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John Sawyer

Member since: Oct 21st, 2005

John Sawyer's Latest Comments

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Recent Comments:

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 8:43PM @JohnSawyercjsyahoocom

And I just realized: if ATT now has to unlock any phone they carry, except the iPhone, at the customer's request, why do they still sell locked phones at all, from manufacturers other than Apple?

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 8:41PM @gmaxx

In fact, ATT is now required to unlock any phone they carry, except the iPhone, even before its original two-year contract has expired.

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 8:28PM @bathellfire

While T-Mobile coverage in the US may not be as good as ATT (which is actually better than many people think--it's the crappy way many iPhones don't work with weaker ATT signals that's a large part of the problem), T-Mobile's coverage is still good enough for many people. One advantage with T-Mobile vs ATT, is that T-Mobile won't require you to buy a data contract if you tell them you want to use an unlocked iPhone for only voice/text service.

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 8:21PM @Bowling4Scope

The expensive service is intended to allow the carrier to recoup their cost for buying the phone from the manufacturer, which they initially subsidize for the customer.

One thing ATT should do, after a customer has finished paying off the cost of the phone, is to no longer require iPhone owners to buy one of ATT's data plans even if the user just wants to use the phone for voice and data. ATT allows users of locked or unlocked phones made by companies other than Apple to sign up for voice/text only, and not a data plan if the user doesn't want it, but ATT permanently requires all iPhone owners (locked, unlocked, past original contract, etc.) to buy a data plan.

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 8:05PM @HyndeSyte2020

I just called ATT customer service. They told me that the iPhone is still the exception--while it's true that ATT's reps can (and will) unlock almost any of the other phones ATT carries (you give them your phone's IMEI number, and they push an unlock to your phone), including ones still under a phone's first contract (meaning the customer hasn't yet paid off the ATT-subsidized cost of the phone), ATT and Apple are still operating under their exclusivity contract, and so they won't provide an unlock. The ATT rep I spoke with acknowledged that all this may (or may not) change by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011, especially if Apple produces a CDMA phone for Verizon (or whoever), but as I responded to her, even if we knew what secret plans Apple and ATT currently have, even those plans may change by later this year or next year, so all we can do is speculate for now.

The ATT rep told me a further wrinkle regarding unlocking Nokia phones bought through ATT--if a customer requests a Nokia unlock, ATT has to first send that request to Nokia, which decides whether or not to OK it. That sounds weird, but that's what ATT told me.

iPhone AT&T exclusivity lawsuit granted class-action certification, every AT&T iPhone customer included (Engadget)

Jul 10th 2010 7:20PM @Talez

Wanting to be able to have an official iPhone unlock isn't an anti-Apple cause de jour. It's something people have wanted as soon as the iPhone was first released, and not as some pointless way of hassling Apple. At the least, I think a good argument can be made for Apple to supply an official unlock after an iPhone owner has been through their two-year contract, at which point they've paid the subsidized cost of their iPhone.

You yourself supply in your second paragraph one good reason why many people want to be able to have an unlocked iPhone, without having to go through all the hassle of using hacking utils to do so. Also, many people don't want a data plan, so for them voice and text on T-Mobile is fine (which is what I do with my iPhone), especially since the cost is much cheaper than going with ATT, who will force you to get one of ATT's data plans if you want to use even an unlocked, fully-paid-for iPhone with ATT.

TUAW Brain Trust: iPhone 4 phone calls (TUAW.com)

Jul 1st 2010 6:24AM Maybe some Apple stores are equipped with femtocells, but not all of them are. At the Apple Store at the Galleria in Roseville, CA, I was able to invoke the iPhone 4 antenna issue with two of their display iPhone 4s, by lightly bridging the gap between the two antennas. I didn't try the other iPhone 4s on the table since two was enough to show me the store didn't have a femtocell.

Cut My SIM does as its name commands (Engadget)

Jul 1st 2010 4:42AM @Mystictrust

Not ANY carrier, just those that also use GSM, which in the US pretty much limits you to T-Mobile and some small regional carriers. Worldwide, one's carrier options are larger since more of the world outside the US uses GSM.

Cut My SIM does as its name commands (Engadget)

Jul 1st 2010 4:35AM @chriskalan

Plastic was cool in the 50s and 60s.

Does adjusting or trimming the iPhone 4's micro SIM fix the antenna issue? Probably not. (Engadget)

Jul 1st 2010 4:25AM @nfletcher2

"It is the phone, not the area the phone is being used"

It can be both, and more. A single symptom doesn't necessarily have only one possible cause--there can be multiple causes simultaneously, all manifesting as a single similar-looking symptom. Think of it like links in a chain--every link needs to be in place for the whole chain to hold together, and to be long enough. When you look at a broken chain, it's not always obvious how many links are missing, so you don't want to assume it's always just a case of one being missing.