Published August 23, 2007
in ATT and Misc.
If the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling holds up, that is. Basically, the court found that a clause in AT&T’s (Cingular’s at the time, actually) customer contract forcing customers to arbitrate instead of sue via class action was uncool — “unconscionable under California law” was their exact wording, but you get the idea. We guess AT&T was looking to avoid having to make pesky public statements about lawsuits filed against it, and hey, who can blame ‘em? Nice try, guys! [Warning: PDF link]
[Via Wired]
So it seems that AT&T has recognized the error of its ways in sending out entire trees’ worth of paper for its monthly bills, firing off text messages today to subscribers that read as follows: “We are simplifying your paper bill, removing itemized detail. To view all detail go to att.com/mywireless. Still need full paper bill? Call 611.” So yeah, if you actually need 400 pages of gibberish to recall everyone you sent a text to last month, go ahead and dial ‘em up. Otherwise, take solace in the fact that your postal carrier won’t have to lug that bad boy around anymore.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
With the Motorola RAZR 2 set to drop on Sprint next week as the V9m, the handset will then be released on Verizon Wireless in September. No solid word on AT&T’s official release date with the V9, though. How about Alltel? You’ll see the V9m with them too, apparently (not sure when). Until then, PC Magazine has reviewed the plethora of differences between the RAZR 2 when it comes to these four carriers (T-Mobile to come later with the EDGE-only V8, according to reports). The review breaks down the per-carrier deets, mentioning that T-Mobile’s version will run Linux while the other versions will use Moto’s Synergy software platform. The phone books and web browsers are different on the CDMA variants, as well as the overall UI being starkly different on each one. Want CrystalTalk background noise suppression? It’s only on AT&T’s model. There are so many intricate differences on each RAZR 2 that you just gotta hate carrier branding and custom software. Use the read link below for a full smattering of all the RAZR 2 differences so far.
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Oh, the drama. Just when you thought AT&T may be in the clear to re-brand Jeff Burton’s ride, NASCAR throws a $100 million lawsuit in the carrier’s direction, and now, a federal appeals court has reportedly “cleared the way” for NASCAR to claim victory. Purportedly, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals “said Monday in its order that AT&T lacks standing to challenge NASCAR’s decision,” and subsequently tossed out a lower court’s ruling that prevented NASCAR from halting AT&T’s plans. Sheesh, all this over a paint job.
If the rumor mill pans out, the upcoming BlackBerry 8820 stands to be a bottomless piggy bank for AT&T. Why? First we heard that the device’s WiFi capability would be unusable without an EDGE data plan — despite the fact that there’s absolutely no reasonable correlation between the two — and now we’re hearing that its GPS service may suffer a similar fate. Boy Genius Report is saying that the 8820’s navigation capabilities will be usable only with TeleNav at a cost of $9.99 per month. Don’t get us wrong, TeleNav gets the job done, but why can’t any app we choose tap into the GPS signal? The phone isn’t out yet (the latest intel suggests September) so we’ll withhold judgment until then, but please, AT&T, we beg of you: let us use our hardware however we choose.
Apple and its batteries just can’t seem to catch a break, eh? This go ’round, Sydney Leung has filed a class-action complaint that reportedly accuses “both Apple and AT&T of fraud in neglecting to inform potential iPhone buyers of the costs involved in maintaining a working battery for the iPhone over the course of the handset’s lifespan.” The angered individual and his legal team are purporting that the iPhone’s battery “lasts only 300 complete charges before depleting entirely,” and also argue that Apple and AT&T didn’t address this issue until after customers had made their purchase. Of course, Apple specs show that the battery in question is designed to hold a full charge for between 300 and 400 cycles, while still holding a majority of that charge afterwards, so unless Mr. Leung’s (and a few others, too) battery mysteriously conked out after that oh-so-critical 300th charge, we’re failing to see what ground he’s standing on.
There was a lot of iPhone chatter this week — although Apple might have done all it can to lock the little bugger down, it seems people are still finding ways to extend and explore its capabilities, while AT&T might have finally gotten the hint about those ridiculous paper bills.
- Logic3 unveiled the i-Station Traveler (pictured), the first speaker dock we’ve seen specifically for the iPhone. While most iPod docks tend to work fine with the iPhone, the $60 Traveller is designed specifically around the horizontal orientation, allowing you to watch movies while the iPhone is docked.
- Meebo and Facebook both launched iPhone-specific versions of their sites, allowing you to IM your friends and stalk your exes with all the swoopy-slidey flair you’d expect.
- Orange continued to act all coy about potentially being Apple’s partner in France, saying only that it had “no comment” on the iPhone, even as rumors heat up.
- The iPhone got straight-up benchmarked for the first time: Craig Hockenberry whipped out his stopwatch and discovered that Javascript in MobileSafari runs right around eighty times slower than on a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo Mac. He also whipped up a little app using that pirate toolchain we love so much and discovered that native ARM code runs right around 200 times faster than Javascript in the iPhone. Looks like that Safari sandbox might not be so “sweet” after all.
- AT&T seems to have decided that its vendetta against the trees of the world might be a little misplaced, and is in the process of moving to “summary billing,” according to a call center employee. Either that, or they’re trying to guilt people into switching to e-billing by sending out ridiculous bills. Really, that’s what the email says.
All in all, a pretty busy week for the iPhone — kinda makes you wonder how much action there’ll be when Apple finally releases that official SDK, eh?
Read - i-Station Traveler
Read - Meebo
Read - Facebook
Read - Orange declines to comment on the iPhone
Read - iPhone benchmarks
Read - AT&T reducing paper bills
[Thanks, risingsonn and The Boy Genius]
We kinda knew that AT&T was ready to start throwing the switches on its aging TDMA national network, but now the carrier is taking it to the customer with increased fees on older calling plans. Make that stiffing the customer, as those AT&T subs still using tried-and-true TDMA digital handsets on older AT&T “Blue” plans (non-GSM) are apparently now being charged $9.99 per month for sticking with those grandfathered calling and feature plans. So, if you’re an “old” AT&T Wireless customer (pre-Cingular merger) using that Nokia 6160, be warned. We know some of those older plans have hard-to-beat prices for features, but AT&T really wants you off them. That, or pony up another $10 a month.
Sources are telling us that RIM’s upgraded 8800, the 8820, will finally be ready for AT&T come the 15th of September. As a refresher, the 8820 adds WiFi to the 8800’s buttoned down, all-business spec sheet, but it turns out there’s a very sneaky catch: WiFi won’t be usable unless the subscriber hooks up a data plan. We’re guessing this’ll be hacked in all of about 15 minutes, but yeah, buyer beware. AT&T will be touting the 8820 as rocking twice the battery life of Verizon’s 8830, so at least you’ll be able to curse the data lockdown for twice as long before you run out of juice.
[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
