It’s no surprise by now that the iPhone 3G S was announced today. Apples announcement was decent. They couldn’t possibly live up to ALL of the rumors that were going around before the actual event. A faster phone is always welcome and the video recording/editing features looked cool. Voice commands. Compass. Autofocus camera. It’s a decent upgrade. The iPhone OS 3.0 showed really well with some new software that they highlighted. Pretty much, Apple didn’t dazzle with any huge surprises or anything (as far as iPhone is concerned) but they didn’t disappoint either.

AT&T on the other hand was a completely different story. During the event, AT&T was boo’ed at least twice. When it was stated that AT&T would have MMS by ‘late summer’, and when they were left out of the tethering partners announced. Then, shortly after the event, the pricing came out for us iPhone 3G users. Along with the lack of any sort of price cut on their plans that were rumored, AT&T didn’t really do anything to help it’s ‘cash cow’ one bit.

Now, I won’t totally get down on AT&T for not wanting to eat $200 per subscriber who upgrades to an iPhone 3G S. I understand that from a business point of view, they aren’t really doing anything different. When everyone upgraded from their iPhone to the iPhone 3G, they paid full price for the first iPhone. So, unless they bought ANOTHER phone and had it subsidized less than 6 months prior to buying the first iPhone, they were well within AT&T’s 18-months between phone subsidization. Same goes here. Those of us who bought the iPhone 3G the day it came out, probably have to wait until December 12 (unless you have some major credit problems or like to not pay your bill very often) just like it’s always been. The illusion really is that AT&T gave 1st generation iPhone users a ‘break’ by letting them upgrade for the subsidized price of the iPhone 3G.

Do I think this is a good business move on AT&T’s part in the long run? Not really. The iPhone 3G S is a nice upgrade but it’s no “OMG, THAT’S SOOO MUCH BETTER THAN MY 3G” kind of upgrade. AT&T just gave a lot of people time to wait. Now that I have 7 months to wait before I can upgrade my phone on the cheap, I can see how Apple’s exclusive deal is going to fair and decide if I want to jump ship when my contract ends next year. I think a lot of iPhone 3G users will be evaluating the same thing.

The place where AT&T really disappointed everyone has to do with their network and their lack of doing anything about it. it’s not like MMS is a big surprise or anything. It’s been coming for months and you I don’t accept any of your excused on why you can’t ‘flip a switch’ and let me use MMS on June 17. MMS can already be used on any other phone on your network so what’s the hold up? Flip the switch! The tethering thing isn’t a huge deal to me. I probably won’t be getting it. But it just makes me think about another way AT&T is trying to squeeze every last penny out of the users that already spend a fortune on it’s network. I can’t think of any other reason you don’t have a ‘comment’ about that yet. And last but not least, your iPhone plans are a ripoff and a $10 discount or maybe a combined unlimited data + unlimited text plan for a little cheaper than you can get it now would be very nice.

I haven’t written you off yet, AT&T, but I am not happy right now and you’ve just given me some time to consider other options. I’d be happy to pay the ‘early upgrade fee’ as soon as I feel like you get your head out of the clouds and start thinking about more about your best customers and be straight with us instead of pretending like no one already knows that your network just can’t handle the demand of the iPhone. Straighten your network out over the next month or two and I’ll forget all about this awful day. But if things aren’t noticeably better by the end of the year, I won’t have any problems waiting for the NEXT iPhone to come out on Verizon.

I just noticed how much of a mouthful this was. Sorry about that. Thanks for staying with me if you made it this far. Think I have to make an excerpt for this one..