Jackson Miller

I had a 9am meeting this morning so I was not able to be one of the first in line for the iPhone. That didn’t stop me from at least checking out the festivities. Here are pictures from the Apple Store in the Green Hills Mall and the AT&T store in Green Hills:

After talking to the people I knew in line at the Apple Store and talking to some random people in the AT&T store I went off to my meeting. Because I needed to buy 3 iPhones I had to go pick up a couple of my kids so that I would have 3 people for the “1 iPhone per person” limit. Since my kids were in East Nashville I went to the AT&T store in Rivergate. Once I got there I learned that they were sold out. They played dumb receiving future shipments.

After leaving the Revergate store I called the Green Hills AT&T store. They still had inventory.

It turns out that the AT&T store in Green Hills made the executive decision to go ahead and sell tomorrow’s inventory today. That allowed me to buy the three phones I needed.

Note: there are plenty of iPhones at the Apple Store. However, I have a business AT&T account so I had to use an AT&T store.

AT&T was not able to activate my phones. This meant 3 things:

1. I did not get to “bond with my iPhone” in the store.
2. I would have to activate my iPhones at home using iTunes (which was producing horror stories on twitter).
3. I was going to walk out of the AT&T store with a dead blackberry and three unopened, shrink-wrapped iPhones.

The whole point of activating in the store was to prevent people from leaving with pristine iPhones that could be sold on the open market. Activation through iTunes was also supposed to be required, but it wasn’t. I activated my AT&T account by putting my iPhone SIM card in my Blackberry. Then I put the SIM back in my iPhone later and hooked it into iTunes. By hitting cancel on all the iTunes prompts I was able to un-brick my iPhones without going through the recommended procedure. I could have then jailbroken the phones, unlocked them, and sold them on eBay.

Seems like all of the headache this morning didn’t really result in much more security. Apple and AT&T could have sold more phones without requiring activation in the store (and I could have still sold unlocked iPhones even with their precautions).

Add in all of the troubles that people had getting their iPhones activated using the proper method, it seems like Apple and AT&T over-thought this problem. Oh well.

Now I am sitting down and playing with my new iPhone. It is pretty sweet. The App Store is the killer app.

UPDATE May 19th, 2010: If you are look for Jackson Miller of Cupertino who went missing recently in San Francisco, please read this.

The wireless handset (i.e. cellphone) market is getting absolutely insane just in time for the “economic stimulus checks” to start arriving. I am not using “insane” as some sort of bad-meaning-good euphemism; I really think people are losing some mental stability.

For those living under a rock, the next generation of the iPhone is going to be released sometime in the next 30 days. There are thousand of people pontificating online over whether it will be announced tomorrow, June 24th, or any day in between. The second debate is when it will actually be released. Of course, no one REALLY knows what the specs are for the device. Luckily that doesn’t stop people from arguing about it.

My favorite part about the next iPhone release is that the vast majority of the people talking about it have no fucking clue what they are talking about. One of the better confusions comes from people who confuse 3G wireless networking (a devilishly ambiguous term at best) for Apple’s traditional use of 1G, 2G, 3G, etc to describe revisions (or generations) of the iPod product line. Some of these people seem to think that 2G and 3G will be released at the same time. My second favorite confusion comes from people who are debating 3G data speeds using benchmarks from EVDO devices like the Blackberry 8130 (which is a particularly bad test b/c of the Blackberry servers in the middle). AT&T’s 3G network is powered by HSDPA which is completely different from EVDO (though both are in fact “3G”).

It has gotten so bad that professional technology journalists don’t even know what they hell they are talking about. I just read an article that was talking about how Blackberry beat Apple to the 3G market with the Blackberry Bold. They then proceeded to talk about the video of a Bold demo that RIM brought to their office. It is amazing, a video showing a prototype qualifies as beating someone to market.

I don’t fault anyone for the confusion though. It is exacerbated by every single handset maker trying to release an exclusive iPhone look-alike on a US carrier. Sprint has one, so does Verizon, I assume TMobile has one too; hell, I think I even heard about AT&T getting one.

I am all for an increase focus on mobile technology. I am excited to see new handsets finally being released first in the US (which was not true for years and something I predicted would happen as a result of the iPhone). Still, all of this madness may cause more harm than good. What makes a good mobile device? Is it a big touch screen and a single button at the bottom? Or it is something that allows you to communicate via multiple channels easily and quickly? If you ask me it is obviously the latter.

While I am pretty much convinced that I will be a 3G iPhone the day it is announced, I am already starting to look ahead to Android devices. Remember, I switched to AT&T so that I could easily use multiple phones. Soon I will have a 3G iPhone and a Blackberry Curve. I would like a Nokia N95, but I think I will hold out for something Android. Maybe I can finally try out an HTC handset once it doesn’t mean suffering though Windows Mobile.

The iPhone is cool and the 3G iPhone is cooler, but jesus christ people, it is just a damn phone.

Oh, and the Blackberry Bold is almost as big a disappointment as the Palm Centrino. (Though that is tainted by my growing displeasure with BIS/BES).

A couple of days ago I left Sprint for AT&T. Recently I posted that now is the wrong time to buy a new cell phone (as Chuck Bryant reminded me). So what changed?

First off, let me just say that there has not been a 180 shift in my position. For many people now is not a good time to buy a new phone. For me the timing was right. That had as more to do with the carrier switch than anything.

So why did I switch from Sprint to AT&T? The reason I made the switch right now is because there was a “material change to the contract” and I could get out without paying any early termination fees. (Tip: You can too as long as everything is done before January 30, 2008).

I didn’t switch because of the change to the contract though. I had 5 primary reasons for switching:

1. Looking ahead to 4G
   Sprint’s future looks bleak. They are having to “go it alone” on WiMax; that is a lot of network to build out. Meanwhile, AT&T, Tmobile, and Verizon are all going with LTE.
2. SIM cards
   I like mobile toys. I also like to take a lot of mobile power with me on the road. The thing is, when I go to the park with the kids I just want a little phone in my pocket that will stay out of the way. If Sprint or Verizon would start supporting R-UIM cards this wouldn’t be an issue.
3. Hardware selection
   Sprint has done a great job of providing good new phones for the past couple of years. The thing is they can’t compete with unlocked phones and there will never be a Sprint iPhone. Even if Sprint did use R-UIM cards and unlocked phones were a possibility, as we move into 4G and Sprint it is the only WiMax carrier in the US, there will be very limited hardware options.
4. Customer service
   I was a Sprint customer for years. I told them that allowing me to switch to a SERO plan would keep me for a while longer. I could signup for a SERO plan as a new subscriber. They didn’t want to keep me, so I didn’t want to stay. BTW, I have had amazing customer service from AT&T so far.
5. Free mobile to mobile calling
   Sure every network has free mobile to mobile calling, but one of those networks has more customers than all the rest (i.e. more free calls). I am guessing Sprint will be the smallest (of the current big 4) by the end of 2008.

Does that make sense? It seemed/seems pretty clear to me. Like I said, the timing was mostly because of the loophole in the Sprint contract that let me do the inevitable now without paying any ETFs (early termination fees).

See Also: Goodbye Palm Treo, Hello Blackberry Curve (8310 RED)