When the iPhone was first announced, it was still called Cingular. Look at some videos from the introduction and you'll see it. CBS also did a short preview on it before it came out and it also said Cingular. (too bad they were ruined by at&t)

Back then, Verizon would have never allowed any freedom for Apple to do what they wanted, but it is obvious now with many of Verizon's smartphones becoming more full featured (i.e. not gimped!) and not having quite as much branding. I don't even think that anyone would buy Verizon apps on a smartphone over the OS's native application store.

Well, all they needed to do was take the "Pod" out of the name, problem solved. I would understand the devs being a bit mad that they had to rename everything but Apple did have a legitimate reason and it all ended up being not that big of a deal, just like Steve said.

Perhaps the quality has gone down (I'd disagree personally) but the mail in service is excellent. We sent out a laptop with a dead keyboard one afternoon, got it back the next day. Can't argue with that.

HP has had so many huge product failures lately, the worst being the dv2000/6000/9000 and Presario v3000/6000 NVIDIA issues. I've dealt with more of those than I can remember, and now they're ending the program so laptops aren't getting repaired. One specific desktop I've been working with had a bad graphics card, and both replacements they've sent so far have been defective. The thing just doesn't even work properly anymore, won't boot Windows most of the time (after having the HD replaced as well) or it will hang at random times. Motherboard, maybe? I've also had a number of other HP desktops of all types have video card failures, don't know why. There's also the Elite 9000 series having terrible freezing problems (google it, there's a 280 page thread on HP's site) and so many more that I'm not even thinking of right now. None of the other manufacturers, in my experience, have built such terrible products.
Everyone has had different experiences and will agree or disagree with the chart, but one thing that can be universally agreed upon is HP; the lack of quality in their consumer junk definitely warrants them a last place finish. Their "Total Care" is just like pouring salt in the wounds of those of us who've had to put up with it. Spent almost an hour with one agent trying to get that video card replaced, waiting for him to respond and having me go through idiotic troubleshooting steps, even telling me to restore the OS when the BIOS was showing artifacts. So much time wasted...I hate HP.

Most of these points were already disproven over on Engadget, but anyway:

"AT&T's wireless data coverage reaches 303 million people – or 97% of the U.S. population, where they live and work." - people don't want EDGE, they want 3G, and they want it to actually work.

"Most popular smartphones. Unlike Verizon, AT&T offers the most popular smartphones in the industry." - there's no industry standard "popularity factor" for a phone that I've ever seen. Verizon's got both the Droid and Droid Eris/Hero, the the BB Tour, Curve2, and Storm2, the Touch Pro2, the Omnia2, and the Pre either on the network or coming soon. AT&T's got the iPhones, 5 old BB's (not counting the new Bold), the Nuvifone, and finally, the Tilt2, HTC Pure and some other boring WM phones. Which one of those lists sounds more enticing?

"More wireless apps. Unlike Verizon, AT&T customers have access to more than 100,000 applications, more than with any other wireless company." - if they're just going to pull the App Store's figures and apply it to their entire company, AT&T should just stop supporting all other phones and sell itself to Apple.

"Talk and E-mail at the same time. Unlike Verizon, AT&T's 3G network lets wireless customers simultaneously talk and surf the web or do e-mail." - the one thing that actually is true. CDMA does not handle data and voice at the same time. If I'm online on my phone (a Verizon Omnia) and I get a call, the data connection status says "Suspended" and it doesn't work. This happens with every other CDMA phone, it's either EV-DO for data or voice, not both simultaneously.

"Fastest 3G in the nation. Unlike Verizon, AT&T has the nation's fastest 3G network." - Theoretically. except the network is so overloaded that it becomes terribly slow and phones start dropping down to EDGE. EV-DO Rev A is technically slower, but at least Verizon's network maintains a constant speed and level of reliability all the time.

I disagree with the data charges on lines without data plans, it happened to my brother and dad a couple of times since we switched to the new "Nationwide" plan. What should be done is that the first MB every month is free, so in case of any accidental button presses they won't ever add up to be that much. Still, there is some misinformation. The data charges are cumulative, it's not $1.99 every time the internet is accessed. Also, it's now possible to change most of the buttons on the dumbphones to functions other than the internet, and even better: you can log into your account online and block data right there in 2 minutes. A service rep will also do this for you with no problem - saying they won't is not true, and if that was the case, it's so easy to do it online.

Not so sure about that - if someone wants an iPhone, chances are they don't really care what network it's using and just want the phone. I live a couple of train stops away from NYC and I've played with a co-workers' iPhone and browsing the web seemed much faster than most videos I see online. Still, a decent number of people I have talked to dropped their iPhones due to the dropped calls and overall poor quality of service in favor of a Verizon phone. Everyone's experiences are different, but that's what I've seen.

Sigh...the days of Verizon crippling smartphones is definitely over, and even dumbphones are gaining more capability. I do understand why they did it, even though I definitely don't agree with their reasoning. Nevertheless, they have now unlocked GPS that was previously compatible only with VZ Navigator, allow their phones to be customized just as much as any other carrier's and allow you to install any applications you want from whatever application store you'd like, not just their own. Even if that was the case, you would still be able to install the one provided by RIM, Microsoft, Google et al. Plus, I believe all future Verizon smartphones will have WiFi. What's wrong with the Storm 2 anyway (in terms of crippling)?
If you want to pick on a "crippled" phone, look no further than your beloved iPhone. We all know how it doesn't have a replaceable battery, how it can't be unlocked (at least in the US), how it's locked into the app store, lack of MMS on the first-gen, broken Exchange encryption on the 3G, et al. Even when some of these issues can be addressed with jailbreaking, Apple is out to get all of you constantly trying to close the holes and sometimes bricking phones in the process.
My Verizon Samsung Omnia was not able to run Google Maps w/ GPS or tether out of the box without paying for an extra tethering package. Thanks to a software update, my GPS now works wonderfully and in turn, the update was reverse-engineered by users who have now brought us custom software builds with the latest beta versions of WinMo 6.5. Plus, I've got the Microsoft Internet Sharing application and the Windows Marketplace. Microsoft, Samsung, nor Verizon have attempted in any way to block these actions, and the only Verizon branding is the small logo above the screen, which I could change if I really wanted to.
Now how's that for solid, substantial evidence?
ps - I've had to call VZW customer service only a couple of times and every instance was a pleasant experience. I'm not saying that their CS is God's greatest gift to the world, nor am I saying that they are the best provider.

The biggest changes I want are for the 65K color restriction to be lifted, for the OS to do some maintenance behind the scenes/close programs when I press the X button by default, and an easier way to back up all settings and personal data (My Phone only does some items; calendar and contacts are on my Exchange server and text messages/documents/media files are backed up through other means, so it's useless to me). None of those will happen, I'm sure, because those are significant changes and 6.5 is just an incremental upgrade. For now, I can put up with all of those things.
Other changes that could and should happen: update Windows Media Player (hasn't changed since 2006 according to the copyright date; it's ugly, slow and missing some features), freshen up the UI a bit more and make it all consistent (it's already happening, I can tell from running the latest 6.5.1 beta builds on my Omnia) and simplify some tasks (example, connecting to a WiFi network). It would be nice if more developers would follow the guidelines that MS puts out as well.
Otherwise, I'm very satisfied with 6.5; all of the improvements are very welcome and I'm loving the Marketplace. Unfortunately my phone doesn't get an official update, but there are an abundance of custom ROMs for my phone.

Three year mobile phone contracts are NOT reasonable or awesome.