Hey guys,
Have you ever been in a relationship where the other person treats you like garbage, and you keep trying to leave, but every time you do, you convince yourself that you’ll never find anyone out there who’s better, and then you end up coming right back to the same person who treats you like garbage? And then you suffer in the relationship and wonder where your life went so wrong that you’re willing to just stay put and put up with the abuse, because you used to be so strong, so independent, and if you had told yourself a year ago that you’d be in this position you’d never believe it?
Well, until yesterday, that was me.
On October 16, 2008, I walked into a Best Buy and purchased an iPhone 3G. I had put off purchasing the iPhone for a long time. I had a phone. It worked fairly well. It got pretty good service. But it was coming to the end of its life cycle, and I realized that I would soon need a new means of communicating. I was excited. I’m not a fan of Apple products, overall. I find them to be overpriced, overdesigned, underperforming, and honestly, pretty ugly. I, to this day, can’t stand to use iTunes. I would sooner set my money on fire than spend it on one of your ridiculously overpriced Mac computers. But I had to admit–the iPhone was a pretty sexy piece of tech. Sure, it still looked like a reject from the Wall-E character models, but it had a lot of cool features, the OS worked fairly well, and it had a great app store.
I got the iPhone, and spent the next day or two playing with it. And I loved the device immensely. Except for one thing: It didn’t make or receive calls.
Now, call me crazy, but it seems to me that when you spend several hundred dollars on a phone, locking yourself into a RIDICULOUSLY overpriced two-year contract, the one thing that you should have every right to expect your phone to do is to MAKE AND RECEIVE CALLS. My phone regularly got 0-1 bars of service from within my apartment. At work, I got five bars, but I still couldn’t make calls, check my email, or send text messages. I wouldn’t get emails or voicemails until hours or even days after they had been sent. I did everything: I reset the phone, reset the network settings, spent $300 on a cell signal repeater for my apartment, got a new SIM Card, even tried to get a replacement phone. All with no luck. But I was so in love with the iPhone’s non-phone functionality that I decided to keep it anyway, and instead got a land line in my apartment.
Let me repeat that. I spent $300 on a phone, was under a contract to spend a minimum of $90 a month for service I couldn’t use for two years, and in order to keep the device, was forced to go out and spend another $50 a month just so I could have the ability to make phone calls from my apartment. I should have taken that as a warning sign. What idiot in their right mind spends that kind of money on a phone that can’t make or receive phone calls?
But I persisted. Sometimes the phone would work just fine. Most of the time though, it would drop calls, fail to deliver voicemails, connect to wi-fi, or perform any of its regular communication duties. I was once on hold for 30 minutes to talk to someone at the IRS and had the phone drop my call less than 20 seconds after the IRS agent picked up the line. But like a battered wife, I stuck with it, hoping that someday he would change.
Several months ago, Sprint came out with the Palm Pre, and at last, I thought, there is a Smartphone that will be able to free me from my AT&T shackles. But, alas, I was mistaken. I bought the phone and decided to try it out for a few days before porting my number and cancelling my account with AT&T. (I was fully willing to pay AT&T’s early termination fee just to have them out of my life.) The Pre was a decent phone, but the limitations and the lack of third party software, coupled with the atrocious battery life made the phone unusable. I took it back to the carrier, and decided to stick with the iPhone.
I looked and looked for a better Smartphone…one that could do what the iPhone could do and also function as, you know, a phone. There weren’t a lot of options. So, last month, I bit the bullet, and decided that it was time to try an iPhone upgrade…I was going to try to get the 3GS, hoping against hope that maybe now, my phone would function as less of a PDA and more of an actual Smartphone.
I need hardly mention that, once again, my hopes were dashed. The 3GS was just the same: no calls, no texts, no voicemails. All of my incoming calls go through Google Voice, which simul-rings both my cell and my landline. I would sit there and watch the landline phone ring, but the iPhone do nothing, even though it had 4-5 bars. If I let the call go to voicemail, it usually wouldn’t show up on the iPhone until two days later. Now I had just spent $500 on a new phone and protection plan, and had foolishly extended my contract with AT&T for another two years. Just on the hope that the only phone that functions as a decent PDA would also be able to make calls on "The Country’s Fastest 3G Network."
