AT&T sabotaging Apple?

[Alex]

AT&T produces data changes just before the iPhone 4G and puts a damper on the release.

AT&T goes and a bunch of people private information on iPad associating the platform with a privacy risk.

Funny how iAds will likely not work now with metering because people will never pay for ads to load on top of having to watch them even as they degrade speed.

Is AT&T angry about Flash? What could possibly be AT&T's movtives unless Apple is already technically free of its contract but can't announce until another agreement is fully in place? AT&T changed stuff that looks material, would Apple have written a contract that would turn down the flame on its success in the final stretch?

AT&T's data caps are really rubbish, under their system it would be $180 a month to download what a 56k modem could in that amount of time. It reminds me of Comcast and the fake cap arguments. If what Comcast was saying was happening hogging relative to their network capacity they could simply purchase some cheap dark fiber light it and end of problem.

Maybe Jobs saw what trash Flash was decided to a decoy adware company purchase just because he wanted to do a public service and put flash under and buy time for pending arrival of HTML 5.

[HolyVVater]

i have heard rumors that the new data plans for att will likely be adopted by all other carriers sadly.

[Lord Xenu]

The limited data isn't something people should be surprised by. With 4G making it's appearance and all, data will travel at a faster rate which means more bandwidth will be consumed.

[HolyVVater]

i do belive sprint is charging a 9.99 fee just for the privilage to use it..

[Phopojijo]

AT&T produces data changes just before the iPhone 4G and puts a damper on the release.

AT&T goes and a bunch of people private information on iPad associating the platform with a privacy risk.

Funny how iAds will likely not work now with metering because people will never pay for ads to load on top of having to watch them even as they degrade speed.

Is AT&T angry about Flash? What could possibly be AT&T's movtives unless Apple is already technically free of its contract but can't announce until another agreement is fully in place? AT&T changed stuff that looks material, would Apple have written a contract that would turn down the flame on its success in the final stretch?

AT&T's data caps are really rubbish, under their system it would be $180 a month to download what a 56k modem could in that amount of time. It reminds me of Comcast and the fake cap arguments. If what Comcast was saying was happening hogging relative to their network capacity they could simply purchase some cheap dark fiber light it and end of problem.

Maybe Jobs saw what trash Flash was decided to a decoy adware company purchase just because he wanted to do a public service and put flash under and buy time for pending arrival of HTML 5.AT&T didn't put a bunch of people's personal information at risk...

They had an autofill feature for the iPad that took a customer's SIM card serial number and returned their email address to make logging in easier. A security research company with an unfortunately bad name spammed it with a bunch of SIM serial numbers from a simple PHP script which responded with the SIM owner's registered email address.

The ONLY thing that could be returned was an e-mail address... which (while not good) isn't a major leak... and to spearphish a specific person... you need to know their SIM card's serial number... which pretty much means you already need to steal their iPad unless they volunteer that information up (which is asking for it).

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As for data caps... cellphone networks have much less bandwidth than home wired networks... so it's not the same as Comcast (or Bell Canada whose largest package is just 75GB/month unless you buy "overage insurance").

In Comcast's case, it's because they're worried about losing their premium services like TV and OnDemand. In AT&T (wireless)'s case... it's because the network (at the moment) really is that damn hard up for bits.

Cell networks are tuned for range more than speed... though that's changing with things like LTE.

Frankly I wish that the FCC (and CRTC, etc) gets smart and combines a lot of these specialty frequencies into a single block with a shit load of channels and lots of generalized bandwidth to share between them.

[Alex]

AT&T didn't put a bunch of people's personal information at risk...

They had an autofill feature for the iPad that took a customer's SIM card serial number and returned their email address to make logging in easier. A security research company with an unfortunately bad name spammed it with a bunch of SIM serial numbers from a simple PHP script which responded with the SIM owner's registered email address.

The ONLY thing that could be returned was an e-mail address... which (while not good) isn't a major leak... and to spearphish a specific person... you need to know their SIM card's serial number... which pretty much means you already need to steal their iPad unless they volunteer that information up (which is asking for it).

-------------

As for data caps... cellphone networks have much less bandwidth than home wired networks... so it's not the same as Comcast (or Bell Canada whose largest package is just 75GB/month unless you buy "overage insurance").

In Comcast's case, it's because they're worried about losing their premium services like TV and OnDemand. In AT&T (wireless)'s case... it's because the network (at the moment) really is that damn hard up for bits.

Cell networks are tuned for range more than speed... though that's changing with things like LTE.

Frankly I wish that the FCC (and CRTC, etc) gets smart and combines a lot of these specialty frequencies into a single block with a shit load of channels and lots of generalized bandwidth to share between them.

Ok got it. That clarification for range versus capacity in the earlier systems is quite illuminating. I am sure from the prospective of the firm they spend to put in equipment with a rating for a certain capacity and they hope for the best in the real world but want credit for the effort.

What of Metro PCS, they’ve said they would use LTE to go after the “bread and butter voice market” and at the same time, in terms of marketing they’ve held on to “unlimited web.” Maybe that’s not really unlimited data or else they won’t be going after both areas with LTE? Really I guess what I am asking is if you agree with the above that competition and LTE will open things up or bring back some flat rate?

Any idea how iAds would work with caps? Its hard to see how people would be up for paying with the bit bucket to have ads load? Some day search will connect people and businesses without resorting to any shotgun ads, just quality product information. When that someday comes hopefully it will also be possible to filter out the commercial results when we don’t need or want them. This result always looks inevitable to me, but I wonder if iAds will move us closer. What do Apple customers really get out of this or its it just diminishing current Apple products on the shaky promise of better ones to come?