The Healthcare.gov Website Is Only a Component of Obamacare; Problems With the Website Don’t Mean that “Obamacare Is a Failure”

Ever since the federal government’s Healthcare.gov site went online on October 1, we’ve heard about problems that people are having accessing the site. The sorts of problems being described are inexcusable; there is no reason that the website couldn’t have been designed properly and tested thoroughly before going “live” on October 1. To paraphrase an old cliché: “If we can put a man on the moon…”.

However, there is one thing that is absolutely critical to note about the problems with Healthcare.gov: The website is not Obamacare! Rather, Healthcare.gov is the tool designed to implement one component of Obamacare. But as with so many other things related to the Affordable Care Act, those who oppose it have continued their pattern of lying about the law in order to stoke public fear and anger. So, I found myself feeling the need to remind people what the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) does, the point of the Healthcare.gov insurance exchanges, and why problems with the website are not evidence of a “failure of Obamacare”.

First, as opponents of the ACA like to remind us, the bill that was passed into law was a thousand plus pages. Ooh, scary. But the point is that the law includes many, many provisions other than the exchanges. Provisions which are designed to, you know, help people. For example:

• The Affordable Care Act provides that insurance companies cannot deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with implementation of this prohibition.
• The Affordable Care Act provides that young adults can stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they are 26. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with implementation of this requirement.
• The Affordable Care Act provides that insurance companies cannot cap insurance benefits with lifetime caps. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with implementation of this prohibition.
• The Affordable Care Act provides that insurance companies cannot terminate coverage when a beneficiary becomes ill. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to with implementation of this prohibition.
• The Affordable Care Act provides that insurance companies must include certain preventive treatment and screenings (such as mammograms) within insurance coverage and without payment of a co-pay or deductible. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with implementation of these requirements.
• The Affordable Care Act provides that insurance companies that spend too much of the income earned from premiums on costs other than payment of benefits must provide a refund to those that they insure. Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with implementation of these requirements.
• The Affordable Care Act gives states the ability to expand Medicaid rolls dramatically, with the cost of that expansion being paid 100% by the federal government for several years (after which the federal government will pay 90% of that cost). Problems with Healthcare.gov have nothing to do with the decision of some states (like Indiana) to refuse to expand Medicaid.

Get the idea?

But there’s actually much, much more at work here, too.

One of the memes that we hear repeatedly from those who oppose Obamacare goes something like this: “If Obamacare [or the exchanges] are so good, why doesn’t ______ [insert “President Obama” or “Congress” or the name of any other public official] get insurance through Obamacare?” The problem is that this criticism completely ignores the very purpose of the exchanges. The Healthcare.gov insurance exchange (or the exchanges operated by the states; more on that in a minute…) aren’t intended to replace existing employer-provided healthcare; rather, the exchanges are designed to provide affordable access to health insurance to those who don’t have employer-provided care and who previously could not afford to purchase individual coverage. Due to economies of scale and increased bargaining power, employers (especially large employers) have been able to get coverage for employees at much less expensive rates than most individuals could obtain when shopping for just themselves or their families. Think of it as the difference between buying wholesale versus retail.

The purpose of the exchanges was to provide a “one stop shopping” site for those seeking to purchase insurance and, due to the nature of the exchange, to use market forces to drive down premiums. Where one individual couldn’t negotiate a lower price from an individual insurer, the hope is that hundreds of thousands (or millions) of shoppers choosing between plans that must provide certain benefit levels will be able to act as a giant group for which the insurance companies will lower premiums when in active and evident competition with one another. In other words, the exchanges exist, not to provide insurance to those receiving it from their employer, but to help the millions of uninsured Americans access affordable health insurance. And the US government, like most other large employers, provides health insurance for its employees. So there is no reason for President Obama or Congress to give up what they have an purchase insurance on an exchange; they are not the intended recipients of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

Don’t forget that a critical component of Obamacare is to provide subsidies to allow people to purchase health insurance. So when you hear discussion of what premiums may be for insurance coverage purchased through an exchange, be sure that the premium number that you are hearing includes the calculation of any available subsidy. If the subsidy isn’t included in the discussion, then you’re not really comparing proverbial apples.

