The Empire strikes back (again): Why we switched to AT&Ts no-contract shared data AT&T Next Plan

Between $40/year/phone H2O wireless for the kid’s hand-me-down unlocked iPhones and our fully optimized minimal voice [1] parent plan I thought we had AT&T under our thumb. True, SMS cost us 20 cents/text, but SMS was dying and we had iMessage and Google Voice. I was fine with a $10/month text bill.

But the Empire was licking its wounds; it struck back (again) with a brilliantly diabolical move. Instead of riding the dying SMS revenue stream down, AT&T shot it dead. SMS is now bundled with AT&T’s plans (even texting from US to Canada). Perhaps not coincidentally, we seem to get more text than ever. Worse, while H2O is dead cheap it has no data; the kids have been whacking us with SMS. Last month our AT&T SMS bill was $60 - more than our data plan costs.

Yeah, there were things we could do with the text message problem, like using Google Voice SMS and being careful with iMessage. I tried those — but it didn’t work. Emily didn’t share my particular obsession with fighting AT&T — the SMS workarounds were just one PITA too many.

So I admitted defeat.  We’ve switched to the current offering, which is a no-contract shared data “AT&T Next” plan. It looks like this:

Sorry for the hard to read jpeg — but it’s a rare gem taken from our local AT&T store. The online descriptions I was able to find were hard to parse and ultimately misleading; the real cost was higher than I’d estimated (and higher than it was a few months back). Notice what AT&T has done — individual plans are $25/device/month, family plans are $15/device/month, but the minimal family data is 10 GB month for $100.

Let us sit back and contemplate that for a moment. Feel the evil. Do they understand complexity fraud or what?

We went for the 2GB “single line” plan (for two lines), which means our base monthly cost is now $90 + fees [3]. This is very close to our previous base cost once one backed out the hidden subsidy [2] but we have half the data and my corporate discount is no longer applied to the hidden subsidy cost. We’ve exchanged 2GB/month of data for unlimited SMS. What a wonderful trade that is.

See what I mean? AT&T beat us like a drum.

Wait - it’s worse. Emily and I are usually under 2GB month combined, but sometimes we hit 2.2GB. AT&T will add on $15 for the 3rd GB [3], so our base costs are higher than we used to pay and we have less data (but we have &%*! SMS). Oh, and “unlimited voice” - which is worth the proverbial plugged nickel. We’ve also lost the old low cost family plan, to which we could add phones for low monthly costs and minimal data (but H2O was much cheaper).

Are there any upsides, besides the reality (must be admitted) that we expect to send AT&T less money each month even after accounting for the subsidy loss [4]? There are a few…

• We had two phones under subsidy contract. AT&T is so eager to bring people into this plan (ooooh, the evil, it burnssss) that they’re giving up on the subsidy payments we owe. We remain under contract, but the prior payment was $120 (subsidy included) and now it’s $90. So we’re ahead by about $450 if we stay with AT&T. If we leave we do need to pay off that residual subsidy.
• We’re no longer under the Family Plan trap. Once our contracts are up Emily can switch her unlocked iPhone 5 to T-Mobile LTE. This plan takes us one step further from AT&T
• Tethering (HotSpot) is included. So when traveling in the US the kids can use our data.
• When we want a new phone we can either switch to the “2 yr agreement” (if it’s available then) or use their financing plan [5] or (my preference) pay full price for an unlocked phone (and thus get full price extended warranty coverage with my AMEX card)
• There’s no longer a $36 fee tacked on each time one gets a new phone — just for “new lines”.

 On balance I suppose we’re marginally ahead, but I bet this scheme of AT&T’s takes a lot of victims.

- fn - 

[1] 700 min of voice was plenty for Emily and I as was our 2GB/each data. I used Google Hangout.app (iOS) for all my business calls — far better than cellular audio and no voice minutes. In theory our bill was $15 in fees (hah!) + $85 (primary) + $35 (secondary) = $135/mo. That monthly fee included equivalent of $40 in phone subsidy, so base cost was $95/month before subsidy. (We also have a corporate discount, not shown here. In the old model corporate discount applied to the hidden subsidy, but in new model it will not!)

[2] Smartphone is the default, “basic and messaging phones” cost about the same even though they use little to no data!

[3] Could be a lot worse - they used to have huge overage fees. So the data fee is $40 for 2GB, $55 for 3GB, and $70 for 4GB. They just hide the 3.

