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I read where they said they did, but no tech in their right mind would sign off on “testing” that leads to tens of millions of dollars of investment based on “testing” in the showman’s facility alone.

They got enough electronics to test if it worked. They didn't need to see the full iPhone in order to do that. But that's classic Jobs for you.

But to get back on point ... Since you think that AT&T had NO input on the decision to leave out streaming audio, VOIP or IM why do you think Job made the decision to leave these out of a so-called “breakthrough” consumer-oriented device ?

Knowing how Jobs is, knowing how mad he was with the carrier meddling with the ROKR, the answer is yes. As far as leaving out features, this is only version 1. Other features are missing, too (like apparently GPS, and it would make an excellent navigator if they would just put the software in). VOIP or IM is just a software update too. But for streaming audio, why not just browse to an Internet radio site with Safari?

BTW - Early reports say 50% of people switched to at&t, more recent ones are saying 25%, so these were mostly not new customers.

Fine with me. I don't particularly like AT&T anyway. Their willingness to buck the trend with their concessions to the iPhone is about the only thing I like about them.

“Knowing how Jobs is, knowing how mad he was with the carrier meddling with the ROKR, the answer is yes.”

Apple didn’t build the ROKR, it was Motorola existing designs with itunes accessibility that I’m sure they simply licensed from Apple, and enough memory for about 100 tunes.

The only part of the ROKR that was Apple was the download ability, and HE LEFT OUT that consumer-friendly feature from the iphone. Who’d a thunk it ?

Leaving out GPS is an easy answer - it takes battery power and a lot of board space ... same reason it dosen’t have a hard drive ... it would not be so cute.

Leaving out software functions is a different matter, they are specific decisions to do that, based mainly on marketing.

“But for streaming audio, why not just browse to an Internet radio site with Safari?”

Try it ...

It seems like the only concessions made by AT&T were giving an ongoing piece of the action to APPLE, while APPLE left out features that would cut into that action and instituting the decidedly UN-consumer-friendly action of making it impossible to get service elsewhere.