The iPhone's Role In Crippling T-Mobile 325
GMGruman writes "The feds may be blocking AT&T's buyout of T-Mobile, but T-Mobile is in poor shape to continue as is. Parent company Deutsche Telekom's decision not to invest in U.S. spectrum a decade ago constrained T-Mobile's ability to grow, especially through 4G networks now finally emerging. But from a customer point of view, it was the iPhone that has threatened the company the most. Or, more precisely, its lack of the iPhone."
Uh, data please? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see any data presented in the article. The claim is made that smartphone users are leaving in droves. So, where is the chart of smartphone market share per carrier?
I switched TO T-mobile to use a smartphone, since neither Verizon nor ATT had decent options (2.5 years ago). If you want an iPhone then you're going to ditch T-Mobile, but the last time I checked most smartphone users don't use iPhones.
And the last time I checked I had 4G service just about everywhere I actually go with T-Mobile, which includes a moderate amount of travel. If you like to go fishing in the mountains then you'll do better with a different carrier, but if you actually spend your time where the population density is greater than 3/km^2 you'll almost certainly have 2G with T-Mobile, and most likely you'll have 4G as well.
Re:Fanboi rant (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.intomobile.com/2010/11/05/t-mobile-says-lack-of-iphone-is-hurting-performance/ [intomobile.com]
I guess the CEO of T-Mobile is a "fanboi"
Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann says, âoeâConsumers like T-Mobile but they also want to have the iPhone.â
Re:Apple Fans (Score:4, Informative)
No, they've been like this for a long, long time. About 18 years ago I got into 3D animation with the Amiga/VideoToaster(because Lightwave was still tied into the VT hardware back then) and was interested in talking with others in the field. Lo and behold one of the first people I meet is some little twerp telling me how Apple was going to rule the 3D world like it did desktop publishing...Lightwave was lame and never going to go anywhere and Strata3D was the best software there was. Less than a year later Babylon 5 came out and about a year after that I never heard anything about Strata except as some form of lame utility or something...but Lightwave is still going strong AFAIK. That's not entirely directly related to Apple but he was an Apple user and had the same fucking nasty attitude that we see today...
Re:Fanboi rant (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/t-mobile-ceo-10-percent-of-customers-leave-for-iphone-20110125/ [geek.com]
Re:Fanboi fiction (Score:5, Informative)
In GSM-only markets, like Australia and parts of Europe, where all carriers had the iPhone at the same time, Android Phone market share is only marginally better than Android Tablet market share.
Speaking from a GSM-only market (Finland), I don't see this at all, and your rant looks like fiction. Android phones greatly outnumber Apple's iPhones in public places such as shopping malls and airports, and in corporate environments. Hint: most corporations here don't provide iPhone or Android phones, people must buy their own and stick the company SIM card in it unless they're happy with the corporate-issue Nokia crap; they seem to be choosing Android by a substantial margin.
The increases in Android sales coincided with supply issues of iPhones. People would only buy Android phones when they couldn't get and iPhone and *needed* a phone now.
Do you have any data to back up this fascinating conjecture, which looks like baseless wild speculation from here. I don't know anyone who has an iPhone. I know many people who have Android phones.
Re:Fanboi rant (Score:1, Informative)
Well, as of June this year (the last time I've seen both total iPhone and iOS numbers, as well as total Android numbers), there were more iPhones sold than Android devices total, and over twice as many iOS devices sold as Android devices.
And I'm not sure what you mean by "statistics not provided by Apple's Marketing Department". Who better to state how many devices they've sold than Apple? And since Apple sells every single iPhone and iPad that they can make, their numbers aren't the lies you make them out to be, unlike those of competitors which treat products put into the sales channels like actual sales.
The only people in need of a "white stick" are the Android nerds here on Slashdot who have been acting as though Android has outsold the iPhone for over a year and half now, even though that *might*, in reality, just *now* be true.