twinreds

I had a curve too, rarely if ever I dropped a call. I heard that Nokia has the best reception of all brands. I returned the iPhone, looked at an HTC and the AT&T guys said to stay the hell away from HTC. I guess it's all subjective, but honestly, I had never dropped so many calls on a phone. You guys have any other brand/model recommendations?

NP993

I recently got an iphone and really love it -- it's like have a laptop in my pocket. I've read about the coverage problems in certain areas, but luckily everything's great here in New Haven CT.

Davies

I love mine, but I get good signal in my area. Not true for many though. iPhone on AT&T is like a 993 TT w/ 15 inch steel wheels& hubcaps.

JDHertz11

I've had all the iPhone's since day one, literally. I love the phone and all of it's feature's but I have zero phone service inside the building that I run my business from. The other major gripe that I have is that up until yesterday (9/25) we were unable to send or receive text photos conventionally. I have been using Quip to send outbound messages that contain photos but have been dealing with the silly www.viewmymessage.com for way too long. Dropped calls are part of Steve Jobs vision of the iLife.........

Hal

Long time ATT customer and it is completely a matter of location. Here in Charlotte, I rarely have a dropped calls with my Balckjack2 and my partner has an iPhone is the same. A buddy in Boston frequently has dropped calls. Location, location, location.

Raptor

iPhone is great. Battery life with Mophie Air Juice Pack is about 12+ hours. Never had battery run out in a day. AT&T S=U-C-K-S, especially in the "heart of Silicon Valley." Can't wait until Apple dumps AT&T.

Canyon56

It's not a multi-decade agreement. It expires next year and ATT is hoping to extend it to 2011.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1239...ml#mod=testMod
Also here: http://www.businessinsider.com/att-t...il-2011-2009-4

There's been a lot of talk in the tech world about Apple not renewing (see my earlier post.) They can easily go from GSM to CDMA technology with a chip change, so that's no barrier either.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-a...xt-year-2009-9

From CNN Money: We believe Apple is slowly transitioning each country into which they sell the iPhone to a multi-carrier model. In other words, we expect Apple to add new iPhone carriers in the U.S. within the next year (likely with a new product launch next summer) … [Munster doesn't name carriers, but Verizon (VZ) and/or T-Mobile (DT) would be the logical candidates.] In France, the company now enjoys dramatically higher market share (in the 40% range vs. about 15% in ROW) than in countries with exclusive carrier agreements (such as AT&T in the U.S. where the iPhone has market share in the mid-teens). We believe Apple is seeing the increased unit sell-through more than offset the slightly (~10%) deteriorated economics per unit involved in non-exclusive agreements.

And another tech editorial: "I guarantee that Apple will dump its exclusive deal with AT&T next year. Apple will add Verizon, and that will cover most U.S. wireless customers. Eventually, CDMA will be dumped for LTE/4G, but not before Apple sells a lot more iPhones with Verizon in late 2010. If Apple doesn't dump the exclusive deal with AT&T, I promise, on the pivotal day, I'll come to work without my pants on."

nota_troll

at&t sux. A friend of mine had an iPhone with AT&T but switched to a Blackberry. He swears the Blackberry is eons better and nevers drops calls.

I can never see myself leaving my Apple.

Akerlie

Great phone apart from poor battery-life and horrible reception. Havent lost a call in years with my Nokia´s, but after i bought the 3GS I have had quite a lot of dropped calls.

Smiles

Wow. The only problem I have with the iPhone is that I don't get to keep on shopping for the latest and greatest cell phone. I kinda miss doing that.

993Dave

I had a lot of dropped calls when I first got the iPhone. I have noticed, however, that in my location, the dropped calls have decreased dramatically of late, and that I get much stronger data signal (i.e., where I could once barely get Edge service, I now consistently get 3G). I suspect AT&T is putting up new towers and/or increasing bandwidth as fast as it can.

TargaMatt

Must be carrier issues . . . no probs up here in the frozen North! Has as good or better reception than any other phone I've owned.

cgfen

my iphone get better reception / fewer dropped calls than my previous samsung blackjack.
very noticeable improvement.

cgf

2Many Cars

Actually I think it was American Telephone and Telegraph originally - but I'm dating myself. ATT Wireless is basically a roll-up of a bunch of different companies so if you're in an area where they owned or bought a strong player you likely have good coverage. On the West coast they bought Airtouch which had a pretty good network, at least in the cities, so the coverage here is generally good as long as you're not in one of the dead spots that are inevitable in hilly arears like this. A more recent problem is that cell towers have capacity limits and will drop the weakest call in favor of a stronger one coming into its range. The lousy coverage tends to get lousier as the traffic picks up and all the data being transmitted these days makes it even worse. I saw this in Naples, FL where I could get a decent signal at the outskirts of a cell in the summer but virtually no connections in the winter when all the snowbirds were in town on their phones.

twinreds

I checked a tower map around my area and I'm supposed to be surrounded by them, but reception is as bad as it gets.