Gizmodo writes that an AT&T regional manager penned a 5-page screed about the iPhone, exhorting his readers to get a Blackberry or – wait for it – a Windows Mobile-based device.
The reasons given are traditional fare (inaccessible battery, no camera flash, no voice dial, no cut ‘n’ paste) and includes “no CDMA,” an odd complaint from someone who works for AT&T.
Giz has ze document.
NJ Mall AT&T Employees Hand Out Anti-iPhone Propaganda to Customers [Gizmodo via MobileRoar. Tip: Cheers, trigatch4!]
The top of the document states “Top 10 reasons why the iPhone is still not BlackBerry”. I’m willing to go out on a limb here, but aren’t BlackBerries designed for business-oriented users, whereas iPhones are designed for the consumer market?
For instance, a BlackBerry is designed for push e-mail, text-messaging and document editing, all business oriented tasks. The iPhone, while it can do these things (and doesn’t do one of them well, apparently), is better designed for lifestyle and entertainment (video, music, photo management, etc).
This is (almost) and apples and oranges kind of thing and a confusion in the market about it all. Why argue about which is better when they aren’t even the same thing?
What I don’t understand is why this gut isn’t steering folks toward AT&T’s Tilt or LG’s Vu instead, since they are designed for the same market as the iPhone (unless they totally suck, but I don’t know).
…and that’s how you get fired.
If you read the article, the guy says they’re meant to be talking points so that his kiosks can compete because they don’t carry the iphone, not for customer distribution. His employees were out of line for how they handled it, but can’t blame the guy for trying to make a living (and a seemingly honest one, as his points all seem to be chock full ‘o truth). Also, there’s only talk of this happening to one customer, so it’s quite possible the employees handed the woman their personal copy to peruse, rather than do their jobs and relate the info from the talking points to the customer.
Nor did he “pen a 5-page screed”, read again. The guy copied articles from Pocket PC Mag and Crackberry.com and wrote a little bit in the beginning and a few other places. Your wording doesn’t convey what happened here very accurately, or what Giz reported (and they actually talked to the guy). The slap at WinMo devices is unnecessary, but certainly reveals your motivations. Somebody somewhere out there took a swing at Apple, and you felt the need to swing back. Hope it feels good.
I’ll go with #5 on this one – WinMO defintely has issues (I don’t use it personally because of many of these issues) but you have to smoke some serious fanboy crack to deny that it does things you don’t (and likely won’t given the market demographic apple is after) see on the iphone (which I also don’t use due to its lack of such features).
The iphone is a nice gadget but several other phones including those that run WinMO are better fits and options for many users. Please rationally acknowledge this and move on. I get enough of the fanboy stuff elsewhere – is it really needed here?
Is it slander if it’s true? I just skimmed the stuff (didn’t read it in detail). I did not notice any glaring errors.
This is odd, you’d think AT&T would want to sell *more* iPhones. That said, the CDMA criticism is a reach, but the rest of the points are valid criticisms. Most of the down-to earth reviewers have concluded that the iPhone is indeed no substitute for the Blackberry, and not ready for enterprise use. I agree. It’s an entertainment-oriented consumer phone.
There are lots of branded AT&T resellers that aren’t (yet?) selling the iPhone. In the Bay Area, for example, all the former “Parrot Cellular” stores are branded AT&T, but are actually owned by someone else.
An extreme example of this is the “AT&T” store inside Best Buy – it’s actually entirely a Best Buy operation, and wasn’t included in the iPhone launch. I’m unsure whether they’ll be giving these resellers the iPhone, later (and whether they every got the first generation version). But, this “regional manager” probably doesn’t work for AT&T, but for some other company that can sell AT&T service, but not the iPhone, and is feeling threatened.
We sell em, we don’t smoke em.