Say you’re a wireless carrier with an exclusive deal on the hottest wireless device with the most popular application store. What do you do? Well, up until now, AT&T’s answer has been basically nothing. It had released zero apps taking advantage of the fast growing iPhone platform. Today, it finally got around to releasing one.
AT&T myWireless Mobile (horrible name — iTunes link) is an app that does the obvious: It allows users to view and pay their wireless bills from the iPhone. You can also see your current usage and add or remove features from your plan. Given AT&T’s close deal with Apple, shouldn’t this have been the very first app developed for the platform? Instead, we get it about 10 months later, after other apps, like Pageonce’s Celltracker [iTunes link], have launched with the exact same functionality.
AT&T’s complete and utter lack of app development prowess of course probably won’t have any effect on its negotiations with Apple to try and extend its exclusive deal another year. But it doesn’t speak well when it comes to the possibility of the long-promised tethering app that AT&T is making to use with the iPhone. At this rate, we should see that around 2011 — or when the Verizon iPhone launches.