iPhone - A costly review, by a mad man! Officially unlocked now!

[Jaggu]

This is lil BUT since the Apple business model is closely tied up to the Telco, issue am gonna club within the iPhone review.

Airtel EDGE/GPRS facility:

Anybody who purchases the iPhone through AirTel is entitled to 500 MB free data usage for the first year, this is worth approx Rs 500 per month, and is the only "free goody" that comes with the OBNOXIOUS price. One has to request the activation on time of purchase or at your nearest AirTel office and is activated within 24 hours. Pretty straight forward deal, which i got activated over the weekend.

I confirmed with AirTel about this package deal, and they assured that its a full fledged GPRS/EDGE access for 500MB/month free and additional 30ps/50 KB for additional usage.

I had a Mobile Office package which i have been using for more than a year now, mostly to access my official email and recently for browsing. This has a monthly tab and i thought, i will save some money by canceling this. Big Mistake! Since i previously also had faced the issue which i will be getting into.

After getting the confirmation from AirTel on iPhone plan activation, i sms'ed the cancellation code for Mobile Office, got a confirmation that it will be done in another 24 hours. All well till today afternoon (morning also i had used the phone to pull emails). Afternoon i pull email and nothing happens, i thought its a iPhone BUG!! Then i saw that the E status bar on the phone is missing!!

Ok it might be tower issue at that place, then i checked my wife's phone and it shows E, then it struck me. AirTel as usual has cancelled/blocked my GPRS/EDGE access. As Usual?? no not that am a bill defaulter of any sorts, BUT the same thing has happened previously also.

When i shifted from Online package to Mobile Office, i had the same issue. When i send the cancellation for Online, the MO is also cancelled (total GPRS/EDGE black out).

Please note that because of this previous experience i had double checked with AirTel support as well as the shop, before i went ahead and followed their instruction to the T. Inspite of this and asking them put a flag so that the issue is not replicated, i land up with the same ol same ol.

Customary call to the 121, explain to executive (who apologize as usual) and informs me it will be processed by 4th of September!! Helloooo! Its 2nd afternoon, tomorrow a holiday when i require the access most!! Not acceptable!! So she puts me to her boss, unit head (after a long pause/music), i was about to explain and she stopped me.

She said she will not put me through the misery of repeating (ah good somewhere reporting is proper) and will try her level best and put it as priority with the team. She assured it will be done by EOD, my previous experience is not letting me believe her words. Still i will go by the lady's words for now.

One thing i dont understand is, doesnt AirTel has access to a proper software where issues are tracked and appropriate actions taken, instead of blindly working on "On" and "Off" principle for any of the requests placed?

Atleast my expectations were low and dont have any travel planned for tomorrow as such, so should survive the day without much issues.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

When i shifted from Online package to Mobile Office, i had the same issue. When i send the cancellation for Online, the MO is also cancelled (total GPRS/EDGE black out).
....

Atleast my expectations were low and dont have any travel planned for tomorrow as such, so should survive the day without much issues.

I am truely AMAZED!! For a change AirTel resolved the issue and on PROMISED time!!

Thank you ladies!! Who attended to my complaint.

Yes am back on EDGE

[finneyp]

Congrats Jaggu!

AirTel ain't that bad atleast in our Bengaluru!

[srijit]

Me and a friend have both got iPhone classics and we both have got EDGE from Airtel. We took the yearly plan for 2000 bucks, otherwise it would have been 374rs per month. Quite useful to check mail and websites when you are on the road, like now, for instance

[shajufx]

So, you guys got it activated on phone, or had to go to the outlet for requesting in writing ? I have used airtel GPRS and Mobile Office many times. I am trying to get my blackberry services activated since 3 days. Lady on phone misguided me to send an email request to 121@... and expect a response within 24 hours, but after 48 hours I call and speak to another lady and realise I have to visit an outlet and request in writing and deposit the required amount. The story goes on, when I visit the outlet, hope they dont tell me I am not eligible for such a thing !

Cancelling GPRS or shifting between GPRS to Mobile Office or vice versa, confusions always come up. Call centre ladies really drive you crazy with new guidelines each time you call up. But I find the airtel support better than ICICI loan department guys !

[Jaggu]

Replies inline in BOLD

Originally Posted by shajufx

So, you guys got it activated on phone, or had to go to the outlet for requesting in writing ?

You have to request at time of purchase or goto nearest AirTel outlet in person, no inphone sms activation.

I have used airtel GPRS and Mobile Office many times. I am trying to get my blackberry services activated since 3 days. Lady on phone misguided me to send an email request to 121@... and expect a response within 24 hours, but after 48 hours I call and speak to another lady and realise I have to visit an outlet and request in writing and deposit the required amount. The story goes on, when I visit the outlet, hope they dont tell me I am not eligible for such a thing !

Send SMS to 222 NOT 121, yes BB might need deposits and a walk to the office

Cancelling GPRS or shifting between GPRS to Mobile Office or vice versa, confusions always come up. Call centre ladies really drive you crazy with new guidelines each time you call up. But I find the airtel support better than ICICI loan department guys !

Learn from my exp: Prepare to live without the service for 24-48 hours, preferably on a week day. Kill the unwanted service first, then activate the new service after getting confirmation of first request

[Jaggu]

Small tip i had come across while using email. The issue of mails being shot off from default has an easy resolution.

Allow the address details to be shown, so when you compose an email the from add is also shown. Now click on this from add to select which email id you want to sent the email from.

[srijit]

Jaggu, could you please give the above info in a step by step format?
The situation, I am assuming, is that you get an email and you want to reply to that from another email address that you have already configured. What are the steps to follow?

