Can Apple Find a European iPhone Partner?

pete314 writes "A Vnunet.com article claims that European mobile operators are unwilling to concede to Apple iPhone partnership demands. Several operators went as far as to say they 'will never offer the iPhone.' In the US, Verizon reportedly passed on the device, and AT&T is rumored to have engaged in a revenue-sharing deal that includes monthly payments to Cupertino." In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

Comments

haha

[deathtopaulw]

if the iphone does as good as everyone says it might, they'll shut up and get on board I'm sure
"I don't want to make money"

Re:haha

[Simon80]

This device is far more deserving of any such hype. It has bluetooth, a GPS receiver, wifi, twice as many pixels on its touchscreen, and it runs on an entirely free platform (which is thus open for third party devevlopment). All of this for $350, with no service contract.

Re:haha

[ktappe]

Openmoko seems to be more of a standard than an actual, purchasable device. How about if we compare apples to apples; vaporware should treated as such.

Re:haha

[desenz]

I'm not sure if its fair to call it vapor just yet. They're aiming for a full release in september(At least I think that was the last word on the subject). I think they've even shipped some developper units, albeit with some bugs in the hardware still(Short battery life was the problem, I think).

So, when september comes and goes without an openmoko release, it'll be vapor. I'm still hopeful, and maybe thats clouding my judgement on the subject... but wouldn't it be neat to have a phone like that?

Re:haha

[Simon80]

Duke Nukem Forever is vaporware. Though it is late, the Neo1973 is certainly not vaporware. See http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/06/15/

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

This device is far more deserving of any such hype.

Because its nothing but hype? The iPhone is a real product being manufactured, it has major corporations (real ones that have made significant monetary investment in promoting it) backing its launch. It will appear in about a week's time.

Its embarrassing how the Linux fanbois keep posting about a device that is not going to be available to purchase in the near future (if at all?) and trying to position it as a competitor to the iPhone. The only thing the OpenMoko is competing with is the Phantom game console.

Re:haha

[Mark Bowness]

I really like that devide too, anything that is open source is always interestin but that does look good. I do hope that the iphone finds a partner in Europe. I am dying to have a go of it! Mark Bowness www.peoplepassionplanet.com

Re:haha

[mjjw]

As I'm not from the US - can someone please explain to me why Apple could not sell the device without sim-locking through its stores out there?

Re:haha

[Hal_Porter]

gnumonks? gnu MONKS? Jesus Christ.

Re:haha

[Simon80]

For St. Ignucious' sake!

Re:haha

[LKM]

Until it's more than a bunch of web sites, it's vaporware.

Re:haha

[wootest]

Because the US mobile phone market is completely wack. Coverage sucks and is highly varying and there are competing standards. Not competing carriers, competing *standards*. GSM and CDMA.

They could sell it without SIM locking, and by Bob I hope they do it in Europe, but you'd only ever reach half of the market. My guess is that it's least suspicious to just do it the way things are usually done in the US - just tie it to a carrier. Nevermind the free market and stuff like that. ;)

Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

...or, they don't need to.

And before anyone says that we "don't know" whether the iPhone has a user-accessible SIM tray, yes, we do.

And yes, iPhone will work on any GSM carrier; that's the whole purpose of standards like GSM, and iPhone is a GSM phone. Network-specific functionality (such as visual voicemail) will not work, but the phone and basic voicemail functionality, data functionality, etc., will absolutely work.

When Apple is ready to launch iPhone in Europe - it has previously said Q4 2007 - I have no doubt they'll be launching it, whether it's with one partner or multiple, or Apple makes some compromises to make a deal happen.

I also take issue with the article's claim, regurgitated in the summary, that selling iPhone without a simlock is "not an option" in the US. Several phone manufacturers

And before anyone says that the iPhone is subsidized, therefore it must be a million dollars without a contract, you're wrong. Even though a two year contract with AT&T is required for iPhone in the US, the iPhone is not subsidized - the price is what it is.

And mobile operators calling Apple arrogant? How amusing. Also, I have another idea: how about people stop predicting the doom of the iPhone before it's even out yet?

Re:Answer: yes

[puto]

Dave,

You are an admited Apple flag waver, and even have close ties to Apple. And I will admit apple has some great products, and some not so great ones. I am not a fan boy either way.

But in al honesty, if it is released without 3g at first, do you think it was a wise move, or does it mean it is something they are tooling up to.

It is cheaper perhaps to make a cheap gsm phone. But cost subsidized or no, 400-500 dollars without 3g is a big pill to swallow.

I know Jobs is banking on the Apple fan base to move and buy it, and then buy the 3g release months later, but honestly, this is business, not about the consumer.

Your opinion would be appreciated.

The phone is not subsidized is cause steve wants a share of the profits. I am former Cingular employee, and still have pretty deep ties. Apple has been arrogant on the Iphone front.

And I worked for the company for Ichat, that apple bought the name from. Long before I anything.

Puto

Re:Answer: yes

[dwater]

> And before anyone says that the iPhone is subsidized,
> therefore it must be a million dollars without a contract, you're wrong.
> Even though a two year contract with AT&T is required for iPhone in the US,
> the iPhone is not subsidized - the price is what it is.

My reading of the page is that the phone will not be subsidised *further* for their *employees* - ie there will not be any discount if you work for them and they have to pay the same as anyone else.

I do *not* read that as implying that the phone's price is not reduced in exchange for committing to a 2 year contract.

Did I miss something?

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

I know a lot of people think the lack of 3G is killer, but 3G doesn't cover much of the nation yet. Granted, they have coverage in many major metro areas, but I don't think it's broad enough yet. Thus, Apple probably felt like it was acceptable to not do 3G at the beginning. In fact, there may have been multiple reasons: there may be a different data package for iPhone, and AT&T might not mind "testing the waters" a bit. The inclusion of WiFi also obviates the need for 3G coverage for many people. Personally, I live in a city that probably won't have 3G coverage from AT&T for a long time, so I, like many others, couldn't even get it if we wanted. I disagree with people who think everything is about planned obsolescence, and that this is a screw-job on consumers designed to gip early adopters and force people to buy new phones when a 3G-capable iPhone becomes available. While I'm sure Apple won't shed any tears if people buy new iPhones, I highly doubt that was even a marginal reason for 3G's omission in the first generation.

So, in summary: would it be cool if the first gen iPjone had 3G? Of course. But with WiFi and considering the relatively limited AT&T 3G coverage in the US for the time being, I don't see it as the massive problem some others do. I don't think it will negatively impact the majority of iPhone early adopters, and those who feel they need 3G can certainly wait

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

No. Yes, this is an "employee Q&A", but this does not mean that the phone just isn't "further" subsidized for "employees" - I don't even know how you get that. It means the iPhone is not subsidized, period. The only thing the words subsidy and subsidized even refer to in the wireless industry is price reductions in exchange for contracts, not for employee discounts. The entire Q&A is for employees dealing with customers, customer questions, and AT&T's direction for iPhone, not for employee purchase issues for iPhone. That's why it also says an existing AT&T customer can purchase iPhone for the same price as a new customer: the iPhone isn't subsidized.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a lot of people think the lack of 3G is killer, but 3G doesn't cover much of the nation yet.

We're talking about the European market, where 3G is practically universal and wifi is relatively rare. It might not hurt Apple in the USA, where things are different, but it's a killer in Europe.

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

Well, I assumed the original poster was asking about the US, and that's what I'm talking about, since that's where I live. In Europe, it might be a big(ger) deal. But it's not even launching in Europe until Q4, which, knowing Apple, means December 31, 2007 - still a half a year out. And there's nothing to say there can't be a newer iPhone featuring 3G pretty soon thereafter. In the meantime, the customers who aren't impacted by the lack of 3G can still purchase it; others certainly don't need to.

Re:Answer: yes

[aiken_d]

Cool. So Apple is targeting consumers who are outside of major urban areas, and isn't so interested in people who live in NY, SF, Seattle, Dallas, etc. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but at least it's a viable theory.

Now will you explain why you don't want MMS or GPS either? The way I see it, the iPhone is basically a modern iPod duct taped to a state of the art cell phone from 2004.

-b

Re:Answer: yes

[Moridineas]

but 3G doesn't cover much of the nation yet Is that REALLY true? Between Alltell/Sprint and Verizon, it seems that a lot--most?--of the country is covered. Sprint/Alltell claim to cover like 200million with RevA, though I have NO idea how accurate that is. I do know that in the past, I've had very good luck with Verizon's evdo in some surprising places.

So I guess att's 3G may not be very good, but it seems like 3g evdo is not bad..

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

Cool. So Apple is targeting consumers who are outside of major urban areas, and isn't so interested in people who live in NY, SF, Seattle, Dallas, etc. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but at least it's a viable theory.

1. I didn't say that.

2. Your statement ignores the fact that massive numbers of people are in fact outside of 3G coverage.

3. Large numbers of people in major metro areas will still purchase iPhone, and WiFi will also mitigate the need for 3G for a lot of people. Those who really need 3G in a handheld device don't have to get an iPhone.

4. Obviously, future generations of iPhone will have added functionality. Apple has already said 3G is coming in the future.

Now will you explain why you don't want MMS or GPS either?

1. I never use MMS, and all the people saying that MMS is mandatory and "everyone uses it" are high, because I have never used it, and no one I know uses it. And this is on a major university campus. So that doesn't impact me at all. Also, I'd use email or iPhoto for all photo management from an iPhone.

2. I wish it did have GPS. It doesn't. I guess I get to weigh the pros vs. cons when making a purchasing decision? My current phone (Palm Treo 700p) doesn't have GPS either, nor do many PDA phones. Should we get upset about all of those, too? Why don't those have GPS?

The way I see it, the iPhone is basically a modern iPod duct taped to a state of the art cell phone from 2004.

Ignoring the ignorance of your comment, I'd just say, "Good thing buying one isn't mandatory, then." No one's forcing you to buy one.

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

I'm talking about AT&T's 3G coverage, which is the only thing that matters in the US, since that's the only network on which you can use an iPhone in the US.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

the customers who aren't impacted by the lack of 3G

Please don't speak like a marketroid.

Re:Answer: yes

[Simon Garlick]

American mobile-phone technology is five, maybe seven years behind Europe and Asia. Features which are acceptable in the USA (e.g., EDGE, simlocks, contract-locked Wi-fi, etc) are so archaic as to provoke spontaneous laughter when described to non-US mobile users. Just look at the terminology -- fully half* the phone users outside the USA would have no idea what a "cellular" phone is. It's a mobile phone. Mobile across networks, user SIMS, and national borders.

