I've been a more-or-less loyal Sprint customer for a long time now. Back in 1998, my only connection to the outside world was a Sprint phone - one that didn't work in my hotel or in a lot of other places, but that worked well enough to make calls to people I loved and missed (the list was long). I don't remember my plan, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was 500 minutes with free nights and weekends starting at 9 and ending at 7am for $50 a month. The phone didn't text (none did), and there was nothing like data or music playing or anything else. The screen barely showed the phone number and the name of the caller, but I did take a call from my dad on a beach in Rio while riding my bike up 6th avenue in rush hour traffic. That's maybe my favorite phone call of all time, or at least it's right up there, so that phone held a special place in my heart.
UPDATE: the last 9/10ths of this rant have been moved below the break because I hated how it made the page look. Bye.
I had some other phones after that phone, but the next awesome one was the Treo 300. Man. There was that plastic Star-Trek-style cover that flipped up, and it had a calculator! I'm sure it had other "apps" too, but really, who uses that crap? What it did, most importantly, was sync to Outlook, and that started a new obsession in my life. If I got your number when I had that phone, I still have your number today, 9 years later. That's been the distinguishing factor of all my phones since (and there have been a few) - they all sync with my computer.
I've had a surprising number of "feature" phones, either because I couldn't justify or afford the price of the "smart" phones, and I currently have the Pre. And the Instinct. If the Tour had had WiFi, I'd have replaced the Instinct, but instead, I kept my money. And this keeping of money brings me to my real question - what the hell is going on at Sprint that there are no new phones coming?
The Pre is getting a bigger, badder sibling over on Verizon - faster, more RAM, no useless nipple? I wants! There's the Stockholm-Syndrome (I keed! I keed!) phone over at AT&T, along with a slew of Android phones, and what about the new Droid? It may be a victim of vague, testosterone-soaked ads, but the pundits love it, and I'm interested in it. There are a bunch of interesting things going on - the boring anti-american googlephone is going to T-Mobile (T-Mobile?!?! Who even knew they were in business anymore? Do they even still sell the Sidekick?), the Tour2 coming out on Verizon, and even at CES, I can't find a mention of Sprint.
I know that they sold their towers, so now they lease them from someone else. I know that other companies make the phones that i love to read about (and occasionally buy), so what the hell does Sprint do except take my money and put me on hold when I call asking where all their awesome phones are? I want to just lease my own space on those towers directly and then just use any phone I want - why have Sprint get in the way? I can't see any value they're providing, rather, they're failing to lock up cool phones that everyone else is getting (T-Mobile?).
I know, I should be happy with the Pre, but "good" isn't enough. I also want "new". I want Sprint to keep me thinking about them when I'm salivating over phones that I will probably buy despite my shitty credit, zero-balance savings account and paltry earnings. I'm looking at phones and I'm thinking "man, that Verizon's pretty cool right now" or "I don't care that you're fat, Luke Wilson, you had me at 'talk AND surf'." I want to be thinking "HOLY FUCKING SHIT - A 4G PHONE!!!`1!LOLCATZ!!" or something else mindblowing. I don't care that the subsidized price is going to be $400 - this is a phone that runs on the 4G network! It's a portable 4G router, it connects to my Windows Media Center from wherever to stream music, it talks, surfs and games at the same time with its built-in projector. I can take videos on it and photos that look amazing using that awesome liquid-lens thing that I read about five years ago and have never seen. Did I mention that I'm really impressed that you partnered with RED to provide the image sensor? OLED? Of course. The built-in brethalyzer might be a little superfluous, but man, the fact that you packed that in there (and I just blew a WHAT?!?) is really cool. It connects with Outlook out of the box? Amazing - technology thought lost to time and Sprint, re-discovered like the dead-sea scrolls. And I can customize almost every part of the UI? Man, you really love me. Oh, and I'm glad you kept the induction charger - that thing is fucking rad.
Instead of saying all that today after reading about some bullshit CES keynote somewhere, I'm waiting for Apple to introduce the tablet in a month, so that, too, can get 3G from TMobile. This is like when Chrysler introduced the two-slide minivan. They practically invented the whole class of car, then everyone made minivans for 20 years the same way until Chrysler had the brilliant idea to throw in a second door and everyone was like "OMG! It's Revolutionary!" Point is, the ideas are out there, but the stink of "follower" wafts from almost every player in the mobile market - we're all just waiting for Apple to put the second door on the minivan.
Fuck this post. I'm sorry you read it. I'm going to go back to work now and scowl.