There is something else that is critical to remember about the purpose and functioning of the exchanges. Recall that the Affordable Care Act gave states the right to set up their own exchanges. Some did. California, New York, and especially Kentucky (in addition to other states) set up their own exchanges and, by all accounts, are having a quite successful implementation of the exchanges in their states. But many states, like Indiana, chose not to create their own exchanges and, rather, elected to allow the federal government to be responsible for the exchanges for their states. Thus, Indiana could have set up an exchange; it could have been specifically tailored to the needs of Hoosiers. Perhaps it would have functioned as well as the exchange that Kentucky created. But the federal government had to create an exchange for all of the states that didn’t set up their own exchange. Hmm. I wonder which is more difficult: An exchange for a single state or an exchange for dozens of states, each with different insurers?

And let’s not forget that the Republicans made every effort to stop the implementation of Obamacare. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the Supreme Court had ruled Obamacare unconstitutional in 2012. Can’t you hear the screams of outrage from Republicans if the Obama administration had spent significant sums of money creating the exchanges or website for a law that was declared unconstitutional. Similarly, if Mitt Romney had won in 2012 and followed through with his promise to repeal Obamacare, there would have been similar screams of outrage from Republicans about money spent toward the implementation of Obamacare. Keep this in mind when you hear Republicans talking about the administration having three years to create the exchanges. Not really.

I also want to touch briefly on some of the really bad analogies that have been drawn with regard to the rollout of Healthcare.gov and the suggestion that it is a sign of the failure of Obamacare. I’ve seen the rollout compared to the Iraq war and to the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Heck, in response to one of my posts on Twitter, someone made the comparison to a nuclear attack on the United States: “The current #Obamacare situation is more like someone programmed our launch codes wrong & enemy missiles will B here in 5”. Seriously. Let me offer the following response: The failure of a website, designed to allow people to purchase health insurance is not akin to a war or to a failed government response to a natural disaster that led to the deaths of thousands. And it certainly is not analogous to a nuclear missile strike. But those are the analogies that opponents of Obamacare have to stoop to in order to continue their efforts to mislead and frighten.

Think of it this way: We didn’t abandon space exploration when three astronauts died in a fire on Apollo 1; we didn’t surrender to the Confederacy after losing the first few battles of the Civil War; and most importantly, we didn’t abandon President Bush’s Medicare Part D program when its initial rollout was plagued with problems. But those programs weren’t the signature legislative achievement of President Obama. A Democrat. A black Democrat.

I think that the problems with Healthcare.gov are terrible and I don’t know how the system could have been designed and implemented so poorly. But Healthcare.gov is not Obamcare. It is merely a component of Obamacare; it is a component of Obamacare that will be fixed (maybe soon, maybe not, but it will be fixed). In the meantime, all of the other components of Obamacare are functioning and are helping people. And even the exchanges are working in states that adopted their own (and at the federal level for those who choose to register via phone or paper, apparently). One problem in one part of the law does not evidence that the entire law is a failure.

But don’t let truth stand in the way of a good scare tactic; after all, Halloween is just a few days away.

If you hear someone tell you that “Obamacare is a failure”, tell them why they’re wrong. And tell them why. See how they respond.

Apple’s Stupid Warranty Policy

I’ve never been a fan of Apple. And before people start piling on, let just note that I was largely responsible for supporting Northwestern University’s Apple Macintosh labs (from about 1986-1988) and teaching the portion of a microcomputer literacy class that focused on Macs. I was even a participant in an Apple program to encourage programming on Macs, attending several conferences on the subject. But I will admit that I’ve liked Apple consumer products like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. I’ve written in the past about how poor Apple’s support can be, especially when the refuse to even acknowledge the existence of major problems.

Well now I have new reason to be critical of Apple support policies.

