Trials and tribulations of the iPhone 4S and AT&T

Well, all good things come to an end.

As an employee at Apple on June 29, 2007 I was given an original iPhone by the company. I cherished that phone. I was so excited I was even willing to pay $175 early termination fee from Verizon to get that phone and use it. And I did use it every day, for music, photos, phone calls, messaging and when iOS 2 came out, applications. Currently I only have 65 applications on my phone. So the sadness in July 2009, when my screen started to stop responding, was understandable. But I had purchased Applecare. Off I went to the Apple store, and was able to replace my handset. Well, at least until I discovered the first replacement had a broken sleep/power button. So I called up Applecare, who ever-so-graciously overnighted me a third handset. I used that phone, day in and day out until today.

About 3 months ago the wifi stopped working. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong (it doesn't really matter) but I couldn't get on wifi networks anymore, so all my data was EDGE only. That was painful, but a new iPhone was due "soon" so I waited. Then last week, Apple announced the 4S. I was going to upgrade.

My wife, who replaced her aging Motorola Razr with an iPhone on Verizon earlier this year, asked me to switch. But I was pretty satisfied with AT&T. I could do simultaneous data and voice (which I actually used) and except at home, I didn't drop too many calls... so I was sticking with AT&T. Friday morning I log on to store.apple.com and pick a 32GB Black iPhone. But wait, what's this? I have to choose a new data plan, messaging, no. I'm not upgrading my plan. So I cancel the web order, and call 1800-MY-APPLE. 30 minutes later I get Applecare. Oops, they are handling overflow. Back into the queue since they can't help me, they just walk people through web orders. 5 minutes later I'm on the phone ordering my handset, nope, no problem I can place the order with Apple and don't have to change my plan. Yep, I'm all set. Handset is due to arrive 10/14/11. Sweet!

Then the email arrives about the iPhone CSS, and I don't see my plan showing unlimited data and 200 text messages. So I get on the phone with AT&T. I speak to a nice woman, who confirms that yes, that's my plan, wow, an original iPhone data plan? Don't let anyone change that one on you. Great, everything is set, I'm ready to get my new phone.

Today, FedEx delivers without a hitch, 9:35am. I cruise home at 11:15 for a early lunch to set up the new phone, and hit the first snag - AT&T can't handle the volume of activations. OK, I try a few times and then just go back to work after an hour.

Two hours...
Three hours...
At four hours I call AT&T and ask what's up - it's just a backed up queue. Everything is fine, you phone will get activated soon. Yes, you can still use your old phone until the new one is activated.

Five hours...
Six hours...
Seven hours...
I try to activate again. What the heck, it's been a long day. WOOT! Oh, wait. You can configure your phone but you can't make calls yet. Ok, whatever, I'll get by data back on here and get it going. Applications installed, photos, music, movies, all ready to go. Wow, this thing is so fast compared to the iPhone.

Eight hours...
Nine hours...
Ten hours...
Eleven hours...

My wife calls my phone - it goes direct to voicemail. Hmmm. I look at the phone, it say AT&T as the carrier (it didn't before) so I try to make a call.

"We're sorry, you cannot make that call. Please call 611 or 1-800-331-0500"

Ok, I'll call 611.

"We're sorry, you cannot make that call. Please call 611 or 1-800-331-0500"

Ok, I'll power up the old iPhone. Uh-oh, No Service. Must be disabled already. Borrow the wife's phone and call AT&T at 10:54pm, EST. After about 35 minutes, I get a person. Oh, sure, let me help you. ICCID? OK. IMEI? OK. What plan would you like?



I'd like to keep my current plan.

You can't do that. An unlimited data plan is $30 a month, what messaging plan would you like?

I'd like to keep my current plan.

You can't do that.

"I spoke to someone a couple days ago who said I could. Don't change my plan. Let me talk to your supervisor." And I'm on hold for a few minutes.

"Sir, I can't give you the same plan, but I can give you Unlimited data for $30 a month and 200 text messages for $5 a month - that's a grandfathered plan for the older iPhones."

"No, I don't want the same plan for $15 more a month. Let me talk to your supervisor."

On the phone comes the supervisor. Sir, we can't give you that plan with the new iPhone. You have to pick another plan. This is still unacceptable. I'm ready to quit AT&T and switch carriers. I ask him how I do that. He says I can pay an early termination fee of $325. I blow a gasket. I want his supervisor. Sorry, they aren't here. That's not good enough. You've disabled my old phone, I can't use the new one, and I need to talk to someone NOW.

