AT&T CEO Slams Apple App Store: Not What Customers “Expect To Experience”

REUTERS

Has the Apple App Store experience been everything you wanted and more? AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson thinks that their customers deserve more. In a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress, Stephenson called out Apple for forcing customers to purchase the same program for different products.

“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 during the keynote speech. “That’s not how our customers expect to experience this environment.”

Stephenson envisioned a plan where AT&T and other carriers could sell apps directly to their customers without having to go through a different company, which he called the Wholesale Applications Community. The CEO mentioned that he believed that HTML 5 would become the new programing standard, which would make it easier for apps to run on different platforms.

It’s definitely interesting that AT&T’s CEO would speak ill of Apple system, especially since until a few weeks ago they were the exclusive iPhone carrier.

[via USA Today]

More on TIME.com:

Google Announces ‘One Pass’ as Publishers Push Against Apple Subscriptions

Apple Tightens App Store Rules on In-App Purchases

“Credit Card Bait” In-App Purchases Worries Parents

Related Topics: app store, Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress Keynote Speech, Randall Stephenson, Apple, AT&T, Gadgets, Smartphones
  • http://e2design.wordpress.com e2design

    well it’s a way to get back to Apple.

    AT&T was makin the big bucks.

  • clydicus

    This would be a bold statement if AT&T was known for delivering outstanding customer experiences. But they’re not.

    If I’m following Stephenson’s logic correctly, customer’s don’t like Apple’s app store because it ties them to Apple’s devices…and the solution is for customers to instead be tied to AT&T for devices AND apps. Sounds awful.

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