Back in December, I was given a brand new Apple TV as a gift. While I was quite excited about the gift, at the time I wasn’t quite sure how I would want to use it. I wasn’t buying any video on iTunes at the time (we have two TiVo boxes). And so it sat unopened (though not unappreciated) on a shelf.

Then, a few nights ago, it finally dawned on me that I did have real application for the Apple TV as a series that I’m looking forward to (Game of Thrones) is on HBO but I don’t subscribe to HBO. Thus, I realized I could probably purchase the episodes through iTunes (I hope…) and watch them on my TV via Apple TV. Yippee!

So I opened the box and started setting up the device. Everything went smoothly until I tried to link the Apple TV to iTunes on my computer. I needed to input my Apple ID and password which I did. Over and over and over, but to no avail. Apple TV kept rejecting either the Apple ID or password (it wasn’t clear which one was “wrong”). I checked both the Apple ID and password both in iTunes and on my iPhone. I rest the password through iTunes. Yet nothing worked on the Apple TV.

Thus I began looking through Apple’s support site. I found lots of information telling me to be sure that my Apple ID and password were typed correctly (wow, that’s helpful!) or matched the account on iTunes (because, you know, it just makes sense to link two entirely different accounts). But I didn’t find anything remotely helpful with my problem.

I therefore decided to seek additional support. And that’s when I ran into one of the stupidest warranty policies I’ve ever encountered.

As I went through the process of seeking support from Apple, I was asked to provide the serial number for my Apple TV. After I did so, Apple’s support website told me that the 30-day warranty on my Apple TV had expired and that if I wanted support I would have to pay for it. What?

How could the warranty have expired while the product sat it its box?

Apparently Apple stores scan the serial number of certain products when they are sold and the warranty period begins running from that date.

Eventually, I was able to contact someone in Apple’s support division. He confirmed that the warranty period had begun when the product was purchased and explained that I could only get support if I paid $29.95. No thanks.

I asked him whether, if I returned the “non-functioning” Apple TV and bought a new one, I’d get a new warranty and he confirmed that I would. So, I queried, it seems that what Apple is saying is that anytime someone receives a gift of an Apple product they should, before opening it, return it to the store and exchange it for a new one, just so that they can get the benefit of the full warranty period. He said that he wasn’t saying anything of the sort; he was just explaining the warranty policy. OK.

One thing worth noting: When you buy an iPhone or an iPod or an iPad you register the product when you first connect it to iTunes. So why can’t Apple TV work in the same way?

Short, 30-day warranties make me angry. To me, that’s a company saying that they don’t really stand behind the quality of their product. But then to disconnect the warranty period from when the product is actually first used seems like a real “F-You” to customers, especially to a customer who receives the product as a gift.

So I continue to say that Apple makes some very good consumer products … but when it comes to dealing with customers, Apple sucks.

Net Neutrality

Imagine the following scenario: You turn on your computer to do a little online research. You point your browser to Google and … nothing. Or, perhaps you get a message telling you that your Internet service provider and Microsoft have entered into an exclusive arrangement whereby only Microsoft’s Bing search service is available to users connected via that ISP. Or maybe you try to go online to pay your Sprint bill via your AT&T DSL line only to find that AT&T has blocked access to the websites of its competitors through its Internet services. Or what if your ISP is also your cable company and they decided to block access to TiVo’s servers in order to get you to subscribe to the cable company’s DVR services? Maybe it isn’t quite that blatant. Maybe your Hulu videos are just really, really slow (because your ISP has an exclusive deal with CBS) or some websites for some businesses seem to open much faster than others. Or what if an article in your local newspaper that was critical of your DSL provider just wouldn’t load in your browser?

Would any of that seem fair?

If not, then you believe in what is usually called “net neutrality”. The concept is simple: Internet service providers cannot limit access to or favor certain content online. Users pay Internet service providers for a certain amount of bandwidth to connect to the Internet, but how that bandwidth is used is entirely up to the user.