The simple fact that the parent post asks rhetorically "would it be cool if the first-gen Iphone had 3G?" amazes me. Jesus, is it still 2002 in the USA or something? If Apple takes that attitude to Europe it'll get laughed at. And it is.

* figure invented on the spot

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

An existing customer can buy an iPhone + 2 year contract for the same price as a new customer can buy an iPhone + 2 year contract. There's also speculation that the apple/cingular/att deal involves revenue sharing with Apple. One way or another, it's subsidized.

Re:Answer: yes

[tzanger]

nd yes, iPhone will work on any GSM carrier; that's the whole purpose of standards like GSM, and iPhone is a GSM phone.

While I wish this were true, if GSM standards demanded that phones worked on any GSM network, why are things like simlocking coming out which create phones which are locked to a specific carrier, just like CDMA?

I believe that GSM network owners hate that their phones will work anywhere, and that is why they're pushing for the capability to lock phones to their networks like what can be done with CDMA.

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

American mobile-phone technology is five, maybe seven years behind Europe and Asia.

This is due in large part to geographic size, and the nature of the marketplace as mobile telephone services were rolled out in the United States.

Large metropolitan areas have coverage more or less on par

Features which are acceptable in the USA (e.g., EDGE,

It's not tht EDGE is "acceptable"; it's that it's what most of the coverage on AT&T's network actually is. And a large part of it, believe it or not, is economies of pure geographic size. AT&T does have a lot of 3G coverage in metro areas, and CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon have even broader 3G coverage.

simlocks,

The US isn't the only place that does carrier SIM locking, though I'll admit it's definitely standard practice for US carriers. However, manufacturers do sell unlocked phones in the US (such as Palm), and carriers (inlcuding AT&T) will unlock phones for customers (permanently) for things like international travel and the use of prepaid SIMs.

contract-locked Wi-fi

There is no reason I can think of that you'd have to have a "contract" to use WiFi on iPhone. The stories going around implying this is the case are assuming because someone said you needed a contract to get an iPhone (and therefore use the iPhone's WiFi) that you must need a contract to use WiFi from a technical standpoint. That's garbage. What if the phone is out of AT&T (or any) coverage? The phone can't "know" whether it's on contract; do you actually believe the WiFi simply won't work? That's ridiculous. WiFi isn't "locked" to anything.

Since you need a two-year AT&T contract anyway, this is a moot point. But if you let the contract expire or pay a termination fee, WiFi won't just stop working.

etc) are so archaic as to provoke spontaneous laughter when described to non-US mobile users. Just look at the terminology -- fully half* the phone users outside the USA would have no idea what a "cellular" phone is.

This actually proves my point. This kind of technology (mobile telephones) was prevalent in the US long before it was anywhere else in the world.

It's a mobile phone. Mobile across networks, user SIMS, and national borders.

So is iPhone.

The simple fact that the parent post asks rhetorically "would it be cool if the first-gen Iphone had 3G?" amazes me. Jesus, is it still 2002 in the USA or something? If Apple takes that attitude to Europe it'll get laughed at. And it is.

To reiterate something I said in another post:

Large numbers of people in major metro areas will still purchase iPhone, and WiFi will also mitigate the need for 3G for a lot of people. Those who really need 3G in a handheld device don't have to get an iPhone.

Obviously, future generations of iPhone will have added functionality. Apple has already said 3G is coming in the future. Further iPhone is a half-year out for Europe, and it's not a foregone conclusion that today's iPhone specs MUST mean that 3G won't be there when iPhone ships for Europe, and even if it isn't we already know it's coming soon, because Apple specifically said so at the iPhone introduction in January. So if you NEED 3G, don't get the first gen iPhone. How hard is that?

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

While I wish this were true

This is true; I'm speaking of what is possible for an unlocked iPhone from a technical perspective. It can and will work on any GSM network.

if GSM standards demanded that phones worked on any GSM network, why are things like simlocking coming out which create phones which are locked to a specific carrier, just like CDMA?

I'm saying that a GSM phone in general can work on any GSM network, not that a locked phone will. And simlocking isn't "coming out"; it's been standard practice for many GSM carriers - and not just those in the US - for years. And most carriers WILL unlock phones for customers so that any SIM can be used for things like international travel and usage of prepaid SIMs. Also, several manufacturers sell unlocked GSM phones in the US, even though they're almost always a lot more expensive (because they don't have the carrier subsidy).

The discussion is about iPhone in Europe, and if Apple wants to sell iPhone unlocked, that's its business. Since it appears from the AT&T document I linked that iPhone also isn't subsidized, that means its price will also be the same or similar to the US price on AT&T.

I believe that GSM network owners hate that their phones will work anywhere, and that is why they're pushing for the capability to lock phones to their networks like what can be done with CDMA.

That may be the case, but carriers using simlocks is a completely different discussion from whether or not Apple can sell iPhone unlocked and able to work on any GSM carrier in Europe if it wishes (it can), and whether or not such an unlocked iPhone will work fine on any GSM carrier (it will - with the exception of specialty features like visual voicemail).

Re:Answer: yes

[Reaperducer]

fully half* the phone users outside the USA would have no idea what a "cellular" phone is. It's a mobile phone.

And 100% of people in Austria have no idea what a "mobile phone" is. They call it a "Handy."

What's your point?

Re:Answer: yes

[jsse]

And yes, iPhone will work on any GSM carrier; that's the whole purpose of standards like GSM, and iPhone is a GSM phone. Network-specific functionality (such as visual voicemail) will not work, but the phone and basic voicemail functionality, data functionality, etc., will absolutely work.
I believe you know much about the technical aspect of GSM, and yes GSM is a standard. However, that doesn't mean a GSM-compliant phone can connect to any mobile carriers without prior agreements.

For example, you cannot make a GSM-compliant phone and then plug your GSM SIM into it and talk. You simply couldn't connect to the carrier, they'd just reject to connect to your unrecognized mobile phone, unless you as a "mobile manufacturer" striked a deal with them in advance.

The mobile carriers must recognize your mobile phone for your GSM SIM to work, they won't let any other mobile from manufacturers without deals with them. That's one of the revenue sources of mobile carriers and you just can't refuse to comply.

They wrongs with the whole iPhone thing is that Jobs was rather new to this business and he shouldn't have push iPhone to the market prior to striking deals with mobile carriers. Since you've put iPhone into manufacturing, accepted orders and marketed it already, mobile carriers know you've little left to bargain on the table but to comply with their unfavourable terms of deals, like the nonesense about paying monthly bills. Apple has nothing to bargain at this stage but to accept them.

Apple will learn next time.

Re:Answer: yes

[daveschroeder]

If you can point out anything in my post that was incorrect, it would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Re:Answer: yes

[MrCrassic]

I agree very much with this statement. Maybe 3G is not so popular in the United States (we are diverting much of our bandwidth focus to the home computer, not mobile devices), 3G is becoming the de facto standard in Europe and Asia. It has been shown statistically that a lot of Internet activity coming from Europe alone was from mobile devices, and most, if not all, of the European mobile carriers have upgraded to 3G for this specific purpose.

I highly think that releasing any phone without this capability (or something just as lucrative) in that region is a bad idea. Then again, Apple can get surprisingly creative when it comes to their products, and anything with this amount of hype is due for some surprise.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

You, and everyone you know on a university campus has never used MMS? I find that hard to believe. Every time you send a picture message, you are utilizing the services of MMS. You may be a luddite, but everyone you know as well? Come on now!

Re:Answer: yes

[Emor dNilapasi]

For example, you cannot make a GSM-compliant phone and then plug your GSM SIM into it and talk. You simply couldn't connect to the carrier, they'd just reject to connect to your unrecognized mobile phone, unless you as a "mobile manufacturer" striked a deal with them in advance.

Sorry, that's just not so. I bought an unlocked Treo 650, stuck in my T-Mobile SIM (and T-Mobile does NOT offer the 650) and it Just Worked (tm) - like GSM is supposed to do.

Re:Answer: yes

[Fusen]

I see you take Jobs' use of referring to an iPhone be simply saying "people will buy iPhone". Why do you keep on missing out an before the word of this product?

Re:Answer: yes

[MsGeek]

For the past 5 years, I have been using an Ericsson r520m phone on T-Mobile. The r520m never even came out in the US, it was an Euro-only model. Yet it worked happily on the T-Mobile/Cingular (yes, they share infrastructure in California) network.

I moved to a Motorola v330 because I wanted to sync my phone information with my MacBook. I could never get the bluetooth on the MacBook to see the r520m's rudimentary implementation of bluetooth. (It was the proof-of-concept phone, dontcha know!) The v330 is cheap now on eBay, and it's cheaper still to buy one still locked to T-Mobile rather than an unlocked one. So yeah, now I have a 2004 model phone, in 2007. I'm cool with it, though. Yes, the camera sucks, but that's why I have a separate camera.

I figure by the time the Moto gives out, there will be unlocked iPhones on eBay for me to buy, and happily use with my T-Mobile service. GSM: the lingua franca of mobile phones. Gotta love it.

Re:Answer: yes

[jsse]

[quote]Sorry, that's just not so. I bought an unlocked Treo 650, stuck in my T-Mobile SIM (and T-Mobile does NOT offer the 650) and it Just Worked (tm) - like GSM is supposed to do.[/quote]
So...you made that Treo 650 yourself?

Or, Palm has already made deals with major mobile carriers prior to manufacture Treo 650?

You mixed up customer-level locking and mobile-level locking. The latter is done by manufacturers to register a unique identifier of a particular model of mobile phone with major mobile carriers.

In your case, major mobile carriers has already recognized 'Treo 650', the locking you're talking about is just consumer-level restriction.

I don't know about T-Mobile, but Palm doesn't has to strike deal directly with T-Mobile in order to get connected. The deal sometime are in form of transferrable agreements among mobile-carriers in the same area. It looks like Apple has to strike individual deals with each area in the country, but in fact it's not. Apple only has to strike deal with major carriers, and the carriers have their inter-connection agreements to let iPhone thru. I may not get into too much details into this.

Re:Answer: yes

[digitalchinky]

>>> This is due in large part to geographic size, and the nature of the marketplace as mobile telephone services were rolled out in the United States.

No, it isn't. Take a look at how the service providers hack away and restrict firmware on any remotely modern handset. Restricting things like wifi, bluetooth, file transfers over cable, hell, probably even infra-red, this has absolutely nothing to do with services that were rolled out in the past. It has everything to do with making more money from existing infrastructure.

