still think my plan is bad?
I say systems should be robust in themselves, not just trusting that all the other people have followed the spec.
J.
Re:Off means off (Score:3, Insightful)
Your already spending more for a heart attack then your parents probably paid for their house. Should it end up costing more then your house too? Well, we could just get public health and have to deal with waiting lists and such, increase the taxes of everyone to pay for this. Yea, that sounds more likely instead of saying that electronic devices that report as being off should really be off and then waiting 4 or 5 years to have the new devices rotated in replacing the old ones.
It is an interesting situation. In one hand, the doctors even need the stuff. In the other, well whatever.
Re:I have played with an iPhone in a store (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is no "Off" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Blame the User! (Score:1, Insightful)
The iPhone is a phone. How complicated should one expect phones to be? How expensive should a simple mistake cost? Is it really unimaginable for someone to look at the black screen of the iPhone and think it's "off"?
Here is where you outlined how a user should handle the phones power management (emphasis mine):
You don't see problems with any of this?
First off, you have people reading manuals for phones. Yes I know, RTFM, etc. Really, you need to get over that. People don't read manuals for common items. Moreover, who has the time? You would not want to live in the world where you were forced to read the manual for every device, tool, or piece of software for every new function you envisioned using. That would be a major pain in the ass. I am 100% certain that you have used some piece of technology without reading 100% of the documentation. Not to mention you listed it as page 14 of the manual. 14 pages doesn't sound like much, but it is when I just want to turn off a phone.
Then you go on to list 4 power management functions, which does not appear exhaustive. So we have 4+ ways of "almost but probably not" turning a phone off. That seems clear as day.
Finally, you point out that it is called a "sleep/wake" button and neither an "on/off" nor "power" button. With that sentence you are implying the users are dumb for thinking that button should turn off the phone. However, 2 statements above it you are telling people how to turn off the phone with that same button. So are the users dumb for thinking a power-esque button should manage the power settings including on/off? Or are you dumb for thinking users are dumb for having assumptions that map back to what you just explained?
One final thought. You mentioned this pearl as well:
Yes, maybe he should have enabled "Airplane Mode" despite the obvious fact he was no where near a plane. I often think of applying modal techniques specifically labeled outside of those specifications. Brilliant!
What bothers me more is not that you blame this guy for a very makable mistake, but that somehow you think the costs associated with this "mistake" is justifiable. I'd better hear you say "It was my fault. I should have RTFM. I will wire the funds instantly!" when your next bill comes close to 50x your normal rate.
many smartphones do exactly that (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:ihpones (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a little surprised that you apparently can't disable the GSM/GPRS without also killing the WiFi. Were I on a foreign trip I might find it worthwhile to have my favorite WiFi enabled gizmo handy for websurfing in Starbucks and the like even when I didn't want to use plan minutes.
Re:ihpones (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, someone else said that it wasn't the default behavior, which makes a lot of my argument moot.
And I agree completely that the ultimate blame lies with AT&T and the other cell providers and their crazy rate plans. Because even if the guy manually turned on automatic downloads, then forgot about it when he traveled abroad and left his phone in standby (which makes sense; if you want to use the phone you don't always want to have to wait to connect to the network first), I find it hard to believe that anyone would associate that behavior with a nearly $5k phone bill.
Re:ihpones (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It is obvious - it works like every other phone (Score:5, Insightful)
The *only* difference is that the iPhone has no visible indicator of being on when the screen is black.
Well, that and the fact that with the iPhone you can apparently be racking up thousands of dollars of charges while your phone is visually indistinguishable from being switched off. According to the source material cited, the only way you'd know that is if you read small print that runs to nearly 7,000 words, since the summary of the plan features doesn't indicate it.
However, these people didn't even try to turn their phones off. They simply set them down and assumed that a darkened screen meant it was off.
Where does it say that in TFA or any of the stories from other sources linked from it?
Re:It is obvious - it works like every other phone (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it does require a button to be held. But on my phone, if it's on, you can clearly see this from the time display on the LCD and the "on" light flashing every couple of seconds, and when you turn it off, you get a clear indication both audibly and from the screens and lights going off.
The usability problem here isn't requiring the user to switch a phone off, it's the fact that there is apparently no way to distinguish whether the phone is currently off or just in stand-by mode, unless you do something that would bring it out of stand-by or someone happens to call you. That and the fact that this phone's "stand-by" mode isn't really standing by at all, because it's doing very significant, very expensive things in the background.
It's the difference between Push and Pull (Score:5, Insightful)
Pull is not necessarily a bad thing, provided that it is used as intended. Pull has some definite advantages. The problem comes in when Pull is (ab)used to act like Push, by having the mobile device continuously poll. Even worse is to download content that the user never wanted downloaded. The whole point of IMAP is selective download with the user being part of the selection process.
