This is important enough of an event today that I want to earmark it to look back on and remember where I was. Often famous people die, and most of the time I shrug and go about my life dealing with far more important issues. This one is far more important to me though, both due to the significant impact he has had on the tech world, my world. Also because I got the chance to meet him (even if only for seconds) once.
So this weekend is wondercon, the San Francisco branch of Comic Con. The one thing I was more excited about than anything else (even hot girls in spandex outfits!) was the chance to really put my 3DS’s StreetPass through its paces. I suspected there would be a healthy dose of 3DS owners there, and I was right!
I have to say, Nintendo really improved on the whole peer to peer encounter thing that they first tried with the original DS. I really liked it on the old system, but it was fairly impractical. You had to have the game you wanted to enable it on loaded up, at a specific screen, and then put to sleep in that mode. A lot of finagling had to take place to get things ready and you can only enact it with one game at a time. With the 3DS the biggest improvement, to me at least, was that you can enable streetpass for multiple games simultaneously even if the game isn’t even in your unit at the time. It’s always on all the time, whether your system is sleeping or actively gaming.
I threw my 3DS in my messenger bag on sleep mode with both SSFIV and the normal Mii StreetPass enabled, and headed down to the event. I learned a few things from this little experiment. Firstly, if you are out at an event where you expect a LOT of activity, like Wondercon or PAX or E3, check your system often. Each type of StreetPass (Mii, SSFIV, etc) seems to have a 10-encounter limit per title. Once you max out, it stops accepting any new encounters until you clear our your queue. If you don’t load it up and clean it out, you might miss out on a lot of activity. Secondly, you can only use Miis you have encountered for the mini RPG or the Puzzle game if no one new has arrived yet to “push them off” the list. In my case, I acknowledged the 10 new visitors, and then closed the unit and went about my business, completely missing out on the puzzle pieces they had and the fights they could have done for me. Both of these issues I am sure have perfectly logical technical design reasons/limitations behind their implementation, and I am ok with them now that I understand them, just wish I had known it sooner. (Then again I never bothered to thumb through that massive King James Bible sized manual so the fault is my own really.) Finally, in the case of Super Street Fighter IV, those mini figure battles have to be processed in the Log in order to accumulate the points earned. Sadly there is no way to speed through it, and sitting down and watching through all those battles is fairly time consuming and annoying. Fortunately though you can let up to 20 of them sit in your log before it fills up and you need to clear some out.
All in all, this weekend totally made owning a 3DS right out the gate all the more enjoyable. I was thinking all week how awesome StreetPass would be come E3 or PAX, not at all thinking about Wondercon. I’m glad I got to experience this now, as to get a better idea for how I plan to approach those other events this year once I have a fair amount of various games loaded up for StreetPassing, so as not to miss out on anything awesome. Most importantly, I want to point out that at the end of the day, after logging 30 or so SSFIV matches (and watching them all) and about 50 Mii exchanges (and clearing that queue 4 or 5 times) I ended the day with about 50% battery life. Considering how fast this thing drains, and how comparatively crappy its over all battery life is, thats fairly reassuring.
There is someone I have been faithful to over the years. Someone I love, someone I have always stood by. I was pragmatic, when they did something rash or silly I did not blindly defend them to my friends, I listened open-minded to their opinions on the matter, some times I even agreed, but I understood that what they did for me was in the end rewarding. I stood by then through thick and thin, and today I learned I have been burned by them harshly, and I cannot forgive them.
This person? Apple.
(granted they had some help from AT&T who I have always hated with a passion).
The iPad 3G. It comes with the option of a non-contract data plan with AT&T you can pay by the month. The rate? 29.99 for unlimited dat. (Same as the iPhone). You pay it month to month and can turn it off an on at will, with no contract.
Today it was announced AT&T is moving to a new data tiered method. (gizmodo link) The new method maxes at 2gb of data a month for 25$ and includes tethering. Alternatively you can keep your old data plan and be grandfathered into the old rates. The catch though is that you cannot have tethering. If you ever change your dataplan at all then you get locked into the new rate. Fair enough, ok then.