Take a look at how many 'billions' of dollars the telco's were able to cough up when buying spectrum. The limitations are fully artificial. The US is indeed lagging several years behind most other countries when it comes to mobile communications. Here in the Philippines the entire country is covered with all the latest little GSM acronyms. A country which you US types have a tendency to refer to as '3rd world' There might be the odd bit of corruption here (sarcasm), but it is most definitely a country with 1st world amenities and technology throughout.

Re:Answer: yes

[rdoger6424]

and my cell phone could have *no* data connectivity whatsoever! All I need to do is get out of coverage! Whatever shall I do?

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

what the hell are you talking about?

Please don't talk like a moron that lives in his parents' basement.

Re:Answer: yes

[joto]

fully half* the phone users outside the USA would have no idea what a "cellular" phone is. It's a mobile phone.

And 100% of people in Austria have no idea what a "mobile phone" is. They call it a "Handy."

Yeah, and most people I know, just call it a "phone". There are cases where a landline phone is acceptable, but mostly, it is viewed as an archaic technology that can only be used for two-way voice communication, and only when you are near it. In other words, about as hip as telex, CB-radios, or snail-mail.

Re:Answer: yes

[Angostura]

Really, I thought that 3G was basically a flop in the UK so far, and that after 3 initially tried to tout the benefits of fast data: 'woo football highlights and movie trailers on your phone' they basically had to give up and resort to 'woo really cheap phone calls'.

Re:Answer: yes

[mr_matticus]

Yeah, you missed something. This is a training/reference document, not an internal sales bulletin. As you can see by reading the document (or hell, even the excerpts), these are the answers to questions that customers would be asking, providing an official answer for sales representatives to use. iPhone hardware is not subsidized by AT&T because Apple wouldn't let them. Whether that is Apple arrogance or a brilliant attempt to expose cell phone pricing scams remains to be seen.

My fear is that the plan price will be comparable to any other data device, but without the benefit of a portion of that monthly bill being sent back to the manufacturer to pay the artificially low price of the handsets.

Re:Answer: yes

[JimboUru]

I believe you. Im very much looking forward to buying one, when the iPhone goes on sale in europe.

Re:Answer: yes

[BasilBrush]

Complete bluff from start to finish. These is no such phone model type blocking on GSM. If a particular phone hasn't worked for you with a valid SIM, it's because that particular phone is locked to another network. NOT that the phone type is rejected as being unknown.

Re:Answer: yes

[matthew.thompson]

Tell that to T-Mobile. They're pushing their Web'n'Walk internet service at the moment - for just a few pounds extra you can get downloads at over 1Mbps on a compatible device and a 1Gb data transfer limit - way more than rival networks are offering.

3G is not a flop but has not taken off in as fast a fashion as the huge license fees hinted - as users demand access to online content from any location it's becoming more and more a requested feature.

Re:Answer: yes

[jacksonj04]

It won't take off in the EU without solid 3G support. It's now quite difficult (at least in the UK, and I believe across most of the rest of Europe) to find a carrier which doesn't support 3G.

Re:Answer: yes

[jonbryce]

HP sell a smartphone without a simlock in Europe for about £400 ($800). It isn't as popular as HTC or Blackberry, but presumably they do sell enough to make it worthwhile.

Re:Answer: yes

[DrXym]

When Apple is ready to launch iPhone in Europe - it has previously said Q4 2007 - I have no doubt they'll be launching it, whether it's with one partner or multiple, or Apple makes some compromises to make a deal happen.

The problem for Apple is carrier or not, it costs the ludicrous $499 / $599 + contract of the AT&T deal. That is one expensive phone. EU carriers offer most of their contract handsets FOR FREE depending on the price plan you choose. Even if you pay some money because of your plan, you'd be hard pressed to find a phone that costs more than 300. It would be hard to justify an iPhone in any circumstances when you could buy an excellent top of the line from any other maker and any tariff and still have money left over for an 80Gb iPod. The iPhone is going to enjoy a life of sitting on warehouse shelves unless it becomes substantially cheaper.

Re:Answer: yes

[Ilgaz]

European carriers spent billions to enable 3G on their networks and there are many working, real life applications running thanks to 3G. Asia? They are testing 3.5G and 4G

This is the device iPhone will be racing with:
http://europe.nokia.com/phones/n95

The massive problem is money. Some network offered services as paid movies, audio is bearable thanks to 3G bandwidth speeds. People having a good flat rate contract already listens to their home hosted music (including iTunes) live on road. Of course it needs fast speed (3G), an actual application framework (Flash or Symbian etc) and an OS which ALLOWS you to install third party applications.

Now think why iPhone misses those specs :)

Re:Answer: yes

[jsse]

Complete bluff from start to finish. These is no such phone model type blocking on GSM. If a particular phone hasn't worked for you with a valid SIM, it's because that particular phone is locked to another network. NOT that the phone type is rejected as being unknown.
The phone and sim locking to a particular network is customer-level restriction, and that's something mobile manufacturers like Apple doesn't care about; while I'm talking about mobile-level locking which is dealing with mobile manufacturers not individual customer or phone.

Call it bluff and tell that to Apple, go go. Jobs would really thank you for your great discover that could save him billions of useless deals that he could do without. In return he'd give you at least millions for your big help. XD

Re:Answer: yes

[pafrusurewa]

You mixed up customer-level locking and mobile-level locking. The latter is done by manufacturers to register a unique identifier of a particular model of mobile phone with major mobile carriers.

There are too many local discount cell phone producers that make phones that work all over the world for that to be even remotely true. Please provide sources.

Re:Answer: yes

[Darth]

Here in the Philippines the entire country is covered with all the latest little GSM acronyms. A country which you US types have a tendency to refer to as '3rd world' There might be the odd bit of corruption here (sarcasm), but it is most definitely a country with 1st world amenities and technology throughout.

The Philippines cover 115,124 sq mi and have a population of about 88,700,000 people.
The U.S. covers 3,537,438 sq mi and has a population of about 301,139,947 people.
Texas by itself covers 261,797 sq mi and has a population of about 23,507,783 people.

That gives the Pilippines a population density of about 770.47 people /sq mi,
the U.S. a population density of about 85.13 people / sq mi,
and Texas a population density of about 89.79 people / sq mi.

It isn't really a valid comparison to use the GSM penetration of a small country with a high population density as evidence that the geographic size of a country almost 31 times larger and with a much lower population density doesn't have an effect on the penetration of GSM there.
It is vastly more expensive and complicated to roll out infrastructure for a nationwide service in the U.S. than in the Philippines in that respect.

That isn't to say that telephony companies in the U.S. don't artificially restrict new technologies to maximize their profits and minimize their costs. They do and they suck, but the size of the U.S. has a big impact on the costs they are trying to avoid by ignoring those technologies.

Re:Answer: yes

[jsse]

There are too many local discount cell phone producers that make phones that work all over the world for that to be even remotely true. Please provide sources. You really tried that around the world, or just a claim?

The news itself is the source. What bother Apple so much for deals that you believe they could be done without?

Re:Answer: yes

[pafrusurewa]

You really tried that around the world, or just a claim?

Yes, I have actually been to dozens of countries an all continents with phones that are virtually unknown in other countries and guess what, it just worked. I have also been to countries whose (monopolistic) telcos don't have roaming agreements with other (international) carriers and guess what, once I popped in a locally-bought prepaid SIM card is just worked(TM).

So, would you please be kind enough to provide authoritative sources for your statement that telcos "won't let any other mobile from manufacturers without deals with them"? Thanks in advance.

Re:Answer: yes

[adinu79]

This actually proves my point. This kind of technology (mobile telephones) was prevalent in the US long before it was anywhere else in the world.

Actually, while Motorola and AT&T invented the Cellular telephony technology, your FCC kept the technology from being implemented for a crapload of time. It took a phone call from Ronald Reagan to take them out of their eternal sleep. Meanwhile, Japan and Northern Europe already had implemented their own cellular networks.

Please, believe me, the mobile phones around in Europe would kick the iPhone's ass. Go to Finland for example and show your shiny iPhone to a person there and they'll ask you a few things:

1. Does it have 3G
2. Does it have a Card Slot so I can expand it's memory?
3. Can you create REAL applications that will run on it?
4. Does it have GPS?
5. Can you change the damn battery when (not if, but WHEN) its life is over?

What exactly does your beloved iPhone do? besides allowing me to touch a large screen with two fingers at the same time? Everything else is technology that was available in mainstream Mobile Phones 3 years ago.
As everyone knows you can't answer yes to any of the above questions. So at that point, the Finnish guy will take out his shiny N-Series Nokia Smartphone (with a REAL Operating System, with REAL applications, a REAL SDK and a lot of freedon to offer) and tell you to go stick your iPhone where the sun don't shine, because it's the only thing he would think about doing with it.

In it's current state, the iPhone cannot succeed in Europe, and it's not about the price, because it's a normal price for a Smartphone. The only problem is that the iPhone IS NOT A SMARTPHONE, and if Apple continue to not look at what the established mobile phone businesses are doing IT WILL NEVER BE ONE.

Re:Answer: yes

[walt-sjc]

On the other hand, you could offer 3G service in every town with a population greater than 2000 in the US because the population density allows it. In the US however, it's rare to have 3G coverage in cities smaller than 100K. I don't expect 3G coverage in the middle of nowhere. I do in population centers with greater than 2K people though.

Re:Answer: yes

[remmelt]

Wait, there are simtrayless phones in the states? Really? I didn't even know something like that existed... How do you switch operators?

Re:Answer: yes

[LKM]

Please provide references for your "carriers are locking out cell phones unless the manufacturers pay them" theory. Sounds like a moronic conspiracy theory to me.

Re:Answer: yes

[kevinbr]

Please take into account that you are using an average density, Recalculate based upon the fact that the majority of Americans now live in an Urban setting. Also in any country , they plan carefully radio coverage NOT to include very remote places with no traffic.

So your example does not have a huge amount of validity. It is far to simplistic.

The real issue is a state of mind, Americans do not WANT mobiles and features the same way Europeans do.

Re:Answer: yes

[kevinbr]

I work in Europe these last 7 years in the Mobile Portal Space, and I have never seen anyone try to lock out a phone at the network level. Once it has a valid SIM.....it works. We have NO idea what phones are out there, and if mobile operators were doing this, they would lock out their own customers, because marketing never talks to the network guys, they just do stuff. In any case all operators sell SIM only contract.......so contractually how would we explain to them that we are locking THEIR phone out. Governments and the GSM association validate phones. Mobile Operators assume phones are legal and will work.

