Today I flew on JetBlue’s BetaBlue plane for the first time. This is the plane that is testing limited Wifi connectivity. I was pretty disappointed actually.
The company partnered with Yahoo and Blackberry to make this happen. What?!
JetBlue is supposed to be a young, hip brand so if it was looking for a cell phone partner, wouldn’t iPhone make sense? Apple already seemed to think so.
And the company recently changed its inflight map service to Google Maps from Yahoo’s sorely underperforming and dated MapQuest.
So, BetaBlue has a low Wifi connection, so if I put iPhone on Airplane mode, and enable wifi I can access some Yahoo mobile pages (limited news, a random flickr page, and some other basic yahoo functions. But that’s it. And, a search of my contacts showed that I had NO friends on Yahoo Messenger. I’m gonna guess they are on Gmail chat. Or even AIM.
iPhone was pretty useless on BetaBlue. I don’t use a Yahoo account for email and I have no friends to talk to. Luckily, there was a nice LiveTV technician on the flight who told me I could send text messages to folks from Yahoo Messenger. Well, as I started doing that I ended up not being able to get the Messenger to work any more. Some kind of 404/343 magic error. So, then I got fed up realizing most of my friends were at work anyway and wouldn’t be responding.
Luckily this is just the Beta test, but let’s hope the real thing is just that—the real internet with all the bells and whistles that JetBlue’s young and hip audience really seeks.
Thank God they still have free TV! (I would have tried to post the entry from the sky but I don't really know how yet.... I'm learning, but I guess, as a good friend told me: Beauty fades, dumb is forever.)
Full disclosure: the writer works in the Operations department at JetBlue in Forest Hills, NY and his opinion is just that. OPINION. The writer did not work on the BetaBlue product launch and his research for this post was based solely on the pamphlets in the seatback pocket and the experience on the flight itself. The opinions in iPhone and the City certainly do not reflect any official opinions of JetBlue Airways, LiveTV or its partners and should not be considered official company information.
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2 comments:
hmmm... unless there was something I missed in the latest firmware update, turning on the WiFi on your iPhone also activates your cellular transmitter... something still verboten on a plane inflight.
It is verboten, now that you mention it. But the LiveTV technician recommended using it... hmm... curiouser and curiouser.
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