My Jet Blues and iPhone 3G
News Commentary. Microsoft's favorite airline messed up the first day of my vacation. But I spotted many iPhones at the gate waiting area. |
My flight was supposed to leave from San Diego to Washington, D.C., at 10:30 p.m. PDT on Sunday. I'm still waiting for my flight, at 9:12 a.m. PDT on Monday.
While waiting last night I tweeted from iPhone 3G using Twitteriffic: "Sitting at San Diego Airport for DC flight;10 people in this row of chairs, 6 using iPhones; none talking. Tap. Tap. Tap. Is it phone or PC?"
Half the phones were first generation and the other three—two of them white—were 3G models. I spotted another half dozen iPhones over the next 90 minutes or so. The iPhones seemed to be everywhere, with nobody using them as phones. I saw a couple used as iPods, but mostly people were tapping away. Perhaps texting, IMing or social networking?
Due to a total scheduling screw-up, the first officer for my flight didn't show up. He was booked on two flights, and got on another one. Meanwhile, no flight crew showed up for another JetBlue flight, this one bound for Boston.
I should have had more smarts. Later on, I learned that two people used their iPhones to check the flight's status online. There JetBlue showed the flight as canceled. So, while my family waited at the gate to find out why our flight was delayed, these folks booked it for the check-in counter. I later heard them talking in an adjacent, shorter line for hotel vouchers. They got their vouchers faster.
From the line I tweeted on iPhone 3G: "Terror at the airport. Jetblue sched 1st officer for wrong flight. We're canceled. Buzz is three flights canceled. I want free hotel."
JetBlue just continued the screwing up. Somebody was supposed to be calling around for hotel rooms. We were sent to a Holiday Inn that received no phone call and couldn't accept the JetBlue voucher; no account for the airline, so the computer wouldn't process the voucher as payment.
An hour later, after the hotel failed to process the voucher or reach the airline's 800-number, I called JetBlue with my iPhone down to 10 percent power. I got through to customer service, which gave me a number for the San Diego JetBlue baggage claim; I finally talked to someone local.
WTH? The guy admitted sending us to the hotel without calling first. Fifteen minutes later, he faxed a credit card number for booking the room. Two other people, booted from the Boston flight, had given up waiting on the voucher processing. :( Finally, around 1 a.m. PDT, we got into the room.
This morning, first thing, I checked flight status on the iPhone 3G. Phone count in the terminal this morning: seven.
By the way, I called JetBlue Microsoft's favorite airline because the airline uses mostly the tech company's software. JetBlue has been a showcase Microsoft customer.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (4)
The phone is addictive, isn't it.
I was in the same boat three weeks ago. Same airline, flight from New York to Ontario, CA. The iPhone 3G had been out for only two days so I did not spot one just yet. My flight was delayed for three hours because of a storm.
While waiting I was able to schedule, then reschedule a shuttle late night pickup in Ontario using Google, tapping on the phone link in the search results, and played Ms. Pac-Man on my first generation iPhone with the 2.0 firmware upgrade.
Last week I got an iPhone 3G for my wife, who did not want one at all. I told her, 'you'll thank me for it.' An hour later, she sent me an SMS message that read: 'you were right. thank you'
* * *
Not trying to give you an idea, but the iPhone is very attractive as a development platform for several reasons:
- Cool factor. People _want_ an iPhone, they're willing to commit to a two-year contract to _have one_. I haven't seen this kind of interest since...haven't seen it, period, and I've been around for twenty years in the industry.
- New platform. The platform will only become ubiquitous. Sure, it's market share is small compared to the number of cell phones in the world, but the market for an iPhone is not mom and pop; it's those that are willing to pay $30 (minimum) for a data plan on top of the existing one for two years.
- App distribution model. Not perfect, a few glitches with the versioning, but overall, it's one less thing to worry about. 30% for Apple seems high for me, but so far seems like a win-win situation.
CONS:
- The price of entry. One needs a Mac. For those of us that don't have one, shelling out at least $1000 for a simple development machine (loaded Mac Mini or a low-end iMac) it's pricey.
- The programming language. Objective-C syntax is awkward--yeah, yeah, I haven't done Smalltalk either. The plus side is that the development tools are free (except the $99 yearly fee).