I am racking my brains and too lazy to troll via the standards, but I SUSPECT that even f there is a part of the GSM spec to validate a certain phone model it is never used.

So in your wisdom specify your source for this ( I have worked for Vodafone Global, Orange Global, Swisscom, BT Cellnet H3G etc etc etc)

In the Portal space, via a WAP gateway, we can reject this or that model of phone if we want. The theory of Vodafone Live is that only specific handsets can use the service, but some of the OpCo's let any handset in not just Vodfaone Live approved handsets.

A strong smell of bullshit emanates.

Re:Answer: yes

[TheRaven64]

I don't know what you mean by 'the country,' but since TFA is about Europe, I'll give you an overview of 3G coverage in the UK. My phone gets a good UTMS signal in most places, but out in the countryside it has to fall back to GPRS. No UK operator has an EDGE network, to my knowledge, so the iPhone would be as fast as my current (18-month-old) phone when it has to fall back to being slow.

Re:Answer: yes

[kevinbr]

Everyone might have 3G, but how many customers are on it? Vodafone globally has 100+ million customers, but I doubt that more than 3 % have a 3G contract and use it, 3G is still a niche and not mainstream. UNtil operators launch realistic data plans, customers are not going to bite ( the joys of having received 1000+ euro phone bills for roaming data charges - no thanks,,,,,)

Re:Answer: yes

[TheRaven64]

Here in the UK, SIM-locking is only permitted for a subsidised phone, and only for the duration of the contract. When the contract expires, the carrier is legally obliged to unlock the phone for you. People often don't bother, because after a contract period (12-18 months, typically) it's not that uncommon to want to upgrade a phone.

Re:Answer: yes

[jamar0303]

China is the exception. It's 2007 here and 1xRTT is *still* the fastest mobile data network we have here. I'm waiting for the deployment for WCDMA, but at least I'm confident that when it comes here, it'll be the same as Japan/Europe, unlike the US (stupid US, always going against the grain- the FCC just *had* to put GSM in 1900/850 instead of the more standard 1800MHz/900MHz which means that the WCDMA uplink has to be placed somewhere incompatible; yes, I know about the cordless phones, but the US is switching to digital TV from analog and offering compensation to those affected, and the same could have been done with cordless).

Re:Answer: yes

[evilbessie]

Yes the pesky Europeans would have a field day if it didn't work like that.

Re:Answer: yes

[Lord of the Wazz]

Don't know about elsewhere but in the UK you don't have a specific 3G contract. Data use is data use, regardless of whether it's 3G or GPRS. If 3G is available you'll get 3G speeds; if not you'll drop back to GPRS.

Re:Answer: yes

[jamar0303]

Pity Web'n'Walk is Europe-only. T-Mobile USA has data charges that I would consider unreasonable. Of course, we could see it too with the introduction of 3G to the States.

Re:Answer: yes

[jamar0303]

I don't believe that any of the Chinese knockoff-phone manufacturers ever struck a deal with T-Mobile or Cingular, but they work there anyway (the tri-band ones, anyway). I used one for a while, and got quite a few LOLs in the process (knockoff N95 FTW).

Re:Answer: yes

[jacksonj04]

Generally if you have a 3G capable handset it will use 3G on your existing contract as its generic data carrier for anything packet based. If you're not in a 3G coverage area it falls back to GPRS. 3G is not a 'niche', it's the preferred carrier for any capable handset.

Re:Answer: yes

[trenien]

Here in France mobiles can only be simlocked when they're subsidised with a contract, and the carrier has to unlock them if the owner asks it after six month.

And just to be clear about that, we're not talking about lots of red tapes with triplicates and so on.

You only have to get your phone id (dial #06#) and call your provider (free call if your contract is still valid) to have it unlocked within the next 5 minutes.

Re:Answer: yes

[rekoil]

It also doesn't help that we have three different mobile protocols in use in the US - AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, Verizon and Sprint use CDMA, and Nextel (part of Sprint) uses IDEN. In EU all phones are GSM and roaming agreements are pervasive, which means that if one carrier has a radio covering a given location , any other carrier can serve customers from that tower. In the US, you need three radios minimum, and even then it's not guaranteed that roaming agreements are in place, which means you have five radios in some locations.

Re:Answer: yes

[BasilBrush]

I heard what you said the first time, but you are just plain wrong. There are lots of phones that have been network exclusives. And they all work on the other networks once they have been unlocked at the phone level. Exactly the same will happen with the iPhone.

Nor has Apple spent "billions in useless deals he could do without". Apple is only(!) a $20 billion revenue company, so that kind of money doesn't get handed over lightly. Jobs would be up in front of the SEC (again) if they had spent billions on something without informing the shareholders.

Typically the flow of money is the other way, in the form of subsidizing the price of the phones. There has been some denial that this phone is subsidized, but I'm not sure that's clear yet.

But what Apple definitely needed was a network partner so that the phones and SIMs (therefore contracts) could be sold as a package both in phone stores and the Apple stores.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Real people use the word "affected", not "impacted". And use capital letters at the start of sentences.

Re:Answer: yes

[Lars T.]

You may not be aware, but the iPhone has an email client - why the hell would it need a crutch like MMS? Because there's a handful of phones that can do MMS but not email? Talk about state of the art.

Re:Answer: yes

[jimicus]

I call bullshit.

Here's why:

When a mobile phone registers with the HLR on a GSM network, it sends a bunch of information. Most notably, however, it sends:

1. The IMEI. This is a serial number unique to the phone. To the best of my knowledge, there is no easy way of working out the specific model from it. Even if there was, it's quite possible to reprogram this on some older phones.

This can be blocked if a phone is reported stolen. Most European countries have agreements between all the operators within that country to honour a common blacklist of stolen phones, and there is talk of making such a blacklist worldwide. If you bought a phone off ebay and it didn't work on any network, this is likely what's happened.

2. The IMSI. This is the serial number held on the SIM card and the mobile network uses this to register the SIM card to a particular customers' account.

Not sure if the MSISDN is sent or even known by the SIM card. I'm pretty certain it can be set by the carrier as I recently had a SIM swap and they didn't have to touch the SIM card itself - just register its IMSI to my account and de-register the old one.

You will notice that nowhere in there has the phone had to say "Hi, I'm a Nokia 6310" or "Hi, I'm an Apple iPhone".

That's because it doesn't. The entire GSM standard (and it's abso-fscking-lutely huge) doesn't actually care much about the phone itself. It only cares about how the phone talks to the network and various aspects of how things are handled within the network itself.

Re:Answer: yes

[ContractualObligatio]

For example, you cannot make a GSM-compliant phone and then plug your GSM SIM into it and talk. You simply couldn't connect to the carrier, they'd just reject to connect to your unrecognized mobile phone, unless you as a "mobile manufacturer" striked a deal with them in advance.

I'm sorry to sound incredulous, but where on earth are you getting your information from? Or are consumers in the US market really that abused by the networks?

Over here in Europe - where everyone is on GSM - any SIM will work in any phone. An occassional minor exception that on occasion a network provider will provide a locked phone. For instance, Orange does this to their branded phones, and in fact has to provide some additional software to the phone to justify the lock to the regulatory bodies. And that lock is readily removed should you wish to do so.

Phones and cards get swapped around all the time. There's a healthy second hand market in mobiles (and crime rate, for that matter), while you can go into most any mobile retail store (or Virgin music store, and other examples), buy just a SIM, and insert it into the phone of your choice.

One way to get a new phone is to buy a pay-as-you-go phone on a network trying to break into the market, chuck out the SIM card (after using up the ~$20 credit on it, personally I used it to wind up some friends who had no idea who the number was), and then put your own back in. Popular amongst techies who might a company-provided phone (and hence SIM), but want a particular phone or feature that the freebie given them does not provide.

Re:Answer: yes

[funkyloki]

Actually, Apple is branding and locking the phone for use with Cingular/AT&T which means the phone will be SIM locked for said phone company in the US. There will not be an unlocked version available for at least the first year, because that is the deal that Apple made. It is theoretically possible to unlock a locked phone, but Cingular demands subscriber status be at least a year on the device before they will give you the unlock code. Third parties might be able to unlock it, but that won't be available right away, at least for a few months. So your statement that the iPhone will work with any GSM carrier is not entirely accurate, not out of the box anyways. The basic GSM service will work for any GSM carrier, but only after the SIM lock is removed.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in The Netherlands most carriers sell SIM-only subscriptions. You just get a SIM card and no phone. Over the years I have bought several unlocked phones from other carriers or from independant stores. I have never been in a situation where I couldn't use a phone with my SIM/subscription.

Re:Answer: yes

[Ajehals]

In the meantime, the customers who aren't impacted by the lack of 3G can still purchase it; others certainly don't need to.

That sentence starts with a capital letter.
Impacted is just as valid as affected, neither is exclusively language used by marketing.

If the GP had said something along the lines of;
"For the immediate future, the demographic who do not require the enabling benefits of third generation technologies will benefit from this product, those outside of this demographic will have their expectations met further down the feature road map...;
you may have had a point. Sadly your contribution appears to have been less than accurate and rather unhelpful.

Re:Answer: yes

[LadyLucky]

For example, you cannot make a GSM-compliant phone and then plug your GSM SIM into it and talk. You simply couldn't connect to the carrier, they'd just reject to connect to your unrecognized mobile phone, unless you as a "mobile manufacturer" striked a deal with them in advance.

That's just plain old wrong. Whenever I come to the US, I take my phone and SIM card with me. My phone roams between all the various GSM carriers - T-Mobile, Cingular and Rogers up in the Frozen Tundra. They have never heard of me, my phone, or my SIM card. The network simply checks with Vodafone NZ and determines that I can actually pay.... and then I am away. Takes a bit longer to get signal, but only a few seconds.

Re:Answer: yes

[RockDoctor]

But cost subsidized or no, 400-500 dollars without 3g is a big pill to swallow.

400~500 USD (300-375EUR ; 200~250 GBP) is a fairly substantial pill to swallow, with or without 3G (whatever that means? Does 3G have any functions that are actually useful? I've never had an advertising man succeed in selling it's advantages to me. But that's a different point.) A good few years ago, the 290 GBP for a Nokia Communicator was a big pill to swallow too, but on balance the features of the phone'puter seemed sufficient for me to justify it to myself. Worked for 6 months too, until changed (non-technical) circumstances made me change tack and go down the separate-phone-and-hand-held computer route.
Some people do swallow big pills. Your argument might just be enough to remind me to look at the iPhone, if it comes to Europe, isn't a complete lemon, and is still available next time I'm in the market for a new phone.