But there is a move, sponsored by many large telecom companies (and their right-wing friends) to change this. They want to allow telecom companies to have some degree of control over what goes through their system. At its most benign, the idea touted by the telecom industry would allow for telecom companies to offer a faster connection to the websites of companies that paid Comcast a premium to be on their faster tier. If the company paid, its websites would load quickly; if it didn’t pay full price, its websites would load more slowly; and if it didn’t pay at all? Well, who knows?

Of course the Internet service provider could also slow down its primary access system to the point that website owners and Comcast’s customers would essentially be forced to pay for the faster tier. And what if Comcast entered into an exclusive agreement with Microsoft that Bing would be the only search engine permitted on the fast tier or that TiVo programs couldn’t download because the ISP had its own DVR available for rent?

Others in the telecom industry have advocated even greater control over the Internet, to the point that the examples that I describe above would be possible.

The telecom industry argues that they should have this right as a component of free enterprise and because the telecom industry is responsible for the wires that transmit information into our homes and businesses. “We own it, so we should control what’s in it…” or something like that. While that point may have some degree of appeal to it, there are three things worth remembering: First, while the telecom companies may be the proverbial on-ramps to the Internet (the old “information superhighway” metaphor), they don’t actually have anything do with the Internet itself. Third, it was our government tax dollars that actually developed the backbone of the Internet, not the telecom companies. Finally, at least for most Americans, the number of potential Internet service providers (especially in homes) is extremely limited. How many phone companies can offer DSL service to your home? How many cable companies can offer cable service to your home? Can you think of any other ISP that you could subscribe to other than your phone company or cable provider? Usually, we have two choices, one cable and one phone, both of which operate in virtual monopoly environments, often on the basis of government granted monopolies. And yet they want to be able to use their monopolies to make more money at our expense. Um, isn’t that one of the reasons that we’ve always believed that monopolies were bad?

Thinking back to the information superhighway metaphor, imagine how you would react if you drove to the mall only to be told that you couldn’t enter the parking lot unless you were driving a Toyota or if you were driving a Hyundai you had to park in the remote lot. Or perhaps, imagine your outrage if you showed up to an NFL game and the ticket taker told you that you couldn’t enter the stadium wearing your team’s jersey because it was made by Nike instead of Reebok or that those people wearing Adidas shoes could only sit in the upper deck, notwithstanding your ticket for a club seat in the 10th row.

Without net neutrality, the Internet could begin to look an awful lot like that. Or maybe it would just look like it does in places like China where Internet users routinely cannot access certain websites or even whole types of content. Just imagine if the ISPs decided to slow down or restrict access to websites that supported a particular political party, candidate, or issue.

Oh, one more thing worth noting: People like Glenn Beck have been spouting off about the idea of net neutrality being a threat to free speech and being some kind of “Marxist plot”. Either he (and those like him) simply don’t understand net neutrality or they’re lying to you to serve the best interests of the telecom industry. I know which of those two theories I suspect to be true.

So, next time you hear someone talking about net neutrality, listen to what they’re really saying. There is a lot of misinformation floating around, quite a bit of it intentional. And then ask yourself if you want the Internet to remain open and free or if you’d like your choices restricted and your costs increased. Then call you Senators and Congressional Representative and tell them that you support net neutrality.

Bloggers Make Money? Not This One...

According to a story on this morning's Marketplace Morning Report, a survey by Technorati found that "most blogs earn about $6,000 a year". I've been blogging for just under 9 months now and I've earned a total of ... drum roll, please ... $1.57. Wow.

That isn't even enough to actually have Google send me my money (I have to earn $10...).

The Luke & AT&T

As readers of this blog probably know, I have an iPhone (incidentally, the problems that I complained about back in August were solved by the 2.1 firmware that came out in early September). My service is with AT&T. For the most part, I've been reasonably pleased with my AT&T service. However, there is one major problem and AT&T needs to step up, acknowledge the problem, and fix it. The problem, you ask? AT&T doesn't have coverage inside The Luke.

