Love her. Hate them.

So if you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I love, er, hate, er, very much like my iPhone, so much that I’ve named her Gigi and she goes everywhere with me. She’s my mobile email, ebook, emovie, emusic, egame, ephoto, eWeb, etext, ewhatever machine, and I have to thank Apple for that.

She’s also a royal pain in the fundament, and I have to thank AT&T for that. And from the sounds of it, the new iPhone 3GS gives me even more to thank them for.

I gotta admit, I like Verizon much better as a mobile phone company; they’re far more willing to help you out with problems, they’re in more locations when you need to stop in for something but most of all, more calls go through.

AT&T’s 3G network sucks and isn’t much faster than EDGE. Using 3G, 24% of my calls are dropped at least once–to the point that it’s a standing joke with friends and family. When I turn 3G off, it drops to about 9%–but with Verizon it was more like 1%. AT&T’s texting is limited, the only way someone can send me a photo on its network is if I log in with a special code from a regular computer and retrieve it, and the reps are amazingly unhelpful. I take care of Gigi’s hiccups at Apple’s Genius Bars (where the techs admit they don’t use the 3G network either.).

So…gimme an iPhone alternative to AT&T and I’d be off like a shot. I’d pay a penalty, even.

Now Apple’s brought out a faster iPhone with more memory and some cool new features, the 3GS, and it’s only $199…if you don’t already have an iPhone. If you do, and your contract hasn’t hit the 2-year upgrade mark, the new phone is $599.

Now, I get that AT&T buys down the price of the phone so it can recoup the loss over a 2-year contract and they don’t want to screw that up. But iPhone is still capturing a huge marketshare and, in the US, it’s all AT&T’s so this seems a bit greedy. And other mobile companies can usually work out a deal where you extend your contract and still get the upgrade price. Why not add a year to the contract–which would leave AT&T in a better position once Apple negotiates another US provider–and keep users happy?

Not that I was planning to upgrade anytime soon…but it does seem that AT&T is doing business as usual and that ain’t good.

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