iPhone / iOS Thread

Check the FCC website - they list who owns and operates radio (including cell) towers as well as their locations. Verizon has got a huge forest of the things in NYC thanks to being the incumbent as well as buying up most of their competition, and AT&T has relatively few.

One of my clients has a bunch of field reps who rely on cellular data links for their jobs. About once a year or so, we send out a bunch of people with competing wireless network cards - and this year's results were the same as the last eight. AT&T has empirically the best coverage and best speed across the country - except in NYC and SF. Sometimes they're the only people on a job site with usable signal.
 
Spectre said:
Check the FCC website - they list who owns and operates radio (including cell) towers as well as their locations. Verizon has got a huge forest of the things in NYC thanks to being the incumbent as well as buying up most of their competition, and AT&T has relatively few.

One of my clients has a bunch of field reps who rely on cellular data links for their jobs. About once a year or so, we send out a bunch of people with competing wireless network cards - and this year's results were the same as the last eight. AT&T has empirically the best coverage and best speed across the country - except in NYC and SF. Sometimes they're the only people on a job site with usable signal.
Click to expand...
See but it's not coverage that's my problem, albeit VZ signal seems to be better at penetrating buildings as my fiancee routinely has signal in places that are in basements and such and I will not, its the bandwidth. Their signal might be fine but its 100% useless as far as throughput goes. My personal experience in the North East is VZ has coverage a lot more than ATT especially around NYS. (I used to have a VZ phone and an ATT Blackberry from work).

Also ATT managed to absolutely fail to capitalize on the iPhone, there is virtually no marketing of the free 3Gs and they are completely behind the curve on the "4G" roll out. Even though Sprint backed the wrong tech at least they started their rollout. VZ actually has usable LTE network at this point so yeah I'm not too happy with them on many fronts...
 
prizrak said:
See but it's not coverage that's my problem, albeit VZ signal seems to be better at penetrating buildings as my fiancee routinely has signal in places that are in basements and such and I will not, its the bandwidth. Their signal might be fine but its 100% useless as far as throughput goes. My personal experience in the North East is VZ has coverage a lot more than ATT especially around NYS. (I used to have a VZ phone and an ATT Blackberry from work).

Also ATT managed to absolutely fail to capitalize on the iPhone, there is virtually no marketing of the free 3Gs and they are completely behind the curve on the "4G" roll out. Even though Sprint backed the wrong tech at least they started their rollout. VZ actually has usable LTE network at this point so yeah I'm not too happy with them on many fronts...
Click to expand...

Er, what are you talking about? The At&T 4G LTE rollout is already underway. LTE is live and online in five cities and soon will have more.
 
Spectre said:
Er, what are you talking about? The At&T 4G LTE rollout is already underway. LTE is live and online in five cities and soon will have more.
Click to expand...
So it is, not in any of the ones I care about (which is to say NYC) though considering their fail with the 3G network I don't have a whole lot of faith.

Compare that to the below :)
Screen Shot 2011-10-17 at 9.26.09 PM.png

EDIT: Another thought just ocurred to me, since their coverage is good, at least in NYC, couldn't they just add equipment to towers to increase throughput? Also they did put up quite a few towers in the past year or so here. (and they rolling em out in subways)
 
Last edited:
prizrak said:
So it is, not in any of the ones I care about (which is to say NYC) though considering their fail with the 3G network I don't have a whole lot of faith.


Compare that to the below :)
View attachment 5260
Click to expand...

They forget to mention that outside of a limited area in those cities, you get nothing. :p We had people running around last month with Verizon 4G gear and coverage was nowhere near as good as that map implies.

As for the AT&T thing, the reason the 5 cities (which do have good LTE coverage!) were chosen was specifically because AT&T has HQ's or large operations there. The 3G rollout was pretty badly managed, so they're going to dogfood this one to make sure it actually works. It also sticks certain obstructionist execs of AT&T with the fruits of their labors...

EDIT: Another thought just ocurred to me, since their coverage is good, at least in NYC, couldn't they just add equipment to towers to increase throughput? Also they did put up quite a few towers in the past year or so here. (and they rolling em out in subways)
Click to expand...

Subways are easier as you just have to get the transit authority's permission and install a boatload of micro/pico- and femto-cells - but you can't stick more gear on a tower so easily, and you can't just bump the speed of the tower's connection up. Often you have to run more or newer cable, or fiber optics, and you may need to set up new gear and support infrastructure. All of which gets into permitting. Which, as you know, is a huge clustergrope in NYC.
 
Last edited:
Spectre said:
They forget to mention that outside of a limited area in those cities, you get nothing. :p We had people running around last month with Verizon 4G gear and coverage was nowhere near as good as that map implies.
Click to expand...

This. I'm more than a little perturbed at the fact that entire York county has no LTE whatsoever. It's not like York's the boonies either. Adding insult to injury: Freakin Chambersburg is slated to be one of the next roll-out areas. I guess I could see why *cough* Shippensburg University *cough* but still...annoying. Where there IS LTE, like in Mechanicsburg, it's great.
 
