Stacey Higgenbotham over at GigaOM this afternoon noted MetroPCS’s lowered earnings report from this morning:

MetroPCS, the prepaid cellular service provider, this morning reported a weaker profit and a drop in new subscribers for the second quarter, and analysts are blaming the increased competition among prepaid plans. The carrier, which has been reporting record quarters, only added about 206,000 subscribers in the most recent 3-month period, compared with 684,000 in the first quarter. The relative slowdown in new subscriber adds was surprising given that the second quarter marked the first full quarter in which MetroPCS served the New York City and Boston markets. Compared to the same period last year, profits fell by 48 percent to $27.2 million and revenue rose 27 percent, to $859.6 million.

Stacey imagined that it might be because of ramped up competition from other carriers in their own pre-paid mobile initiatives.  That certainly may play a part, but as a MetroPCS user myself, I’m left wondering if part of the problem might be the difficulty one experiences when trying to upgrade the phone using experience through the use of apps.

As I’ve noted many times in the past, getting Twitter and other similar apps on a MetroPCS phone is a feat of heroism, as the network is clearly attempting to limit usage of the service by placing roadblocks and firewalls in the way of interacting with most outside networks that operate via SMS.

It’s Like They Don’t Want New Apps

Beyond that, the challenges they have in place for funding a subscriber account that allows you to make purchase from the app store aren’t easy hurdles either.  Most importantly, though, are ridiculous roadblocks they set up for developers who would wish to develop for their app store. 

I’m a pretty capable developer with experience working for the mobile industry (I worked on the SMS spec back in 1999), so as I was fed up with the lack of app selection on MetroPCS, I endeavored to try to start developing for their app store.

There are no links anywhere within the MetroPCS website domain that have anything to do with APIs or developer resources.  If you call the customer support number, their call-center employees have no clue what you’re even talking about, and will pretend that MetroPCS actually doesn’t have a corporate phone number.

I actually found a corporate phone number after doing a bit of research (read: calling their domain administrator at home one evening). I was directed to the voicemail box of the individual in charge of the app store.  I’ve left a message a week for the last month or so, and have yet to have been called back.

All that to say – MetroPCS has clearly no focus on the future of mobile, since the momentum is an emphasis on smartphones.  Sure, with their current strategy, they’ll continue to mop up the bottom of the barrel, picking up those who don’t care to get locked into long-term contracts… but if they don’t keep upgrading the experience of their higher-end users, they’ll soon be surpassed by other no-contract phone networks.