Your plane’s landing in the middle of nowhere. Scratch that. WAY past the middle of nowhere — that little state on the other coast you’ve never been to, where the people have funny accents and McDonald’s has menu items you’ve never seen before.
The pilot flips off the seatbelt light, you whip out your iPhone to make a quick call, and before the bars come up you’re greeted with a screen that lists off all the local service providers complete with up-to-the-minute rate information. You flick-scroll to the cheapest one, tap to select, the bars pop up, the network springs to life, and you start your call.
What? Your iPhone doesn’t do that? You don’t get to pick your service provider? You don’t get to choose just-in-time data rates? You’re stuck with AT&T 24/7?!
Yeah. That’s because you’re in the real world, not the world of what might-have-been. Not the world Apple could have created had they gone ahead with a little patent just recently brought to public attention…