Re:Answer: yes

[It's the tripnaut!]

I would have to agree.

From all the posts and comments above, it seems quite clear to most of us not living in the US that the average US resident has very little exposure to the latest in mobile phones. They are not to be blamed, of course, as the providers that they are stuck with force them to use clunky phones with ridiculous features and UI's (as compared to the latest Samsung, Nokia and Sony Ericsson generation of mobile phones). I guess this is also the reason that so much hype has accompanied the iPhone's impending release. Truth be told, the iphone's features have been around in Asian and European mobile phones ever since 2003. Nowadays, a mobile phone in Asia and Europe would not be top notch without:

a multiple megapixel camera capable of 30fps videos of decent quality;
gps;
wifi;
bluetooth;
music and video players;
video conference capabilities, and other 3G goodness;
Symbian OS with tons of applications;
and at least a week of battery life.

The iphone, when stacked against the competition overseas, comes out as an overhyped and underfeatured product with an extravagant price, quite disappointing considering the pedigree of the company that made it.

Re:Answer: yes

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

American mobile-phone technology is five, maybe seven years behind Europe and Asia

That's just bullshit. 7 years ago, Europe didn't even have GPRS deployed, let alone UMTS, HSDPA, or any other 3G technology. 5 years ago, there were precisely zero operational UMTS networks in Europe.

Most of the country has CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Rev A deployed. It's similar in performance to the HSDPA networks deployed today. HSDPA was deployed in Europe in 2005 and 2006.

So much for being "5 years behind".

American mobile-phone technology is five, maybe seven years behind Europe and Asia. Features which are acceptable in the USA (e.g., EDGE, simlocks, contract-locked Wi-fi, etc) are so archaic as to provoke spontaneous laughter when described to non-US mobile users.

Meanwhile, we're laughing at snooty Europeans - all the way to the bank.

When, exactly, was the last time that you made 5000 minutes of calls for 40?
How much do you pay for unlimited data? I pay 4 per month.
How much does it cost you to roam in an area 3x the size of Western Europe? Because it doesn't cost me anything.
How much to you pay to talk to customer care? Because I don't pay anything.

You just don't get it, do you? You're so goddamn proud of your mobile service that you never bothered to notice how much you were being screwed.

fully half* the phone users outside the USA would have no idea what a "cellular" phone is

Good for them. And, what, precisely, does the fact that we have a different term for mobile phones have to do with ANYTHING?

They're called cellular phones to distinguish them from earlier non-cellular radiophones. Which, unlike in Europe, were at one point decently common among the wealthy here.

user SIMS

My phone is a quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with a user-accessable SIM. It's unlocked. I can use it on two national carriers in the US (AT&T/T-Mobile), several regional carriers, and I can use it anywhere else in the world with my regular SIM or with a local SIM.

EDGE

EDGE sucks. That's why AT&T/Cingular has a UMTS/HSDPA network. Unfortunately, the bands used for UMTS in Europe were used for military purposes in the US. So Cingular had only one option - deploy UMTS on 850/1900. That option unfortunately sucks, because UMTS requires 5MHz of bandwidth for the downlink and 5MHz for the uplink. Cingular has to juggle around their GSM services just to make enough room.

CDMA carriers were able to deploy EVDO much more easily because it fits into their existing spectrum better. This is because Qualcomm designed their technology to fit into the existing RF profile of US providers. The GSM consortium doesn't give a shit about the US, and they can rely on European laws which gurantee them fresh, new spectrum that's only licensed to run UMTS!

It doesn't work that way over here. The FCC doesn't dictate what technologies providers can use.

Fortunately, the FCC managed to free up some new spectrum for mobile phones by nuking the wireless cable service. The new spectrum is called AWS. It's not compatible with the European UMTS frequencies, which are still used by the military here. T-Mobile is deploying a UMTS/HSDPA network on AWS, and Cingular/AT&T is doing the same. It takes time.

Re:Answer: yes

[jkcity]

I work for orange in uk and as far as I know we lock all our phones to orange subsidized or not and we charge £20 for a code tounlcok even if outside your contract we also do this for all pay as go phones which technically we always claim as being non subsidized.

Re:Answer: yes

[Eisenstein]

How expensive will the iPhone unlocked, without the carrier footing a part of the bill and giving it away cheaper for a new contract, be? I can't see people paying 700-800 (taking the price of a unbound Nokia E61 and Samsung SGH i600 here, both with 3G/UMTS) in big numbers, especially without UMTS.

Re:Answer: yes

[Eisenstein]

That's just bullshit. 7 years ago, Europe didn't even have GPRS deployed, let alone UMTS, HSDPA, or any other 3G technology. 5 years ago, there were precisely zero operational UMTS networks in Europe. Most of the country has CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Rev A deployed. It's similar in performance to the HSDPA networks deployed today. HSDPA was deployed in Europe in 2005 and 2006. So much for being "5 years behind".

UMTS: The first UMTS network in Europe was launched by Manx Telecom on the Isle of Man (a large island in the Irish sea) in 2001. Manx Telecom is part of the O2 group, which is now a subsidiary of Telefonica. O2 used the island as a testbed for 3G technology.

The 3 service was launched in the UK and Italy in March 2003. To meet this early date, this was a soft-launch with limited coverage of the UK initially available.

In December 2003, Mobitel has launched UMTS in Slovenia. T-Mobile launched UMTS in Austria, and began trials in the UK and Germany. Also, in November 2005 the T-Mobile UMTS network in the Netherlands went live (however, this was not a commercial launch, but meant to meet regulatory requirements imposed upon the spectrum auction).

and so on...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umts#Europe

GPRS:

GPRS subscribers in Western Europe could top 40 million by the end of 2003 if operators learn WAP lessons, says Analysys. (Market Intelligence)

May, 2002

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1596/is_20 0205/ai_n7044975

Re:Answer: yes

[fishboy]

We all know that Jobs will make a shitload of money off the iPhone and so will the Cingular. Apple is bringing the whole PDA / phone / iPod / camera thing to the masses, which is substantial and loving of silvery new gadgetry, in addition to being immensely profitable. Anyone would kill for Apple's margins. Did you know that the Apple Stores, less than five years old, reached a billion in sales faster than any company in the history of commerce? That their stores are the most profitable in dollars per square foot than any in retailing anywhere? That several of their models, including the iMac and the iBook, are the best selling computers ever? People now have a way of combining their TV, their movies, their computer, their iPod, their camera, their phone all through a single vendor that proffers integrated products, ease of use, and price competitiveness.

Apple has a lot of profit leverage, and they exercise this through their product line, their capacity to deliver content, and their market share. They will negotiate with their gatekeeper status to a large pool of price-unconscious consumers that are willing to spend $400 bucks on an iPod just for music and spend money on their integrated, easy-to-use, computing platform. Apple has taken a gamble here to be sure, but a very savvy and profitable one. They protect the iPod market from mobile manufacturers, further the future iPod technology, and make a profit in a new market all at the same time. They will sell 10 million iPhones next year, and all of those new or existing customers will be drawn in to a neat little profit circle where their next purchase could very well contribute to Apple's bottom line either through direct purchasers or licensing. You will have to admit that Apple has parlayed the iPod into an incredibly stable media profit machine. They arguably have more control over the coming music industry than anybody else, and will be able to strike mutually profitable deals with any telco out there from what they've learned in far more complex negotiations. Apple needs deals with all the movie houses and the big five music companies, whereas they only need one or two telcos in each market-- they will be able to play the telcos off each other far more easily than Warner and EMI. Wait.

I think they know how to throw their share-halving weight around so that everyone makes a tidy sum.
It doesn't mean this version won't be the cube-- but it will change things and you can bet the sons and daughters of rev 1.0 will be nothing to sneeze at as money-printing machines for the telcos.

Re:Answer: yes

[Moochman]

Thanks for the tip, Mr. Almighty Coward Regulator of the English Language.

Re:Answer: yes

[Moochman]

Actually, most phones can do MMS but not e-mail. So basically Apple is locking iPhone users into sending photos only to other iPhone users, plus a handful of others who have true smartphones. I can't say I don't understand the logic behind it--give users *one way* to send pictures. The problem is that by that logic you might as well cut out the SMS functionality too, since e-mails are just as good for messaging people, right?

Re:Answer: yes

[kamochan]

So at that point, the Finnish guy will take out his shiny N-Series Nokia Smartphone (with a REAL Operating System, with REAL applications, a REAL SDK and a lot of freedon to offer) and tell you to go stick your iPhone where the sun don't shine, because it's the only thing he would think about doing with it.

Erhm... I'm a Finnish guy and I have been actually working with this tech. Sure, the Nokia smartphones have a lot of features -- but I'd ditch one in a heartbeat for a good user experience. And "REAL OS"... you must be joking, right? "REAL SDK"... hehheh... (= the sound of laughter typed in Finnish)

I actually recently did toss my 3G, big-screen E70 for a measly GPRS-only Sony-Ericsson K750i, with a superior user interface (where you don't have to wait for 2..30 seconds for a keypress to be followed with an action, which may also be a crash).

Yes, there is a market for the iPhone even in Finland, the Nokia country -- even if it was 2G-only, which I don't believe it will be once it hits these markets.

Re:Answer: yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you have no idea of how GSM works. Any GSM mobile you buy that isn't locked to an operator will work. If you have a free (unlocked) mobile you can buy any operator sim card on any EU country and it'll work. Of course you'll have to configure stuff like MMS and 3G access, servers username and passwords, but it'll work.
I don't have figures about 3G coverage but everywhere I get in the EU has 3G, I love video calling friends while I'm on vacations in... Turkey? Greece? Italy?

Ah! Yeah! You poor americans are way years back there, but we're no where close to the japanese, now that's mobile wonderland!

Re:Answer: yes

[Lars T.]

Actually, most phones can do MMS but not e-mail. So basically Apple is locking iPhone users into sending photos only to other iPhone users, plus a handful of others who have true smartphones. I can't say I don't understand the logic behind it--give users *one way* to send pictures. The problem is that by that logic you might as well cut out the SMS functionality too, since e-mails are just as good for messaging people, right? So because the iPhone has modern features and your's doesn't, the iPhone is state of the art of 2004. As for SMS - at least that is in almost all phones, while most phones don't have MMS.

