I’ve been meaning to write about Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” commercials since I first saw them, but now that AT&T is suing, this seems like a good time to remedy my oversight.
The issue AT&T has with the maps in this commercial is, in my opinion, a legitimate one: Verizon’s entire network is 3G, so the gaps on the red map really are gaps. But AT&T maintains a large 2G (EDGE) network, in addition to its rather spotty 3G network. So the white parts of the AT&T map don’t necessarily represent dead zones for AT&T customers.
But there’s another issue with this map, and it’s the same problem I have with election result maps: the U.S. population is not evenly distributed across the physical landscape. It certainly looks bad that AT&T offers no 3G service anywhere in the four-state region of Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota. But the collective population of those states is under 3 million — representing about 1% of the total U.S. population — distributed over 393,000 square miles — representing 10.4% of total U.S. land area. That’s less people than in the St. Cloud/Twin Cities/Rochester blob of blue across east-central Minnesota in the map, and it’s far less than the over 4 million people in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn — an area under 100 square miles.
So, as I’ve said before while studying election maps, the colored areas don’t really tell the true story. Maybe AT&T has a lot of gaps in its map, but there aren’t very many people in those gaps, either.
Now, this is not to go too far in defense of AT&T in this situation. I haven’t had any significant problems with AT&T’s 3G coverage in Minneapolis (although I have noticed my iPhone occasionally dropping down to the EDGE network — a situation that reminds me of Mitch Hedberg’s joke about escalators), but as the Engadget article notes, there are apparently major problems with their network in the most densely-populated areas of the country — San Francisco and New York.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me in this article, though, is the following claim from AT&T:
Verizon’s misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T’s strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers… and we’ve beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn — a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive.
It’s no secret that much of AT&T’s recent success, especially where smartphones are concerned, is due solely to the iPhone. And it’s also no secret that it’s the iPhone hardware/software combo, not AT&T’s service, that iPhone owners are overwhelmingly satisfied with. Consider AT&T’s exclusive rights to the iPhone, and that pretty much negates any value in AT&T’s claim to customer satisfaction.
These adds are obviously targeting Apple more then AT&T. Map…App. Anyways it is a play out of Apples own book.
I am usually not a fan of attack adds, but these seem more of a counter attack add. They give me a little grin.
I am looking froward to seeing how the Droid does with Verizon. Android 2.0 has some tasty bits. I have a few friends who are considering dropping their AT$T contract to get the Droid. I am also hoping that T-Mobile will find a way to get 2.0 on the G1, or at least some of it’s features. I want my contacts integrated from numerous accounts. I want turn by turn navigation built into my Google Maps so I don’t have to pay for an app to do that. Also I want my e-mails to all be integrated into one app. Right now there is a Gmail app and another mail app for everything else. That doesn’t make sense to me. Anyhow good stuff.
I agree that the ads are, at least superficially, targeting Apple more than AT&T. But it’s kind of funny how the only negative thing they can really come up with to say about the iPhone is that it’s stuck on AT&T’s mediocre network.
Come to think of it, that’s the only negative thing I can come up with about the iPhone too.
Negative for who? For me removable media, hardware keyboard, no wigits, and a big one it can’t run multiple app at once.
Others not a big deal for me no removable battery, no customizable backgrounds, no wigits.
Negatives for me on my G1. No dedicated headphone jack (other android phones have this), no built in multitouch support (hardware does support though).
Just a few thoughts.
Oh. Similar stuff. Watch the I-Don’t commercial on youtube.
Tell me more about running multiple apps. I’m not being facetious, and I’m not just jumping to Apple’s defense. I’m curious what it is you’d want to do where running multiple apps simultaneously would be necessary.
There’s a very specific reason why Apple limits* simultaneous apps: performance. I’ve heard about problems with Android and Pre performance really bogging down when you have multiple things going at once. When that kind of thing happens, users don’t blame the third-party software developer. They blame the device.
There’s a big difference between smartphones and computers when it comes to multitasking: screen size. You can’t really have multiple app windows in view simultaneously on a smartphone anyway, so being able to run them simultaneously is a moot point. The one issue that comes up is load time. If you quit an app, just for a second, it needs to load up again. Some apps do a better job than others at maintaining state, so they can restore quickly. And really, if this kind of feature is optimized, what’s the difference between true multitasking and just having one app running at a time, but having them be able to restore state so quickly when you switch that the difference is virtually indistinguishable?
In practice, I have almost never felt any frustration or annoyance at the lack of multitasking. There are only a couple of apps (Scrabble, in particular) that have an annoying load time.
*The iPhone does support multitasking to a limited degree. It’s extremely limited where third-party apps are concerned, but it does allow things like the music player and push email to work in the background while you’re running an app. And the phone, of course.
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/1864473,ihnatko-droid-iphone-commercial-110409.article
Thanks for the link. I swear I wasn’t copying Ihnatko on the stuff about multiple apps. It’s just the truth. (Ihnatko and I are probably equally fanatical about Apple, but I think we’re also both reasonably objective about the relative merits of Apple products and those of their competitors.)
My favorite part of the article:
Having or not having a wallpaper is a preference just like having or not having a keyboard. I personally like having both and don’t think I would like the iPhone as much for those reasons. Would I miss them if I had an iPhone. Probably not. Unlike the writer of the attached article I would miss wigits. I have one that gives me today’s weather on one of my home screens, and another that puts my calendar events on my home screen. It is not much of a time saver I know, but I don’t have to click either my weather app or calendar app and wait for them to open. Another thing about the keyboard. It has both so if I have something short and I don’t want to open up the keyboard I can use the onscreen keyboard instead. As far as the multiple app thing goes the iPhone does some of that. I don’t know just being able to go back to where you were when you left an app helps. Like when I get an e-mail and want to add something from that e-mail to a spreadsheet I can just flip back and fourth between the two. I think the Pre does a better job on this then Android does though.
http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/at_t_claims_verizon_lied_about