[4] The savings is all in the SMS, remember we’re losing the hidden subsidy value. I’ll believe it when I see it. I also want to see if they apply our corporate discount.

[5] I’m very happy to report that I found the worm in AT&T Next. You know it’s somewhere in the Apple, and it’s great to know where it is. If you use AT&T’s financing to get a new carrier-locked phone you actually save a bit over the cost of a new unlocked phone, but to get a new phone you have to trade in your “old phone” (which is typically worth $200 or so).

See also

• Analyzing mobile phone plans: Our old AT&T plan vs. H2O wireless 9/2013
• Pay-as-you-go voice and SMS service for a contract-free AT&T iPhone with H2O Wireless 3/2012
• Mobile phone fraud - The accidental data charge and other scams 11/2009. Yeah, they earned our enmity.
• The Empire Strikes Back: complexity, mobile phone plans, and Apple defeated 6/2008. They’ve beaten me before.
• Information asymmetry and my Cuisinart coffee maker - Steve Jobs in Hell 4/2012
• Why quality collapsed in the bubble years: Akerlof and the last good toaster 3/2012 (information asymmetry is how AT&T wins)
• Why coupons? Price concealment information and memetic archeology in the pre-web world 5/2012 (more on econ)
• Fraud on Cyber: An annotated sample of Gordon’s Notes 8/0211 - more …

Update 7/5/14

This is working out pretty much as promised - a substantial savings with, of course, no phone subsidy. Confusingly the plan is billed at $40 a month, but then a $15 “Discount for mobile share value savings” is applied. The real cost with the hidden surcharges/fees/taxes etc is about $98 for the two of us.

Dealing with Time Zones in Aperture across multiple cameras - what I do for now

Time zones are very bad news — even if you don’t consider DST, much less states like Arizona that sometimes track California and sometimes Colorado. Now combine multiple cameras with varying approaches to time zone, then Aperture’s splitting of time adjust into Time Zone assignment set in Metadata Batch Update and Time offset configured in Adjust Date/Time, now Aperture’s assignment of time zone on import, now the computer’s time and time zone…

Right.

Here’s what I do …

When taking pictures

• Do my best to get all cameras and devices at correct time zone/time insofar as camera supports that. (Some always leave camera on UTC the adjust in Aperture as needed. I might switch to that.)
• Take pictures of my iPhone clock periodically.
• Mix in iPhone photos because those get GeoTagged and should have reference time.

In Aperture

• Tag my iPhone pictures (Aperture Label) so they’re easy to spot, they have reference time and location. I copy their metadata location and paste it into nearby non-tagged images.
• Using iPhone image time zone as reference, I select all images from a particular camera, take note of their metadata time zone, then change the time zone to match iPhone. I do this sequentially for each camera.
• I then use iPhone image reference times to select images for a camera, then offset as needed.
• Repeat for each camera

Why the low end MacBook Pro is the best family computer

First of all, the best family computer is still a Mac. ChromeBooks will be a good option when prices fall below $180 for reasonable build quality, but they’re not there yet.

So which Mac?

Until today I’d have said a Mac Mini or a 13” MacBook Air. The combination of bundled display, internal hard drive, and difficult repair rules out the iMac, and most of the MacBook Pro lineup is too expensive for a family machine.

Today though timely app.net advice [1] persuaded me that the education market legacy non-retina 13” MD101LL MacBook Pro is the right choice. It’s inexpensive by Mac standards ($1,185 and no tax via Amazon), it’s the only Mac notebook with a DVD player, and it comes with plenty of storage (500GB hard drive). Best of all, but the pathetic standards of the modern Mac, it’s relatively serviceable.

Which is why geek parents like this 2012 era MacBook. Buy it cheap and when the warranty expires a year later, put in 4GB RAM and a 500GB/1TB SSD. Now you’ve got a performance machine with a seven year lifespan. [2]

Yeah, the non-Retina MB Pro is, you know, non-Retina. But that makes it faster and the battery lasts longer. Sure it’s heavier than the new generation, but it’s a family device. You’re not globetrotting with it. And a DVD is still a handy thing to have. Best of all it’s an old design — all of the manufacturing glitches have been fixed by now.

It’s the best family computer. Too bad it’s going to disappear soon … 

- fn - 

[1] Advice sought because of a humiliating blunder that I just figured out as I was writing this post. Excuse me while I bang my head against the table.

