I know there are a few of you idiots out there that got the iPhone...

[jadeicewind]

AT&T and Apple concocted a perfect money-making tree fueled by international travelers. And you bought it. Well done! *golfclap

Comments

[nekoboy]

That’s their fault. My Blackberry would incur the same sort of charges. I have that for work. It is their fault to not realize what they were buying. At the same time It is also their fault that if they travel to other countries to think about your cel phone coverage and what the roaming costs will be. If you are enough of a rich bastard to afford 3… Count them… 3 iphones at 500+ a pop, plus send your whole family on a foreign cruise I think you can drop a 4800 dollar bill. Obviously he isn’t a spend-thrift. Every person that I know personally that is in a situation where they will be traveling abroad and Own an iPhone the first thing they have asked is about roaming charges

[jadeicewind]

I went to Taiwan without checking to see if my cellphone has persistent data connect. Why? Because, like most of humanity, I expect that when I power down my phone, it stays powered down. If I wanted my phone to "keep accessing data lulz", I should have to manually select that option. Most people expect that "power off" means "power off".

For that reason, these next gen phones are over-engineered. Not only that, but the fact that it isn't made clear in the contract makes it pretty shitty. They are right in what they said... to the normal consumer, when you advertise "unlimited use of web for one low price" and then charge them for "roaming internets", it's pretty shady.

[dragonseed]

They didn't power down their phones, however. They were in sleep (like any phone) if they were automatically updating email.

If they powered off the phones, how could they receive email?

[jadeicewind]

They said the phones were powered down in the article.

[nekoboy]

As you have so often pointed out sir, most of humanity are careless and don’t take responsibility for their actions. If I was dumb enough to 1) not read the fine print on my phone and 2) get saddled with a huge bill because I accepted a contract without bothering to read it all the way through (and Yes I’m one of those people that reads every EULA that appears on a game…) I would expect you and the rest of the world to laugh at me. Why? Because I was stupid. That contract could say that “You will lose a finger if you travel to Spain” and you would because you didn’t read the contract. I need the functions on my phone to be persistent because I am more or less on call 24/7 for my job otherwise if I’m not, there is a chance that the entire west coast of our corporation would go down. But I do corporate IT

[jadeicewind]

But iPhones aren't marketed solely to the corporate IT guy who needs to be on call 24/7. They're marketed to general public, and as such, it needs to be engineered for general public

[dragonseed]

You misunderstand Apple. You think Apple didn't market the iPhone for usability? The persistent internet is only on because they turned it on; synching email is off, by default! Of course no one is reporting the truth, because you would need to own an iPhone to know the truth!
1) The iPhone will receive emails and phone calls when in standby, like ANY phone
2) The iPhone does not automatically synch emails unless you turn that feature on
3) The iPhone is not persistent unless you turn that feature on

If these guys got billed it's because they turned on features and didn't turn the phone off.

You're as bad as any newsmonger if you're not doing due diligence: Spreading misinformation as well as being misled by misinformation.

[jadeicewind]

Are you sure it is off by default?

I know that when I got my new phone, one of my biggest complaints was that it was depleteing the battery too quickly. When I took it to the store, they pointed out that I hadn't customized the features yet, and that by default, it had all the features turned on, including "detect all carriers" and other nonsense. When I turned them off, I got three times the battery life.

Here again, I didn't go through and set my phone up, and they left a ton of shit turned on. :P

[nekoboy]

But it isn't marketed at the "general public" if it was it would not only be more affordable but would probably not feature nearly as many features. The more features the more you are marketing to enthusiasts and tech nerds. Particularly the WiFi functions are not something that is THAT common for the everyday person to know how to just hop on

[nekoboy]

Oh yeah and by the fact that all other smart phones incur the same charges and have been around longer this proves that ATT and Apple didn't cook up such a scheme and that it has been the common practice for quite some time. So blame them all if you want to point fingers. =P

[jadeicewind]

When I turn my phone off, I expect it to be off. That's a smart phone right there. A phone that doesn't get it? not smart. :P

[nekoboy]

Then that is a conscious decision on your part to not own that type of phone. You are officially smarter than the Douche bags in that article. =}