What Would Alex Bosika Do?

When Apple announced iMessage, the telecom industry was caught by surprise.  If anything, virtually all of them heard about iMessage the day Apple (and Scott Forstall, might I add) introduced.  The date was June 6, 2011 and this would be Steve Jobs’ last Apple event.

Since then, iMessage has functioned reasonably well.  While Apple’s telecom-busting messaging product has had its own ills with service outages, the media has oddly not reported widely like Blackberry’s powerful and still compelling BBM service.  Another media bias but there she goes.

My current provider (Rogers) has had to deal with some competition from incumbent carriers like Telus and Bell but also from Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and even Public Mobile.  When the new upstart telecom providers entered the Canadian marketplace, most of the “value plans” that the incumbent providers had were priced based on the competition of three incumbent providers. 

A value plan back in 2009 included unlimited text messaging for my iPhone 3GS at $10/month.  With WIND Mobile advancements on price bundling, Rogers soon found it had to upgrade this value plan to include MMS as part of the same price-point in addition to unlimited GLOBAL texting.  The double-blow on global text came as a result of Apple’s iMessage which gives no revenue opportunity to telecom providers since it leverages the Internet and Apple’s own iCloud framework to get things from A to B. 

As of today, Ide-coupled the last possible add-on for my wireless plan at Rogers with my iPhone 3GS.  Now, I am down to a very basic voice plan and the classic and old 6GB DATA bundle I signed up for (in 2009) before Telus and Bell went HSPA .  After Belus (Bell + Telus — google it lol) went HSPA, iPhone data plans magically skyrocketed to equally high price points with no differential whatsoever (things may have changed but I don’t think so).

To cover off any risk of surprise per-use charges, I asked my incumbent provider to block any ability to receive or send SMS text messages by mistake on my iPhone 3GS.  Surprisingly, once off the value plan, the pricing was a magical .25c PER text messaging.  That’s pure robbery.

I did a few key tests by sending iMessages to other iPhone users and a regular text to someone without an iOS device. 

• iMessage successful
• SMS text unsuccessful

In all, I am now saving $20 a month for something I never really needed anymore.  Afterall, between iMessage, Facebook Messaging, WhatsApp, Kik and the myriad of other ways to reach someone, the value bundle of $20 to cover unlimited global SMS, MMS, Visual Voicemail and Call Display just had no relevance to me anymore.  Heck, I can even get Skype Voicemail for a bargain.

Simply put, this move saved me $240/year for an “add-on”.  Seems rich, no?  Call it what you want but that’s disruption and when I migrate to a newer iPhone, the game plan will stay the same.

Conclusion: Stop paying for things when there are clear substitutes in the market!  We all lives without mobile phones at one point.  I’m sure I can survive my add-ons.  This is also a signal to Canadian incumbents that the day of high ARPU is over.  In markets like Latin America and Asia, ARPU is so low that telecom providers must be innovative and release products quickly to gain revenue and market advantages that North Americans have not had to experience….until now.

Related articles

• iMessage Is Currently Down, Apple Silent (sporkings.com)
• How To Change Your iMessage ‘Caller ID’ In iOS 6 (appadvice.com)
• iMessage experiencing difficulties as Apple works on fix (slashgear.com)
• iMessage suffering from failed, delayed messages (ipodnn.com)

MacDaddy’s here. :D

[LOL] Welcome.  Shoot me.  I am just as bad as the news media (CNN!) for using crazy headlines that have NOTHING to do with the article.  Well, this one is somewhat related.  However, it’s not Tim Cook’s fault.  I like Tim Cook.  Even E.T. likes Tim Cook.  He isn’t trying to hospitalize me.  Only the software is.

This is another “What Would Alex Bosika Do?” segment. :-)  

Here are the apps stats between iPhone and iPad:

iPhone

1. Screens: 9 maximum
2. Folders: 140 maximum
3. Apps per Folder: 12 maximum
4. Total Apps on iPhone: 2160 apps

With the introduction of iOS4, Apple introduced FOLDERS.  Folders allows extremely organized people to sort apps to their own drum beat.  That said, a few interesting things happen if you don’t organize yourself early.  

1. If you exceed 9 screens with individual apps, any other apps are only accessible with iOS (Spotlight?) search - which is terribly inaccurate at times
2. Sorting many individualized apps into folders can lead to quiet desperation, intense hospitalization or seizure and strokes (OK, I am kidding. Don’t sue me Apple!)  That said, the sorting process can be quite painful
3. There is no iTunes desktop client sorting feature that I am aware which could help you sort you apps into folders more easily and more quickly than using gestures on the iPhone
4. Surprisingly (I am pretty sure of this), Apple has not implemented some kind of magic sort that scans your entire iPhone device and by default sorts by genre/category, file size or alphabetical order into folders auto-magically

The last bullet may be hard to understand if you’ve never flooded your iPhone with apps like myself.  I currently have about 554 apps (and counting! YES! Call it “product tester hat”) and because they’re not sorted into folders, I can’t see most of them without an iOS search.  The only way to see the rest of the apps is through manual sortation and folder aggregation.  Do you now see how painful this?  It’s awful.  Even worse, the iTunes desktop client simply mimics (like an iPhone emulator) what I already see on my iPhone.  The only real way to get out of this sordid mess is to simply uncheck all apps on the iPhone via the iTunes desktop client, APPLY (!) and restart the process by individually checking apps I want installed on iPhone.  But rather than select all, I would have to select a reasonable amount, sort them to a folder, and then keep adding more so that I can maximum my app/folder organization.  

This sounds like a lot of work for a company that popularized the APP ecosystem and is generally considered logical when it comes to the gracefulness of their technology and software.

Scott Forstall (Apple’s Senior VP, iPhone/iOS Software), I am begging you.
Think about us app-aholics!

Before you know it, they’ll put me on Shutter Island or worse the Hoarders reality television program! Look at me, I’m a mess. :-) At 554 apps and counting, I’m in need of another hit. Help me organize my app life.

What Would Alex Bosika Do?

I would ensure iOS and iTunes had the capability to quickly sort hundreds and hundreds of apps into folders with some auto-naming convention (e.g. Category Name 1…2….3 depending on how many apps are associated to the category) for category sorts or something different for alphabetical sorting etc.

Trust me Apple.  This would make things just a little more helpful to people who test, download, or use a lot of apps.  Of course, the other solution would be to simply not install so many apps.  No, not possible with app-aholics.  Unless you’re suggesting I start an App-Aholics Anonymous.  Are you?

A Google search to find a solution to my problem turned up nothing. :-(

YES, TIM COOK.  I’m a happy camper in discovering this.  Please fix it. Meow.

Related articles

• Apple launches dedicated Podcasts app for iPhone, iPad (ipodnn.com)
• Apple’s AirPlay is the Future of TV (ivannelson.com)
• Android Getting Crushed By iOS In App Retention (appadvice.com)
• Apple could face ban on U.S. imports of iPhone and iPad (intomobile.com)
• Apple Keynote: Tim Cook Unveils iOS 6 and More [LIVE BLOG] (mashable.com)
• Tim Cook at D10 (macstories.net)
• Facebook for iOS due for a big speed update (imore.com)
• How Apple Is Going To Resurrect And Revolutionize Podcasts In iOS 6 (cultofmac.com)
• iOS Apps Retain Way More Users Than Android Apps (cultofmac.com)
• Why the Next iPhone Won’t Be 16:9 (gizmodo.com)