Tuesday, December 7, 2010

'AT&T is now the worst carrier' - Consumer Reports - Dec. 6, 2010

'AT&T is now the worst carrier' - Consumer Reports

chart_cell_service2.top.jpg By David Goldman, staff writerDecember 7, 2010: 8:53 AM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- AT&T's customer satisfaction rating tumbled this year, ranking dead last among U.S. wireless carriers, according to a Consumer Reports survey released on Monday.

The nation's second largest wireless network received the worst possible rating in eight of the nine categories the magazine studied, including overall value, voice service, data service, phone support, staff knowledge, and resolution of issues, among others. Readers gave AT&T an overall score of just 60 out of 100, which is six points below its score a year ago and nine points below its nearest-ranked competitor, T-Mobile.

The report noted that AT&T "is now the worst carrier," and is the only wireless network with scores that dropped "significantly" over last year.

More than half of the AT&T (T, Fortune 500) customers surveyed own an iPhone, and the survey found that iPhone owners were "much less satisfied" with AT&T than other smartphone owners were with their carrier. IPhone owners were particularly dissatisfied with AT&T's data service.

AT&T said it is working on solutions.

"We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience," said Fletcher Cook, spokesman for AT&T.

The wireless company was quick to point out that independent tests from Global Wireless Solutions have concluded that AT&T's mobile broadband network is 20% faster than its nearest competitor and 60% faster than archrival Verizon Wireless.

AT&T also has tremendous momentum in the wireless space, adding a net 2.6 million new wireless customers last quarter, half of whom were new iPhone customers. That represented far more net additions than any of its competitors.

But the network's momentum will soon face a giant challenge. Fortune and other news outlets have reported that AT&T is about to lose its exclusive hold on the iPhone at the end of the year, and that Verizon will start selling the iPhone beginning in early 2011. As many as 6 million of AT&T's iPhone subscribers could defect to Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), according to a forecast by Drake Johnstone, a Davenport & Co. analyst.

"Our survey suggests that an iPhone from Verizon Wireless ... could indeed be good news for iPhone fans," said Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports, in a prepared statement.

At the same time, Verizon is no longer the clear leader in overall satisfaction, a position it has held almost every year since 2003, according to the survey. Verizon led the nationwide carriers with an overall score of 74 -- one point lower than last year.

But Sprint Nextel (S, Fortune 500) made a startling leap forward with a rating of 73, which is six points higher than the previous year. It even surpassed Verizon in some aspects of customer service, which Consumer Reports called "a remarkable turnaround," considering that was a weak point for the network in years past. Sprint was ranked last in the survey as recently as two years ago.

Sprint easily leapfrogged T-Mobile, after that carrier's satisfaction score fell by one point.

The big up-and-comer was regional carrier U.S. Cellular (USM), which was included in Consumer Reports' most recent survey because it is now available in 26 states. The report said the network "stands out for value, voice service, and customer service." To top of page

First Published: December 6, 2010: 2:21 PM ET

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Friday, December 3, 2010

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. Here is your inspiration for the day!

John Gerzema: The post-crisis consumer

The Amazing Readability Of Google Maps


It’s been my experience that Google Maps has always been the most legible of the online map services, though even the worst have come a long way since the early days. I figured it was just the same magical Google power that returned search results so fast and pushed email to my phone in seconds. But while the juice that makes those things go is largely behind the scenes, the optimizations Google has made to the Maps interface are staring you right in the face every time you use it. But you might not have noticed them.

This post at 41Latitude, a blog dedicated to this kind of analysis, is a minute examination of those optimizations, and what competitors might look like if they did the same thing. It sounds dry, but I found it an interesting read, and it’s also one of those things that you can’t un-see.


(click for a larger version)

The primary difference seems to be the way the city labels are placed and weighted. The low-contrast background and various levels of white outline to the type make larger cities pop, and looser rules on where the city label is relative to its dot allow for better spacing between items. And there is apparently a sort of “halo” around larger cities that suppresses labeling of smaller items, the better to highlight the big cities and routes on the map. There are illustrations of these techniques at the post, and I recommend taking a look if you’re at all interested in psychovisual optimization and UI planning.

