Wow! I'm not European, but I play one on TV. I cannot imagine that Europeans are going to be too impressed by the "Event" at the Regent Street Apple Store today. What was announced comes down to this:
- Announced the exact same iPhone announced 9 months ago in the US and rolled out 3 months ago
- Will be out in 2 MORE months
- Significant extra cost (blame the weak dollar and 17.5% VAT?)
- Limited EDGE Internet
- Limited Unlimited Bandwidth
- EDGE coverage is at 30% of UK
- Acknowledged that there are fewer hotspot options in Europe
- No 3G like 90% of the other smartphones because it is a "battery hog" EDGE will crawl. Rationale: we like slim - can't make slim 3G phone (don't tell Nokia, Samsung, LG, etc)
So, as a fake European, I have to believe that there is going to be some backlash around these parts. We have Internet over here. We saw what went down in January. We've seen smug Americans rolling over here with your slim little devices. I guess the reality distortion field isn't strong outside of the San Francisco Bay area....
Apple probably could have saved some money by just getting a 30 inch Cinema display and playing back parts of the Macworld and WWDC announcements, except dubbing over some benny Hill background music and replacing the $ signs with double priced, cursive "L's"
Still though, the iPhone is a sick piece of equipment. And it will sell like hotcakes...or Pannenkoeken...I would wager that most sales will by GSM hackers that buy them from the US and slang with old Firmware.
Innit.
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hmmm, what I was expecting
hmmm, what I was expecting really...
can anyone think of a reason that I can't buy an iPhone from America now (cheaper and I'll have it for an extra month and a half), unlocking it and using it with my current SIM until the O2 launch, and then resetting it and signing up for an O2 contract with iTunes come novemember 9th?
nope, dowit
nope, dowit
"we like slim - can't make slim 3G phone"
well thats aload of crap. ever seen the LG shine? alright its not good looking - but they managed to crank out a non 3g, and a 3g phone which are IDENTICAL. oh and SLIM.
i'm getting a bit tired of apple "pacing" themselves considering they're meant to be innovators.
I wonder if we'll be able to add events on the calender over here in the UK?
"i'm getting a bit tired of apple "pacing" themselves..."
My friend...
I'd like to remind you Apple has made a drastic direction shift in what the company delivers - iTunes, AppleTV, movies, television, movie rentals, iPods, iPhone and iTouch, not to mention the switch to Intel chipset.
You might be a disgruntled with their innovation factor as far as , but the general public has a crush on Apple right now - iPods, iPhones, AppleTV work with both Apple and PCs, that's not to mention their software development (Pro Apps, iLife). I'd say that's a feat that's paying off. Pretty innovative compared to what anyone else is doing, no?
(THAT SAID: I understand you want to be wowed [we all do and we want Apple to consistently deliver]. Sometimes, it makes more sense as a company to not invest in a technology just because its new [like they had in the past] - ie. Apple supporting both HD-DVD + BRd, but still not putting either drive into a MacPro. Instead, Apple's left it to the user to decide which drive they're going to slug into their 2nd drive bay. And I know we all wanted to see an insanely high capacity touchscreen iPod, but let's face it, the cost would have been through the roof. Hopefully, AFTER all the new devices have been rolled out, the competition kicks in, Apple will get back on track of amazing us again.)
What a letdown!
All that hype and for what? Couldn't give a hoot for the 3G, Edge at 30% coverage!! Total disappointment with the outcome of this so called Special Event[, nothing whatsoever Special came out today.
02 200 mins & 200 texts for £35 (yeah right get real).
3G
From what I've heard 3G is not massively quicker than 2.5G in real world use and does have quite a few drawbacks like constantly switching between the two and the battery life problems.
I have a 2.5G Nokia phone and it is painfully slow at internet access but quite a lot of that might be the phones fault because it's not a Series 60 phone.
I think I will wait and see what internet access is like on the iPhone before judging the lack of 3G and being a deal-breaker. It's still one hell of a nice phone.
You can't compare 2.5G with 3G
[quote=parsec]From what I've heard 3G is not massively quicker than 2.5G in real world use and does have quite a few drawbacks like constantly switching between the two and the battery life problems.[/quote]
I have a 3G Phone to connect my laptop to our company VPN when I'm working at customer's locations. It is fast. Don't know what kind of speeds it get, but it's fast enough for browsing, remote desktop, imap and chat at the same time. Don't try this with 2.5G!
iPhone looks nice, but the internals are not good enough for the European market.
