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Thunderbolt Launch Day Speculation/Rumor Thread

theacoustician said:
Ugh, I just had a chance encounter with our VZW rep when I went down to our R&D labs and the info was not good. She said that the TB won't be out till April for two reasons:

1. They want to clear the 30 day window for all the iPhone4 users that switched. They are super paranoid about iUsers jumping ship and looking bad in front of Apple after all the work they did to court them. When I said "well, wouldn't that put the TB against the iPhone5?", she said it won't see the light of day till mid-to-late summer, so no worries there.

2. VZW wants Skype video working and they're not taking no for an answer. They do not want to release this phone without a slew of killer apps that show off their LTE network and they consider this one of key things towards that goal. This was a much longer conversation than I can relay, but the summary is Corp. doesn't care about the phone and it's improved hardware as much as it is a vehicle to sell the public on LTE in their eyes. So they do not care about the cost of the delay because the cost of LTE is so much more.

The only good news she had was that there are primary distribution warehouses in CA and TX full of TB's and they're ready to go. They have more than enough stock for launch and could conceivably launch within 24 hours of notification from Corp.

Standard disclaimers apply. Take with a massive grain of salt. No, I cannot provide more proof to back this up; I enjoy having a job and it's not worth the risk. Not available in all states. Your results may vary. Yadda, yadda, yadda ...

:-(
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing as well.

But I don't get the thing about clearing the return window for iPhones. At first it made sense to me, it released on the 10th, so they don't want to release anything for 14 days. But, even if it was 30days like in BB, then that would put us about a week and a half away to clear it (still March).

Then I got thinking a little deeper and people are buying phones all the time, so there there will always be iPhone users that will be within their return period. I get the fact that there is an initial surge, but I also think it's safe to say that time has probably passed. Those that wanted the ip4 got it and those that aren't willing to pay to leave at&t or are waiting for the ip5, probably aren't going to get a TB.

Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong, but seems pretty straight forward to me.

Also, if VZ won't release without Skype (which supposedly was supposed to be fixed on 2/28), I find the whole iPhone excuse even more amusing considering Skype and the front facing camera of the TB put it in direct competition with the iPhone's facetime. Kinda goes against the overall theme of not wanting to piss Apple off.
 
I find that cell phone sales reps like to discourage you from waiting for the newest phone. I am guessing its because they are on commission and want the sale that day.
 
Filinator13 said:
Thanks for sharing as well.

But I don't get the thing about clearing the return window for iPhones. At first it made sense to me, it released on the 10th, so they don't want to release anything for 14 days. But, even if it was 30days like in BB, then that would put us about a week and a half away to clear it (still March).

Then I got thinking a little deeper and people are buying phones all the time, so there there will always be iPhone users that will be within their return period. I get the fact that there is an initial surge, but I also think it's safe to say that time has probably passed. Those that wanted the ip4 got it and those that aren't willing to pay to leave at&t or are waiting for the ip5, probably aren't going to get a TB.

Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong, but seems pretty straight forward to me.

Also, if VZ won't release without Skype (which supposedly was supposed to be fixed on 2/28), I find the whole iPhone excuse even more amusing considering Skype and the front facing camera of the TB put it in direct competition with the iPhone's facetime. Kinda goes against the overall theme of not wanting to piss Apple off.
Click to expand...
I agree with you on the iPhone thing. I argued with her that no one who wanted an iPhone would want a TB. Apparently that does not matter. They want Apple to look upon them favorably and as the better partner over AT&T.

As for the Skype thing, it is not working according to the guy over at DroidForums who has a demo unit.

The whole conversation was odd. We had to talk about another project first and I could tell when she was BSing her way through that conversation, but when we talked about the TB, she seemed very confident.

I'm not saying a word of it was true, but I know people want info, so I thought I should pass along the word, even if it's unfavorable.
 
The thing about that convo that doesn't make sense to me is VZW not wanting to piss off Apple, whom they sell two devices for. Yet they are ok pissing off HTC whom the sell tons of devices for? That makes no sense at all, why would they be willing to push back a release on an HTC phone for a company that has two devices that wont sell as much?
 
mike07 said:
I find that cell phone sales reps like to discourage you from waiting for the newest phone. I am guessing its because they are on commission and want the sale that day.
Click to expand...

She wasn't here to sell us stuff. She was here in regards to something we're helping them with ... more or less.

ska.t73 said:
The thing about that convo that doesn't make sense to me is VZW not wanting to piss off Apple, whom they sell two devices for. Yet they are ok pissing off HTC whom the sell tons of devices for? That makes no sense at all, why would they be willing to push back a release on an HTC phone for a company that has two devices that wont sell as much?
Click to expand...

I don't get it either. Like I argued, I don't think that the customer base is the same. She didn't see it that way.
 
So, decided to correspond with HTC in my series of occasional emails. I just briefly let them know that I thought their ongoing listing and advertising of a phone for months without seeing it materialize was annoying at best. I also suggested that endlessly tagging those ads with "coming soon" is no longer cute and is more a slap in the face to customers who are waiting. In addition, I said I would hope for a better response from them and their partners than a verizon tweet stating they would make an announcement when ready and telling us all to "move on to other topics." I asked them if they ever worried that frustrated customers would "move on" a bit further to other devices from other manufacturers. Finally, I asked them if they would do a little better than just saying it's verizon's show and share any details or advice that would keep me being HTC loyal.

