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11/13/09
In related news, I know there was some open forum a few months back discussed on PreCentral. The presenter made some jab at cell providers that have the long menus people have to listen to as possibly just there to drive up minutes. The big four simply grinned at him.
They do it. We fall for it. #datacharges
11/13/09
My mom tried to block data from her account, which ended up blocking her from receiving picture texts. So now we're stuck with a 12 dollar charge, and a tough decision between allowing this to happen again or blocking a service that we pay for.
11/13/09
The solution is to get a phone without the Carrier designed OS installed. HTC/Apple/RIM/Palm/Google couldn't care less if you incur data charges. So they tend to not create a UI that has you accidentally logging on at least twice a month.
Point is, you want to avoid conflicts of interest. 1. Don't let your cell carrier design your phones UI. 2. Don't let your media provider build your audio/video hardware.
...any others? #datacharges
11/13/09
Its nothing about conflict of interests. I still have a extremely hard time believing that VZW or any other carrier is really part of some grand scheme to place buttons so that people are inadvertently charged for stuff. They are about increasing data usage yes. One of the ways that they can do that is to make getting to it more convenient to get there and I see nothing wrong with that. If a consumer is constantly butt dialing their way through the prompts and warnings I'd probably put my phone in a different pocket. #datacharges
11/13/09
And it's not so much a "Grand Scheme", as much as it is an inflated perception of how often people use VCast/VZWeb in comparison to their phone's address book and voicemail.
11/13/09
I don't think that VZW things people use those more (address book is a dedicated key after all on most phones) but they do have a vested interest in making it easy for people to use. No one is going to jump through six menus to get to web or get it now. They'd probably forget why they wanted to go there by the time they got there. #datacharges
11/13/09
To-mA-to vs. To-Ma-to #datacharges
11/13/09
11/13/09
And I should read other people's comments too lest I sound like a parrot.
11/13/09
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11/13/09
not here, man. i got t-mo prepaid (no cards) on a nokia shitbrick that isn't even capable of MMS. $100 for 1,000 minutes that dont expire for 1 year means i end up paying about $200-$250 a year for service, and never any erroneous charges. #datacharges
11/13/09
11/13/09
"This design "flaw" might be netting Verizon $300 million per year."
then the article says:
"That's over $300 million per month"
month? year? #datacharges
11/13/09
11/13/09
Both Pogue's post and consumerists puts it in months...
Which I find even harder to believe. #datacharges
11/13/09
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As far I'm concerned, it's your fault if you leave that key mapped to the web. Also, I'm suspicious of that charge for attempting to connect. This is Pogue we're talking about, so I take everything he says with a grain of salt. #datacharges
11/13/09
But at least with t-mobile, the data was free if I was just browsing their little wallpaper/game store. So I never got hit with a fee. #datacharges
11/13/09
11/13/09
So whatever phones are involved in this, well, they aren't configured for My Verizon on the 'up'. #datacharges
11/13/09
The simplest fix would be for a 3 second countdown in order to hit cancel. Of course, we know verizon won't do that. #datacharges
11/13/09
11/13/09
Makes me think someone's got a PR firm pushing a dirty story, and that makes me feel icky.
11/13/09
11/13/09
If it were a PR move. Its a pretty shitty one. #datacharges
11/13/09
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11/13/09
Apple, on the other hand, is going to have serious competition in the years ahead from Android.
In any case, it is neat to see the market shifting so dramatically in such a relatively short period of time. #smartphonemarketshare
11/13/09
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11/13/09
My dissatisfaction with BB led me to use a Korean made WinMo phone and it's surprisingly good (for business aplications, and a few other things).... compared to RIM.... what nightmare they were. #smartphonemarketshare
11/13/09
1. Apple made it seem their device locally encrypted information and never told anyone that it did not.
2. Apple lied to Exchange Servers saying it was locally encrypting the data when it was not.
(FYI: These two lies put corporations in litigation peril since they are held to confidentiality agreements and encryption standards, such as national HIPAA regulations. In other words - major problem.)
3. Apple released a patch that was an insignificant fix for problems that "fixed" this little white lie.
4. That "fix" that was not communicated broke all earlier iPhones from being able to connect to properly configured Exchange 2007 servers.
5. Tech departments from all over the world received countless trouble tickets saying their iPhones no longer worked and blamed it on the corporation, not their beloved company in Cupertino.
6. After getting the facts, companies everywhere started denying access to email data (for obvious reasons) to any iPhone devices, many setting it as company policy.
Oh, sure, there are other problems, too - like being able to control what functions of the iPhone are available to staff - being able to remotely destory the data (corporate necessity), being able to push out applications to each device, etc and so on.
I could go on, but you get the idea.. The iPhone is not a corporate device. Not yet, at least, and given the track record, probably not for a long time. #smartphonemarketshare
11/13/09