This also applies to the iPad. Ok again, fair enough. It’s the price you pay for a non-contract data plan. No guarantees.
The catch? It takes effect June 7th. This now makes crystal clear why my iPad 3G order, promised to ship in 7-10 business days, was delayed for 14 days to ship on, surprise, June 7th. If my iPad arrives after the 7th, which it will, then I am not elligible to be grandfathered into the old ipad data rate. I am locked into a max of 2gb of data usage, after which it is 1.25 cents per meg.
Now, I have checked my old iPhone data bills. I have never exceeded 700 megs to 1gb ever, EVER. I am not terribly worried about that, yet. (not to mention I plan to rely HEAVILY on the wi-fi already anyways). What irks me, what is a down right insult and slap to the face, is that Apple OBVISOULY withheld shipments of new iPads at AT&Ts request to prevent as many people as possible from being grandfathered in once this was decided upon. Its clear, and it’s insulting. Let me be clear. I understand the new pricing model, fuck I even support it. Truly. What is so insulting though is the whole “withhold my shipping date a week to make me not eligible for the old plan” by apple. Mark my words, my current iphone 3gs WILL BE MY LAST IPHONE. I dont give a DAMN about this new “4g” phone being announced. Once my contract is up this fall or winter I am moving to an Android phone on Verizon or Sprint. This was just too much. Apple has made it clear they are no longer the counter point agaist AT&T. They are obviously willing to work with them to some degree, and that degree burns.
************UPDATE************
6/2 @ 1:40PM PST:
So i just spent 50 minutes on the phone with apple customer service. Long story short they told me to fuck off. I spoke to a very nice young lady at first who agreed the entire situation was unpleasant, but I was the first caller to bring it up to her so she had to review the internal corporate email about the situation first.
Afterwards I spent about 25 minutes on hold while she tracked down a manager for me to speak with. I was transfered to a gentleman named Tim who was a “management representative” who was extremely professional and courteous, but made it clear there was nothing they could do for me. At the very best they could locate an iPad for me at a local store, have it held, and cancel my order and let me pick that one up. This would be perfect for me, except it was purchased as a gift for me from my father on his credit card and I had no way to pay for it in store at this time.
He kept wanting to shift focus to the fact the change in plan was AT&T’s doing, and not theirs, and that really 2gb was a lot of data. I had to keep shifting focus back to the fact I dont care about the plan itself, but the fact from a consumer point of view it is impossible to treat this as a ‘coincidence’ that sooooo many peoples orders were held till June 7th, and then the announcement comes out today that is when the plans change. He also insisted that he was told this was in no way shape or form the case, and Apple would never do something like this to meet AT&Ts requirements, although I told him that while I believed he THOUGHT he was telling the truth, I cant accept that somewhere high up in Apple this decision wasn’t made with this in mind.
In the end I took down his contact info and politely and respectfully let him know my battle was not over and ended the call. As it stands though I am unsure where to take this from here without making it a legal issue, however I am hesitant to threaten legal action before my order is shipped. At the same time I just want a damn iPad in my hands before June 7th so I can have the peace of mind of unlimited data, perhaps that might make that happen? :\
************UPDATE************
6/8 @ 7:43pm PST
So just a bit of a followup, my iPad ended up shipping a few days early and arrived on the 7th. At the same time AT&T out of the blue decided to honor the unlimited data plan for all unit purchased prior to 12:00am June 7th. (Me thinks apple had a hand in that due to bad publicity). I’m still pretty annoyed at things but now I’m more apt to believe the delays were a hardware shortage and not apples full intention. I LOVE my iPad, and am actually writing this on it on the train home from work 
I do however, still plan to buy an Android phone soon on a non AT&T network. Sorry apple but there is nothing about the iPhone 4 that even comes close to making up for the pain for 2 more years of AT&Ts excuse for “service”.
So on New Years Day I went and bought a Motorola Droid, and switched from AT&T to Verizon. It was fun, I liked it. By the 3rd though I decided that for all Droid did, it wasnt an iPhone, and went back to AT&T.
I called AT&T, reactivated my account, had my iPhone turned back on, and went back to the Verizon store and returned my Droid. All this went smoothly.