Re:Answer: yes

[Dan Hayes]

Maybe most phones in the US, I don't know, but in the UK I've not seen a phone that doesn't do MMS (outside of specially designed ultra-simple ones) for several years and three phone upgrades. It's been standard for at least four years, and while the volume of MMS messages isn't close to that of SMS messages, just in the UK alone one million MMS messages are sent each day.

It's definitely an issue in Europe.

Re:Answer: yes

[Moochman]

It's pointless to continue this dicussion, especially since it's become clear you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. MMS is a standard. It's built into every single phone made by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and Motorola, as well as probably any other manufacturer you can name. Apple's the only one who DOESN'T have it.

Re:Answer: yes

[tzanger]

Here in France mobiles can only be simlocked when they're subsidised with a contract, and the carrier has to unlock them if the owner asks it after six month.

That is a straightforward, common-sense solution to the problem. No wonder it'll never catch on over on this side of the pond. :-(

Huh?

[thammoud]

In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

In the US, AT&T (Cingular) and T-Mobile are both GSM providers. Apple could have easily sold an unlocked phone to be used by those providers.

Re:Huh?

[daveschroeder]

In the US, AT&T (Cingular) and T-Mobile are both GSM providers. Apple could have easily sold an unlocked phone to be used by those providers.

I think they're just referring to the fact that this typically isn't done in the US, but they shouldn't imply this isn't possible, as manufacturers (such as Palm) already do sell unlocked GSM phones in the US.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love how these phone companies have beaten their anti-competitive garbage into the consciousness of the public such that people think it's normal and okay.

Re:Huh?

[MikeFM]

I'll not buy an iPhone until I can use it with a carrier other than AT&T. They are the most expensive major carrier and in all honesty they suck ass (I worked there for a while - they really are pretty much retarded). I'll probably want to wait for about the third version of the iPhone anyway as the current model is sure to come up short as any first generation product is prone to do.

Re:Huh?

[Eponymous Crowbar]

I don't think I could bring myself to buy the iPhone with a 2 year deal, assuming that also means we need to choose an expensive data plan and deal with other restrictions. I'd be happy to spend almost as much as an iPhone for a nice PDA/Phone combo, and I may still get it. But I don't think I can drop an additional $100/month for a fully loaded phone plan. At this point, I can only hope to import and unlocked phone somehow... or hope that AT&T offers a much better than anticipated price on the plan.

Re:Huh?

[rakslice]

Heh... slashdot has an editor without a clue? oh noes!

The only reason that a GSM-based phone model would be unavailable without a simlock is that the manufacturer (Apple in this case) refuses to distribute it except through service providers.

Re:Huh?

[PPH]

The only reason that a GSM-based phone model would be unavailable without a simlock is that the manufacturer (Apple in this case) refuses to distribute it except through service providers.

It would be more accurate to say "If Apple is pressured by the network providers to keep unlocked phones off the market".

As others have said, an unlocked GSM phone is an unlocked GSM phone. One little caveat here about European GSM, they use different frequency bands than the USA does. You have to have a 'Quad Band' GSM phone. The network operators would love to have the public believe that unlocked phones simply won't work on their system. Many Americans buy into this BS, very few Europeans do, as flipping providers is an honored custom (and the whole point behind the GSM/SIM architecture).

Many commodity phone manufacturers have cave in to the network operators demands to get their equipment on the store shelves, since this is how most phones are sold in the USA. I don't think Apple is in this position. The market is being driven by the iPhone, not the network.

Re:Huh?

[Reaperducer]

I'll not buy an iPhone until I can use it with a carrier other than AT&T.

Good for you for taking a stand. I'm sure Steve Jobs will be crying all the way to the bank.

Re:Huh?

[MikeFM]

I know - to many people will bend over and take it just to be the first on their block to have the newest toy. Says something about our society huh?

Re:Huh?

[tuxic]

Note, this is a painfully long explanation of my own cellphone using situation ...

I'm not screwed, either. The SMS tariff is the highest in the country at 14 per SMS on default, but there are solutions to solve that issue if I so wish. Rright now I leave it be, though, because I'm one of those FREAKS in peoples' eyes that don't do SMS more than three times per month or less, so it never adds up to anything more than the price of half a soda can. There are optional 30-day running sub contracts I can electronically sign up for directly from my mobile phone using the Planet 3 service if I one day need to. What you do is that you buy a pre-billed set of SMS messages at 30, 100 or 250 per month, depending on what you expect to use up. However, my high SMS tariff has to do with the fact that the prices have gone down drastically since the contract was written by the operator. Again, for SMS I don't care. My call pricing is explained below ...

I use Three in Sweden and have done so since May 2004 when they had only been on the market for one year in this country. I have a call plan on 500 minutes per month which I pay $42:50/month for. My contract has been updated & renewed a couple of times over the years, but my latest contract renewal has got a lock-in expiration date for November this year, an extension of 18 extra months I agreed upon volunteerly because I really wanted to lock myself in as much as possible. The reason: my contract has got some candy in it you don't find on new contracts anymore, because the Swedish cellphone user market changed and so the operator restructured their new offerings to target a new audience for a hopeful subscriber growth.

What I pay for is comfort. Comfort in knowing my bills will look almost the same every month regardless how much I call people in a given month. I have found myself to never talk on the phone more than the 8 hours I pay for in advance.

Summary of the Features:

* All calls within the Swedish Three UMTS network are without costs and fees (dubbed BetweenFriends(TM)) *
* All videophone calls within the Swedish Three UMTS network are without costs and fees (dubbed BetweenFriends(TM)) *
* 500 minutes per month, cirka 8 hours of talk (videocalls to other cell operators' networks are immensly expensive at $0.7 per minute)
* Voicemail service (standard) with the usual listening to messages
* Visual Video & Voice Mail service (pioneered by Three on May 5th, 2005 and it seems to be exclusive) **

* = they decided to remove these brilliant flatrate-capable features on new contracts, and so their biggest advantage among operators is now gone
** = It is not accessable from a phone menu. Instead you initiate a video call to your voice mail service and a get animated letters flying in on your screen telling you how many new voice and video messages you have got to listen at and view. Unfortunately no one has ever left me any video messages at all, only voice. Yeah, I know, my friends are low-tech "good enough"- thinking people, I have come to accept that as of late!

Oops, forgot to finish a sentence

[daveschroeder]

"I also take issue with the article's claim, regurgitated in the summary, that selling iPhone without a simlock is "not an option" in the US. Several phone manufacturers..."

should go on to read:

Several phone manufacturers offer unlocked GSM phones in the US that will work with any GSM carrier. There's no reason Apple couldn't do this anywhere, including Europe, and the US (after its rumored 5-year exclusive deal with AT&T is over).

I'm really curious about the price

[Ingerod]

If Apple can't find a European partner, and they decide to sell the iPhone without a subscription - what will the price be?

The only feature loss would be the browsable voicemail as far as I can tell.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[daveschroeder]

Even though a two year agreement is required with AT&T in the US, the iPhone is not subsidized, meaning that is the real price.

And you're correct: the only feature loss would be "visual voicemail", but "normal" voicemail functionality and all other phone features, as applicable, should absolutely work.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[dwater]

> the iPhone is not subsidized

That quote is far from clear, IMO. I read it to mean that it isn't subsidised *further* for AT&T employees, and it has no relevance for the market price.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[daveschroeder]

Wrong. "Subsidized" has only one meaning in the wireless industry, and it's not employee discount. More info.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[Rakshasa Taisab]

What is this about an "European partner"? Sound to me like Apple has some trouble in Britain or something, and then the author extrapolates from that to implying that it's an European-wide problem...

Almost every country in Europe has spawned more than one operator, most having been state sponsored monopolies in the past. Thus their problem would be the prefora of operators they'd need to make deals with to cover the whole of Europe.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[dwater]

Ah, yes, I guess that's a more sensible reading of it. I can't say I believe it though - it would seem to be too cheap.

Re:I'm really curious about the price

[trezor]

Why would you need to make a deal with operators in order to sell a phone?

In Europe the GSM marked is open. You buy a phone. You buy a service subscription. These two things are not related, unless you want a subsidized phone.

As for the topic itself... The only thing it shows is how the state of the US cellular market is years behind the rest of the world. And how people seem to think phone and service are related and connected in any way, apart from phones needing a network to work with.

Given the competition...

[garoo]

It would make sense for Apple to be cautious about their sales/after-sales care approach in the UK at least.

I say this as someone who bought a couple of upper-crust Nokias (price comparable to estimates of the iPhone's cost) a couple of years ago and had no end of problems. It isn't that the hardware sucked, though there were several design flaws, but it's not like Apple are immune from those. It wasn't even that the software sucked. It was the sheer level of bureaucratic incompetence related to every after-sales interaction. Guarantees that mysteriously lapse on the UK guarantee lookup system. Phones replaced by grey market alternatives shipped in from Saudi Arabia that mysteriously don't qualify under the warranty at all. It is almost entirely impossible to communicate with Nokia themselves. The 'Nokia Shop' system - the Nokia-branded vendor through which these things are bought - are actually Mobile Phones Direct and have no relationship with Nokia at all. And of course the operator from whom one bought the contract holds no apparent responsibility. All this is advantageous to them - call them and tell them your £450 phone has broken and they'll point out that it's just about time for you to renew your contract and, hey, you're eligible for a phone upgrade. It is not in their interest to support the one you've just spent eighteen months paying for.

If I were trying to sell an upmarket mobile phone, especially one as expensive as the iPhone is likely to be, I'd be desperately looking for a way to handle all this which wouldn't equate Apple with the open invitation to open a case with Trading Standards that is the UK mobile industry. For whatever reason, Apple currently have a fairly good name when it comes to expensive-but-neat gadgets. Nothing loses the customer's trust like trying to figure out who in the system of phone operators, retail outlets and repair centres is responsible for fixing a broken mobile.

If it's not obvious from the above I'm actually rather hoping that Apple do take some responsibility for this product; if they do I might be inclined to buy one just to give myself and Trading Standards a break. You know you've got a problem when you discover you've been put on Trading Standards' Christmas card list.

Re:Given the competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. I live in the UK, have had Nokia phones for years and I have absolutely no idea what you are on about.

Re:Given the competition...

[garoo]

Then you are lucky.

Seriously - I've only ever had Nokia phones and until three years ago I was extremely enthusiastic about them. However, the problem we've had with these phones is documented and occurs commonly. It wouldn't be a big issue if anybody was interested in providing customer support for the things, but frankly, they're not.

I still like their phones, though.

Re:Given the competition...