When I'm at a Colts game, my iPhone is useless (at least for phone calls, emails, text messages, or the Internet; I can still do my sudoku puzzles...). And I'm not alone. I sit with a number of AT&T cell users and we're all in the same boat (I'm curious to know if anyone else with AT&T has cell reception at The Luke). The odd thing, though, is that my phone thinks that it has service. We've all been in areas without cell coverage (or good cell coverage) and seen the number of "bars" on our phones drop to 2 or 1 or 0. That isn't happening at The Luke; in fact, my phone continues to register 5 bars. Similarly, when I'm in an area without 3G coverage, my phone switches to the Edge network and the 3G icon is replaced by an E (for Edge). Again, that's not happening at The Luke; the 3G icon is still being displayed. But I can't make a call, I can't receive a call, I can't send or receive a text message, and I have very, very intermittent connectivity to the Internet (every hour or so, I may be able to connect for a minute or two). My wife has a rare illness (that can send her into anaphylactic shock without much warning), so being somewhere with no phone coverage is not a good situation.

So what gives? I've received two different stories. I spoke the IT people at The Luke. They tell me that they are aware of the problem and that it is due to the fact that AT&T hasn't signed the contract for the cell service tower. AT&T, on the other hand, after "researching" the issue for a few days, told me that it was something that their engineers were "working on" and that it would be fixed by the first quarter of 2009. Maybe I'm wrong, but my hunch is that AT&T hasn't paid The Luke and is looking for a workaround. After all, if there weren't any service, my phone would show 0 bars and would not show the 3G connection. It seems that the phone and the antenna are talking to each other (hence the bars and 3G icon) but the antenna isn't talking to AT&T's network.

For what it's worth, when I look at AT&T's cell coverage map, I don't see a big gaping hole around The Luke; instead, the nice bright orange of "best coverage" covers the entire area (and the entire area is shown with 3G coverage, too). If AT&T is using this map to help sell its cellular services, knowing that it doesn't have coverage in The Luke, then isn't the use of a map that AT&T knows to be incorrect the perpetration of a fraud?

In the meantime, those of us with AT&T service have no telephone service when we're at events in The Luke. That is outrageous and intolerable. And, for people in my situation, dangerous.

I think that the only way to solve this problem is going to be for everyone with AT&T service who attends events at The Luke (or who might attend an event at The Luke) to pick up the phone, call AT&T, and demand that the problem be solved (AT&T's support phone number: 800-331-0500). So long as only a handful of people are complaining to AT&T, it will be easy for AT&T to ignore the complainers and the problem. But if those complaints turn into a loud enough chorus, then AT&T just might be forced to listen. And if anyone in the press were to write about the issue... Maybe, if the problem continues, we can organize a rally outside AT&T's building in downtown Indianapolis before a Colts game (ah, the power of wishful thinking).

If you have AT&T service and have experienced coverage problems at The Luke, please leave me a comment and tell me where in the stadium you sit and whether you're able to get any connections. I'm curious to know how many people this problem affects.

I know that I said that I wouldn't refer to The Luke by its proper name, however, I'm briefly breaking that promise solely so that Google and other search engines can find this entry if someone searches for Lucas Oil Stadium.

Don't Buy an iPhone (at least not yet)

If you're thinking about buying an iPhone ... don't. At least not yet. Not until Apple solves a major problem with the iPhone that is rendering the phones unusable for many people.

I'll explain the problem (and Apple's lack of response) in a minute, but first a bit of background.

Way back in the '80s, I inadvertently became a "Mac" guy. It's a long story that isn't worth going into, but from 1986-1988 I was maintaining Macs, teaching students how to use Macs, and programming for Macs. I even attended a Mac programming conference and served on a host committee for another Mac conference. I even got to play with a Lisa (click... go to lunch... click... go to dinner... click... hey, it did something)! And yes I got teased by my PC- and mainframe-oriented friends. I say all this so that you don't think that I've always had an irrational bias against Macs or Apple. Anyway, when I was a Mac guy I recognized that the Mac had several very big advantages over the PC (remember, this was still the days of DOS), but, even with the early WYSIWYG technology, the mouse, and everything else, I still preferred the PC. Don't get me wrong: I wasn't a Microsoft junkie by any means. I just preferred DOS and my PC (a Compaq portable weighing in at a nifty 22 pounds) to the Mac.

