Friday, June 11, 2010

Kara Swisher, girl, you need to get a grip

Just check out pissy little Kara Swisher of AllThingsD being all menopausal because not only did AT&T publish her email address but they also didn’t grovel enough in their apology to her. Earlier today Kara bitched about the fact that her name was on the list of 114,000 people whose email addresses got leaked after they registered their 3G iPads. Now AT&T has apologized, but Kara isn’t happy. She says AT&T’s apology to her is “sort of like telling me that only one room of my digital house was broken into, although nothing good was taken, so not to worry.”

Oh please. Get over yourself, you big drama queen. It’s just your goddamn email address! Suddenly you feel all violated, because someone could see your email address? What’s gonna happen? Someone might write to you?

But here’s the twist. For some reason, in her whining blog posts, Kara decided to publish her own super-duper top-secret personal email address — yeah, the one she was upset at AT&T for not protecting.

She went ahead and published it on her blog.

Well, the thing is, if you plug that personal email address into this new hacker tool called Google, it turns out that this email address was already available on the Internet — alongside some other information about Kara, including a street address and phone number.

None of which anyone would have known about it if Kara herself hadn’t just posted this email address on her own blog.

But we’re the bad guys. Yeah. Nice work, Kara.


Wednesday, March 31, 2010

AT&T is running scared

El Jobso is yanking Stephenson’s chain real hard now, and Stephenson is feeling it. AT&T tech people are moving heaven and earth to improve iPhone coverage in crucial areas and special events and high usage areas but people are still highly unsatisfied with AT&T’s 3G  coverage up to this day. AT&T  has  “educated” Apple handset engineers on how their wireless networking operates so now the iPhones have been re-configured through updates in how they communicate with the cell towers and reduced the load and the drop offs and the jams. Yet, still … people complain. So, Apple is readying an iPhone that works with Verizon’s network. And they haven’t been secretive about that at all, unofficially. So, now we have a bunch of people who can’t wait to jump ship, a bunch of people ready to toss their current Verizon mobile device for an iPhone and some other fence sitters as well. And Stephenson is finally sweating bullets, going nuts, and making some very interesting decisions – like making deals with Palm and Dell and taking tea with Google. How long before Squirrel Boy double crosses you, Stephenson? And how long before Android developers and users give you the finger and go over to the other side?


Sunday, March 14, 2010

SXSWi: AT&T’s 3G network holdin’ up fine

Recently plucked from AT&T's ass

Users of AT&T’s 3G network at Austin’s SXSWi conference are happy as pigs in slop, content as overfed babes, hell, they as pleased as punch – this time, AT&T made the effort to ensure the network did not fail, like it so gloriously did last year at this most prestigious event. In fact, it’s working exactly the way 3G should work in a high volume user area. Now why can’t this happen everywhere, 24/7, not just at special events?

What the fuck do I have to do to make you happy, you stupid blogger? Do you want me to toss your salad? 'Cos that ain't happenin', no siree, Bob! You better learn to back off, lastbumblefuck. I know who you are and your location. Unnerstan'? And quit egging my house - I know it's you, or you're paying someone to do it, anyway, it better stop right now, I swear, I mean it! Why the fuck did I move up to Dallas from San Antonio, I could've just stayed there and commuted by my personal jet five days a week. Now I gotta' endure this harassment from this sumbich liberal com-sap bloggin idjit Yankee carpetbaggin' faggot basterd a-hole! Jeezus ... sonofabitch!


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

AT&T outdoes rivals in 3G tests

In a headline sure to make El Jobso’s head go ker-splat, All Things D has this story about how AT&T has “download speeds 67 percent faster than those of its rivals and greatly improved reliability and performance.”


Friday, February 12, 2010

Apple and AT&T in love once again?

On the eve of Valentine’s Day come hot n’ heavy rumors that Apple and AT&T will continue their cozy iPhone relationship.  We have the steamy inside details here.


Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Apple seen extending exclusive iPhone deal with AT&T

The AppleInsider suggests that the iPad/AT&T alliance may mean an extension of AT&T’s exclusive iPhone deal through 2011.


Thursday, February 4, 2010

Suck on it, AT&T

Yes, AT&T is our valuable partner, and we have great confidence in them, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, we are all secretly loving these new ads from Verizon:


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Woz having hassles with his Prius — but when he calls Toyota to bitch about it, his iPhone keeps dropping the call


Woz is having problems with his Prius because of this stuck accelerator pedal issue. And now he’s and bitching to Gizmodo about the lousy customer service that he’s getting from Toyota and from the NTSA.

Buried in the story is this little gem:

Toyota is difficult too, but after some phone calls I managed to express some of my situation. Unfortunately my iPhone dropped the calls twice and I never got a reference number but they may have some sort of ticket open.

The Gizmodo guy follows up with this:

What I find amazing is that someone—being Steve Wozniak or John Doe—is having these problems, and nobody in the company is doing anything about it, pronto.

We checked, and the Gizmodo guy was talking about the car. Not the phone. Whew.

But consider this: Imagine a world where your car (or your TV, or your alarm clock, or anything) was only as reliable as your iPhone. Nobody would put up with it. Yet with iPhone, they do. And that, my friends, is the miracle of Apple, and the power of the RDF.

PS, Woz? Suck it up and buy a Mercedes.


Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Chokehold worked — or did it?

AT&T is promising to fix its network, and as Tim Cook said on our earnings call yesterday, “We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them.”

Which all sounds great, right? Users complained, and the big corporate behemoth responds by promising to improve service.

Yeah. Except, no. You have to know how to parse Tim’s statement.

(more…)


Monday, January 25, 2010

Something else I forgot to mention

AT&T needs to spend $5 billion to bring its network up to par with Verizon, some analyst says. As I said before, during Operation Chokehold, they are playing a short-term game, putting the interest of shareholders ahead of the interests of customers. Anything else they say is just white noise. Things are so bad now that when Randall Stephenson calls me, whenever he tries to talk I just go “mwah mwah mwah blah blah blah” into the phone. Drives him nuts.