- The selection process. You have to be "accepted" to develop for the iPhone. That would never happen in Windows.
So, if I were Microsoft, I would pay attention.
The iPhone is successful because it is THE BEST device that combines all of these convergent technologies: voice, email, SMS, pictures, mapping, GPS, searching, music, video, RSS, blogging, etc. While other devices can do that, none does it better than the iPhone, even in the first generation device. The marketing muscle behind Apple helped, too ;-)
Sure, one can complain about a missing feature--can't send pictures (MMS), the pictures are only 2 mega-pixels, or it does not do zooming. Well, the truth of the matter is that if one buys an iPhone to send pictures or to take pictures above 2 mega-pixels then I think one should get a different phone or a digital camera (2 mega-pixel pictures can print up to 5x7 and the lens on *any* phone camera suck anyway. If one wants to zoom, then move closer. Most pictures taken with phones are snapshots, not architectural pictures where detail is needed.
I've used *every* version of Windows since 1990 (except Windows ME) and have made a living developing for it for the last thirteen years. Developing for the Mac would be a welcome change.
I'm looking forward to the experience and I'm taking the plunge and getting a 20" iMac next week--and will load it with my NFR Windows Vista Ultimate and NFR Microsoft Office 2007 to keep it safe for the time being.
Regards.
Posted by Javier | August 5, 2008 12:41 AM
I'll tell you about my blues,my 3g iphone was 5 days old and the screen cracked. It seems apple changed their supplier of touch screens to foxconn and believe me they are alot less durable. The good thing is the screens are now 2 piece (lcd and touch screen seperate). Apple wants $250 dollars to replace a $49.00 glass touchscreen (digitizer) and labor is no more than 6 minutes. Apple will not stand behind their product for physical damage and won't offer insurance.
Posted by Joseph Tierno | August 5, 2008 8:59 AM
Wow, JetBlue used to be my 1st choice to fly from California (bay area) to New York (city and Buffalo). I got stuck in JFK after a 3 hour delay leaving Oakland. Even with the delay we made it in time to get our connection! Wow, the luck. I turned on my 3G 16GB iPhone as we taxied and got an email, "Your JetBlue flight was canceled... call us if you want a refund." OMG! No, "We can/did book you on the next flight" no hotel, and by the time I ran to the gate (it was 10PM) all the early flights to Buffalo and Rochester were overbooked. We could fly out in 25 hours. No meal voucher, no hotel. Well, Buffalo is 7 hrs drive from NYC, so we went for a rental car... everyone was out! After 3 hours and a lot of terrible customer service interaction with JetBlue's Utah call center and understaffed gate folks we took a $50 taxi to get a rental car in Manhatten. What a nightmare. What added insult to injury, our flight was canceled not due to the day befores bad weather, but because JetBlue didn't bother to line up a flight crew! 190 people jacked. I would have ponied up $20 to help pay the overtime, or pay to get a crew in... I bet everyone would have ($20 x 190 folks) but instead we were total cr@p to JetBlue. The airplane for the CA-NY leg was brand new though! It was stunningly clean and new... 1st day in service. And the crew was nice. My 3G iPhone was great, but I am struggling with VERY poor battery life... an hour or 2 of heavy use and I am shutting down. I just upgraded to 2.0.1 and am trying a few tips to prolong battery life. I wish Apple offered the 16GB with std and XXL, and the XXL would have 2mm thicker back to hold 2x or 3x the battery.
Posted by Jim | August 5, 2008 10:44 AM
One mopre tip, when you are checking the flight status online and it is close to midnight, make sure that you phone / PC / laptop clock is set to the local time zone and not your origin time zone.
I had the same issue last week where my flight from Seattle to Boston was delayed from 11:30pm to 3:50am and then only on ~3:00am Jetblue noticed that they do not have a clue. Hmmm, whith all this MS computer power they still can not do 1+1 and figure out that their crew can not fly back or they got cheep on the hotel voucher and try to convince us to stay in the airport. At then end I had to stay all night on the airport gate.
Getting back to the clock thing, in may case, my laptop clock was still in EST time zone which means +3 hours and when I checked online it showed me next day flight which was stil ;) "on time" since my laptop was alredy on friday.
Nir.
Posted by Nir | August 19, 2008 10:10 AM