Steve Jobs Wanted His Own Cell Carrier for the iPhone

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tului

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[citation][nom]walter87[/nom]Its stealing revenue because instead of charging people for SMS or text plans, people are able to simple transfer messages over their network under data; with that, there's also support to send over Wi-Fi to eliminate the need for using a carriers 3G network all together.Carriers may be greedy in terms of pricing of contracts, buts worse is having a single entity control every aspect (hardware, software, network etc). That gives the company the power to charge whatever they wanted for a single service.That's greed if you ask me.[/citation]

I can agree that Apple being the sole decider of who can use an app or inbuilt phone function is bad, I still don't think it's stealing until or if they decide to charge for it. If anything it's making the carriers have to stop stealing from their customers. SMS could easily be piped over data at a fraction of the cost. They boost their profits like that and then cap data plans.

Apple isn't the only way to send messages to other users though, I know many people who use Whatsapp to send messages for "free". While I'm sure the app is collecting their information and selling it to advertisers, for them it's better than carriers ridiculous rates.

Me, I'm still waiting for an Android port of Pidgin.
 

getreal

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[citation][nom]SickOfThisCrap[/nom]Almost every person who posted here is an idiot. It shows in at least half of the posts via spelling and grammar mistakes. It also shows via the crude and aggressive responses. It's very apparent that nearly nobody who bothered to make a comment here has an open mind. A bunch of trolls is what you all are.[/citation]

You are exactly right. Any post that doesn't bash Apple, even if it is an objective post, will just get modded out by the Android / PC sheep.
 

balister

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[citation][nom]walter87[/nom]Its stealing revenue because instead of charging people for SMS or text plans, people are able to simple transfer messages over their network under data; with that, there's also support to send over Wi-Fi to eliminate the need for using a carriers 3G network all together.Carriers may be greedy in terms of pricing of contracts, buts worse is having a single entity control every aspect (hardware, software, network etc). That gives the company the power to charge whatever they wanted for a single service.That's greed if you ask me.[/citation]

Instead of greed, I would go a bit further and say Anti-Trust. Apple has been notorious for doing things that should be looked at by DoJ for anti-trust. Most people don't realize that one of the biggest anti-trust no-no's is to require one product to use another product, known as tying in anti-trust. Apple has effectively been doing this for years, but the government isn't willing to go after them for it (technically, requiring you to buy a Mac to use Mac OS is tying now that Apple has moved to using x86/EMT64).
 
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Has anyone had enough of Steve Jobs, yet? Let's give the man credit where credit is due. Jobs was a hypocritical megalomaniac with great design sense, great vision, and great timing--one of the most successful businessmen of all time. It is an undisputed fact that from the beginning he exploited his own employees, eventually relying on Chinese slaves to do his toxic production dirty work--all for our privilege to pay $400 for a revolution in phone technology at $75/mo while he plays quadrillionaire. Now, that’s genius. Interesting to note that in the Jobsian world American's can buy them, but not make them.

Mr. Jobs took credit for pretty much everything having to do with computers. He didn't invent the processing capability, but he did push Woj to build it. He didn't invent the PARC interface/mouse, but he eliminated three of its mouse buttons and that's more than that bastard Gates did. Brilliant, and so Zen! Apparently, his great timing could be your bad timing. If you bought one of his expensive computers and a few months later a major change was released, you were kidding yourself if you thought you could get a discount or a means to move up to the new product you barely missed. Ever ask an Apple Store ‘genius’ when the next change is coming out? They can’t say. It’s a secret.

And, how come we never hear about Jobs screwing up the original Apple--only that part about his heroic resurrection and comeback to slay the soda pop boogeyman. I mean, look what he gave us at Pixar--after Toy Story, I'll never be the same. It is well documented that Jobs routinely crushed employees and second-party developers who were at the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. He even screwed his own family, I mean, his own daughter? A former hippy, New Age, alternative NoCal visionary? Sounds more like another classic tale from the long, dark heritage of American capitalist greed.

I guess to take credit for an expensive technology that can emulate reality to an extremely high and entertaining degree and that provides communications and internet service, too boot, it’s worth the pain. Plus, Jobs is unquestionably responsible for simply the most stunning, visually beautiful computer experience, period. But after his deification, at some point we ought to ask just what Jobs’ computer revolution and its concomitant expansion into gadgetry do for us?

If you make an honest examination of American life in the ole 21st, the abiding effect of the computer revolution has been the virtual addiction of most First World people to gadgets that steal our time, our money, and our souls. For all we've gained, we’ve arguably lost an equal, if not greater, amount--in terms of quality of work, numbers of jobs, industrial production capability, untold frustration, and, most precious of all, our personal time. Time to think, to breath, to watch the world and others doing the same. Time to simply be is rendered less and less useful while more and more expensive. When do we even have time to consider whether or not any or all of this is really worth a damn? And, it’s all made in China and Korea, no less.

