Iphone — Tag

Rumour had it that Vodafone were rethinking their iPhone plans, and today it was announced that they did. You can now get an iPhone for just $40 per month, with a cool $699 for the phone first (8gb). How nice of them. Could be much better still though (i.e. unlimited data).

It is making me want an iPhone again. But first, I think I’ll get a Macbook.* Then I’ll wait to see Telecom release their deals, rumour has it that Telecoms GSM network will be officially launched in November with the iPhone in tow. Some iPhone users will see the Telecom network available for selection under the Network option too.

Meanwhile, I am quite content with my current Sony Ericsson W850i, except a couple of days ago when I went to hunt for drivers and found that it had been practically been completely wiped from the website. Shucks.

Back on to Vodafone, they are heavily advertising their $1 for 10MB “casual” data plan. Hooray I say, cause I use Opera Mini on my W850i to check up on Tweets and emails and the quick check up on Wikipedia. They are even advertising on some websites where you’d benefit. Interestingly, this includes YouTube. You’ll get a nice Flash ad next to the video saying that you can “carry your favourite clips in your pocket” for only $1! Sweet! Ummm, no. In fact, if you hit YouTube mobile, you’ll get a nice warning from the Google folks telling you to only enter with an unlimited plan!

* Yes, you read that right… I am going to get a Macbook. Sometime late next month hopefully.

Everyone was anticipating to pay $100+ every month to get the iPhone goodness, and well, they got it.

But the cheapest plan is $80. It includes 120 minutes, 600 texts (unknown if this also includes txts to Telecom mobiles) and 250MB of data.

The next plan up is $130, 250 minutes, 600 texts and half a gig of data.

The most expensive, coming in at a whopping $250, has 600 minutes, 600 texts and one gig of data. It is this plan that the iPhone is $199, 8gb. With the cheapest plan the iPhone (8gb) is $549.

I guess these were anticipated. But ludicrous. With Vodafone NZ hyping up the data plans by releasing no information about them until today, they can expect a bit of a backlash. It has already started happening on the GeekZone forums, and GPForums. Silly Vodafone. Now we wait for the international iPhone plan tables to updated and see where we fit in the scheme of things.

And yeah, I’m thinking I’ll just stick with my current phone now.

The moment all us gadget geeks have been waiting for is finally upon us! Vodafone NZ have announced their announcement (heh) of iPhone plans for tomorrow at 10am.

In the same announcement, they dropped that prices will start from NZ$199 for the phone in a 2 year contract.

That was a bit of surprise (it was expected for the price to be around $300, as US$199 is ~NZ$270), but would we be getting equally good news tomorrow?

The Kiwi tech blog world will asplode around 10am. Yes, I’ll still be near a computer at the time.

Yesterday the internet went abuzz with excitement at the long rumoured Apple iPhone. And once again the Apple hype stream was flooding the villages. Suddenly everyone wants an iPhone. Despite their current phones possibly being capable of a lot of the features that the iPhone currently has.

My first impressions were “nifty.” A touch screen on a cellphone - who would-a thunk? Well, myself for one many years ago. However with this one you can do little gestures to do things. Like pinching and stuff. To unlock the phone you slide your finger from left-to-right. It plays music, video, surfs the web, oh it even has a 2 megapixel camera.

But then as I heard more, things started getting sour. The iPhone isn’t 3G because the locked-in partner, Cingular, doesn’t support it in many markets. Although, one is coming! (So you can buy a new one and give Apple more money!)

One of the features is Google Maps. Wow-wee. I can get that on my Motorola v360v. I just go to mobile.google.com and download the Google Maps program. The other odd thing is that the iPhone supports “push” e-mail (the e-mail gets sent to you, instead of you checking for mail first) only if you have a Yahoo! Mail account. So, Google for maps, Yahoo! for push e-mail. Any other and you’ll have to pay data charges (which are apparently high on Cingular).

It runs OS X, though the differences are yet to be completely revealed. The system though is closed, so no third-party apps for you. There is no mention of Java support either, which is something greatly missing.

You can’t buy music from iTunes on the iPhone. You can’t even synchronise your music using the WiFi or Bluetooth.

And why has Apple opted (once again) to restrict you to a closed battery? You can’t change it, so you’ll be out of action as far as mobiles go while you wait a number of days for Apple to swap the batteries over. I can’t imagine that going to well with some people, especially with the problems that iPod batteries have had in the past.

Apple has stated that you get 5 hours talk/video/photo time, and 16 hours music time which looks pretty good to me right now. Though, how long does it last on standby? No mention of that little factoid either.

Also the screen is apparently smudge free with some sort of coating, but no word on it being scratch free (remember the Nano incident)?

Gizmodo seem to have a pretty good run down of the events of iPhone. See the iPhone tag on Gizmodo.

Today Cisco sued Apple over trademark infringement. Cisco has owned the iPhone trademark since 2000, and it was registered before then by Linksys in 1997 (before the iMac was around). However, things on the Cisco iPhone front have been quiet - until last month. So either they released the iPhone to protect their trademark, or go with silly people wanting an Apple iPhone but getting a Cisco one and still be happy. But, it is worse that Apple has just gone ahead with the iPhone without confirming the rights to the name. Shame on you Apple.

So the only thing that the iPhone adds to a mobile is a touch screen. Which is what a Smartphone has anyway, so I guess it doesn’t even add that. However the thing is that it is the cool kids Smartphone. Unlike those Windows Mobile phones which are more for business. But the cost and the service lock-in is prohibitive for that market. Though, the same goes for the regular iPod, and look at how many kids have those!

The iPhone isn’t due until 2008 here, and a date is not confirmed.