You’d think carriers would want all customers to upgrade to the latest models. Not, it seems, AT&T.
I’m used to it. Every year, there’s a new iPhone and every year AT&T emails me to tell me to upgrade from the rancid old dungheap of an iPhone I bought last year. Once in a while, the carrier will try to get me to switch to something Samsung. Generally, it peddles the idea that I can only be seen with the latest and the greatest. Until, that is, this year. I waited for the carrier to sent me a temptingly-worded email about pre-ordering Apple’s new phone. It didn’t happen. Instead, AT&T is trying to send me in a desperate, borderline insulting direction. I should reveal that I have an iPhone XR. I’ve had it for a couple of years and it’s been, well, fine. It’s sturdy, a little heavy and hasn’t broken once. Sometimes, it gets knocked down to the floor, but it gets up again. It’s not so fast anymore and it doesn’t get the barely breathing 5G that’s being touted by Apple, Verizon and, indeed, AT&T itself. Why, for too long, AT&T has peddled the utterly mendacious 5Ge which is to 5G what Kanye West is to judicious presidential candidature. Please imagine, then, my tortured feelings when, shortly after iPhone 12 was launched, I received an email from my carrier. “BEST DEALS FOR EVERYONE,” it screamed. AT&T wanted me to know that “new and existing customers get our best smartphone deals.” This was, of course, uplifting. There’s always the suspicion that carriers prefer to acquire new customers than please their existing ones. I read further and there was the insult: “Learn how to get iPhone 11 for $10/month.