The overwhelming and undeniable benefit of ubiquitous consumer computer use has to be the internet and Jobs did not create that--Al Gore did, or the military and academia. Whatever. And, ironically, the internet became the glorious tool it now is because of Google, not Apple. In fact, whether or not Android stole from Apple the way Microsoft did so long ago according to the Gospel of Jobs, were you to remove internet search-related apps from the iPhone or iPad, they would simply become very pretty, very expensive video/game/mp3 players. No, Apple never exploited anything Google did. And, it's better buying mp3s, book/ebooks, and movies from Apple than Amazon. O-tay.

Barely mentioned in the glowing nostalgia is the tragic likelihood that Steve Jobs was bipolar, a textbook manic depressive; and, like most of them, he was talented, engaging, and light years beyond most--in spite of being an utter and complete ass. Yeah, like Edison, Jobs belongs up there at the top of the America's Brilliant Scoundrels Who Changed the World list. Carnegie, Ford, and Gates are just going to have to play second fiddle, apparently. But, is he really up there with Benjamin Franklin? Really?

Isn't the time for canonization over? At the end of the day, while his life-sucking gadgets remain, he's gone and his beloved and admired megalomaniacal quest for fame, fortune, and control is over. That is, until we make the next one. I hear this guy Zuckerberg takes long walks and is comfortable bandying about our future--whether in front of the cameras of 60 minutes or just vibrating away in there inside his cute little curly-haired pate.

All right, how about some more porn on Facebook!

Thank God for geniuses!
 

nebun

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i would have loved to see Apple have it's own cellular service...it would have relly made verizon and at&t think twice about overcharging it's customers
 

tului

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[citation][nom]balister[/nom]Instead of greed, I would go a bit further and say Anti-Trust. Apple has been notorious for doing things that should be looked at by DoJ for anti-trust. Most people don't realize that one of the biggest anti-trust no-no's is to require one product to use another product, known as tying in anti-trust. Apple has effectively been doing this for years, but the government isn't willing to go after them for it (technically, requiring you to buy a Mac to use Mac OS is tying now that Apple has moved to using x86/EMT64).[/citation]

And the carriers aren't guilty of collusion by continuing to use SMS the way they do and with the billing they do? There is a much easier alternative for almost all phones, especially considering a lot of voice calls go over data now anyway.
 

aftcomet

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[citation][nom]walter87[/nom]Its stealing revenue because instead of charging people for SMS or text plans, people are able to simple transfer messages over their network under data; with that, there's also support to send over Wi-Fi to eliminate the need for using a carriers 3G network all together.Carriers may be greedy in terms of pricing of contracts, buts worse is having a single entity control every aspect (hardware, software, network etc). That gives the company the power to charge whatever they wanted for a single service.That's greed if you ask me.[/citation]

Not everyone has an iPhone you know. I can't use iMessage on my Nokia.
 

sundragon

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God forbid Steve Jobs wanted to give us another option other than AT&T, Verizon, etc...

What a horrible person!

For the love of God, would someone change all the Android whiners on the forum's pampers, they keep crying and b*tching like my last girlfriend on the rag... At least she put out!

Go root your phones with the most recent OS that wasn't released for your phone and be happy you're open source!
 

sundragon

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[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]Steve Job actually wanted its own Country for his Apple eco-system. I'm sure most the Apple fans would follow him.[/citation]

You bet, so we would stop hearing all the blubbering from the Android owners :)
 

law shay

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[citation][nom]FJohnston[/nom]Hmmm...so many haters. I think the wallets have spoken. People like, love and admire Apple products. They cast their vote by buying Apple products over other competitors. It's really quite simple. Give people a great experience and a great product and they will come running. Carriers, infrastructure, complete control, etc DO NOT MATTER if consumers are happy with what they buy. I view most of the comments as sour grapes and whining. There is NOTHING that stops Microsoft, Dell, Sony and all the others from making better products and winning in the same Steve Jobs and Apple have done. I'm not just a fan boy. I'm just a frustrated consumer looking for great products no matter whose label is on it.[/citation]

They are too dependent on the system that if you fight that system, the people you are trying to save would fight you back.

