I was recently sent this article:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/01/atts-text-messages-cost-1310-per-megabyte/

It basically talks about how text messaging fees have you paying $1,310 per megabyte of data. Which is true – texting fees were always ridiculous and somehow wireless carriers were able to capitalize on that.

Tethering is a little different. When you use tethering (a feature that was built into the iphone in 3.0 over a year ago: http://gizmodo.com/5171796/iphone-30-os-guide-everything-you-need-to-know) your phone acts as an internet connection relay/access point for your laptop. You’re using your data plan on your laptop instead of your phone.

Naturally a person would use more data on their laptop than on their phone as it’s more convenient to watch online videos, write emails, etc. on a laptop. In the past a carrier would charge extra for tethering since data plans were unlimited but more data usage is a higher load on a network that a carrier has to maintain and pay for. However, with data caps on all of AT&T’s plans, using more data than your plan covers already results in heavy fees ($10 for every 1GB overage in the 2GB plan).

So charging an extra $20 a month just to be able to tether is just AT&T saying “we own your asses.”

An excerpt from an interview with Mark Collins, senior VP of data and voice products at AT&T:

GigaOM: What about the $20 tethering fee? It looks like a convenience charge.

Collins: That capability is enabling something you can’t do today. You can use one device and get multiple connections so it’s more useful to you. You’re going to use more data so the price is based on the value that will be delivered.

Enabling something AT&T disabled last year. Using data which already increases in cost depending on how much you use.

Simple analogy: Imagine Apple introduced a feature in their older iPhones (original, 3g) that allowed them to record videos using the camera and email them to your friends. AT&T disabled that feature on the account that you will probably end up using more data with it since you will be emailing videos. However, they finally decided they are going to charge $20 per month for “enabling” it and because “you’re going to use more data.”

If you’re like me, you may have run into some issues running iTunes (my favorite one was in which Apple’s recommended solution was to reinstall Windows to use iTunes again). Or maybe you dislike the way iTunes messes up your music library.

Unfortunately, if you use the voice recorder for interviews and personal reminders, but use a program like mediamonkey to manage the music on it, iTunes wont let you download the voice memos onto your computer without erasing the entire device first.

However, there is a way to get the memos without having to resort to  illegal (legal as of july 2010!) jailbreaking your iphone:

1) Open up the Voice Recorder app.

2) In your list of memos, click on the round blue arrow button next to the voice memo you’re interested in transferring to a computer.

3) Then, if you click the Share button, you can email yourself the memo!

The emailed memos are limited to a length of 2 minutes, but you can at least send them in segments.

This may not seem all that complex, but I wasn’t aware that the option existed, so perhaps someone else who has a similar dilemma will find this solution.