Fast-forward to today. I pop into my online control panel for AT&T to see what my billing cycle is (I forgot) and to look at the new reduced price plans. I suddenly see my account flagged as Past Due with a balance of $155. I look into it and this is my early termination fee. WTF! I’m still a customer!
I call AT&T and after having someone research my issue for what seemed like kind of long to do a simple “hmm he canceled, hmm he came back, thats odd” verification they confirmed I was indeed due to be credited that charge. I asked why it was still on my account, and they told me it wasnt, that it shows the credit on their side. The fact it still showed the due amount on my web panel was a mystery to the agent.
After further hold time and investigation she told me that I need to pay the cancelation fee, even though its credited in their system, then when my Feb bill comes, there will be a $155 credit applied to my account for that month to account for my non-cancelation.
…what?
I laughed and said there would be no way I was doing that, I would prefer to let it just sort itself out in Feb when my new bill came and the credit was applied etc. She told me I could not do this as my account was currently flagged past due and would be deactivated for non payment before that point, and I was required to pay the fee, which would then be credited back to me the next billing cycle. (Please note I have no other due amounts on the account that I am liable for, the ONLY charge is the cancelation fee!)
…what what?
I told her that was a ludicrous request. How can they rightfully suspend my service for non payment of a fee I did not legally incur. (Please note I have no other due amounts on the account that I am liable for, the ONLY charge is the cancelation fee!) They themselves admit its a false fee, and its been credited to my account (for next month, for some silly reason) and they are going to suspend me for not paying it this month? Thats ridiculous!
I politely informed her this kind of service is the very reason why I experimented with leaving AT&T in the first place, and was making me start to second guess the choice to come back. That seemed to strike a chord with them, and after another 15 minute hold she came back to inform me the fee had been entirely removed as of now, which I verified online. Seriously folks, what the fuck?
So I love my iPhone, I really do. I left Verizon after 7 years of happy service, and jumped to AT&Ts world class shitty service when the first gen iPhone launched. That little phone was the first ever to last me more than a year. Until that point I upgraded phones annually, coughing up the full phone price almost every time since I was only upgrade-eligible every 2 years. This summer the 3gS launched, and that little work horse was finally traded in, after 2 years of round the clock abuse, and the 3g has been a strong little phone ever since as well.
I have recently had my hands on the Droid and Droid Eris (henceforth referred to as Eris here) from Verizon, however. With the ever increasing frustration I have been getting from the Bay Area AT&T network, that seems to degrade weekly, I am beginning to have doubts how much longer I will be on the iPhone train. The Android app store now has versions of every iPhone app I can’t do without, plus amazing things like Google Goggles. (until you have used it, like I have, you cant understand how cool it really is!). Also the native support of google voice, something I have but am slow to adopt due to the iphone’s clunky support of it, is a big tipping point for me as well. I now have a bay area phone number on GV, and I would like to use it in tandem with my 502 number on a more regular basis.
At this point I am facing a tough decision. Convert my iphone into a powerful ipod, by deactivating its phone service and using it as my day to day ipod as well as it’s wifi powers to run some apps, and switch over to an Android powered phone or ignore all the hooplah and stick to my Apple love. To be honest it’s not looking good for my ex-girlfriend’s stock options at Apple.
Both the Droid and the Eris are enticing. The Eris’s pebble like shape and size is, in my opinion, superior the the physical design of the iPhone in many ways. At first I felt it lagged behind the Droid due to its using the Android 1.5 OS and not the newer 2.0 and due to the fact it runs the HTC SensUI, however I have now learned Android 2.0 will be available for it in January once HTC is done updating SenseUI for it. Even better, you can turn off SenseUI in the settings and use the base Anndroid OS if you so choose. (Although the SenseUI has a lot of improvements the Android can benefit from). The Droid however has a slightly larger screen (0.4 inches) and a slide out keyboard. Using it though is NOTHING like my keyboard experience from when I owned the Verizon 6700 due to its small size and quirky feedback. Also did I mention the Droid is $199 and the Eris is $99?
After spending time with both.. I am finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to go to the store later this week and jump back to Verizon, $175 AT&T termination fee be damned.