Let me just take a moment to send a special message to AT&T: I realize that you claim that you have, and I quote, "The Country’s Fastest 3G Network." While it’s true that, theoretically, your network is capable of delivering data at a faster rate than any other network currently built in the US, that hardly matters if the people who use said network are never able to connect. I live less than two miles away from a major AT&T Wireless Building. I live less than a mile away from the largest software company in the world. If there is a single place in the entire world I should be able to get excellent service from your network, it should be here. And now, Verizon is mocking the overall performance of your network by TELLING THE TRUTH in their television ads and using a Apples to Apples comparison of a coverage map that you have validated is accurate, and you respond like a poopy-pantsed cry baby and take them to court because they said mean things about you. If you don’t like what Verizon is saying, how about you FIX YOUR NETWORK. But no, instead you hire Luke Wilson to shoot a commercial that looks like it was written, produced, directed, and edited in about 45 minutes by a mentally challenged marketing exec on a bender. If your network didn’t make people want to join the West Baghdad Suicide Bomber Union Chapter #306, none of this would even be necessary. But it’s easier to go whining to the judge that Verizon called you a bad name. Grow up.
In any case, I thought that I was going to be forever in your grasp. That there was never a device out there that could compete with the iPhone, and therefore no way that I would ever be able to escape from the clutches of the abortion known as the AT&T "Country’s Fastest 3G Network that doesn’t actually let you make calls or check email." But last week, deliverance: The Verizon Droid was released.
I bought one of these phones on Friday night, and already, I feel as though my live has been changed for the better. The Droid is a hella sexy beast. It’s got a gorgeous screen, a METAL body, a physical keyboard, a standard USB connector, an open-source OS, a very respectable app store, a better camera, a camera flash, interchangeable memory, a removable battery, and best of all, IT MAKES CALLS! It doesn’t need iTunes to sync to my computer. It allows me to drag and drop files over USB or bluetooth. AND IT MAKES CALLS! It can multi-task, does visual voicemail and voice dialing, doesn’t have ridiculous limits on the size of files that it will allow you to download over the 3G network (like podcasts), and did I mention, IT MAKES CALLS! I’ve never in my life found so much relief from a piece of technology. DROID is the Rolaids of the cell phone world. I walked out of the store on Friday night feeling like Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes.
You see, AT&T, there was a time where I was beholden to you. But I’m older, and I make better money. Towanda! I’m the kind of customer that you should really want to keep. I spend money on technology like it’s going out of style. I have never in my life kept one phone for my entire two year contract. I am always paying more for my phone than most, because I do early upgrades. I will pay extra for the data plan and the accessories, and the special features.
It should also say something to you that I am willing to break my contract and pay the full break contract fee less 34 days after I renewed it and paid $500 for a phone. You pushed me to the edge with your lousy service and your overpriced payment plans. And the only thing that was holding me back from leaving you a long time ago was that I couldn’t find the right phone. Well Motorola has done it. Their phone has made it possible for me to escape from your clutches. I know that one person leaving you isn’t that big of a deal, but I know several folks who are more than anxious to jump off of your network the instant their contracts expire if there’s another phone out there that can compete with the iPhone. And not only is there, but there’s one that’s a WHOLE lot better…that can do everything the iPhone can, and a whole lot more.
So "Good Day" to you AT&T and Apple. I SAID GOOD DAY! AT&T, I don’t know that I will ever be willing to go back to you again. Pretty much the only way I would is if you were somehow able to get a phone that could clean my house and walk my dog…and make calls. And Apple, maybe next time you should be a little more careful about who you get into bed with. Because in the cell-phone world, you picked the partner with technological Chlamydia.
Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to go make some custom ringtones, check my email, post to my Twitter feed, and download some apps on my new Droid.
Since that day, I have never been without a TiVo in my life…except for that truly painful four months after I left 
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