AT&T Mark The Spot Now Provides Network Update News And More
August 3, 2010
AT&T seems to be looking more and more at getting as much wireless customer feedback as possible. On the flip slide, the company is now looking to provide easier responses to mobile customers. The latest version of AT&T's free iPhone customer feedback app, AT&T Mark the Spot, adds national and local network news plus more ways for customers to provide additional information when having call or data problems when using the cellular network.
AT&T Mark the Spot v2.0 adds two completely new sections to the app, network news and tips plus optimization recommendations. You can access these two and the previous other features using the new Menu button at the bottom left of the main Mark the Spot reporting screen. Once there, you'll be shown all the sections in a carousel type interface. Just swipe left or right to navigate, than tap on the desired icon to jump to the new section.
The Network News section offers four different categories: national network news, your Mark the Spot area news (coming), your Mark the Spot area news (complete), and your areas of interest. National network news simply provides a basic announcement of any new cell tower additions and in what area. Your Mark the Spot areas inform you of what actions will be and have been taken based on any previous submissions you've made using the app. The "areas of interest" section allows you to enter in any amount of differing zip codes to watch for specific area updates. For example, you could enter in your workplace zip, your home zip, and the zip code for a vacation house.
The Tips and Optimize section gives general pointers for using your iPhone at home, battery life optimization, and general network settings. AT&T reminds you to use Wi-Fi whenever possible and shows you how to quickly enable and use the feature, plus how to enable and disable 3G data versus EDGE.
After launching the latest version, you'll be prompted to accept or decline the latest AT&T terms of service and an option to register your app. Foremost, you'll need to register your Mark the Spot app in order to utilize the network news section. What does registering your app mean? If you opt-in to register, the app will automatically create a text message with a unique app ID number to submit to AT&T. You'll be able to read it before finally hitting the send button. All this does is ties your app to your Mark the Spot submissions, so AT&T can send you those specific responses that are intended for only your account.
Some final notes that I'll make. Because this information is now available within the app, users will no longer receive text messages regarding Mark the Spot submissions and AT&T specifically notes that this application is intended for iPhone users with iOS 3.0.1 or later, but does plan on releasing a universal version soon to accommodate iPad 3G owners.
