Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Rumors of the iPhone jumping to a US provider outside of AT&T continue to swirl as Apple's exclusivity contract with AT&T looks to expire this year. First it was iPhone + Verizon and now it's iPhone + T-Mobile."

I'm sure by now you have seen numerous reports about T-Mobile possibly getting the iPhone. For months it was that the iPhone was sure to be on the Verizon network (PC World has a timeline in case you are interested), and now it is the T-Mobile rumor that is getting legs, as the mentions of an impending iPhone release on their network keep popping up. Adding to this is a recent one that Verizon will get it but after T-Mobile, as well as one that says the elusive white iPhone 4 will actually be a Verizon iPhone. What to believe? Could there be an additional network from which to choose for your iPhone service? AT&T, and Apple for that matter, took a risk and it paid off big with the iPhone. With that risk, AT&T also got something from Apple, namely exclusivity. With the upgrades in the iPhone year to year, and the addition of the iPad in the mix of products, you can see from their financials that the partnership with Apple is paying off handsomely. I guess it goes back to that old risk versus reward saying. But how is it doing for the customers that, according to Steve Jobs, are so important to Apple? Well here is my two-cents on the topic, and the rumor about T-Mobile.

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"Plan on bailing to Android on Verizon like Fake Steve Jobs? That's going to cost you nearly double on new plans compared to current costs because AT&T is changing its Early Termination Fees (ETF) from $175 to $325."

This is starting June 1st this year, and could be as innocuous as just bringing their fees in line with other carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile. Verizon raised their ETF to $350.00 USD from $175.00 USD in November of 2009, and T-Mobile/Google had an ETF for Nexus One phones of $550.00 USD, which is more than the phone cost. Or it could be that something more sinister is afoot! The other line of thought is that AT&T is going to lose their exclusivity deal sooner than later, so they want to lock in the upcoming 4G iPhone owners for as long as they can. AT&T says it's much ado about nothing in their open letter to customers. The timing is suspect don't you think?

"On Friday, Verizon and AT&T both dropped the price of their unlimited voice plans. Yesterday was the first day that existing customers could switch to these new plans, and luckily BillShrink has put together a nice chart comparing the different U.S. mobile carriers side-by-side."

On the heels of the price drop announcement by AT&T, here is a nice comparison of the four major carriers plans, everything laid out on one chart so you can see what each company charges, side-by-side. The two largest companies (Verizon and AT&T) also charge the most. You can check out all the work BillShrink did on their site, and it should be noted this is assuming you want unlimited texting. I also see that there is no accounting for rollover minutes.

"Microsoft has good news for most Sidekick users: the company says it has recovered most of the data for T-Mobile Sidekick users who saw personal information accidentally wiped from their devices earlier this week."

This has to be good news for any sidekick owners out there. I like the way the backup is done with the iPhone, and if you aren't sure how they do it, check out the support article that details the process.

"Ever since the introduction of the iPhone 3G S last Monday, there has been a lot of discussion on the Internet about what might be powering this significantly faster and more responsive phone. Even before the phone had been launched, in fact, the Internet had been abuzz with rumors that the new iPhone would feature a processor running at 600MHz and will come equipped with 256MB of RAM."

And so the rumors were true in this regard. Not sure how secret this was supposed to be, but the specs are still up on the T-Mobile Netherlands website. For comparison, the current iPhone 3G has a 412 MHZ processor and 128MB Ram. For the full meal deal on specs, I suppose we will have to wait until someone tears apart an iPhone 3G S and lists the hardware and post some pictures like they usually do on these things.

"When a system update caused service failures and bugs in T-Mobile customers' unlocked iPhones, the users emailed T-Mobile to alert them to the issue. Even though T-Mobile doesn't offer the iPhone, they fixed the bugs and gave the users a service credit for the inconvenience."

You can say what you want about the guys in Magenta, but they know how to keep customers happy. They always have, and they always will. In fact, I'd hazard to say that they're one of the few companies who put customer service ahead of pretty much everything else, and that isn't just my opinion... JD Power has agreed for years.