When Apple first released their legendary iPhone on June 29, 2007, there were many different reactions toward the device. Some people, such as myself loved the concept of being able to do virtually anything from the simplistic phone...and others thought the device could use major improvements, such as being able to access the networks faster data connections, multimedia-messaging or having a traditional "physical" keyboard which all the original iPhone lacked.

Through further releases of the device and OS updates, the device finally had the programming capability to do many and much more of the above critiques...but a few that the device still lacked in the United States was multi-media messaging. The phone was fully capable of doing so in OS release 3.0, but AT&T restricted use of the multi-media messaging capabilities. Why? Bandwidth.

On Friday, September 25th, 2009...AT&T finally made available multi-media messaging. I think it is absolutely ridiculous for a company such as AT&T to partner with a company and basically bag their users of features because of poor planning on their part. It is my belief that AT&T took off a bigger bite than what they could chew. They had many months before hand to prepare or upgrade their network to be capable of doing such high-bandwidth tasks.

People have said before that you cell phone is only as good as your service provider, and in this case that is true partially. It is of my belief that AT&T has given Apple a bad representation of themselves. The phone works great, the only lacking thing is quality and reliable service. Hopefully, AT&T will get their act together if they are smart and are completely sincere about getting their customers the best quality of service for all users of the iPhone now and in the future.

-Ken

Labels: apple, att, cell phones, history, mobile, revolution, service

I had an interesting story . . . something that happened tonight.

Tonight, I was working "Hymns of the Faith" at First Baptist Orlando. I had been tweeting with another one of the volunteers for broadcast, Michael throughout the afternoon. Unfortunately, he could not be with us tonight, because he was working later tonight. But, we were blessed with having his wife, serve with us tonight!

He was not able to get in touch with his wife to ask her a quick question. I assume he could have sent a text message or something, maybe he did, but I guess her phone was away in her purse our of her reach. Michael ended up sending me a "Tweet" to ask his wife the question. I was able to pass on the message then became the mediator between him and his wife.

It was great. So you see, Twitter is not about posting useless information, which some people live their life believing. It is about sharing information, keeping in touch with others and being informative. For all fo you Twitter haters out there, get over yourself. It can be useful and is for many many Twitter users. Don't bash something just because you do not use it. That is something that I can not stand.

-Ken

Labels: cell phones, haters, informative, mediator, message, Michael, social networking, tweet, twitter

So...I remember a few years back the swarm of pagers and personal beepers. Some probably brought the concept of text messaging into the playing field. I remember one guy I knew that had one could send text-based messages out through his pager. So...are pagers technically a "lost technology?"

Obviously, modern cell phones today can do all that and more. But it just struck me as a thought earlier today. What is the next device to merge?

-Ken

Labels: beepers, cell phones, maturity, pagers, technology, test messaging