True Morpheus, you are wise, Morpheus.
 

back_by_demand

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[citation][nom]getreal[/nom]Because it is totally impossible that someone would want one for the OS and software?[/citation]
I think we have proved it's not impossible, but don't try to convince me that iOS is more functional than Windows, because that is a lie.
You put up with it being less functional because it is a personal preference to have less functions because the hardware is cool and other Apple fans look cool the same way smoking looks cool, expensive and gives you cancer - just like Steve Jobs.
 

species8472

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[citation][nom]olaf[/nom]Not surprised at all , i hate apple's natzi style control on things so im happy to say i don't own an apple product and won't own one in a foreseeable future.[/citation]

That's what jailbreaking is for.
 

Yoder54

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[[citation][nom]amk-aka-phantom[/nom]I especially like the stupid accusation of "not being able to afford anything Apple". My gaming rig costs like $1900 by now; I could've easily bought a Mac, but I chose something that actually does useful things for its price.
[/citation]

Yea, gaming is such a "useful" and productive activity. Maybe you should do less gaming and read more books.
 

Ethereal_Dragon

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If Jobs got his own carrier, which would have NEVER happened, they just wouldn't have had the capital to do it, but supposing that they did, have you any idea what they would have charged? I'm sure it would be in line with their other over-priced products.....
 

shin0bi272

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The reason people that hate apple, are so vehement about it is because they remember (well most of them) when apple was the big competitor to ibm and other ibm clones and jobs said that people should get all their software for their apple computer from apple and apple alone. That put apple into the realm of being a niche market. Being a niche market and abstaining from allowing any other software company to write software for their OS caused them to have to raise prices to pay their employees. As more and more kids (via apple's school computer initiative Id guess) grew up with apple computers their reputation changed and it became fashionable to spend twice as much for a computer that has less software options so that you could be in "the club".

As pc prices dropped (even prebuilt systems) apple prices rose! When people started building their own PCs apple people were stuck buying whatever prebuilt system steve jobs envisioned. Dont get me wrong I used to repair PCs and macs and the macs were 10X easier to work on. But do I want to pay twice as much for a computer that has less software options just because its screwless? No.

So apple started making gadgets their primary focus because they knew they were a niche market with their prebuilt systems and they had to get into another market that dealt exclusively with prebuilt tech. Hence the ipod, iphone and ipad come to life so that they can compete.

Then we have the offshoring of jobs to china... that cut apples overhead but for some reason the prices of their stuff kept on the same price schedule. Go look up the price of an ipod 5th gen w/video 30gb.. its still 300 bucks which is what I paid for mine in jan of 2006! That's why PC people cant stand apple people...

PC people expect the price of the last generation and older tech to come down as soon as the new generation comes out. The early adopters pay the high prices and the rest of us wait for a few months for prices to come down and get the same thing at half price. That doesnt happen with apple and add to that the fact you cant build your own apple or run as much software on it and you get a huge backlash.
 

wardler

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[citation][nom]Original Poster[/nom]However, the question remains, would people be willing to move to a newly established Apple-branded network for the iPhone?[/citation]
Seriously? We're talking about people who buy products because they are shiny and made by Apple. Of course they would!

 

sundragon

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[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]He feels sorry for you, you garner his pity, you could have used that money to buy something that would do much more and with the money you save taken the kids to Disneyland....I don't feel sorry for anyone, if you choose Apple it's a free world and you go ahead and do it, but don't try to convince anyone that you buy a Macbook or OSX because it is better than an equivalently priced PC laptop with Window because it isn't....I have a friend who bought the crappest car ever with shitty gas mileage, tendancy have the engine break down at the first gust of wind and seats that only the elephant man would find comfy but they bought it because it was an expensive red sports car that makes him look cool. I envy him for that first 5 seconds as he races away, knowing I saved a bundle on my car which goes just as fast, but uses half the gas, never breaks down and is really big and comfy....So Apple fans, just admit you bought Apple because you think it looks cool, it is just as valid a reason and probably the most honest answer you will ever give. The iPhone does make you look cool, if Fonzy had a smartphone it would be an iPhone too. But is it better? It's not me you are lying to, it's yourself.[/citation]

I Call BULLL SH*T! I've worked on more of my friends PCs than their Apple systems. Of my family switched to Apple computers and I rarely have to hear about issues but the ones with PCs require a wipe and reinstall regularly.

Please stop talking out of your ass - You've never owned one (at least recently) or you'd realize they are reliable and well built compared to what's out there.

If you want to hate the company for what ever reasons, do it, but stop making up stuff!

P.S. the mac doesn't look cool - it looks clean - no ugly sticker, no crapware, no gimmicy lights, etc. It's called Industrial Design. Look it up one time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design

My cousin studied it and designs cars for a living. Dell, Toshiba, should hire a few and use them.

 
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