It began when our family computer, a 2006 Core 2 Duo MacBook, stopped charging. At first the power adapter glowed green and powered the computer, but a day or so later the adapter light went out entirely. An SMC reset didn’t help. Since the power adapter was a shiny 8 month old modern L-connector Apple Store replacement I was sure the old logic board had died. Hence my app.net inquiry.

I ran to the U of MN Apple store to get a new machine, but, of course, I brought my adapter along to check it worked. And there they told me that it was a 45W adapter! Wow, amazing it worked at all! How could that Apple Genius have given me the wrong adapter! What an idiot! (wait for it)

So I gave ‘em my 45W adapter to throw out and went home. Later, when writing this blog, I confirmed the MacBook needs a 60W adapter, whereas my MacBook Air uses a 45W adapter (wait for it) which … come to think of it … looks a lot … like the one … I just bought …

Yeah. Somehow we’d switched adapters. The 60W is fine for the Air (though unnecessarily bulky) 

Although you should always use the proper wattage adapter for your Apple notebook, you can use an adapter of a higher wattage without issue.

But the 45W failed the MacBook. I’m surprised it worked at all. The whole mess was a series an Einstellung effect cognitive blunders. I assumed I had the right adapter, I assumed it had to be the logic board …

Sigh. Now I have to take my new 60W adapter back to the Apple Store and exchange it for a new 45W adapter …

- fn -

[1] Scotch tape over chipping top case plastic, congenitally crummy hinges but with one huge, killer feature — it’s serviceable. Anyone can easily upgrade RAM or replace the hard drive. And so it delivered great value. Apple has forgotten what made it loved…

[2] Extra credit feature: The University of Minnesota Apple Store will add memory at time of purchase (non-soldered!). They’ll even do the SSD update. Now that our beloved First Tech is gone, I’ll be relying on them more …

See also

• iPhoto bug: black or all white photos when editing on MacBook Duo 2012. Weird bug with old integrated Intel CPU
• My MagSafe adapter light goes out periodically 2011.
• MacBook: won’t startup unless plugged in 2007 (a year after I bought MacBook battery died prematurely)
• A dead MacBook Air power adapter is magically restored. SMC problem? 2011. But then it died again. It was replaced under warranty.

Google is closing little used Google Apps accounts

For a few years Google offered a free version of Google Apps, and even after that was discontinued you could get a free Apps service with a new Dreamhost domain (I think that’s been discontinued). It was a great deal; I ended up with a dozen or so. One of them has provided all of our family email and calendars since 2007; even after Google ended the new signups they let freeloaders like us hang around.

Recently though I’ve received notices from Google warning that they will close unused Google Apps accounts. So if you have some Google Apps you’d like to keep, be sure they are setup with a valid forwarding address [1] and periodically log in and send an email.

In one case I did authenticate, but I still received a second notice of pending termination. I hope that’s just a glitch.

[1] In some cases an Apps account is also associated with a companion Domain, so if the Apps account is lost the domain control may be lost too. Check.

iOS 7.1 movies (video) sync from iCloud but not iTunes - a bug and a fix

The afternoon that we were leaving for holiday I discovered that I couldn’t use iTunes to sync a movie (or a video Podcast) to my daughter’s iPhone 4S. [1] Sync was normal for all other devices but on her iPhone we got stuck at the agonizing “Waiting for changes to be applied” prompt [3]. If I waited 15 minutes or so the sync “completed” without an error message, but no movies were transferred. When I inspected the iPhone contents from iTunes I saw ghostly outlines of the movies I was trying to transfer.

I could download our movies from iCloud directly to the phone, but that’s fairly slow. iTunes sync is faster. Our flight was delayed long enough for me to try many  things including

• sync of non-DRMd home video (didn’t work)
• turn off all sync for movies then sync then remove media then try one movie
• Parental Controls toggle including age range check
• restarts of iOS and OS X
• PhoneView inspection of the file system (iOS CloudAssets directory was empty post iOS 7.1 fix for the Other Data cache bug.)
• Sign out and sign in to App Store from iOS and OS X iTunes.
• Looked for anything in Console.app related to iTunes (nothing)
• Backing up, wiping (“restore” to default) iPhone, then restoring it 

I gave up and made do with iCloud download, but @gaelicwizard suggested …

Could try initiating a sync with a different computer and letting it overwrite the link with this one. Then, back again. That would clear any caches...