I don’t mention it just to give Google a pat on the back (though they deserve, and I give it to them — now), but also to bring up the fact that little things like this do add up. Superiority you can see, as Google Maps shows, is important to retaining users. If they know why they like your service, that’s good; if they don’t know, that’s also good. Of course, a different user might prefer Bing’s maps, with their different aesthetic — as long as it’s done with the same attention to detail.

A site like Flickr would quickly be put out of business by a competitor if they didn’t put the photos front and center, in high resolution, with good compression and simple navigation. The best feature set in the world won’t matter if your potential users ricochet off the site instantly because of something that can’t quite put their finger on. Like the idea in Gladwell’s Blink that you can do an extraordinary amount of processing in a fraction of a second, you can do quite a thorough evaluation of a service like Google Maps or Flickr in the same amount of time.

Tiny optimizations create a friendly environment for users, something sites don’t care enough about. Sloppy UI and poor presentation get picked up on by many who don’t even realize they’re doing so. So, a lesson to the competition: the little things don’t take care of themselves, but they might take care of you if you’re not careful.

If you’re interested in the usability of maps thing in particular, 41Latitude is full of posts on the topic.

[via Metafilter, where a commenter points out the interesting Fata Morgana]

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Buy This Bankrupt Satellite to Share Internet With the Poor. Your dose of humanity for the day!

Buy This Bankrupt Satellite to Share Internet With the Poor

A school bus-sized satellite—the world's most capable—is for sale, as its corporate owner goes under. But rather than let it slowly die, a non-profit is raising money to repurpose it as a free internet provider for the poor.

Buy This Satellite says it'll take $150,000 in contributions to place a successful bid on the orphaned Terrestar-1, at which point its orbit will be moved in order to supply a connection to countries in need—for free. The group also plans to manufacture and distribute cheap satellite modems to get people hooked up on the ground. A lot of financial and bureaucratic trudging will have to be accomplished between cash raised and internet unleashed, but it's a wonderfully daring plan, and a noble one at at that. Countries like Papua New Guinea—which has an open orbital "slot" which the Terrestar-1 could move into—has internet access for only 2.1% of its population. A bus-sized router for the world's poor and internet-less could do a whole lot of good. [Buy This Satellite via Boing Boing]

Send an email to the author of this post at sbiddle@gizmodo.com.

Why Does Apple Make Donation Apps So Hard?

Why Does Apple Make Donation Apps So Hard?

Why Does Apple Make Donation Apps So Hard?

In August, PayPal added a donation feature that allowed users to make charitable contributions from within the services's iPhone app. In late October, Apple made them pull the plug with no warning and little explanation.

Anuj Nayar, on behalf of PayPal, would only say, "I can confirm that we added the donations feature to our iPhone app in version 2.5 in mid August. We removed the feature in version 3.0 of our PayPal Mobile iPhone app. This was done at Apple's request."

A little background: to implement its donation feature, PayPal partnered with MissionFish, whose mandate is to help non-profits raise funds through online donations. In PayPal's case, users of the app would be given an option to donate to either a featured charity or one of nearly 18,000 organizations in the MissionFish database. Choose the non-profit, choose the amount, hit submit, and you were done.

Because PayPal already has a payment method on file for the user, it was essentially a two-click operation. And in the few months that the feature was operational, it had raised more than $10,000 at an average donation amount of $12.

Much of the feature's success came from its being an in-app transaction. That also turned out to be its downfall. Prior to the Oct. 26th release of PayPal 3.0, Apple decided that they wanted any donations to be completed in Safari, a sudden and unexpected move that would have result in a significant drop-off in participation. There hasn't been any further explication from Cupertino since then.

"Nonprofits are really stymied by the iPhone and this policy approach," says MissionFish's Clam Lorenz. "They're not sure what the policy is, because it seems vague or arbitrary."

PayPal's not the only charity app to experience a seemingly capricious App Store regulatory process. Givabit is a free app that features a different charity every day, encouraging users to make micro-donations. Getting the app approved was, according to co-founder Justin Kazmark, quite an ordeal:

"Apple was clear that any in-app transaction via iTunes would entitle Apple to 30% of that transaction — presumably charity donations included. Given the fact that we thought 30% was way too much to take from a $1 donation to charity, we had to come up with a different solution than to go through iTunes."

