AT&T news: Lancaster dead, Warhawk and Fortress coming in October?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted August 18th 2009 10:50PM
posted August 18th 2009 10:50PM
posted August 18th 2009 10:50PM
powered by gdgt
HTC Touch Pro2
Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
I want my Touch Pro2! I thought it would for sure come out in September. Hopefully it is really early October!
I couldn't agree more. I need a new phone asap! My Treo 680 is not gonna last much longer!
ATT's prepaid service is one of the few to offer reasonable rates for lite users of data. I'd love to own a TP2 today, and while the TMo's coloring is nothing to get excited about, at least it doesn't have cheap plastic chrome.
Still, because of the data thing I'm holding off, even though there are several things I'm not thrilled about with ATTs version, and I'm even less thrilled about the wait.
i just left the sprint store in so cal they no longer carry touch pros or touch diamonds.. the girl at the counter said they had to clear inventory
They never carried Diamonds. AT&T never picked it up. No Touch Pros is a good sign though! Anyone know how long before the next device comes out they usually start clearing out the old stock?
Never mind about the Diamonds I thought you were talking about AT&T.
Ah man! Seriously, what is it going to take to get an Android phone on AT&T? And I don't mean a Euro edge-only import, but I really would like some options in the ATT smart-phone arena. iPhone+craptunes is simply not for me.
If you import a Rogers HTC Dream/Magic it will work with AT&T 3G.
Epic fail ATT, epic fail. Unless they have something better in the works, which I highly doubt. Can't wait for my last line to go post-paid.
I agree. Epic fail. This is one of the few Android phones I've been looking forward to. I _require_ a physical keyboard on my phone, and there's a severe shortage of Android phones coming out with keyboards. Further, I was greatly looking forward to seeing an AT&T Android phone.
And now? "Full of Stupid"
Hopefully HTC will release this thing as an unlocked phone, without AT&T's support. And/or release a version for T-Mobile. Maybe with the Hero UI.
Things is, why can't HTC just sell it by itself? Why does HTC depend on AT&T to decide what product to make/release? This is bull crap. Maybe AT&T is afraid of Android? (considering how they are limiting apps for Apple's app store).
I have a theory on this:
In Europe, any mobile maker can make an unlocked phone because all of their Edge and 3G bands are the same. If they can also market to a specific carrier or carriers, then it's icing on the cake. However, since the US has several different service providers all on different radio bands (some using Sim cards, other not), it is probably easier to deal with one carrier directly which means signing a contract with said carrier and adding said carrier's proprietary crap resulting in lengthy delays. Even the iPhone did it this way rather than releasing an unlocked phone...I look forward to the day a phone can be released in the US the same time it is overseas. Oh well
Because in North America, we have a different business model than Asia and Europe do.
Here, the carriers susudise the cost of the handsets. Most consumers don't pay for their handset at all, or they pay very little for a high end device.
As a result, consumers have become accustomed to this model. They balk at the idea of paying what a device is worth, so there is very, very little market for selling direct to consumers.
Since there is so little market, a manufacturer would have to charge much, much more to make it worth while. In Europe, if your phone is decent, you can expect to sell a million of them (making up numbers, because I have no idea what they really are). Here in the U.S., you might sell a few thousand.
On top of that, as @e pointed out: We don't have a homogeneous architecture across all our cellular carriers here. If HTC did try this, they couldn't sell the same device to an AT&T user, and a Verizon user. So that either increases the cost of the device to make it multi-band, or it makes the market even smaller still.
Since the costs to set up a factory to produce a device are the same regardless if you're going to build a million, or a thousand phones, if you sell fewer of them, they will be a lot more expensive. So that phone that costs $800 in Europe would cost $1300 here. Nobody's going to do that. HTC's not stupid, they know this, so they don't try to do something that's destined to fail. (Again, all numbers are made up just to illustrate a point).
Yes, it sucks. But there is a good reason for it.
damn. this is some bull. ive been holding out on one of my upgrades for this phone
I gave up waiting for all the "rumor" phones last Friday and got a myTouch.. yeah I "might" feel bad when the Hero comes out, but after using it I am more than satisfied.
AT&T is becoming like Verizon. They want to nickle & dime you to death. They live in a world where they want to offer packages, just like Cable TV. They want $10 for this, $20 for that. $45 for this. And unlimited doesn't really mean unlimited. It's a lip-service marketing slogan. Approving new phones will mean challenges to the network, and AT&T wants to control the user "experience"... Android would be a threat to that.
I could not agree more and the only advice I can give is speak with your wallet. If you do not like what att does then don't use them. I switched from verizon to att many years ago because of this nonsense. Now it looks like I will be switching from att to tmobile.
However, to this day, I can not figure out why any phone maker would not just release one phone, with all bands (voice and data) and be done with it. Why do we need a special phone for each region? It is just dumb. It makes me want to support brands like SE or Nokia who will offer all bands right out of the gate.
What "threat" does it represent that say, Windows Mobile doesn't?
There are about a million reasons AT&T could have canceled the phone. Cost overruns, bad results from focus groups, manufacturing issues, performance issues, not liking the screen, perceived lack of demand (just because 10,000 people want it, doesn't mean that that's enough for AT&T to turn a profit on the phone), etc.
Of the long, long list of things that could have killed this phone, I think "threat to the network" is quite low. Especially seeing how AT&T / Cingular / SBC have offered Windows Mobile phones since the beginning of time.
I really feel sorry for the US mobile considering you are not free to choose whatever phone you want but have to depend on your carriers.
But regarding the HTC Lancaster, I am glad it got scrapped as the specifications were way below par. However, I really hope we will be seeing a HTC Hero "Pro" or some new high-end Android device with a qwerty keyboard!
The specs may be below the par of some people here, but AT&T was probably looking to market it to one of its many segments and had it all spec'd out to do so. Hey, maybe they're going to launch the N97 Mini in it's place LOL.
Kool.....They are setting things up for the Xperia X3 to come out.
Maybe they decided to the Diamond 2 and Pro 2 with 3.5 mm jacks, WM 6.5 and TF3D 2.6.
I know... wishful thinking.
.....decided to.. release ... the Diamond 2...