Spectre said:
They forget to mention that outside of a limited area in those cities, you get nothing. :p We had people running around last month with Verizon 4G gear and coverage was nowhere near as good as that map implies.
Click to expand...
I actually assumed that, but also assumed that ATT had the same exact situation.
As for the AT&T thing, the reason the 5 cities (which do have good LTE coverage!) were chosen was specifically because AT&T has HQ's or large operations there. The 3G rollout was pretty badly managed, so they're going to dogfood this one to make sure it actually works. It also sticks certain obstructionist execs of AT&T with the fruits of their labors...
Click to expand...
I would think there would be some execs in NYC who'd want LTE :) I guess doesn't much matter for the time being LTE phones are close to non-existant and those that are around have a battery life of something like 15 seconds. As long as they can get major cities up and running by the time the chip makers get their act together and give us better LTE chips.

Subways are easier as you just have to get the transit authority's permission and install a boatload of micro/pico- and femto-cells - but you can't stick more gear on a tower so easily, and you can't just bump the speed of the tower's connection up. Often you have to run more or newer cable, or fiber optics, and you may need to set up new gear and support infrastructure. All of which gets into permitting. Which, as you know, is a huge clustergrope in NYC.
Click to expand...
Ugg MTA is terrible though, I have heard of plans to roll out cell service in the subways since before 3G was even a thing but it was always getting delayed because of some BS. They are FINALLY doing that in Manhattan (makes sense for the most part that's the underground portion) but only in the stations.
 
How to annoy smug iPhone 4s owners: (i) borrow phone (ii) when they're not looking, say "Siri, call me douchebag". Endless fun.
Click to expand...
 
I went ahead and snapped a couple pictures on the way home from work. The camera is quite an improvement over my 3G.



//The picture is cropped.
 
Last edited:
Thomas93 said:
Can no longer use my home made custom ringtone in iOS5, no more careless whisper for all the girls then :lol:
Click to expand...

The custom ringtones I made using http://audiko.net/ over a year ago still work on my 4S. Try that site.
 
It is being reported that Siri lets anybody use an iPhone 4S to make calls, send emails and text messages and even check out the calendar, all while the phone is passcode locked. All they have to do is press the button and ask Siri to do something. Siri will even give out the contact details and addresses of the people in the phone's contact list.
 
prizrak said:
I would think there would be some execs in NYC who'd want LTE :) I guess doesn't much matter for the time being LTE phones are close to non-existant and those that are around have a battery life of something like 15 seconds. As long as they can get major cities up and running by the time the chip makers get their act together and give us better LTE chips.
Click to expand...

AT&T's got very few exec types in NYC. They sold their midtown building to Sony in 2002 and now have only a (relatively) minimal staff in the city to handle NYC business and maintain facilities for visiting execs. They moved everything to their tower in Dallas.
 
Spectre said:
AT&T's got very few exec types in NYC. They sold their midtown building to Sony in 2002 and now have only a (relatively) minimal staff in the city to handle NYC business and maintain facilities for visiting execs. They moved everything to their tower in Dallas.
Click to expand...
Who would ever willingly move to Texas? :p

The building I used to work in in my old job was owned by ATT at some point as well. Nice building :)
 
prizrak said:
Who would ever willingly move to Texas? :p
Click to expand...

Apparently corporations that aren't interested in paying near-confiscatory state taxes, I.E., quite a few.

Then there's the lack of ubiquitous rats, the fact that it doesn't smell like rotting garbage in the summer, your employees don't have to pay $4000 a month for a closet with a view of the blank wall of the building across the alley, etc., etc. :p
 
Last edited:
Apparently corporations that aren't interested in paying near-confiscatory state taxes, I.E., quite a few.

Then there's the lack of ubiquitous rats, the fact that it doesn't smell like rotting garbage in the summer, your employees don't have to pay $4000 a month for a closet with a view of the blank wall of the building across the alley, etc., etc.
Click to expand...
Yeah but on the other hand... TEXAS :p

Doesn't smell in the summer at least nowhere where I go. Other stuff is true though.

As for the view I get to look at Chrysler Building :p
 
Last edited:
Firecat said:
I don't get why Siri isn't available on the iPad 2 (at least)
Click to expand...

My guess would be that they're rolling it out carefully while they're ramping up the server capacity.
 
Perc said:
My guess would be that they're rolling it out carefully while they're ramping up the server capacity.
Click to expand...
Actually I question its value on iPad 2 outside of novelty. You are not likely to have it in your pocket/backpack/arm strap while you are using it. You are not very likely to drive with it while you are using it, and as you have to press the button to activate Siri you can't really leave the iPad laying around and have it read the weather or txts to your or w/e.

IMO Siri is really only useful in the car where taking your hands off the wheel and doing stuff on your phone is actually dangerous, but tapping a button is easy and quick enough.

What *I* don't get is why it is not ported to OS X, clearly there is no lack of power on anything that can run Lion (it's not availalbe for anything less than a Core i2) and add voice activation using a user configurable name (or your computer name). Having an IM conversation while you are making dinner Nikita style would be awesomesauce. Also you could have it read recipes out or check weather while you are getting ready in the morning. Voice control of computers just seems like a no brainer.

EDIT: Porting it to Apple TV would be even cooler but I'm not sure if it has the cajones to run it. How cool would it be to say "Play 1st episode of Dr. Who on Netflix" and have it do that?!
 
Last edited:
But how many owners know to do that? How many even knew it was an issue?

Apple should have had Siri disabled when the phone is locked as its default setting, but instead they chose to leave it unsecured. Why?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top