To avoid sending nearly a third of their donors' contributions to Apple, Givabit settled on the less-effective method of sending payments to the browser. Although that wasn't the end of it.

Apple's review team first sent back direction that Givabit couldn't specify what percentage of donations went to the non-profits (96.25%) and what went towards operational costs (the rest). The reason for that request, and others, was never made clear:

"We called up and asked for additional information about why we couldn't include that language. The person we spoke to was very unclear about what the policy was. We were also told that we couldn't use the term "Phonelanthropy," which we made up to describe what we were doing or the tagline we had on the app: "Microdonations. Macrobenefit." They said we would have to get rid of that, too. Basically, anything that alluded to charity/philanthropy they felt uncomfortable with but wouldn't articulate clearly what their policy was."

Later, Apple told Givabit to remove specific dollar amount buttons within the app, insisting that those be put on the Safari page as well.

While Apple hasn't fully explained its rationale to either Givabit or MissionFish, it's likely that they don't want to be liable for donation apps that turn out to be fraudulent. The best way to avoid that liability is block any and all in-app donations. If that's the case, though, it seems unusual that an exception couldn't be made for a known partner in good standing, like PayPal. And in-app purchases have been commonplace since iOS 3.0.

For its part, Lorenz says PayPal will introduce in-app donations to its Android app before the end of the year, while still waiting for Apple to further clarify why it reversed its position. And other charitable apps are left navigating the murky waters of App Store policy, hoping for clarity in time for the season of giving.

Send an email to Brian Barrett, the author of this post, at bbarrett@gizmodo.com.


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Is Givabit a non-profit? Given the lack of ongoing costs, those 3.75%'s could very quickly add up to a tidy profit if the app is a success. Not that it matters, I suppose. Reply


A 30% cut from a charitable donation seems.. well greedy.

Paypal on the otherhand, charges 2.2% of the transaction, plus 30 cents per transaction for charitable non-profit donations. Not free, which would be nice but excusable given that they make it very easy to donate, so more people are likely to.

As a side note, am I the only one annoyed that the Salvation Army bell ringers don't take debit cards? Reply


When Steve Jobs returned to Apple he shut down the Corporate Philanthropy operations until "general profitably improves". Despite becoming the biggest technology company in the world and enjoying huge success, he still has not restarted the program. Reply
reuthermonkey promoted this comment

"Why does Apple make donation apps so hard?"

Because then they don't get any of the money. This is easy to answer, come on.

I bet they'll introduce a "donation" function before too long that they'll take a cut off the top of. Reply


As a non-profit development director, hearing this type of news is disappointing. It takes the leaders of all the sectors coming together to tackle our communities' most pressing issues. Any and all obstacles to that should be minimized and diminished. The easier it is for individuals to invest in the organizations doing the best work, the more we all win. Reply
ndonahue promoted this comment
Almightywhacko approved this comment

Apple, not only do we not donate to charity, we take a 30% cut when you try to. Reply
darkly promoted this comment

Seriously, Paypal? C'mon, they always ask you for money, but they never show you where the money goes. Haiti is a clear example, only 2% of $5.3 billion was delivered, and the $1.15 billion that the United States promised for the "Relief" was never paid: [ac360.blogs.cnn.com]

Same with Ryan Secrest's Mosquito Nets : [www.guardian.co.uk]

Think about it, if all the money raised in the past 20 years, or let's say from the Live Aid concert in '85 really went to Africa, they would be doing great today. Reply


Pure Greed. Should be the Apple Mantra. Reply
darkly promoted this comment

"They're not sure what the policy is, because it seems vague or arbitrary."

Sounds like Apple's modus operandi... Reply

HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment

It's not just Apple that's doing this. I have a free app in the WP7 Marketplace that initially had a "donate" button in it so users could support the app. Microsoft made me remove the "donate" button on the basis that it created a "commercial relationship with users outside of the WP7 Marketplace environment". :( Reply
TomXP411 promoted this comment

My guess is that Apple did this to make sure they still have their hands in the money pot. They get a percentage of apps sold which tends to be more than the developer actually gets. By allowing Paypal and other services the opportunity to integrate into the application the devs could actually start getting all their money only having to deal with a transaction fee. They would find a way to code their app as a "free" app as far as iTunes was concerned but would require "activation" through paypal of say 1.99. Now the devs get the money they deserve for "paid" apps.