UK VAT is 17.5%
Price wise it is more expensive, but not by much more than the usual Apple European markup.
UK VAT is 17.5% not 20%. Taking the US price, converting to GBP at today's exchange rate, and then adding the UK VAT comes to: £233 approx.
So apple is adding £36 to the cost, roughly $74
No worse than usual.
UK VAT is 17.5% - Let's not forget state tax
[quote=PixelNurse]...So apple is adding £36 to the cost, roughly $74
No worse than usual.[/quote]
And actually I should add that this is comparing it against the iPhone US price before any state sales tax, so actually you can just about cut that above 'euro premium' in half. So the article is quite misleading in suggesting that the iPhone is much more expensive, and nowhere near 'double' the price as reported.
UK price = £269 minus VAT
UK price = £269
minus VAT (17.5 %) = £229
At todays exchange rate is US$ 455
apple is adding US$ 56, roughly.
Pannenkoeken?
Even dutch words are used here!:P How come?
European Pancakes
European Pancakes
Yeah i know because i'm from
Yeah i know because i'm from Holland. Just was a bit suprised to see it here;)
mobile phones heavily subsidized in Europe
Well, the USA has been far behind in mobile technology in comparison to Europe. Plus, we're used to having quite a lot of providers available, and usually you get the hardware for 400-500 EUR cheaper when buying it locked to a provider than when buying the unlocked version.
E.g. you will get the Sony Ericsson W880i (a 3G phone much smaller than the iPhone with camera, 1GB RAM, video calls, iSync, RSS reader, Opera browser and the option to install any application without hacking) for free, while it costs 550,- without contract.
In other words, it's not so easy to compare prices between US and Europe. Given the fact that mobile phones generally are heavily subsidized in Europe, the iPhone seems *really* expensive. It shouldn't cost more than 100EUR with a 18 month contract.
I dropped a few lines to O2
I am European but I don't live in the UK. Here is what I've written by mail to O2: I obviously bet they wouldn't reply. But, anyway here is the message:
--
Hello,
I have read about your tariffs for the Apple iPhone.
I was wandering why, moving from the US to Europe, a flat plan is no longer flat; I mean, in the US the iPhone comes with a real flat tariff which costs around 60USD and here in Europe the iPhone will come, at the same price, with a non-real flat (i.e., 1GB/day limit) plan.
Why?
Thanks in advance for your reply. Best regards,
--
Federico
--
I think todays event was OK.
I think todays event was OK. I dont think the phone is that much dearer than the USA when local tax is added. Not really bothered about no 3G, as the iPhone tariff includes access the the "clouds" wi-fi network in the UK free of charge. Clouds currently have 7000 wi-fi zones in the UK. This actually looks as if Apple/O2 are trying to bypass the 3G thing.
I think the call plans are reasonable and O2 have a very good coverage in the Uk and mainland Europe,
As such i will be buying my iPhone on the 9th Nov at 9am :-)
Okay then, how do I get an
Okay then, how do I get an iPhone from America to the UK for less that £270? I don't know anyone that lives over there...
ebay.com
ebay.com
Oh come ON, the call plans
Oh come ON, the call plans are TERRIBLE! I pay O2 £25 at the moment which gets me 250 minutes and 500 texts. And that's considered a bad deal. I reckon come October it will be a tenner for unlimited data, which still makes it a better deal than their £35 tariff. And there are MUCH better O2 tariffs available if you haggle. So, you're paying for 'Visual Voicemail' essentially, as it's easy to put an old OS on the iPhone and unlock it to any network, any tariff.
No way am I paying them that much money for that little usage.
Not that bad
I'm with Orange and the best Tarif I could get with the N95 for £35 a month was 700mins 200 texts and bloody expensive data. Orange wanted to charge an additional £299 for the handset. The N95 is a sh** internet phone too. Based on that, the iphone is a bargain.
who cares about edge
who cares about edge coverage when the country is the size of kentucky. that 30% is probably where all the people are anyway.
if you look at canada you only need edge coverage in 10% of that country since 90% of the population lives within 50 miles of the US border
statistics can be made to told any story you want, read between the lines for the truth
The UK's population is
The UK's population is currently ~60 Million, Kentucky's 4 Million, there's no comparison between the two.