Blackberry is a Push based process, and (unlike Internet) email it does not do huge content.
iPhone imitates the user experience of Blackberry's Push with Internet email, without any adjustment for the realities of mobile devices. That works only when you have lots of free bandwidth.
The IETF LEMONADE working group, mobile device manufacturers, and mobile phone service companies, have spent considerable effort at defining procedures for using IETF protocols with mobile devices. Critical to this is a mechanism called notification, which in effect is a Push that tells the mobile device to Pull. Done right, it combines the benefit of both strategies.
iPhone doesn't use any of that. Apple thinks that it knows better than anyone else.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if your phone is in sleep mode (screen isn't active, but the phone can still receive calls), then it will receive emails. My perspective is that its fairly obvious that when you set the phone to poll for emails, it will do so even if the phone is not actively being used. Thats pretty much the entire point of setting it to poll for emails.
Plus, when you get an email, the phone will alert you that it has done so.
And yes, I agree that being able to rack up a $4800 bill passively is unacceptable.
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. There should be a cap on the bill, say, $500. After that it can be considered flat rate. Why does AT&T need to charge $4800 for this? Do people actually use this much data service abroad on a routine basis?
If anything, cut service when it gets to $500. Because at that point, something is obviously up. Especially if the customer has never had this high a bill before. Credit card companies do this sort of statistical scanning all the time to combat fraud.
-Z
Re:ihpones (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as AT&T goes, I'm betting that they cut a deal with the guy, and he upgrades his plan instead of paying the cash. At least when I hear of cases like this, thats what the mobile carrier has usually done. I think that being able to rack up a $5k charge in the first place is pretty absurd. I can't think of any situation where that kind of a bill is acceptable, and they should really put limits too how high your bill can go.
Re:It is obvious - it works like every other phone (Score:2, Insightful)
The person in this article is guilty of not understanding how cell phones in general work and there is nothing to the story that the iPhone's allegedly poor UI is the culprit here. This is just more iFud spin that seems to be so popular with the insecure masses that can't stand the fact that Apple makes a lot of great products.
Re:A reading from TFM... (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but there should be a setting for "only enable this feature while on AT&T network" so that the user would have to explicitly go into the options and enable certain features for roaming (knowing full well that it may incur extra charges...the menu should have a footnote or warning dialog to confirm when this setting is set). The iPhone could even come on with a dialog box when it is on roaming saying something to the effect of:
"The phone is scheduled to check e-mail but it cannot because the phone is currently roaming. What would you like to do?"
Then there could be a number of options ranging from "No, and don't ask me again (i.e. always no until I go into the options to turn it back on" to "Sure, go ahead and don't ask me again (i.e. I am a billionaire and I don't care how much they charge per megabyte here in Ireland...turn on everything for roaming)". It needs to be like firewall software, guiding the user through the options as situations come up and offering advice in a context relevant way. The problem with RTFM is that you are reading everything out of context and then trying to remember what to do when certain situations come up. Most people, engineers excluded, do not work or think that way.
Re:It is obvious - it works like every other phone (Score:3, Insightful)
There is, it's called pushing the Sleep/Wake button. Just like on my Sony Ericsson W810i, I have to push a key (any key) to see if it's on - when the display sleeps, its indistinguishable from being off. Of course, I know it's on, because I didn't turn it off! If this is a design flaw, practically every cell phone out there is flawed.
Re:ihpones (Score:2, Insightful)
me too, or an option to "limit data to WiFi only" That would be ideal for roaming situations since the default (and really only) behavior is that if an 802.11 connection is dropped it falls back to EDGE. That's great in an unlimited data area, it sucks when you are roaming
>
Re:Off means off (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is... who pays? If a credit card is fraudulently used, the credit card company pays. So they have every incentive to give a damn.
But guess who's going to pay the $4,800? It sure as hell won't be AT&T. As I write this, my wife is on the phone to discuss a $900 Verizon bill my daughter rang up "saving money on the minutes" with text messaging. The only thing they seem willing to do is very politely tell us to screw off.
They are used to it.
Using an iPhone abroad as an iPod? (Score:3, Insightful)
see many people wanting to use the gadget out of the US for the other purposes without
expecting to run up a huge data bill. Otherwise, why would the poster have taken their iPhones with them, but not using them...
This is a serious hole in the procedures that needs to be highlighted far and wide before AT&T and Apple unreasonably extract megabucks.
Re:Off means off (Score:4, Insightful)
By my definition a machine is "broken" when it does not accomplish the task it is designed for. Very nice, but in the real world everything has limitations and tradeoffs and outside of the brains of PHBs you gotta stick to the cold equations, and not the fantasy of arbitrary semantic definitions.