I don't agree with Apple ruling their app store and devs in such a facists matter and hope and pray it comes back to bite them in the ass as Android becomes more popular. Reply


It could be, perhaps, that Steve's shoes were too tight. Or maybe his head wasn't screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small. Reply


This is a case of Satan fighting his asshole brother. Both are primarily dickhole companies and I have a hard time picking a side.

Paypal=Blatant theives.
Apple=Indirect thieves.

-Sent from my iPhone. Reply


Apple, "vague or arbitrary"? No way! Reply


Apple continues to ostracize itself.

They do not allow well known charitable contribution agencies or partners, because they might be fraudulent if the donations are made in-App.

Yet they allowed something like "I'm Rich" to go through at the time.

Their censorship will be their demise, and with it the waste of a good platform. Reply


That's what pisses me off about these tech titan trillionaires.

Name one single tech giant who has done a single thing to help his fellow man! Reply


Apple policy is vague and arbitrary? NO WAY! Reply
Vinnie Vici promoted this comment

I wish developers would move over to brand X and bring things like this to the real world.
Dealing with Apple is a test in madness and just gets worse as time goes on.
Just because they have more apps in there store does not make them better, and I do not use them in less I have to for my Sons Ipod, when that is gone we will be Apple free in this house and I hope to keep it that way.

And when that day comes ITunes will be gone from our systems.
And the shame is Apple could have been a world leader but no they walled in there world and now control every thing the users of there products do and use.

For a company that has such a small percent of the computers in the world they get more reviews and front page time than all the other companies put together , and that is not because they are any better. It is one of the most off balance information pushes of any company I have ever seen.
All of the Mag's out in cyberland have stopped being balanced in there reviews and are pushing there personal views to the users . The News company that stops this first will be one of the honest ones to read. Reply

BoscoH approved this comment



This reminded me of a comment I made on an old post about Bill Gates raising money from Billionaires:

[gizmodo.com]

Top 10 Reasons Steve Jobs is not mentioned:

10. He claimed that parking in handicapped spots is charity, since it forces the needy to help themselves.

9. He would right a check, but that requires pen input.

8. He is waiting for his patent on "making charitable donations" to be approved.

7. He said he would donate once he
figures out how to embed iAds into the brains of those who accept his help.

6. He said he will only participate if the recipients are organ donors.

5. He left his wallet in his other turtleneck.

4. Since 40 other billionaires are doing it, he rejected the offer since it "duplicated functionality".

3. He will wait 4 years to announce iDonate.... donations done the "right way"

2. He asked if iPhone 4 bumpers were a valid form of payment.

1. He wrote a check but took it away when Bill Gates held it wrong.

Reply


This sounds a lot worse than it really is. All Apple is doing is covering their arse legally. If someone were to create a "donation" app that ended up being for personal profit instead of actually being donated to a charity, Apple would never hear the end of it legally. Since Apple moderates their app store they, like any other company whose legal standing depended on it would, have chosen to require you to use a browser on the internet where they legally have no control and thus are released of any legal responsibility for what you spend your money on. Whereas, Google does not control the content that is in the Android App store and leaves all responsibility on safe purchasing to the user from the get go.

For example look at digital physical media (DVD's Blu-Ray's and the like) while it is completely legal to rip them to a purely digital format for personal use most major companies will not allow you to do so with their native software because they just don't want to deal with the what if. Reply

Tank promoted this comment

It's simple.

The more money you give away to dirty hippies and homeless people, the less you have to spend on genuine Apple accessories (designed in Cupertino by brainwashed hipsters, made in China by suicidal Foxconn employees). Reply

Peter S. promoted this comment

When you buy an Apple product, you play by the emperor's rules.

He also determines what kind of apps are acceptable.

Why is this a surprise to anyone? Reply


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