Apple are choosing to launch the EDGE version of the iPhone to maximise their profits, next year they will miraculously discover what the other phone makers already know and release the 3G version, like the 3G phones already available from O2.
the comparison was to AREA.
the comparison was to AREA. Not a great comparison (error is about 20%), but not horrible.
Kentucky: 40k sq miles
England: 50k sq miles
Louisiana would have been a better comparison at 51k sq miles.
I find the European attitude bemusing - the iPhone is disparaged as "inferior technology." While the iPhone uses an inferior cellular broadband standard, it's due to Apple's limited resources and need to have one version for the current time. It's the same reasons Americans can't figure out why there is no iPhone on Verizon (GSM was a needed commonality with the rest of the world).
IMO, as a technologist, America has clearly lagged the rest of the world in cellular adoption and technology for a good 20+ years, due to the over abundance of standards. CDMA, TDMA, etc.
But the iPhone is truly revolutionary. it doesn't live up to its full potential until there is pervasive 3G available, but any European who can't concede the OS (and, secondarily, the UI) are orders of magnitudes ahead of anything from Nokia, Samsung, etc.
Can't just research facts...
[quote=Research your fact next time.]The UK's population is currently ~60 Million, Kentucky's 4 Million, there's no comparison between the two.[/quote]
Can't just research facts, have to understand them when presented: He clearly refers to the "size" of the two geographic areas, NOT the population. I THINK he's making the point that in that small a country, 30% of the area may include a vastly larger proportion of the population.
Sincerely
Friendly translator
But that's my point, 15
But that's my point, 15 times the population cannot be covered by only 30% data coverage, yes the UK is a relatively small country but with a population of 60 Million it's also a widely populated country (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/maps.asp) is the best map I can find.
What I've been looking for but can't find is 02's current 3G coverage, it was quoted as 50% in February 2005.
It's all just a desperate spin campaign to make up for the lack of 3G support in the current version of the iPhone.
Your map actually proves the
Your map actually proves the original point. If they have all their coverage in London, Birmingham and Manchester, than that would be the vast majority of the country. I don't know if they do, but its possible.
Cool, iPhone...
I wasn't expecting anything new from Apple, would have been surprisingly nice though - I guess their marketing departement should finally be informed, that www.apple.com is also available outside the US...
just an FYI. I have a
just an FYI. I have a verizon air card and an iPhone. Often my iPhone is loading pages faster in a real world environent. I'm extremely happy with it. Submitting this on my iPhone as my wife and I drive to work. Of course that does not account for a network that would be 30%. All im saying is, once you try it, i dont think youll be upset.
-jc
I live in London and have
I live in London and have been keenly awaiting the iPhone launch.
Although nobody is doubting that the iPhone is an amazing piece of technology, the tariffs that O2 are currently offering do not represent value for money.
The 18 month iPhone plans on offer are £35, £45 and £55 per month.
Over 18 months, this represents a minimum commit of £630, £810 and £990 respectively. PLUS they want £269 for the handset!
I have just ordered my 16Gb iPod Touch for only £184 (inc £85 rebate coz I recently bought a MacBook Pro). So the Touch will be my main music and portable web device (wifi availability permitting) and I will get a new FREE smartphone on a much cheaper tariff with more minutes, I will buy a small data bundle to cover non-wifi internet usage. This, I believe, is the best value solution for now.
Yes, Apple will surely launch a 32Gb+++ iPod Touch in the next few months, and when they do, I will sell my 16Gb and get the higher capacity version. I will hardly lose any money, because my rebate will cover the depreciation!
Although iPhone as a device
Although iPhone as a device is extremely interesting the long / expensive plan and high device price combo is big turn off. The lack of 3G just makes the whole deal even worse. The best solution is to get iPhone from states and to hack it so you can use it on any network (very easy to do). If we are lucky enough Apple will realize that users want freedom and don't want to be tied to single operator just because they want one particular phone. I wouldn't mind if this effects the price of iPhone. I just want to use my phone the way that I like. Freedom to the people!