Focusing On The Minutiae

Set the alarm for 5:00 am. Snooze. Reluctantly awake. Trudge to the shower. Wash. Spin. Dry. Shave (if I feel like it). Dress. Work. Put up with staff and the inevitable difficult patient. Home. Eat. Kid. Wife. Sleep. Repeat.

Like Groundhog Day

If my life these days seems like one of those “Groundhog Day” whirlwind tours, it’s probably because it’s pretty much come to that. Between work, school, home, etc., there’s a certain mundane-ness to it all that makes focusing on the minutiae all the more “enjoyable.”

For example… I have been a Windows Mobile device user for many years, enduring the occasional need to press the soft-reset button in stride, because – after all – it’s a Windows device. This, despite the seemingly growing trend for my fellow physicians to favor the Apple iPhone.

Not that I don’t take pleasure in the tiny problems occasionally had by Apple users. For example, one of my colleagues whose Macbook has been trashed for several months, and despite Apple’s seemingly pristine record of excellence in computing, she just can’t seem to get anyone at Apple to own up to the fact that her machine is a lemon and needs replaced at no cost. That Apple would do that, is a commendable concept. That Apple will laugh in her face and say, “too bad, it’s your problem”, is stark reality.

But I digress.

WinMo

Recently, I traded in my old WinMo 6.1 device for a new HTC Pure, sporting WinMo 6.5. Nice device. Sometimes. But I’ve gotten around the fact that it has no “D-pad” like its predecessors, and like what AT&T has done with the bloatware. All of it. Everywhere.

The fact that AT&T is not the only wireless carrier out there to have a majority of its “smartphone” devices in the Windows Mobile category, apparently means nothing to the vast array of pocket-protector-loving geeks who have completely ignored this VAST segment of the industry to concentrate on the minority who have the Apple/AT&T “iPhone”, making iPhone apps for just about everything from weather forecasts to radio station fetchers to connections direct to G-d.

Now I’m a loyal AT&T customer, proudly repeating the mantra, “but they’re ROLLOVER minutes!!”. But AT&T, computer geeks, many of my physician colleagues, and perhaps even the Pope, and particularly software engineers need to do something. They need to get over the “iPhone” obsession and stop pandering to just one device operating system, and start making apps compatible with WinMo devices, let alone for the new Android operating system devices.

iPhone Mania

This iPhone mania reached a climax recently when Starbucks, a personal favorite of mine, recently developed and offered a free iPhone app. OK, so it’s a neat idea to be able to open the app and find the nearest store, check and reload your Starbucks card balance, and even use your device like an electronic Starbucks card. But… it’s for the iPhone. And for months, WinMo device users have been suggesting an app for WinMo. It doesn’t look like anyone at Starbucks is even considering crossing this app to the other platforms.

But beyond the devices themselves, is the war of wireless carriers that those devices have to work on. Since I used to be a Verizon Wireless customer and switched to AT&T, let’s focus on the highly annoying minutiae of the “coverage map” war between Verizon and AT&T.

Verizon Wireless Is What?

First off, let’s get something straight. VERIZON WIRELESS IS A LYING SACK OF… well, you can figure out the rest. There isn’t ONE person I work with, or have social relations with, who has anything good to say about Verizon Wireless… including, apparently, the FCC, who’s hot on the trail of Verizon for charging up to $350.00 to smartphone users for cancellation fees.

Recalling from personal experience with Verizon Wireless, there has hardly ever been a time where the month-to-month bill amount was the same. There was most often some “hidden” fee, some extra charge, some “accidental” something-or-other access, that Verizon just didn’t want to do anything about. It still happens today.

A friend of mine recently complained that his son accidentally hit the mobile web button on his phone, realized what he did, and within seconds shut the phone off. For his little encounter, my friend was rewarded with an extra $30+ on his bill, which he argued his way up three (count ’em, THREE) “manager” levels to get reversed.

The very next month, even though this time NO ONE hit any accidental buttons, there was the $30+ fee again, and there was the oh-so-understanding customer service agent on the other end of the line (who incidentally, spoke English about as well as an Emperor penguin) insisting that “someone” accessed the Mobile Web, and that the fee must remain. To this day (some months later), so says my friend, the fee hasn’t been reversed… and hasn’t been paid.

There’s Not Really A Map For That

Now, squeaky-clean honest-Abe Verizon is using the holiday season to “convince” America that it has the better 3G network through the annoying “There’s A Map For That” ad campaign. Though it’s pretty well-known that AT&T’s 3G network footprint is actually smaller than some other carriers (including Verizon) the problem here isn’t the size of the network (for me, no big deal, since no matter where I go in my daily travels, I’m always in a 3G area), it’s the implication that areas on the map they show of AT&T’s coverage that isn’t in blue, isn’t covered – at all.

Obviously, that’s not true, but the genius marketing children at Verizon want you to think so. However, the ads are actually just filled with enough misleading impressions that AT&T recently moved to sue Verizon.

Quality is More Important Than Quantity

The big issue here isn’t how much territory Verizon can cover with its patchwork of partner networks giving the impression that they have full 3G coverage over the whole country.

The big issue for the end consumer is the quality of the network that you’re on. And I can say from personal experience, that Verizon’s quality completely sucks.

When I used to have Verizon service (the worst couple of years of my life), there wasn’t a day that went by that over 75% of my calls dropped. Obviously for anyone in the medical profession who needs his or her phone to work well in order to deal with their jobs, constant call dropping and poor quality is a big downer.

I even tested Verizon’s marketing-fueled “can you hear me now” capability several times by sitting in plain view of and close proximity to a Verizon tower, while the person I was calling was doing the same with another Verizon tower – and sure enough, each time we did this, the calls still dropped.

Verizon’s network, though it may be “vast”, sucks in terms of quality.

Verizon needs to butt-kick their spectacle-clad geek and send him up a few towers and improve their backhaul to their core network. My 3G Internet speed on AT&T streaks past my friend’s brand-new Droid phone on his Verizon network… I’m listening to song #2 in an online playlist, and his Droid is still loading the freakin’ page.

Focusing on the Minutiae

Verizon needs to stop lying to America about how wonderful they are, while all the time on the back page of their bills, they’re stealing dollars and cents every month from the vast majority of subscribers, many of whom are either too ignorant or too shy to complain, and thus, Verizon gets away with theft, cheating, lying… and if spending millions of stolen money to tout trashily-slow 3G Internet was a capital crime, we could add murder to that list, too.

Minutiae just isn’t what it used to be.