Now, jump forward way too many years. I still prefer Windows to the Mac, although I will readily admit that my current preference is based largely on familiarity with Windows and a corresponding lack of familiarity with the Mac.

One of my criticism of Apple products, both then and now, was that Apple seemed to think that they knew what you wanted to do better than you did and didn't really allow you to customize things the way you wanted them to be. Microsoft has developed this bad habit in Microsoft Office, but Windows itself is much more open. (I know, I know. Lots of Mac folks out there will tell me how wrong I am; maybe I am. I don't know. All I can do is tell you my perception of Macs).

So, until I bought my first iPod a few years ago, I'd never owned an Apple product. For what it's worth, I've loved my iPods. But I've always felt that they weren't as customizable as they should be (come on, it took Apple until last year to allow you to change how songs and artists were sorted and there's still no way to delete a song from the iPod). And I really hate iTunes (although it is slowly getting better, it is still inferior to a number of other music catalogs and players).

Thus, when I bought a first generation iPhone last winter, it was the first Apple "computer" that I'd purchased (somehow an iPhone seems more "computer-like" than an iPod). And I loved my iPhone. But there was a fairly major flaw. It didn't have a to do list. And it didn't have any games. It was a great piece of hardware, but unless I wanted to hack it ("jailbreak"), I couldn't add anything to it other than the software installed by Apple. That was frustrating.

When the iPhone 3G came out last month I was excited. Yes, it had a GPS; yes it connected via the 3G network; yes it did this and that differently. But the really exciting thing about the iPhone 3G was the App Store and the ability to buy and install third party applications. When I bought my new iPhone I immediately started downloading and trying some of these "apps". Lots of great free utilities and games were available and I paid for a few more (Super Monkey Ball and Labyrinth are really cool on the iPhone). I even found a program and workaround that lets me sync my Outlook tasks to the iPhone (not a perfect solution, but at least a stopgap until a more elegant solution becomes available). Every now and then my iPhone would lock up or an app would fail to run, but hey, it's a computer. I expect the occasional crash. Reboot and go.

My biggest complaint with the iPhone was how long it took to Sync with my computer. Every time I connected my iPhone to my computer, iTunes wanted to back up my iPhone. Great idea, but each backup took between 30 minutes and 2 hours. Who has time to wait 2 hours for their phone to back up. So, I got into the habit of cancelling backups, syncing the phone, and going about my business. No harm, no foul.

And then my iPhone died. I was updating an App when suddenly the iPhone rebooted. During the reboot process, the screen turns black and a silver or white Apple logo appears. Usually, the logo disappears after a minute or five and the iPhone is up and running. Not this time. I waited and waited and waited and wai... OK. You get the idea. No luck. So I rebooted the iPhone. Same result. Waited longer. No dice. Tried again. Same thing. Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh!

On my way home from work, I stopped at the Apple Store. The geniuses at the "Genius Bar" (come on... is Apple serious?) were totally flummoxed. None of them had seen this problem before. Finally, one told me that the only thing that he could think to do was to do a "factory restore" which would erase all my data, but that I could simply restore from my backups. Oops. But what was my choice? Factory restore or no phone. So I told him to go ahead. I waited around for a while and then the "genius" (nice guy, but...) told me that the restore didn't work at which point he gave me a new iPhone.