So someone else comes on. I'm not convinced he's any higher up the ladder, because after an additional conversation, the best he can do is keep my old phone and plan going, with a new SIM card, since they killed the current one, and let me return the phone to AT&T and pay a $35 restocking fee but no termination fee.

Unacceptable.

Ok, well, if you return it to Apple you might not pay a restocking fee. You still need to go get a new SIM card at an AT&T Core store since your current one cannot be reactivated.

So it's midnight, and I have no phone. AT&T has failed miserably at customer service, and I'm done. Tomorrow I'm getting a new SIM card for my phone, and confirming I still have the original data plan. And then I have to go to the Apple store about 45 minutes away and return the phone, get my refund, and decide what to do next. But one thing is for sure. AT&T knows nothing about customer service. I spent years working the Genius Bar at Apple, I know what customer service is. AT&T, you deserve to lose me as a customer, and I hope I'm not the only one. I hope you lose tens of thousands for your horrible customer service on this day. People waited hours for phone activations, and I have no idea who else experienced what I did and just rolled over. But I'm not rolling over.

After writing this I had a vague recollection about the changes in service from the iPhone to the 3G, so I looked it up - yep, when the iPhone 3G came out the plan went up to $30 a month and separate text messaging fees. So maybe I should have taken the offer. But I'm still mad. So I'm not doing anything right now.

Drobo can handle the Steam

Steam summer sale gets gamers all up in arms. One of my coworkers (who may soon be a client) laments that his 1TB drive is now full, from games he purchased on the Steam Summer Sale. My answer - "drobo"

Get a Drobo. Put your Terabyte drive in there, and get another TB drive. As you fill them, add more drives, and your steam container scales to multiple terabytes. Problem solved.

Thanks Drobo!

RIP: XServe 12.31.2010

Well, it's all over the interwebs, and the death of the XServe is not greatly exaggerated. Apple has killed its last enterprise product, perhaps signaling the death knell to the professional market side of Apple completely. Just as Information Week and other "trade rags" write up Apple's gains in the enterprise world with their mobile devices, Apple puts another nail in the coffin of their enterprise business, killing their last datacenter product.

Although in theory, the replacement with a Mac Pro server is a good piece of hardware, you can't rack mount one (it takes up 12! units of rack space to stand one or two in a rack), it's missing critical hardware redundancy (dual power supplies), and the lack of quick parts replacement means you need that 12u rackspace for two Mac Pros in tandem, because when one goes down the average downtime for a hardware repair is going to be in days, not minutes or hours. As for the Mac Mini Server, it is a fine tool for small (less than 20 employees) businesses, but again not a "business-critical" tool with no real redundancy or performance. Utilizing XGrid? How about QMaster clustering? Both tools that are likely on their way to the graveyard as well, without the space-saving convenience of the rackmounted server. One has to take a long look at Final Cut Server as well - an application practically aimed at the XServe/datacenter design, and wonders how long it is until that simply fades into the background as well.

The easy argument "nobody needed the XServe" may be true, but what about the new Mobile Device Management in Snow Leopard Server? Do you think businesses are going to lose 12U of expensive, precious rack space for a pair of Mac Pros to help them manage iPhones and iPads? Not so likely in this penny-pinching IT world. Does apple think for one minute a Fortune 500 (or Fortune 100) company is going to have a tower computer sitting on someone's desk providing centralized management for those mobile devices that have been shooting up the sales charts? If so, the ivory tower at One Infinite Loop needs to look inside itself and see if that makes business sense. Taking their own infrastructure in mind, if Apple was their own biggest customer (and maybe the secret of the new datacenter is IBM Bladeservers?) Apple is hamstringing itself with the end of the XServe as well.

Tablets are great (I mean that truly), and iPhones are leading the charge into an interactive, handheld solution, but it takes a Mac to write the software for those devices, and in larger businesses, it takes a server to manage those Macs. Disconnect? Yes, and at the root of the system.

I for one hope (but don't expect) a rack-mountable Mac Pro by January 1st. Frankly, I've been expecting one since the birth of the G5. Does Apple not realize that professional customers in businesses like audio and video want (or need) those machines rack-mounted? Sadly, here what I fear are the next victims of this elimination of enterprise support:
XGrid
XSan
Final Cut Server
Apple-supported Promise SAN storage

iTunes 10 and Apple's own sauce

So I will be up front. I didn't install iTunes 10 yet. I didn't order a new iPod or Apple TV. I looked at iTunes 10 though, and I wonder if someone missed something quite basic.

