Mall Walking Intelligence

Took a rare trip to the local mall on Saturday looking for a replacement shower radio and a dual alarm clock (odd how electroninc things all fail at once!). As I spent a couple hours making the circuit, I took the opportunity to inquire and observe at the cell phone kiosks and stores.

Radio Shack still has no Palm Pres amd no idea when they'll get them. The AT&T store sold out of iPhone 3G S late on Friday and isn't expecting more for "a week or two". But you can direct order. There was only one other person looking at the two display models. They are pushing the 3G model at $99: "the best deal in smartphones with the 3.0 software". The Sprint kiosk had no Pre or expectation of getting one, and only a couple of customers. The Verizon kiosk, though lacking any cool smartphones, had over a dozen customers!

The mass market cares most about the network for phone calls and texting, not cool, expensive smartphone devices and data plans. Around here Verizon is by far the #1 network, with Sprint #2, and AT&T a #3 (with a bullet). T-Mobile and others are not even in the game.