AT&T wants 4G indicator on iPhone 4S status bar

One of the new features of the iPhone 4S that was announced on Tuesday was its improved antenna that gave the phone HSPA+ speeds – but not once in the presentation did Apple ever refer to its phone as having 4G, or even labeled it “4G”. While it’s common knowledge by know, especially if you’ve been following our blog, the HSPA+ “4G” that carriers are selling isn’t really 4G and just a marketing term.

While Apple understands the fact, it looks like AT&T still doesn’t get it – according to a leaked screenshot of an internal document, it appears that AT&T wants to put the 4G indicator to show HSPA+ connectivity on your iPhone 4S (AT&T also confirms that the iPhone 4S will have HSPA+ speeds at launch, this is just a case of aesthetics). While this isn’t a big deal, and mostly concerns AT&T’s branding, it looks like this will be the first time we get to see a (trivial) carrier-made request being implemented to the iPhone.

In the past Apple probably wouldn’t have even concerned itself with such requests, but it looks like the company is finally easing up – or caving in. I wonder if the saying: “give him an inch & he’ll take a mile” will apply to this situation in the future. AT&T iPhone 4S users – expect the 4G indicator to arrive on your iPhone 4S in the near future.

George Wong
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: 4G, Apple Inc, AT&T, HSPA+, iOS, iPhone 4S