You see, a long time ago Apple introduced and pushed hard on their own Human Interface Guidelines so that users would have a uniform and understandable experience with Mac OS X and applications in OS X. Today, however, that appears to be irrelevant to the iTunes development team, who has decided that they don't have to follow the guidelines set out by their own company for design.

Can you imagine IBM using Comic Sans, lower-case, as their logotype?

Or Johnson & Johnson with Copperplate Gothic?

Apple, you created guidelines so users would have a comfortable experience with your OS and applications. Perhaps you need to go back to the drawingboard and review the software you've posted today with iTunes 10.

On a side note, I'm glad they re-introduced buttons on the Shuffle. Sometimes doing something because you can doesn't mean you should...

It's the interface, stupid...

So I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with a potential iPad user, and I realized something during that conversation. The "amazing and magical" hype about the iPad isn't the device itself, it's about the interface. HP has a device quite similar to the iPad (at least in initial visible review) coming called the Slate, but it runs Windows. That will be the actual downfall of the device - because a desktop OS isn't a true touch-tablet interface. I've used the HP all-in-one desktop touchscreen - it's a novelty but you really need a keyboard to use Windows effectively. That's what iPad has going for it, along with the other iPhone OS devices, as well as the Android OS devices - the UI is a unique experience focused on a touch-based interface, not a mouse and keyboard.

If you've never really used a touch-tablet interface like the iPad, or a Surface device, you can't understand - even if you use one of the tablet based PCs out there like the Lenovo X200. The interface and the way you interact with the device is what makes or breaks it - so although I am optimistic about the Slate for those Windows-only environments (like the hospital I work in today), I'm afraid that it will fall flat, with a mouse/keyboard UI that fails on a touch based device. Only time will tell, however, if HP and Microsoft "get it" with touch interface PCs beyond the shiny nature of a Surface....

Symantec Antivirus Server for Mac OS X

Well, one of the contractual obligations we have here at the hospital is that all desktop systems have antivirus software installed.

That's not such a big deal, after all there are some obvious standalone AV solutions for the Mac, ClamAV, Intego VirusBarrier, Symantec AntiVirus, and others. The catch is, for IT, we want to manage that client. Immediately the list shortens, and when I'm doing mostly stealth support of the (now almost a dozen) Macs here, I look for the no-cost option.

Strangely enough, we have a super-massive enterprise license for SAV 10- including the Mac Client-Server model. So I start petitioning for a Mac server, running 10.5, before they are impossible to get (after all, I started this a couple weeks after the relase of 10.6). I ask and ask, and now it's January and I have no server. So I have to run this on my own. Fortunately I have a copy of 10.5 server that I can install on ... a Mac Mini. Yes, I am one of those. I believe the Mini has great promise in the role Apple recently promoted it to, as a small workgroup server. Since I am setting up a test and pilot only, not deploying a full live environment, I go ahead and get 10.5.8 Server, mySQL and Web Services going. After a couple odd installation mistakes (I should know by now to actually read the installation guide first, rather than dive right in) I got it all together, with my little cluster of machines running a managed SAV solution.

Frankly, I hope when I start testing the Endpoint version (assuming there is one, I haven't looked) it's a bit more robust. Although the default web interface is functional, it's not really user friendly. No easy way to re-push policy, updates, or changes to systems that may have errored out, really simple (not always clear) error reporting, and a bit of a kludgy interface. But, as of today, I've been running a managed AV environment for about a week on 3 systems, successfully with reporting and all...

Magic Mouse: Long Term Review

So I got a Magic Mouse when they were released.

I love the multitouch interface on my iPhone, and on the newer laptop trackpads, so had high expectations for the mouse. I unplugged my USB mouse (formerly known as the Apple Mighty Mouse) and went 100% on the Magic Mouse with my work iMac. I use it daily as my primary input device in OSX and Windows (via VMWare Fusion). I can say that after months of use (and a battery change) that it is a satisfying input device.

I have no complaints at all - and it works better than the bluetooth Apple Mouse I used before. Sure, there could be more features enabled for input options, but for real day to day use in an office I actually think it's a great product.

I read a lot of reviews of this product, and many people complained about the shape and size of the mouse, and I don't find it a problem at all. Maybe I'm too ... delicate with my mouse use, maybe I'm crazy (maybe both), but I actually think I like it better than the old mouse, or the mouse on my Wacom tablet, or the stock Lenovo USB mouse on my PC.

After regular use day after day, I can recommend it as a solid interface device. Now if I could only use it on two computers on my desk without fiddling with Bluetooth settings....