One hump or two?
One hump or two?
One hump or two?
I've got the hump. With my iPhone. Or with Orange. Or possibly both. Again.
What's worse is that I have only myself to blame. I'm supposed to be a journalist. It's my job to be cynical and unbelieving; aloof and incredulous. So how on earth, pray, did I to buy so willingly into their hype? I mean, it's so unlike me. I'm usually so savvy and urbane (well a bit).
Superfast email and web connectivity they said. Mobile Internet like it's supposed to be they said. It's the 3GS they said! It's a true thoroughbred.
Thoroughbred? Right load of old pony more like.
Now I don't want to be unfair. As a converted former dyed-in-the-wool PC man I'm usually the worst, most tiresome kind of Apple evangelist. I like Orange too. Decent service. Nice, black-shirted, interestingly-hairstyled chaps to look after you in store. Orange Wednesdays. Cutesy animal-based tariffs. What's not to like?
However, a couple of months back my mobile email and Internet connectivity suddenly went south. Apropos of nothing. Perhaps it's my fault, I thought.
Something I've been doing. Or not doing. I investigated. It wasn't.
So I went back to Orange. And then Apple. Their response? Well I'm not sure if you've ever been shrugged at by a piece of fruit in a vaguely apologetic but completely non-committal way, but it's quite frustrating I can assure you.
Long story short, nothing's happened. Same phone, same contract, same ropey connectivity. Oh well, I thought. Never mind. Can't have it all.
That is until I heard about data capping (heckles rise), the increasingly popular operator contract tie-in tactic of limiting how much data we users download.
On one hand, it isn't without justification. Mobile bandwidth isn't limitless. New media and user behaviours are driving up data networking at frightening speed. And smartphones and emerging mobile form factors like the iPad have been widely labelled as network killers.
Fair enough.
Here's my problem though. If they're going to peddle "the mobile Internet as it's meant to be", it's a bit rich to start bleating about it much less shift the goalposts when we take them at their word. It's the same old tech bug-bear. Expectation.
It's also tough to sympathise with businesses that routinely rip off unsuspecting users with seemingly gleeful abandon the millisecond they land in a foreign country. We've all heard the story: man on 3rd world business trip downloads spreadsheet and arrives home to 800 bill.
Bear this in mind too. In common with plenty of other "average" users, my basic mobile phone contract costs me comfortably more than my monthly Sky Plus package. Think about that for a minute.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps the operators merit sympathy. But not
if they keep making promises they don't and can't keep, and spinning hype they can't live up to
Anyway must go. I'm off to look at the iPhone 4. It's a real thoroughbred apparently.
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