Why should Apple care about the semantics of the 3G/4G nomenclature that the wireless carriers screw around with. After all Apple wanted to supplant the carriers with WiFi everywhere, but I am sure that ATT and Verizon intervened in some fashion.
ATT and Verizon are such cash whores that provide horrible customer service experiences. But since they have a duopoly on the market, they can do whatever they want. Imagine if you were driving down the road and the suddenly miles of the surface vanished for minutes at a time. Surely you wouldn't pay to use those roads, let alone drive on them. But in this case, what choice do we have??
In THIS case, the government SHOULD have the infrastructure in place for competition to come from any company wanting to start up a wireless service provider. Instead, we have 2. Both charging the same price. Both raising rates and taking service away. The only competitor offering a different choice is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Get ready, $100/month for 4GB is coming. Mark my words. They will blame the iPads and tablets and keep jacking rates. The whole time dropping 6% dividends to their shareholders.
Thanks for the article, Brian, but I'm a little confused. The iPhone 4S doesn't have HSPA+ (which is an acceptable definition for '4G' by the ITU) but it will display '4G' when it's using a certain HSDPA Category 10, but on AT&T's network?
If that's the case that seems disingenuous even if AT&T is well within their rights to call it '4G'. I'm also shocked Apple would go down this controversial route after "antenna gate" that brought out the wonky ways in which bars represent signal strength and what I assume is an iPhone with LTE coming in about 6 months using the MDM9615 presumably found in the iPad 3.
Personally, I don't mind it too much. It's nice to have some indication that I'm in an area with a faster connection. I can't really disagree though that "4G" may not be the best term for it. Although, I would hope that they would also differentiate between HSPA+ and LTE. It would be a bit of a bummer to see "4G" listed for anything that they don't deem 3G.
I get 3.32Mbps/1.04Mbps, which I guess isn't that bad for 4/5 bars (on a 4S with 5.1).
Wonder what ATT's decision will be when it comes to differentiating their fraud of the 4g indicator from LTE. Because of limited LTE coverage, maybe they will hold off on an LTE indicator till they get within Verizon's range
Nevermind how disingenous it is or isn't to display the 4G indicator like this, removing the 3G toggle actually has far more of an impact on the user anyway (potentially)... But how in the heck are they gonna market the eventual LTE version when they've been swearing up and down that nearly every phone they sell right now is 4G capable? Should we brace ourselves for a 4G+ ad campaign? Are they just gonna plaster LTE everywhere and expect the average consumer to know that it's somehow better than the "4G" they already have?
It just seems like terrible long term marketing regardless of anything else... Specially from the carrier with THE worst data policies (lowest bandwidth hard cap, past mis interpretation of HSPU+ device capabilities, most aggressive anti-tethering stance, etc).
For what it's worth, I walked into an ATT store 2 days ago with my Verizon Droid2 and asked about their SGII
The salesman made a statement that caught my ear.... "this SGII will be much faster because of LTE, unlike my Droid2 which is 'just' 3G "
I'm in the Seattle area... there is NO ATT LTE at this time. It'll be late spring if we're lucky...even then, likely not a whole area rollout overnight.
Other salesmen were pushing to other customers how fast their LTE is, and absolutely pretended that LTE is here NOW.
Ugh... hate sales people....not a fan of ATT either. :(
Heh, they've actually rolled out LTE already here in Puerto Rico and I'm resisting the temptation to switch back, hoping against hope that it doesn't take Sprint or T-Mo 2-3 years to find their way to LTE here (no VZW on the island).
I dunno how good the coverage is so far but the speeds are impressive when I've managed to test it... They're advertising it all over the place w/numerous aLanTE puns (alante = forward in Spanish), even in commercials w/iPad 2's and numerous non-LTE devices, which boggles the mind.
