On the WWDC. Apple, AT&T and iPhones oh my!

So another WWDC has come and gone. I personally found this one very satisfying, although, like most 2 hour movies, I think it could have had about a half hour chopped out and it would have been much more exciting. :) Nevertheless, it was still an excellent keynote that’s left my wallet wondering what will befall of it in the upcoming months. I’m not going into all the details, just the stuff that caught my attention.

AT&T is… not good.

Let’s start with the bad. Summed up, that means AT&T. Literally up until this keynote, I had no beef with AT&T. I’ve always been on the GSM providers here in NYC and none of them have been exceptional I guess, so my service is pretty much what it’s always been. I’ve never been on Verizon, so I maybe it’s just that I don’t know what I’m missing. The customer service has been perfectly fine anytime I’ve needed them. So really, I thought all the AT&T bellyaching was a little overblown.

Sadly the presentation put very plainly how crappy AT&T actually is. First MMS. 29 countries are going live with MMS immediately, AT&T? Nope, not till September. What the hell? And then much, oh so much worse, 22 other countries will support tethering. AT&T? No mention at all, although Engadget says they’re working on it and Gizmodo says it might be a $70/month plan. And the final injury is AT&T providing only a little support for any iPhone 3G owners (like yours truly) who’ve had it for less than a year – it’ll cost me $500 to upgrade before 2010. I understand their financial reality, but honestly, it seems to me that they should be a nice as possible to their iPhone users and trying to get their contracts extended for as long as possible. They won’t have an exclusive forever…

iPhone

Ok, so it’s now objectively established that AT&T sucks. On to the good stuff. First of all, I want the new iPhone so badly. Sure the speed will be nice (very nice!) but it’s that new camera that’s got me psyched. As I take more and more photos with my iPhone, I’ve come to want to kill it. This new camera with it’s autofocus lens (autofocus!) with tap to focus and macro down to 10cm… well, these are the two things I was desperately hoping for but honestly not figuring on getting. I wonder if iPhone 3.0 will give greater control over the camera to devs. The video and video editing (video editing!) is just icing on the cake. I’m super excited about that – apparently it’s low light performance has been improved as well (it could hardly have been worse).

(Ok, I’m also excited for the TomTom turn by turn nav. I’m curious to see what the deal is with that, if there’s an AUX out so you can hook up the iPhone to a car stereo at the same time as having it in that cradle and charging. I’m very prepared to replace my NÃ¼vi with it. Especially if it grabs live traffic data over the 3G/Edge. I’m all about gadget consolidation.)

Going after the competition

It’s interesting to watch Apple go after their competition with so much gusto. The jabs against Windows 7. I guess it wasn’t uncalled for, but still that was hardcore. And then dropping down their upgrade price for Snow Leopard to $29, well, that ought to put MSFT’s upgrade pricing in perspective ($49.99 for home and $99.99 for premium), with both releases touted as largely robustness upgrades as opposed to major feature upgrades.

And then the jab against Palm and the Pre in their App chart showing how few apps are in the App Catalog. Sigh. I think that was sort of uncalled for, but I’m guessing that Apple is a) pissed at the number of Apple engineers that went over there and b) justifiably worried about the long term effect the pre may have. It’s like we’re in middle school again! OMG!

The rest

I really liked their whole iPhone security stuff they were touting. Find my iPhone and the wiping of data – those are great features. I suppose that tieing them to MobileMe was a very smart move – it got me thinking about it where I never even gave MobileMe even a moments consideration prior to this. I’d love those features, just not sure if it’s worth $100/yr… more pondering required.

Finally (although I guess this is what the keynote started with) the laptop changes are pretty great. The MacBook Pro’s with their more juicy battery and cheaper price tag. Even the good ol’ Air dropping to $1500 or $1800 with the SSD. These keep the Apple in the high end, but these prices are very reasonable for the hardware.

One interesting chart they showed was the mobile web usage which of course showed the iPhone/Touch at some 60%. This is reasonable given the 4 million they’ve shipped so far. What was surprising, though, was that Android garnered a very, very respectable 10%. I suppose that’s probably because Android’s niche is very geeky whereas Apple’s is now very mainstream. Still, I think that bodes well for Google.

So that’s it – I liked it. I want stuff. I’ll probably get stuff. What about you?

mikebrittain

I've got to say that AT&T is likely forcing those 2-year contract commitments because they have already subsidized one iPhone and expected to recoup a certain amount of dough on that contract. I would bet that Apple put the screws to AT&T to subsidize as much as possible so as to increase adoption rate at a cheaper price... otherwise, we'd still see that $500 price tag that came on the original iPhone (it was $500, right?).

Unfortunately, AT&T takes the blame because iPhone devotees want their new gear. I suspect that it's just as much Apple's fault for creating false economics.

All of that said, I'm glad I skipped the 3G because it didn't look like that much of an upgrade. But the 3GS sounds pretty awesome. :)

And, Howie, you can look forward to me buying you a Windows Mobile phone for your birthday next year. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
felix

Yeah - I think Apple's with AT&T because they got them to provide a massive subsidy. Dunno, I mean, it's not like T-mob's going to be much better. People hate AT&T and talk about all the other options, but really the only one that'd be an improvement would be Verizon, but that'd be not GSM. Bleeach. I wish Apple would use their leverage to get some better plans and what not, but I guess someone must have their reasons. I'd think, though, if the exclusiveness were coming up, AT&T would have gone to extra measures to make nice with their iPhone customers so they didn't all flood to another carrier.

Apple is definitely in it to win it - just read Steve Gillmore's surprisingly good post http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/06/08/why-apple-wins-every-time/ - I don't normally love his posts but this one was a good 'un.
howie

ive already ordered my 32Gb iPhone 3Gs. Im still on iPhone gen 1, so im eligible for the upgrade. it was an easy decision.

I agree on the AT&T front. I dont know what all the complaining is about the service as mine has been generally good since day one, at least here in NYC. However, being the only provider with the iphone, AT&T is showing its true colors and this is what we would be seeing if they were a monopoly. unresponsiveness to customer needs particularly relating to requested features and pricing. I thought apple was keeping the exclusivity deal with AT&T because the leverage would get Apple whatever it wants from them? (like they did with visual voicemail, data plans, etc). Does AT&T's sudden lack of responsiveness hint at the pending end of this exclusivity?

Finally, between the hardware and software upgrades and the price drops on the low end, Apple is showing they are in this to win this. Its GREAT to see the smartphone market in such heated competition between palm, RIM, google, etc. Seriously, who in their right mind would still buy a handset with windows mobile?!?

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