[jimicus]

I think that's as much a function of Nokia's engineering approach ("put the fancy new experimental features in the expensive phones few people buy, then iron them out for the cheaper phones which sell by the million") than anything else, and is not really how Apple tend to work.

The experience you discuss in sorting it out is just typical of UK customer service within the mobile phone industry. Just like their fixed-line counterparts, mobile phone networks are run by a bunch of arrogant tossers whose attitude is "We don't care. We don't have to. Everyone else is just as bloody awful so there's precious little point in you going elsewhere."

And the whole idea of the "service provider" - does that exist in the US? - whereby you have an operator who runs the network but they don't actually deal with the customer directly - the customer has to go through a service provider. Absolutely nuts. The only reason I can think of for it existing as a concept is to make the industry more complicated.

Re:Given the competition...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

The experience you discuss in sorting it out is just typical of UK customer service within the mobile phone industry. Just like their fixed-line counterparts, mobile phone networks are run by a bunch of arrogant tossers whose attitude is "We don't care. We don't have to. Everyone else is just as bloody awful so there's precious little point in you going elsewhere."

US mobile phone companies are frequently regarded as having horrible customer satisfaction. Personally, though, I don't see it. If your expectations are right, customer service is always friendly and helpful in my experience.

When you're within your contract, they have you and they know it. Once you're off-contract, they get a hell of a lot nicer.

And the whole idea of the "service provider" - does that exist in the US? - whereby you have an operator who runs the network but they don't actually deal with the customer directly

Not exactly. The closest thing we have is called an MVNO - mobile virtual network operator. They contract with one of the major providers (Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, AT&T/Cingular, or Verizon) to provide the network, but handle billing and other customer issues directly. MVNOs typically offer themed or otherwise differentiated service (prepaid service, low-cost no-roaming service, etc.).

Re:Given the competition...

[jimicus]

When you're within your contract, they have you and they know it. Once you're off-contract, they get a hell of a lot nicer.

Ah yes, that bit's the same. Frankly, it would make life a lot easier if they were open and honest enough to start each call with saying "OK, sir, I see you're still on contract. We don't care to look after you because you're paying us every month and there's nothing you can do about it, so go fuck yourself."

Not exactly. The closest thing we have is called an MVNO - mobile virtual network operator. They contract with one of the major providers (Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, AT&T/Cingular, or Verizon) to provide the network, but handle billing and other customer issues directly. MVNOs typically offer themed or otherwise differentiated service (prepaid service, low-cost no-roaming service, etc.).

Sounds almost identical, except generally "service providers" in the UK have zero leeway - they can only offer the tariffs that the network offers. Every once in a while a service provider will cut a deal with a network to offer some exclusive tariff, but it's very rare.

Generally they try and differentiate themselves by offering a better range of phones, flashier adverts or gimmicks like cashback.

Re:Given the competition...

[garoo]

As a possibly amusing postscript, I just heard that my 9500, which has been given to Nokia Service Centre no less than eight months ago for the Infamous Hinge Crack problem, was finally replaced by a refurbished model after seven or eight trips to and from the main Nokia Repair Centre in the UK.

I went to pick up said refurbished model at the service centre. The staff there (who are very good, by the way; the one great thing to come out of this whole mess is that I've found the definitive excellent mobile repair shop) unwrapped the replacement, opened the phone - and you probably wouldn't believe this if I told you, so here's photographic evidence (compare with stock photo).

Notice something missing? A certain lack of QWERTY? :-P

Bear in mind that Nokia are aware I've been waiting since November for this repair to be completed. They have accepted that the repair should be done under warranty, and that the phone's warranty is current. They have even released a bulletin stating that this sort of repair should be covered by warranty, because this problem occurs so frequently. They are aware that trading standards have been contacted on this issue. And yet they still send back this diamond-plated 'fuck you'.

As far as I am concerned, Apple will find it difficult not to eclipse the competition in terms of customer service :-)

The article is misinformed.

[Mr2001]

Here's the relevant quote from TFA:

If Apple decided to sell the iPhone directly to consumers, it would have to sell the devices without simlock, allowing the buyer to insert their own Sim card.

This is not an option for the US market because several providers do not use Sim cards, and because operators use different network standards that prevent the iPhone working on some networks. Hard to tell whether the author was confused or just wrong. All the GSM providers in the US use SIM cards, because that's how GSM works. Different operators do use different network standards (mainly CDMA), but GSM is GSM no matter who's providing it. There's nothing stopping Apple from selling the iPhone directly to consumers and saying "You need a SIM card to make this work, so go get one from Cingular, T-Mobile, or somewhere else."

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, I agree, that was an absolutely retarded statement (at least, to make without some sort of explanation or qualification) in TFA.

Apple could have made their product much more attractive to early-adopter buyers, and possibly even changed how cellphones are sold in the U.S., by selling it directly to consumers, unlocked. I know of a lot of people who are mildly intrigued by the iPhone -- enough that they'd at least consider it for their next phone, maybe even buy one if they had the option of returning it, if it doesn't meet the hype -- but aren't going to bend over and take it in the ass from AT&T in order to get one.

Not only is AT&T asking for the full price of the phone, they're going to demand that you lock yourself into a contract for 2 years. The hell with that; I know people who are AT&T users who wouldn't even re-contract if they got the iPhone for free. In addition to just being stuck with a carrier for a term of years, re-contracting also blows any good promotions you may have picked up in the past. It just makes the iPhone that much less attractive.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Movi]

>There's nothing stopping Apple

Yeah, sure. Technically nothing. However them beeing apple they wont release a product that doesnt work with all the functions advertised - they wont sell it unless for example they can't make it work with their visual voicemail, or merging calls (anyone care to tell me if the network operator needs a back-end for this to work, or is it done purely client-side?). Also, important to notice, not all EU countries have iTMS (Poland for example, which i am a citizen of). And it seems one needs a iTMS account to use an iPhone, thus making me royally screwed :(

Re:The article is misinformed.

[The One and Only]

And it seems one needs a iTMS account to use an iPhone

What the hell gave you that idea?

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Glytch]

It all depends on the case design. Apple is very fond of seamless cases (every ipod I've ever seen doesn't have an easily swappable battery) and everything I've heard about the iphone indicates it'll be the same. I doubt there'll be a way to change the US iphone sim card short of prying the case open with a pair of pliers, and maybe not even then. This could be what the rumored second iphone version is about, though; a slot to change the sim card for worldwide markets.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Eponymous Crowbar]

That was revealed at WWDC. But that info could be US-centric since that is the only market currently set to get the iPhone. Maybe the details would be different in other areas.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[leamanc]

What the hell gave you that idea? It's true.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Mr2001]

Well, there's this.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Reaperducer]

It's true, but who cares? What's the big deal?

Re:The article is misinformed.

[SeaFox]

...or merging calls (anyone care to tell me if the network operator needs a back-end for this to work, or is it done purely client-side?)

I'm failing to see how merging calls is anything different than 3-way calling on cell networks, I haven't looked up conference calling per se, but It seems like something the phone itself should be able to do without the carrier's help. The ease of use of the iPhone interface just makes it appear like it's something new. I sometimes inadvertently hung up on one caller while trying to juggle two active calls on phones in the past, because the menu options needed to put one call on hold and pick up the other were not easy to access.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[NMerriam]

I'm failing to see how merging calls is anything different than 3-way calling on cell networks

3-way calling is not "merging" anything, it's having an existing call and calling a third party. So yes, the network does have to add support for merging two existing calls into a single 3-way call. It's kind of amazing no cellular systems have supported this before now, it doesn't make any difference financially since they still get to bill for 2 calls simultaneously.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in USA there isn't any network supporting conference call. I don't know. But here, in Belgium, I can do conference call between up to 6 persons for years...

Re:The article is misinformed.

[jayratch]

Every Blackberry I've owned has been able to do this, and it's really simple.

When you take a call waiting, a menu comes up and it lets you "answer and hold current", "answer and drop current", or "ignore"

When you have two calls, it says "on hold: " and who/what number and "Active: " and who/what number.

You then push the "menu" button and select "Merge calls."

Maybe I'm just incredibly technical, but I fail to see how that is any less easy than the iPhone setup.

More importantly, I find it hard to believe that any of that is reliant on the subsidy lock. Which, by the way, is probably referred to by that term for some reason.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Guanix]

Merging calls is a standard feature of GSM. Every GSM phone I have owned can do it with all the GSM networks here in Denmark. I'm sure it's possible for the network to turn it off, charge extra for the service, or simply not bother to implement it in the first place. But the feature does not require special integration between a GSM phone and the network.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Ziwcam]

I find it amusing that you say "It's true" then quote a rumors site. Got a link to apple.com?

Re:The article is misinformed.

[NMerriam]

Good to know, I've owned many phones/smartphones from $30-600 across verizon, Sprint, and GSM providers (though obviously not a blackberry since we didn't target apps for them) and hadn't seen "merge" before, only conference calling. I don't know what any of this has to do with subsidy locking, since nobody brought it up.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[NMerriam]

Again, merging calls is completely different fromconference calling. Of course our systems have conference calling, I just had not seen any US carriers that supported merging existing calls (though the other replies say that blackberries and GSM support it, so it may just have been a limitation of handsets).

Re:The article is misinformed.

[NMerriam]

Good to know it's a feature of GSM, not sure if we just lacked carrier support or handset support (or carriers disablling it on handsets they sold for some reason) but it has never been a commonly available feature in the states.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Guanix]

Here's how it works on my Nokia N95 (and the Nokia phones I've used before that): When I am on a call, and have another call on hold, I hit the "Options" menu item and select "Conference".

I've tried conferencing 4 calls (with a total of 5 parties on the call). But I know that some networks limit this to 2 calls.

(If I call someone else while on a call, the phone automatically puts the original call on hold.)

Re:The article is misinformed.

[leamanc]

I find it amusing that you say "It's true" then quote a rumors site. Got a link to apple.com? Why, yes I do!.

Re:The article is misinformed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Conference calling/merging was a standard feature of every Motorola GSM phone I used in the US with Pac Bell Wireless, Cingular, and T-Mobile throughout the 1990s. It is because GSM is basically ISDN over wireless modem, and this is a feature of ISDN to control call routing. On that note, did you know that your GSM phone (when on) participates in forwarding incoming calls to voicemail by signalling the call routing to forward? That is also due to the ISDN infrastructure...

EU mobile operators "bemoan Apple's arrogance"...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and Apple bemoans EU mobile operators' arrogance.