That worked. The key here is that when you sync an iOS device to a different iTunes instance you lose all of your media, but you don’t lose anything else. You don’t lose Apps or App data or iCloud data, etc [2]. If you’re old enough to remember the iPod you can see that when the iTunes is treating the iPhone as though it were an iPod. I did this:

1. Backup iPhone on Primary iTunes. (iTunesP)
2. Switched to the admin account on my Mac and launched iTunes there (iTunesA). 
3. Selected a single short movie to sync (and nothing else). iTunes warned me all media (but only media) would be wiped from my iPhone. (Note difference from the usual “restore” and “restore from backup” behavior.)
4. The movie synched normally.
5. Switched back to iTunesP. Did same thing, again iTunes warned me all media would be removed. The moved synched normally.
6. Turned on sync for Music, TV, Photo, etc. iTunes remembered all of the prior settings so this went quickly.

I suspect this is a new 7.1 bug possibly related to the fix for the Other Data cache bug. Apple clearly wants to end media synchronization from the desktop, so we can expect more bugs like this in the future. 

 

Three thoughts on items that might be related to this bug…

• We downloaded the (great) movie Frozen from iCloud to our Apple TV very early in its release cycle. There was odd behavior when I later downloaded a copy to iTunes; the new download had a slightly different file size and iTunes seemed to think they were different movies. I can’t remember how I fixed that … (probably deleted and redownloaded)
• Since wiping the phone and restoring from backup didn’t fix the problem, it’s likely related to something that’s backed up.
• Even after I synchronized the iPhone with my admin account iTunes instance, I still saw the ghostly outlines of the movies I’d been unable to sync previously. 

 - fn - 

[1] This was a week ago, and I can’t recall if TV shows were behaving normally. I think they were, which is extra weird so maybe I’m remembering incorrectly.

[2] Pre-iCloud days I used to sync Calendar/Contacts for my wife on one iTunes account, and media on a different iTunes account.  In the iPod era Apple was worried about using iPods to share media between iTunes instances — something that seems quaint now. Today’s DRM infrastructure is much more robust.

[3] A common indicator of a sync problem. It’s so annoying that error details don’t appear in Console logs.

Mavericks iBooks Apple ID and Sync issues - one possible fix

iBooks for Mac 1.0 has not been well received; Apple Discussions include a good range of rants and removal hacks. (You can, and should, register your feedback here. Tom Cook’s Apple seems to pay attention to those submissions.)

I’ll join the chorus. My initial experience on a Mac that migrated from Mountain Lion to Mavericks did not go well — possibly because my Mavericks account iCloud services use a different Apple ID than my iTunes/Apple Store/App Store purchases.

In particular when I did my usual wired sync with iTunes I received this unfortunate error message:

It’s an unfortunate error message because;

1. There’s nothing to tell me what “A_Decade_of_Reversal” is (book? app? podcast?).
2. The item (a PDF) was actually on the iPhone, the problem is it wouldn’t sync to my Mac. (Precisely the opposite of the error message.)

Once I figured out what this item was (I searched Google on “A Decade of Reversal” and found the medical journal article I’d saved to iOS iBooks.app from Safari.app for iOS) I tried starting up iBooks and was asked to provide my Apple ID for iBooks store purchases…

Except the Apple ID I use for all my purchases is not the old me.com/icloud.com address shown above, nor is it two of my other 3 (known) Apple IDs, it’s my jfaughnan@mac.com Apple ID [1]. I tried entering that one and iBooks refused it.

I was stuck.

This is what seemed to work:

1. Got iBooks to sign me out of the me.com address. I did this by messing with Store and auto-download setting in Preferences, but I think one could just go to the Store menu and sign out. Then sign in again with the correct Apple ID for purchases. This triggered a message telling me I would have access only to books for the new Apple ID, but interestingly very little content seemed to change.
2. From within iBooks choose “Move Books from iTunes”. I thought this already happened, but it seemed to happen “again”.

After that I could sync, and after my first sync the PDF “A Decade of Reversal” nicely synchronized disappeared. Oh, nicely played Apple.

 

So I downloaded it to my phone again (view PDF, choose open in iBooks) and tried another sync. This time it showed up in iBooks for OS X. I’m hopeful sync will work from now on.

