AT&T and the App Store

A quote from AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on the iOS App Store: (courtesy TiPb)

“You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, you have to buy it again,” Stephenson said in a keynote speech at the world’s largest mobile-phone trade show in Barcelona, Spain. “That’s not how our customers expect to experience this environment.”

Well, here’s what experience has taught me to expect. I can choose from:

• Live in a closed world where I have to buy the same things over and over again for the rest of my life
• Live in an open world where my life is often made harder by companies who give lip-service to openness but don’t believe in it

There are trade-offs, and so I do a little of both.

I’m not going to hold my breath that AT&T is really going to become my champion here. Especially when I pay them every month for the same thing.