iPhone: iDuped.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Last night I gave up something dear to me…no not my kidney, my first gen iPhone. As I navigated my way through the winding passageways of AT&T’s completely non-frustrating website to the iPhone 3GS pre-order page, I noticed something.

Behold, o glorious pre-order form.

While the increase in the rate was to be expected jumping into 3G land, there was one thing that rubbed me in an unpleasant fashion. Voice Dialing…..for $5 a month. While my initial reaction may have contained colorful verb phrases, thinking that users were about to be charged monthly for new functionality; I soon realized this was something far more questionable. AT&T *8 voice dialing.

So what we have here is redundant functionality. The average consumer, after hearing about the wide array of new iPhone features in the 3GS (voice commands being one), arrives at said pre-order form. Voice dialing is listed as an option, with no details stating that this voice recognition is actually AT&T’s functionality not Apple’s (unless the subscriber happens to look inside the dropdown for details, and even if they do there is no mention of Apple’s functionality) The subscriber wanting the new functionality, agrees to pay $5/mo for voice dialing, then unknowingly proceeds to use Apple’s built in functionality for free.

iDuped.

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