 

BTW, if you do provide feedback, don’t forget we need to be able to edit basic metadata again (lost Mavericks) - Category, author, title, etc. 

[1] Which, but the way, I thought didn’t have an associated iCloud account. Wrong; I just checked and it does. Everything except email, probably because the jfaughnan@mac.com email address was orphaned when I failed to renew my .Mac online service some time in the early 00s.

Low cost net entry for Canadians: The Virgin Mobile experience

For my US kids I wanted low cost voice/text services and no data. With H2O Wireless we pay $40/year per kid. Yeah, 40 bucks. The buys never use their text/voice quota, my daughter sometimes runs a bit more. They mostly use WiFi.

For my Canadian sister I needed a different solution. She has no net connection, no computer, and no wifi. She's off the net and her budget is limited. For her I wanted enough data to do basic email, iMessage, and non-video Facebook and emergency voice services. I had an unlocked refurbished AT&T iPhone 4, and I had some experience with Virgin Mobile Canada prepaid data - I decided to try that combination aiming for a cost of about $200 a year (not including the phone).

So far it's working, but Virgin Mobile is no Ting, it's not even AT&T. Be warned; I'm not at all sure this is a good solution.

I followed the general procedure I documented a year ago for my own personal use (if you're in Canada you can order SIMs for 0$ from Virgin, I paid $10 at Future Shop). Once again Virgin's web site didn't recognize the AT&T iPhone's IMEI. The web experience was painful -- I was almost done when I timed out and had to restart (moving more quickly). This time around I paid more attention to how much spam Virgin generates -- their contract authorizes an appalling amount of spam (email, sms) and telemarketing/robocalls to any email or phone number you give Virgin. Follow the link to track all the places you have to go AFTER you sign up. See also turning off Virgin's text spam and email spam. To turn off the robocalls you need to call from the mobile phone at 40cents/min; when I did that I found the number was already DNC but I extended protection for 5 years.

Just like last time it took about 30 minutes to activate my sister's account on the web site. Until the account was active entering the number created a password prompt, only after activation did I get a PIN prompt; with prepay you don't get an honest password and username, just a phone number and PIN. It took another 30 minutes to activate the phone.

Then I ran into a bug I'm still sorting out. When I tried to use my balance to purchase the monthly data add-on I got "...Contact our Customer Care at 1 888 999 2321 so we can help." I was able to use Chat to complete an initial purchase and make a change to to the recurring purchase, but when I asked why I couldn't do it online I was told there was a "web site problem". I later found that this is what the call center operators are told to say.

It's not clear what the problem is. As I noted above, Virgin didn't recognize the the AT&T iPhone4's IMEI; maybe the website can't tell if I should see the BlackBerry or Smartphone options. Or maybe there's some weird rule here I don't understand yet. I'm slowly working this with tech support

Between Chat Support and the web site I've put together some notes on how Virgin does prepaid plans and prepaid data as of March 2014: [1]

• $15 Top Ups expire in 30 days, $25 and $50 Top Ups expire in 60 days and $100 Top Ups have an expiration period of 365 days. (A Top Up is simply a credit one buys from Future Shop and other retailers.)
• Unused funds expire at the end of the Active Period unless you Top Up within 7 calendar days of their expiry. If you Top Up before hitting zero the new Active Period will apply to the combined amount of prepaid funds.
• Expiration is based on the expiration date of the latest Top Up. So if your credit expires in 60 days, and you buy a $100 Top Up, expiration is 365 days, not 425. Other prepaid vendors are much better; the expiration date is sum of original remaining plus new. (If expiration is 365 days and you but a $10 Top Up what happens then? Nothing good I fear.)
• If you run through your Data Plan, Virgin charges per MB overage fees until your prepaid balance is exhausted. (If you optionally associated a credit card with the prepaid plan I suspect the credit card is charged until your bank account is exhausted. I don't know if this applies to INTERAC purchases.)
• If your prepaid funds expire and you do not top up for 3 months your account will completely disconnect. (It may be possible to 'reactivate', but I don't know how that works or for how long.)

I'm very reluctant to give Virgin a credit card number - I don't trust them in the least. I think the best option is going to be their pre-authorized monthly bank debit plan -- $20/month one day before plan expires:

• 10$: 100MB
• 7$: 500 text
• 3$: minimal voice