Why I am Sticking With The IPhone and AT&T, For Now

Quite a few people in the last few weeks are talking about how they are bolting from the IPhone and are getting Android devices. Brad Feld has a post on the Androd EVO and his switch away the IPhone here which is my recommendation also if you don't want an IPhone. All I can say is even though I think this makes total sense, I'll be sticking with Apple, at least one last time. I thought it would be fun to do a post why I'm sticking with the IPhone being announced tomorrow--for now.

I completely understand some of the freedom, openness and technology issues that make Android a sensible move. It depends on what features you value and how you use your device.

So here are the top reasons why AT&T is getting one more IPhone out of me:

Power consumption/Battery Life. I'm an early adopter-- so early in fact I remember that days of having a blackberry with no phone integration that lasted several days or more on one charge. I am intrigued with Apple's strategy of buying chip companies and my gut is it will pay off with better battery life and a bit of a competitive advantage over the long term. If they can do real innovation here it can make a big difference. Even though a lot of the tech in the current chip is probably Samsung's I think this device is going to get some decent power consumption advantages not available for Android or elsewhere from some of the integration work If you travel at all and care about the convenience long battery life provides, this is important. The battery is 16% larger on this new IPhone but it will be interesting if Jobs makes a "big deal" over power issues tomorrow--I hope he does.
Screen resolution, quality and touchscreen sensitivty. I think we are getting a screen resolution at 960x640. That's pretty damn good upgrade. Sure I would love a 5 inch screen or even a 4.3 inch screen the EVO has but this will keep me happy. I am a Slingbox addict and if I am stuck in the airport I think this will make the experience even better. I think Apple's touchscreen and UI will be a bit more usable and sensitive. This makes life far easier when you are trying to interact with your device on the fly or in a pinch.
It's not coming to Sprint or Verizon soon, stop lying to yourself. Despite what the WSJ has been reporting, I don't think Apple is doing a Verizon phone soon. A CDMA Ipad? Maybe but not a phone. I think Steve Jobs has a strong bias for simplicity and the idea of supporting mulitple air interfaces "freaks him out" in some sort of weird OCD way so we aren't getting one until LTE has a national footprint. Next year is still my bet although I'd love to be wrong here. I also think it would be better for Apple's advertising effort if they pushed out a phone with a CDMA air interface. Note, I do think that they may launch a Chinese CDMA phone soon which is not the same thing as US CDMA and I think the WSJ reporter may have been confused and thought it was the same air interface. Earliest this comes is October--my bet is next summer.
Data Speeds are going to be better on AT&T than Verizon for a good 18 months. Even if Verizon rushes out LTE, AT&T will likely be one step ahead for some time. AT&T gets a lot of crap for it's network and I can't make a voice call in downtown Manhattan or San Francisco to save my life but it's data speeds, latency, and coverage are excellent. Clearwire (Sprint's 4G Partner and Craig McCaw's latest venture) is an excellent competitor but national coverage is quite a ways away.

Things I hate about Sticking with AT&T but I'm Staying Anway:

The Phone part doesn't work. Voice calls? That's one of the most important parts of having a mobile phone. Who actually uses their phone to talk these days anyways, it's so inefficient to actually talk to someone? Trying to make a phone call on AT&T is difficult even if you are outside San Francisco or Manhattan. I don't think this is going to get any better any time soon. Why? Steve Jobs gave a long answer on this over at D8 and he started rambling about spectrum allocation and backhaul. I think there are also some software RF methods Apple is using that have something to do with how AT&T responds to the IPhone and how the phone saves battery power that AT&T's network hates. I sometimes view Jobs as some kind of omnipitent technology guy but he didn't seem to have a good understanding as to what was causing the problems with voice calls specifically or have any visibility on how or when it would be fixed in some spots. However, I think exclusivity goes away in 2011 and as that occurs, the AT&T network will be improving. i.e. Once everyone leaves, AT&T is gonna be awesome. On the data side, even if Verizon speeds up LTE deployment, the upgrade path for GSM looks better for the next 12-24 months. Even though AT&T will be older technology it will be faster than early versions of LTE in many areas of the US.
The new AT&T broadband caps blow. I use about 1.5 Gigs per months which is still quite a bit below the 2 Gig cap for the new plan. I'll be sticking with the unilimited plan. Things like Pandora and Slingbox are bandwidth hogs and with more multitasking I'd guess my usage will go up about 40%. I'll stick with the unlimited plan as long as I can get away with it. Whatever your current usage is, I'd plan on using 20-30% more with the new device. Using Slingbox while waiting for a flight, in a hotel or in the gym are one of my favorite applications.
I hate Apple's email app and would rather use Gmail. It's a piece of junk with a crappy interface and it's constantly pocket emailing people or composing messages or searching by IPhone when I am just checking email or trying to do something else. I would just rather have Google Mail on my phone and have the Apple email app ripped out. This is one area Android really shines.

The bottom line is Android devices and network engineering needs a little time to even the playing field. Further, the air interface battle between what I'll call "3g+" against the two new 4G standards will take a little time to ferment. It's in AT&T's interest to slow roll 4G mass deployment so they can keep Verizon flat footed with few devices while maintaining a speed advantage against the early versions of LTE. In 12-24 months from now, the landscape is going to be a bit more interesting.

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