iPhone owners may love Apple's sexy mobile device, but they absolutely can't stand AT&T. It ranks dead last in customer satisfaction for dropped calls and spotty 3G service, a sore spot that Verizon has been poking at with new ads.

Now the U.S.'s second largest wireless provider is looking to turn things around, hopefully before it loses iPhone exclusivity rights. Its newest strategy is especially unique, though, because it comes in the form of an iPhone app called Mark the Spot [iTunes Link].

The free customer service app is really quite simple. Whenever you experience a problem with your service (e.g. a dropped call, bad 3G connection, poor quality), you can open up the app and report the issue right where you are. Once you cite the problem and add additional info, it gets submitted to AT&T's customer support team. The key to the app is that it's location-based, meaning that AT&T can aggregate this data to find dead spots and trouble areas.

This app is simple but smart — it provides useful data to AT&T while giving customers an outlet for venting about their hatred for AT&T and how they wished the iPhone was on Verizon. Still, it may be too little, too late.







Just don't try to report a network outage when there's no network due to an outage; you may just rip open a black hole in the fabric of spacetime.