I spent most of that evening setting up my new iPhone. I had to reenter lots of my settings, re-sync my music and apps and contacts and calendar. A pain in the ass, but oh, well. Then, the next day, I noticed that the iPhone was not connecting via WiFi. Nothing that I could do would let the phone use a WiFi connection. I called Apple's tech support. They were stumped and decided it must be a hardware problem. So, back to the Apple Store I went and, after a fairly brief stay, walked out with iPhone 3G #3. Another night of syncing and restoring and so on and so forth, although this time it was quicker because I'd made a backup of the faulty iPhone the night before. The next morning at the office I connected my iPhone to my office computer to sync there and, as the sync finished, the iPhone rebooted ... and died. I've since learned that the black screen with the Apple logo is not-so-affectionately known as the "Screen of Death" (at least Windows' Blue Screen of Death provides an error code that you can use for debugging). Yet another visit to the Apple store (the geniuses still claimed to have never heard of or seen this problem) and iPhone #4 was ready to go.

Once I'd finally let my anger boil over and I'd calmed down (at least a bit), I started researching the issue online. Guess what? I was not the only iPhone user to see a Screen of Death. In fact, it appears that literally hundreds of people have experienced the same problem and reported about it online. How many more have had the same problem but don't participate in online forums to discuss the issue? As I read more and more, I learned that all across the country people had been taking their iPhones to Apple stores and been given new iPhones when the geniuses couldn't solve the problem. I learned that people who called Apple tech support to report the problem encountered support techs who claimed that they'd never heard of this problem happening. And I learned that Apple has not commented on the problem at all, not even to acknowledge the problem and say, "Gee, sorry, but we're working on a fix." In fact, not only has Apple been silent on the issue, they've taken to editing posts on their discussion forums to delete criticism of Apple from posts discussing this issue. (One user posted [on another site] screenshots of a before and after post, where is statement that Apple's failure to address the issue was irresponsible was deleted from his post.)

Thankfully, several people have identified a few methods that usually work that allow a user to perform a factory reset without having to exchange the iPhone for a new one. The problems with those solutions are that: (a) you have to have a good backup (and remember how long backups take) and (b) the process of performing the factory reset and then restoring the iPhone usually takes somewhere between 3 and 6 hours. That's right. Every time my iPhone crashes, I'm without my phone for 3-6 hours (and that assumes that I took the 2 hours to back up my phone before it crashed). And so far, I've gone through the reset and restore process about 10 times.

And just so you don't think that I'm making all of this up, take a look at this post on Apple's website (427 posts and 21,000+ views as of the time of this post) or the articles Troubleshooting iPhone and iPod touch issues and Second thoughts about iPhone 2.0? posted on MacWorld. But nothing from Apple. One of the really amazing things is to read the posts from longtime Apple fans who say that this debacle has damaged their faith and support in Apple.

To the best of the community's ability to figure out what's going on (remember, Apple isn't helping), it appears that somehow when the iPhone installs or updates an app, it may get interrupted or the app installation gets corrupted. The problem does not appear to be with the apps themselves; rather, the problem is in the installation or updating process. Many people have elected not to install any apps from the App Store on the iPhone. That seems to solve the problem for some. But I haven't installed any apps that way for a while and I still get crashes from apps installed or updated through iTunes.

The best advice that anyone has come up with is to simply not use any apps on the iPhone (or to use a very small number of apps). While that may be sound advice, the suggestion that a user not use a main feature of the phone is a bit like saying here's this great new computer, but don't install any software on it.

So, for the time being, I've decided to recommend to people that they not buy an iPhone. I'm fairly certain that Apple will solve the problem eventually, but who knows when. In the meantime, I'm walking on eggshells using my iPhone afraid of yet another crash. This weekend, I plan to completely reset my iPhone, delete all of my apps, and start from scratch. I'm going to load a bare minimum of apps until Apple solves the problem. I just hope that day is sooner rather than later; if not, I suspect that I will be a party to somebody's class action lawsuit against Apple. Who knows? Maybe I'll be the lead Plaintiff.

Oh, and if anybody at AT&T is reading this, you need to put some pressure on Apple, because it won't be long before people like me start asking for service credits because of the amount of time that our phones (mine was purchased at an AT&T store) are out of service.