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by srijit

Jaggu, could you please give the above info in a step by step format?
The situation, I am assuming, is that you get an email and you want to reply to that from another email address that you have already configured. What are the steps to follow?

Open email app (irrespective of which account you are in and is opened)
New email OR reply
Type email id etc as normal
Click on show detail at address bar (i have enabled it permanently)
You will see "From" add field, which shows which email account is used in the reply
Click on this "from" address, it will show your other email accounts
Select the appropriate email id
Proceed with email and hit send.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

Open email app (irrespective of which account you are in and is opened)
New email OR reply
Type email id etc as normal
Click on show detail at address bar (i have enabled it permanently)
You will see "From" add field, which shows which email account is used in the reply
Click on this "from" address, it will show your other email accounts
Select the appropriate email id
Proceed with email and hit send.

Got it. Slightly contorted way of doing something, but hey it must be cool because Apple does it that way.

Meanwhile I sync contacts with my Mac and my Win XP laptop and have ended up with about 500+ contacts with almost everyone being duplicated. The sync process on the iPhone does not check phone numbers or email IDs to see if the same id/number already exists with another name (in my case it does). No conflict resolution, either - I have the same number for two separate people because a number passed on from one employee to another, but the iPhone saves BOTH.

So now I receive calls from "Zakkariya Muhammad or Speedzak or 2 others".

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Got it. Slightly contorted way of doing something, but hey it must be cool because Apple does it that way.

Meanwhile I sync contacts with my Mac and my Win XP laptop and have ended up with about 500+ contacts with almost everyone being duplicated. The sync process on the iPhone does not check phone numbers or email IDs to see if the same id/number already exists with another name (in my case it does). No conflict resolution, either - I have the same number for two separate people because a number passed on from one employee to another, but the iPhone saves BOTH.

So now I receive calls from "Zakkariya Muhammad or Speedzak or 2 others".

Lol sounds similar to my experience initially, iPhone was overzealous and synced the address books in other folders in outlook (used for diff profiles, phones) i just manually removed them from outlook and everything went back to normal.

Easiest thing for you would be to, sync the phone with the other comp which has the original add book and ensure that it syncs only to the phone. There is an option inside the itunes for the same.

Steer: did you atleast found out the reason for additional data usage reported by your company users?

[srijit]

One more reason for me to upgrade to ver 2.0.2 I dont see the options you mention there in my 1.1.3 firmware :(

[Ketan]

Nice to see so many iPhone users here,
Its real good intutive device when it comes to GUI, graphics and simplicity..

I was using iMate PPC phone edition, O2 Atom and now with HTC TouchCruise. I beleive WM device is still good when it comes to productivity. I dont do much of browsing using phone (because its not that friendly on such a small device unless its urgent). However, I use my device heavily with office suite, highly depended on my task, calendar, email, WMPlayer (I keep syncing some of my playlists to my device and that way, I have fav. music collection and videos available all the time), OneNote and some others. Its just keeps you informed and you have the information available all the times.

There are tons of such office productivity tasks that iPhone has not enabled yet. So, for now its just a nice multimedia device, an iPOD with phone and some extra stuff only. I wish they come up with some good productivity features. It may take sometime as its in the initial phase now.

I have been using Vodafone(Hutch) connect for 4 years now, except some rare issues in between its just been okay. It was a big thing some 3-4 years back when I used to execute my ICICI transactions using that iMate phone in some remote area, but now its all common and I use keyboard (beleive me this new touch functionalities are good, I have not been using my stylus since I bought my TC - touch keyboard rocks) hardly to write some short emails or while while using mobile office communicator. I'm eagarly waiting for 3G/UMTS so that slow responses with some of the application can be fixed and some new applications that can make a real good use of the connectivity can be used.

GPS works fine for me with TC. dont see much issues getting fix (this too supports AGPS). I have got MapKing with the device but I'm using SatGuide with this. SatGuide has a nice option where it disables the autolock feature automatically while its running.

I had been facing lot of issues with the battery performance with my old devices, but with TC, its just superb, I had to do a few reg hacks and it works well. I dont see its eating lot of battery with GPS. its lil more than the normal usage.

I have got wifi at home and work, but I never use it. for me EDGE is ON most of the time. There is this small utility called quickGPS which keeps a cached information (updates at regular interval) about the sats and it doesnt need much time to search sats.

This has got a FM radio and 3.1MP camera, I'm not a big fan of these features and hardly use. Overall its a good device if you want to be on the top of all your work and personal information all the time.

[finneyp]

Ketan, Thanks for that review on HTC Touch Cruise!
Does TC have a physical keyboard OR is it touch screen keyboard?

[Ketan]

Thanks Finney, it was some of the quick things I could explain out of my experiances.

It doesnt have that sliding keyboard. Its my personal opinion that those sliding keyboards may be lil better than the onscreen ones, but I'm against the moving parts on phones. It also adds a bit of thickness and weight. I'm finding this touch keyboard better than the ones in my previous devices. As I said, I normally avoid lot of typing on phones, but this touch keyboard is good and most of the time I type on this qwerty keyboard quickly with just the thumb (sometimes use both hands if not moving) and dont need to even look at the editor to confirm the words thats been suggested are correct or not. 99.9 % of the time this T9 keyboard suggests the right words.
One thing that I did not find comfy is the space left on the editor once this touch keyboard is there on this 2.8' screen. hardly 5-7 lines of space left on editor where you are typing, but still its better than my previous experiance with typing on phones.