Q: Why would I want to share my files with you?
Maybe you just need to know how bad your phone experience is to feel better. Maybe you want a pound of flesh from your wireless carriers. Maybe you're just a data nerd and you like pretty charts. Since the files don't tell us anything about you, the real answer is 'why not?'
Q: What information do you store?
We store everything you send us. The files you are sending to us are crash logs that Apple saves from your iPhone onto your computer when you sync with iTunes. These files are regular text files, and you can open them up with TextEdit or Notepad. We use the files that end in ".submitted" or ".log", since they're the ones that have the logs in them. As you can see, there is no personal or uniquely identifying information in the files. That's why we ask for your email address, so that we can tie your files to you so that you can see them in the future when you come back.
Q: How are you going to use this information? Who 'owns' the data?
We're not entirely sure. We're going to do everything we can with them, so you should be expecting that. As far as 'ownership' goes, is there really such a thing on the internet anymore? You're aware that YouTube and Facebook claim copyright to every video and image that you upload to them right? YouTube's terms of service even explicitly say that they can burn a DVD of your videos and sell it for cash. Crazy. So let's say the same thing: whatever data you give us is no longer entirely 'yours' anymore.
Q: Are you really going to file a lawsuit, and can I really get paid?
Maybe and maybe. We'll see how it goes, and we're not promising anything.
Q: How do you calculate the value of the dropped calls so far?
If you have enough dropped calls in a month, you can call AT&T and complain to them and they will give you a refund on that month of service. There's no specific number that AT&T will tell you is the breaking point, but let's just say that it's 10 for arguments sake. Let's also pretend that each AT&T customer pays $56 a month (which is the average price of AT&Ts plans). So here's our math: $56 * (number of months for each user where they had more than 10 dropped calls)
Q: How many users to do you need to have a billion dollars in dropped calls?
$1,000,000,000 / $56 a month = 17,857,142 months of service. We don't know exactly how many AT&T iPhones are out there, but they added 3.2 million new ones in Q4 2009, so I think it's safe to say at least 10 million.* 17,857,142 months / 10,000,000 subscribers is 1.78 months of bad service per subscriber to reach a billion dollars. Easy peasy. But what if you're like me, and every month is a bad month, and you've had an iPhone for 2 years?** 17,857,142 months / 24 months per subscriber = 744,047 subscribers.
(* Most analysts think there are more like 60 million subscribers)
(**Yes, I am stupid, but I also bought a Verizon Blackberry.)
Q: Why are you doing this?
You don't have an iPhone do you?
But actually, it's part of our jobs. We make games that people play with cell phones, and every time that a client of ours does a demo with an iPhone that drops, or a player out in the world has the same thing happen, it diminishes the coolness of what we do. And it doesn't ever happen on Verizon Blackberrys, for example. Also, our office is in Times Square, NYC, and our iPhones are completely useless there. It drives us bananas every day, and we're offended that AT&T is going to try to charge for their femtocell service.
Q: Do you hate Apple or AT&T?
Not at all! Well not Apple anyway. We love Apple, we just think they built a terrible phone and chose a terrible provider. Ironically this site was built using two Macbooks. Yes, that is the correct use of ironic. It could only be more ironic if we built the site using an iPhone.
Q: Doesn't AT&T have an iPhone app for this?
Not really. They have an app where you can report dropped calls, but it sucks. First, you have to waste your time reporting the call when you actually want to be talking to someone. Even worse, is that they have this data available in bulk format (what we're using), but they still want you to type it in each time. And the worst thing is they won't ever share any of that data, so you can't independently verify anything.
Q: What about iPhone users outside the US?
The site should work, try it. If not, let us know.
Q: I'm a lawyer, how can I help?
Decide how much data is needed for a really big class action suit, that Apple and AT&T will have to settle because of the volume and strength of the data. If you are already prosecuting a class action lawsuit, we've got the muscle to back you up... we just want points on the package.
Q: I'm a regular dude, how can I help?
Upload your data and tell your friends! Get mad about crappy customer service! Call Apple and AT&T all day and all night and tell them you're mad as hell and you're not going to *click*...... hello? Can you hear me?
Q: I'm an Apple or AT&T employee or lawyer, and I'm angry. What can I do?
Seems like you can send the FBI to our houses at will, so we won't give you any ideas. Except for money. Money can make almost all problems go away.
Q: What are you planning for the future of worstphoneever.com?
We're going to start including more things we know about the iPhone, and logs from other phones and whatever consumer electronic devices produce log files. It's a crazy dream, but our hope is that sites like this one can force manufacturers to provide logs of the operation of their devices so that any consumer can compare their experiences.
Q: Who are you?
Cory Forsyth ( ) and Dan Albritton ( ). We do massive scale phonecall based games during the day, and this kind of stuff at night. CSS by Chris Patterson.