Five Possible Bugs Facing the New iPhone 4 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

So much hate-hype.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm loving this phone and the issues with it are inflated way out of proportion.

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12 X5 M - 06 X5 4.8iS - 03 X5 4.4i - 03 M5 - 02 X5 4.6is - 99 M3 Dinan S3 - 98 M3 - 92 850i-6 - 92 850i - 91 325ix - 89 M3 2.5 - and a few parts cars

A phone is only as good as the provider and AT&T is second rate compared to Verizon according to most call quality surveys like J.D Power and Consumer Reports. Not to mention my personal experience with friends who have iPhones. AT&T exclusivity is actually what stopped me from considering an iPhone last time I upgraded. If you are lucky enough to live in an area where it works and AT&T's service isn't junk, consider yourself lucky.

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FSETH--cell phone coverage among companies really depends on geographics in relation to who was a predominant player as your local Bell company back in the day because of the RBOC infrastructure in place. The East Coast (ATL where you are is included) is an old GTE/Verizon local telephone company area for the most part--so VZ will have more presence there. On the West Coast it's split between VZ and AT&T (formerly GTE and Pac Bell) and like here in the Texas we are an old Southwestern Bell area (their HQ is here in Dallas) for the most part so AT&T is stronger. Some states like AZ, AR and others have AllTel that is a big player. Sprint is HQ'd in KC, MO so the Midwest is a good market for them.

Yeah, I get that, but look at these ratings. Hard to deny Verizon isn't much stronger overall.

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Also, this...

Ratings | J.D. Power

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We all know the iPhone saps network bandwidth which VZ doesn't offer. AT&T also has the lowest churn of any carrier. Most of all, everyone on Entourage is on AT&T.

This was a viewpoint from that CR survey about AT&T:

The iPhone's a Mixed Blessing

Strong demand for the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone -- for which AT&T is the only U.S. carrier -- may be one of the causes of the telecom's problems. "The crush of all the e-mailing, Web surfing and other data-heavy activity from the iPhone's dizzying 100,00 available software applications has heavily strained the network and may have contributed to AT&T's relatively low satisfaction scores," the customer satisfaction survey report stated.
This year, iPhone users will likely download about 1 billion apps in the United States alone, according to the Yankee Group.
"iPhone users certainly use data services more heavily than other users," AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel told CRM Buyer. However, other smartphones also contribute to heavy data usage, and AT&T has a wide range of these devices.
"We have twice as many smartphones as Verizon, and our data traffic is the highest in the industry," Siegel pointed out. "It increased 5,000 percent in the past three years."
The downside of that statistic is the poor service resulting from the heavy demand. The problem is worse in cities with many iPhone users, Consumer Reports said. AT&T is working to up capacity in tech-hip cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston, it added.
AT&T's difficulties in keeping up with bandwidth demand have led analysts to suggest Apple sign up a second U.S. wireless carrier for the iPhone, and Verizon is often looked at as an apt candidate. T-Mobile may also be an alternative, since the technology its network uses is more similar to AT&T's than Verizon's is.
To remedy the situation, AT&T spending about $18 billion this year on its wireless and wireline networks. The carrier is also putting a lot of other work into improving its wireless service.

I'm in Minneapolis and have great coverage - I am actually surprised to see it listed last in this market.

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12 X5 M - 06 X5 4.8iS - 03 X5 4.4i - 03 M5 - 02 X5 4.6is - 99 M3 Dinan S3 - 98 M3 - 92 850i-6 - 92 850i - 91 325ix - 89 M3 2.5 - and a few parts cars