AT&T's bringing free wifi to the iPhone -- once it finishes wigging out

Hey, do you guys want to hear our AT&T impression? It's pretty awesome. Okay, okay, here it goes: "Great news, we're offering free WiFi to iPhone users! Wait, no we're not. Yes we are! Oh, no, wait, cancel that." Pretty spot-on, right? Sadly, it looks like we might need something else to rag on shortly, since an AT&T spokesman started clearing the air with the New York Times late last week. The bottom line -- for the moment, anyway -- is that AT&T has "long planned" to offer up its WiFi hotspots as a free value-add for the iPhone and all of the other WiFi-equipped devices in its arsenal, but that the brief enabling of the feature thus far and the mention on AT&T's site were results of human error, and the company isn't prepared at this point to commit to an actual launch date or details on how the service will work. Hey, at least we know we're not just suffering from some brutal hallucinations now.

[Via TUAW]

[cwj @ May 12th 2008 3:29AM]

(crickets)

[JLTate @ May 12th 2008 3:31AM]

Seriously. Why is this a post?

[oGMo @ May 12th 2008 3:36AM]

It's like one of those recap episodes where they don't feel like making a real show but you have to watch just because the 5 minutes of original footage might have some criitcal information.

Which it never does.

[Michael LaFramboise @ May 12th 2008 3:43AM]

JLTate, because the writers are paid per post and they need to make a living :/

[Reader @ May 12th 2008 4:01AM]

cheerios

[Anton @ May 12th 2008 8:14AM]

*sigh*

[Pochi @ May 12th 2008 9:19AM]

(man coughing)

[OneLove @ May 12th 2008 7:55PM]

ATT is the devil!

[Nick @ May 12th 2008 4:37AM]

ready for my engadget impression? ok ready? ok here it is. "lets post the most irrelevant stories on our website, but have an excuse to do so because we love apple so much and this might matter to some idiots who bought an iphone." hey is it good? im still working on it.

[anabouboula @ May 12th 2008 4:39AM]

Take that Sony!

[Pochi @ May 12th 2008 9:20AM]

WHAT?

[Richard @ May 12th 2008 5:35AM]

AH! yes Mr Jones, you will be wanting the AT&T WiFI network services office, you cant miss it, it is right next to the department for funny walks.

[Andrew @ May 12th 2008 5:47AM]

"Whaooououoo." THAT'S you, THAT'S how DUMB you sound.

[Richard Shipp @ May 12th 2008 8:34AM]

I bet they meant to wait until the day the new iphone is released. Thus adding a little something special to the release day.

[Cygnus @ May 12th 2008 9:52AM]

So, I don't get the title "... free wifi to the iPhone". Shouldn't it be "free wifi to all AT&T wifi devices"?

To me, that is the big news. It means an 8820, an HTC touch or a Nokia N95, or any other AT&T supported wifi device gets this. That's big big news, and a much larger market than just the iPhone. Heck, it's enough to make me consider jumping ship from TMo and getting an 8820 on AT&T.

[Steffen Jobbs @ May 12th 2008 10:09AM]

That's no good if any AT&T smartphone user can get it. Just make sure it's for iPhone users only. Don't need no frickin' non-iPhone freeloaders sucking bandwidth from the elite users. Make those other WiFi users pay to play.

[Achilles @ May 12th 2008 10:15AM]

ooops, free WiFi? Just kidding..... It was human error, our bad!

[Paul @ May 12th 2008 10:55AM]

Well, the good news is that eventually AT&T will provide free Wi-Fi

[Aaron Edmonds @ May 12th 2008 1:14PM]

Reminds me of this: http://www.hulu.com/watch/17003/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-judy-grimes

[Greg Baz @ May 12th 2008 4:33PM]

seems to me that it would make sense to offer free wifi to users of 3G phones. WiFi access sold cost ATT less then 3G data. Seems like an indication of the upcoming 3g iPhone.

[Michael @ May 15th 2008 10:25AM]

Hah. You don't just "accidentally" turn on a service like that. That's one hell of a "human error".