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See Ya, AT&T

About a year ago I wrote this blog about how AT&T and HTC teamed up to hate their customers with regards to the Cingular 8525 phone I had.  I had been looking around for a smart phone to replace that one and had decided that I would get a phone running Android, as that OS offered the most options in terms of carriers and interoperability.  There were rumblings and rumors of an AT&T Android phone and the one that had been pre-announced got killed in November.

In the meantime, I waited for my wife’s AT&T contract to expire so we could consider other carriers.  Then AT&T announced the Motorola Backflip, which is underpowered and crippled (Android 1.5, locked-in Yahoo search, locked AT&T apps).  They also announced a Dell made Aero (still no sign of it, three months later).

Neither of us were particularly interested in the iPhone.  I want to do development work for my phone and don’t have the resources to run xcode, so that platform is out of the question.

We decided to switch to Verizon and get HTC Incredibles.  In spite of my earlier experiences with HTC, I’m still giving it a shot – and by all appearances it’s a well-made phone.  The plan is more or less equivalent to my old plan in terms of cost.  The real capper--and I hope both AT&T and Verizon are paying attention--was this: while I was attending the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress annual convention in March, 2010, the MDSC gave Verizon a leadership award for its contribution to the organization and Verizon is also sponsoring the Massachusetts buddy walk again in 2010.

My experiences so far:

  • It works well as a phone and I’m no longer losing half my calls.  This is a huge plus.  My quality of service with AT&T started out OK but had consistently gotten worse.
  • The Google maps integration is done well – the 3D map view is smoother than a Garmin Nuvi, but the voice could be much better.
  • The Marketplace for downloading apps is seamless – works great.
  • Application management is lousy – slow and poorly thought out – it’s painful to figure out what’s currently running.
  • Touchdown from NitroDesk for integration with Outlook is a must have.  It works better and has fewer issues than Microsoft’s own Pocket Outlook did on Windows Mobile.
  • Some apps are a little flakey with no good explanation.
  • The development tools work OK, but they really need to knock off the sharp edges.  I’m running the Eclipse integration under Ubuntu and it’s hardly seamless.  Debugging integration is off by default when you create a project (really?); bouncing back and forth between debug and DDMS aspects is a pain; writing UI layout with XML is awful.

As a side note, we chose to not get an SMS plan.  The cost was exorbitant.  It was just as bad on AT&T too.  Does it really cost 4x more  than getting an equivalent amount of data from the Hubble telescope? No thanks.  I celebrated not having text messages by having a video call with my wife using fring and showing her what I was having for lunch.  Cellphone carriers should wise up and give away SMS.  Connectivity will be the cash cow, not text messages.

So I've been on Cingluar/AT&T for 8 years, if I recall correctly.  You blew it AT&T - your service got worse, your choices narrowed, your products got worse.

Published Wednesday, June 16, 2010 10:31 AM by Steve Hawley

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