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Comment by mrshoe | Hacker News Reader

AT&T disgusts me. How much money has the iPhone dropped in their lap? And all they do with that money is drag down the entire user experience with horrible, overpriced service which cripples the device severely.

They have had time, however, to try to squeeze as much money from this venture as possible while they still have exclusivity. I've now received two emails from AT&T about their navigation app. They charge $9.99 per month for it. How many other iPhone app developers can send out an email to every single iPhone owner at will? Zero. The rest of us have to charge 99 cents (one time) if we want to get noticed on the App Store.

And now that they've cashed in on Apple's brilliance and innovation, they're going to do the same with Loopt. They are the perfect example of a company willing to do whatever it takes to increase profits, but not willing to do much of anything to help their customers.

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It seems to me that this would be Loopt's business model?

I can understand bashing AT&T I hate their service, but I think Loopt charges for their service on most providers.

Oh and the $9.99 per month thing made me choke too. Especially when TomTom has a $99 app.

AT&T isn't the only company with a $/month GPS app on the App Store.

Not that its clear if map updates will be free or in-app purchases with TomTom.

Roadee is $2.

It uses OpenStreetMap instead of the proprietary map databases, but hey, I'll take 90% as good for 2% of the price any day.

> And all they do with that money is drag down the entire user experience with horrible, overpriced service which cripples the device severely.

How do you think us Verizon customers feel? At least you get phones with WiFi...

US Agenda

1. Health care reform

2. Phone network reform?

I dunno, I mean, the government already tried to deal with AT&T, and it didn't seem to help.

If you're trying to make a snarky comment about how phones aren't important when compared to health care, I actually would find it quite refreshing if everyone stopped talking about health care, and started talking about how America's technological infrastructure is years behind.

Health care is more important then how we may or may not be behind technologically. That argument is based on other countries who are the size of Texas to Rhode Island. Based on the size of the US we are not doing as bad as some paint it out to be; improvement is always needed!

Overall if you are one who prefers text based communication over voice & loathe AT&T, you still can use an iPod Touch via Wifi or buy a Verizon or Sprint MiFi and use that as your communication device. Of course there are issues with doing this, but last two months has worked great for me.

> Health care is more important then how we may or may not be behind technologically.

It all depends on your priorities. I personally am against nationalized health care, and, more importantly, all this "debate" is doing is pulling everyone even farther and farther apart. Everyone is yelling and screaming and calling each other names, and I'm frankly sick of it.

> That argument is based on other countries who are the size of Texas to Rhode Island.

Normally, I'd agree with you. But I live in Pittsburgh, down the street from CMU, and several of my friends can't even get FIOS. Let alone the kind of crazy awesome internet they have in Japan or South Korea. You can't get that anywhere in the US. Of course, rural areas aren't going to be able to get fiber to their homes, but there's no reason to be so far behind in urban areas.

And while the MiFi seems interesting, it's completely unreasonable that I can't just get wifi built into my phone. I don't want to carry around a whole second box for something that should just be built in.

I have a small plastic casing I put both Mifi and iTouch in. So only disadvantage per your argument is that it's slightly bulkier then just an iPhone. The other disadvantages too, but i prefer text based communications over voice.

Overall I am sure when LTE (Verizon's 4G) & or Wimax (Clearwire) offer ubiquitous coverage will start to see Internet mobile devices with built in 4G. Though carrier's don't want to be dumb pipes, but I'm thinking that's what they'll become, as us consumers only need/want them for the pipe!

I tend to prefer text communications as well, but I'd really like to browse some WWW from time to time.

I agree that carriers will have to become dumb pipes... if they don't want to be a dumb pipe, they should let someone else be one, and just build off of that. Then again, with all of the money and history that's involved in the telecommunications industry, I'll imagine that we'll be held back for quite a while longer.

I use Google Voice free SMS on my iPod Touch with MiFi to stay connected with friends. Always using the www

If countries the size and density of the NYC metropolitan area have better digital infrastructure than the NYC metropolitan area, that is a problem. No one's expecting gigabit internet in Wyoming, but not even in the densest parts of the country can we compete with the rest of the world.

If health care is going to be nationalized, it can't be a productive part of the economy anymore. It's already (probably) a net drain on public resources. If we're gonna have something like public health care, we need a way to pay for it. Fixing our technology infrastructure enables this country to create more wealth.

Not at all. I think both of these are completely and utterly broken in the US and need fixing. Healthcare first, then phones/ISP/cable co's.

Cool. In any case, we fundamentally agree, both things are terribly broken. You can also add intellectual property laws, giving power back to the states, and a whole host of other things too...

That's nothing -- Verizon will charge you rent just to re-enable the GPS API on your phone!

Wow, cry me a river. Apple gave them exclusivity for exactly the same reason -- more profits. Obviously you like them enough to be a customer. You could switch, why don't you?

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