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jayhawk11 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Good post. Seems super sketchy, but I guess we're stuck with it. It will be interesting to see if Apple responds to the backlash over this.BSMonitor - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Why should Apple care about the semantics of the 3G/4G nomenclature that the wireless carriers screw around with. After all Apple wanted to supplant the carriers with WiFi everywhere, but I am sure that ATT and Verizon intervened in some fashion.ATT and Verizon are such cash whores that provide horrible customer service experiences. But since they have a duopoly on the market, they can do whatever they want. Imagine if you were driving down the road and the suddenly miles of the surface vanished for minutes at a time. Surely you wouldn't pay to use those roads, let alone drive on them. But in this case, what choice do we have??
In THIS case, the government SHOULD have the infrastructure in place for competition to come from any company wanting to start up a wireless service provider. Instead, we have 2. Both charging the same price. Both raising rates and taking service away. The only competitor offering a different choice is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Get ready, $100/month for 4GB is coming. Mark my words. They will blame the iPads and tablets and keep jacking rates. The whole time dropping 6% dividends to their shareholders.
solipsism - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Thanks for the article, Brian, but I'm a little confused. The iPhone 4S doesn't have HSPA+ (which is an acceptable definition for '4G' by the ITU) but it will display '4G' when it's using a certain HSDPA Category 10, but on AT&T's network?If that's the case that seems disingenuous even if AT&T is well within their rights to call it '4G'. I'm also shocked Apple would go down this controversial route after "antenna gate" that brought out the wonky ways in which bars represent signal strength and what I assume is an iPhone with LTE coming in about 6 months using the MDM9615 presumably found in the iPad 3.
Aikouka - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Personally, I don't mind it too much. It's nice to have some indication that I'm in an area with a faster connection. I can't really disagree though that "4G" may not be the best term for it. Although, I would hope that they would also differentiate between HSPA+ and LTE. It would be a bit of a bummer to see "4G" listed for anything that they don't deem 3G.I get 3.32Mbps/1.04Mbps, which I guess isn't that bad for 4/5 bars (on a 4S with 5.1).
flyguy29 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Wonder what ATT's decision will be when it comes to differentiating their fraud of the 4g indicator from LTE. Because of limited LTE coverage, maybe they will hold off on an LTE indicator till they get within Verizon's rangesolipsism - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Why is it fraud to call HSPA+ 4G?Impulses - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Nevermind how disingenous it is or isn't to display the 4G indicator like this, removing the 3G toggle actually has far more of an impact on the user anyway (potentially)... But how in the heck are they gonna market the eventual LTE version when they've been swearing up and down that nearly every phone they sell right now is 4G capable? Should we brace ourselves for a 4G+ ad campaign? Are they just gonna plaster LTE everywhere and expect the average consumer to know that it's somehow better than the "4G" they already have?It just seems like terrible long term marketing regardless of anything else... Specially from the carrier with THE worst data policies (lowest bandwidth hard cap, past mis interpretation of HSPU+ device capabilities, most aggressive anti-tethering stance, etc).
Souka - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
For what it's worth, I walked into an ATT store 2 days ago with my Verizon Droid2 and asked about their SGIIThe salesman made a statement that caught my ear.... "this SGII will be much faster because of LTE, unlike my Droid2 which is 'just' 3G "
I'm in the Seattle area... there is NO ATT LTE at this time. It'll be late spring if we're lucky...even then, likely not a whole area rollout overnight.
Other salesmen were pushing to other customers how fast their LTE is, and absolutely pretended that LTE is here NOW.
Ugh... hate sales people....not a fan of ATT either. :(
Impulses - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Heh, they've actually rolled out LTE already here in Puerto Rico and I'm resisting the temptation to switch back, hoping against hope that it doesn't take Sprint or T-Mo 2-3 years to find their way to LTE here (no VZW on the island).I dunno how good the coverage is so far but the speeds are impressive when I've managed to test it... They're advertising it all over the place w/numerous aLanTE puns (alante = forward in Spanish), even in commercials w/iPad 2's and numerous non-LTE devices, which boggles the mind.
solipsism - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
It shows LTE when you're on LTE.So it's 3G for anything through HSDPA, 4G for HSPA+, and LTE?
Souka - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
so what exactly does this do for my iPhone4 from ATT?ricardoseixas - Friday, March 14, 2014 - link
Now you can check to what type of cellular network your iphone is using on your location or when abroad. Check this iOS app: cellnetworkapp.com