Well - nothing earth-shattering, but here's the response:



Dear rocky,

I definately understand your concern regarding the Thunderbolt, Rocky, and I want to sincerely apologise.

The release date is completely up to Verizon; as much as we would like to see some news regarding the update, we also do not know what's going on. All we have to go by are rumors, and we can't make announcements based on information that we're unable to verify. In the same respect that Verizon doesn't speak for us, we also cannot speak for Verizon. If Verizon feels that there's any reason to delay the release of the Thunderbolt, we are not at liberty to overturn that decision. Verizon wants to make sure that they have taken every precaution to ensure that the launch of this powerful device goes over as smoothly as possible.

However, once we know more about the release date, we'll definately announce it through Facebook (HTC | Facebook) and Twitter HTC (htc) on Twitter), and of course HTC.com. Verizon also has a mailing list for news about the Thunderbolt; Verizon Wireless


Thank you for taking the time to contact us, Rocky.



So, again, not terribly additive. But I do usually find their responses to be more sympathetic for some reason. Oh well...we'll all see what the weekend brings as we all continue serving our t-bolt time-out. :)
 
mike07 said:
I find that cell phone sales reps like to discourage you from waiting for the newest phone. I am guessing its because they are on commission and want the sale that day.
Click to expand...

You are correct! Sell what you have, and only in some cases you let them wait. That is the way it is, you don't get paid on something you don't have.
 
It's been a bit since I posted, mostly because I am frustrated. In any event, I called my BB and they are still saying next week. I mean hopefully it will be, but my joy is running on fumes right now. lol
 
Mallissa said:
It's been a bit since I posted, mostly because I am frustrated. In any event, I called my BB and they are still saying next week. I mean hopefully it will be, but my joy is running on fumes right now. lol
Click to expand...

I hear ya, I haven't been on as much as I was before either. But I still keep checking back hoping for real news to break.
 
Do we have any other dates floating around if we cross the March 10th deadline and the phone's still not out by then?
 
I'm worried that Verizon's Droid sale that just started is a bad sign that we are more than two weeks away from the TB release. Otherwise they have to worry about a slew of returns from people that decided to jump on last year's phones at a great price.... I'm thinking 3/24 at the earliest.... God I hope I'm wrong!
 
Red Devil said:
Do we have any other dates floating around if we cross the March 10th deadline and the phone's still not out by then?
Click to expand...

Yup,

March 11
March 12
March 13
March 14
March 15
March 16
March 17
March 18
March 19
March 20
March 21
March 22
March 23
March 24
March 25
March 26
March 27
March 28
March 29
March 30

or

March 31

:D
 
rocky s. said:
So, decided to correspond with HTC in my series of occasional emails. I just briefly let them know that I thought their ongoing listing and advertising of a phone for months without seeing it materialize was annoying at best. I also suggested that endlessly tagging those ads with "coming soon" is no longer cute and is more a slap in the face to customers who are waiting. In addition, I said I would hope for a better response from them and their partners than a verizon tweet stating they would make an announcement when ready and telling us all to "move on to other topics." I asked them if they ever worried that frustrated customers would "move on" a bit further to other devices from other manufacturers. Finally, I asked them if they would do a little better than just saying it's verizon's show and share any details or advice that would keep me being HTC loyal.

Well - nothing earth-shattering, but here's the response:



Dear rocky,

I definately understand your concern regarding the Thunderbolt, Rocky, and I want to sincerely apologise.

The release date is completely up to Verizon; as much as we would like to see some news regarding the update, we also do not know what's going on. All we have to go by are rumors, and we can't make announcements based on information that we're unable to verify. In the same respect that Verizon doesn't speak for us, we also cannot speak for Verizon. If Verizon feels that there's any reason to delay the release of the Thunderbolt, we are not at liberty to overturn that decision. Verizon wants to make sure that they have taken every precaution to ensure that the launch of this powerful device goes over as smoothly as possible.

However, once we know more about the release date, we'll definately announce it through Facebook (HTC | Facebook) and Twitter HTC (htc) on Twitter), and of course HTC.com. Verizon also has a mailing list for news about the Thunderbolt; Verizon Wireless


Thank you for taking the time to contact us, Rocky.



So, again, not terribly additive. But I do usually find their responses to be more sympathetic for some reason. Oh well...we'll all see what the weekend brings as we all continue serving our t-bolt time-out. :)
Click to expand...


I stopped after I came across the bolded word that was misspelled...
 
rdalcanto said:
I'm worried that Verizon's Droid sale that just started is a bad sign that we are more than two weeks away from the TB release. Otherwise they have to worry about a slew of returns from people that decided to jump on last year's phones at a great price.... I'm thinking 3/24 at the earliest.... God I hope I'm wrong!
Click to expand...

that droid sale is only good if you sign up for unlimited data and voice and when i talked to a vzw csr on their website they had no idea what i was talking about. Considering the offer says its only good online and the online csr knew nothing about it i dont see how this could hold up the TB release.
 
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