GSM == VHS

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I know GSM is the old obsolete network, people are buying 3G phones in europe today, certainly in Scandinavia where I live, anal-cysts are saying a new highend GSM-only phone will sink like a stone. It's like offering the most tricked out VHS player, "evar!"

Maybe the RDF can cut through that, but I don't know, California is a long way off...

Re:GSM == VHS

[daveschroeder]

3G coverage isn't very broad in the US, except in some major metropolitan areas. See my other followup on this topic. Fortunately, if you need 3G, no one is forcing anyone to buy an iPhone. I find it funny that people are predicting iPhone's death months before it's due to even start shipping in Europe.

Re:GSM == VHS

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is about the EU, not US. Just read the title. HTH. HAND.

Re:GSM == VHS

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Clueless

GSM is the world standard. Your Verizon and Sprint are the only ones on the ancient obsolete analogue-hybrid network whereas the rest of the world went to 100% digital GSM which now includes 3G.

I have a MUCH more important question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares?

Re:I have a MUCH more important question...

[cyfer2000]

Wall street investors, Taiwan manufacturers, Chinese labors.

Doesn't matter How much they'd make

[Deliveranc3]

If people knew what their phones were capable of, what the cell companies are denying them, it'd be blood in the water.

Re:Doesn't matter How much they'd make

[jsebrech]

If people knew what their phones were capable of, what the cell companies are denying them, it'd be blood in the water.

I disagree. Normal (non-geek) people don't want or need all that extra functionality.

In my country (belgium), the phone companies aren't allowed to tie phones to the contract. There are no simlocked phones, and there are no feature-reduced phones. This has not caused a "boom" in people making use of advanced functionality. As an example, even though almost all phones support bluetooth/usb file transfer, most people buy their MP3 ringtones from a cell service instead of uploading them to the phone. Another example, almost all phones support IM via J2ME (either ebuddy mobile in opera mini, or some dedicated IM program), but they choose to pay 10 euro a month to the cell operator to get the exact same service in a slightly more user-friendly package.

This is partly due to a poor pricing model and due to lack of awareness, but mostly due to low usability of these features. File transfer is too difficult to set up. Mobile browsing/IM is too clumsy. This is where the iPhone might actually make a difference. I could see regular people actually using the browser on the iphone.

It'll be curious to see what sort of model apple adopts here. They can't offer exclusivity to a phone company, because the lawmaker forbids that. I wonder what sort of influence this will have on features like visual voicemail.

Re:Doesn't matter How much they'd make

[Deliveranc3]

Data plans to use VOIP?

Seperate service texting service?

There's some way you guys are in trouble?

Secret moral of the story:

[cgenman]

The US phone industry is incredibly warped with respect to the rest of the world, doing things that nobody else would put up with.

Why we put up with it is a mystery to me.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

The US phone industry is incredibly warped with respect to the rest of the world, doing things that nobody else would put up with.

Why we put up with it is a mystery to me.

Oh, really?

T-Mobile UK charges £20 (~$40) /mo for a £34 "allowance", good for up to 170 minutes (20p/min) or 340 text messages (10p each). You can make free calls on the weekend. There's an 18 month contract.

T-Mobile US charges the same $40 for 1000 minutes. You can make free calls at night and on the weekend. There's a 24-month contract when you buy a phone.

So, we're paying the same amount, but we're getting more than 5x as many minutes. Yes, we pay for incoming calls, but unless you recieve more than 4x as many calls as you make, you still come out ahead.

We pay less for text messages, less for GPRS, and we don't pay to call customer care. We also don't pay to roam anywhere in the US, which is 4x larger than Western Europe and just as populous.

We're getting screwed. But Europeans are getting screwed way, way more. The funny thing is that they don't seem to realize it - and they somehow believe that we're getting the short end of the stick.

My family is on a "family" plan. We pay $60/mo for three phones (about $25/mo per line), and although we only get 500 peak minutes, we make more than 6000 minutes of calls in a typical month. How? We don't pay to call each other (or anyone on the same provider, for that matter), and we don't pay to call at night or on the weekends.

You know what's even crazier? It's cheaper for me to make or recieive a call from France (99c/min) than it is for someone who has T-Mobile UK (55p/min).

Warped? Not exactly.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[Ullteppe]

The T-Mobile UK example sounds horribly expensive compared to Scandinavian prices. I don't know the UK market that well, so I can't say whether you managed to pick the worst offering in all of Europe or whether the UK market is more expensive than Europe as a whole.

In Scandinavia, you generally pay less than $0.20 a minute, text messages are $0.10, and the concept of "allowance" is not that common. I checked out the lowest cost offering for 500 minutes/month, and with that you pay $0.10 a minute, $0.10 per text message and there is no monthly fee. This includes a "family" plan, so that you can designate up to 5 numbers that are using the same operator and have all those numbers call each other for free. We don't pay for receiving calls (except when roaming), what a ridicolous concept.

So, yes, you are being screwed (and it seems that that goes for both Americans and UKers).

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[nicklott]

The UK market is horrendously expensive compared to, as far as I can work out, the whole of the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to data. I saw some Scandawegian data tariffs quoted on here a few days ago and, apart from an all-you-can-eat tariff simply not being available here, it was an order of magnitude cheaper. When I looked last year for my company the cheapest data tarif I could find was ~£100/month for 20Mb of data with overages at £10/Mb! Looking now they've dropped a load in a year, but I'm not surprised as no-one can have been buying it at those rates. I assume they justify it because they paid billions for the 3G licenses, but 3G is only accessible in large cities and no is going to use it at those prices anyway. It's like one of the world's biggest companies doesn't understand the basic laws of supply and demand.

The only good news is that the EU is about to come down on them all like a ton of bricks...

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[jonbryce]

To make a call to France, I would get a calling card and pay for a local call + about 1p per minute. That's what most people here do.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's as bad in EU as you make out, or at least not in Ireland. I don't pay a monthly sub (or pay to receive calls or texts). Calls are ~20c/min, texts are ~10c. If I use more than 20 euro total a month then calls/texts/video calls are all free on weekends for the next month (only to people on same operator though). To call France is 1.02 a min, same calling the US, Canada, EU (incl. eastern Europe) and north Africa. Why you would use your mobile to call anywhere overseas is beyond me but to serve your example, it's about the same to France.

Personally, I can't think of any reason to buy an iPhone. It's got a touch-screen but lacks 3G and costs a few hundred euro. I prefer what I have already.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[TheRaven64]

The T-Mobile plan quoted by the grandparent gives you £34 of credit to spend on various services per month for £20. One of these services is data. At first glance, it's very expensive (something like 1p/KB), but it's important to note that it's capped at £1/day, so no matter how much data you use that package will always include enough.

As for 3G, about the only place I don't get coverage is out in the middle of nowhere (e.g. visiting my mother in a small village in north Devon, where I have to fall back to GPRS).

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[Ullteppe]

£100/month for 20 MB? WOW! Over here it is £40/month for unlimited data, and personally I think that is expensive. I can't see that they should find any takers at that price.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[cgenman]

I was visiting London earlier this year, and needed a phone to use locally. I walked into a moble phone store, bought a sim with 5 pounds on it, and stuck it in a borrowed handset from someone else. It worked fine. You bring the phone, they bring the service, just like regular telephones.

I wanted to get my sister a handset in the US, but I didn't want to be responsible for her service. I went to 9 or 10 different stores, none of which could sell me anything without an associated plan and network lock.

In the US, you're playing roulette with your bill. You may be able to get 1000 minutes for 40 dollars, but each minute over costs you 40 cents. In other words, you have to guess how many minutes you are going to use, and if you guess wrong, you can quickly find yourself with a per-minute bill that increases twelve fold. In other words, they're trying specifically to sell you stuff they know you won't use by punishing you if you do use them. They also disable phone features ( I found out my phone in europe does videoconferencing ). Also note that nobody offers service for less than 30 dollars per month. Let's not forget that if you download a game from Cingular, they'll charge you roughly 5 dollars for the game and 5 dollars for the bandwidth to download the game. And, with the exception of the iPhone, we're always last to get any nifty new phone, if we get it at all.

When I was in Thailand, you could walk into MBK, browse though thousands of new and used phones from around the world, get a provider's sim card, and be up and running in minutes. There was a flat per-minute and per-text rate without a lot of complications or provisos, and what you did with that was up to you. When I described to them what we go through for our phone service in the US, they laughed. They all assumed we were on Star Trek communicators or something, but when I showed them my phone, they laughed at how far behind we were.

BTW, I'm not saying there aren't usage scenarios where we're cheaper than other places, just that the number of hoops and provisos attached to that rate is insane.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[nicklott]

Well, my (tech) company is based in a small town in South Devon, so that's what I mean ;)

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[slimjim8094]

So $80 for unlimited data? Ouch.... I pay $20/mo on Cingular^WAT&T for unlimited data and I can tether (though I'm not supposed to ;) ) and they have at least GPRS for all their coverage, and EDGE for most. And, their phones are relatively free of restrictions (I have a RAZR v3xx and I almost crapped my pants when I found out that it supported Bluetooth DUN out of the box). Sweet, and great coverage.

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[Ullteppe]

$20 sounds sweet, but over here we have pretty good 3G (UMTS) coverage in metropolitan areas and good EDGE coverage otherwise. If it got down to $20/month then I would actually consider it.

That said, it's interesting that you are overjoyed about not having a crippled phone. If somebody tried that over here, I don't think they would have many customers left...

Re:Secret moral of the story:

[slimjim8094]

I'm not overjoyed, per se. http://hacktherazr.com/ has some pretty good stuff, if you do have a crippled phone (Verizon, I'm looking at you!). No, as far as I can tell, nothing's locked down at all. The only thing that is annoying is third-party unsigned J2ME apps keep asking for web access, and you can't "always allow"...

Non-mystery science theater 3,000

[Duncan3]

iPhone: $3,000 in 24 easy installments, after a 600$ down payment.

F' you AT&T!

Re:Non-mystery science theater 3,000

[SeaFox]

Nono, you need to do it like this.

Cable Modem: $45/mo.
VoIP service: $25/mo.
iPhone: $3,000 in 24 installments and $600 down.
Cellular service with GSM carrier: $40/mo.

Saying f*** you to AT&T: priceless.

There are some things a free market can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

Re:Non-mystery science theater 3,000

[Lifyre]

Or you could just, and maybe this is medicine talking, sign up for the contract to buy the phone and then pay the charge to cancel the contract. Usually between 150 and 250 dollars depending on what state you live in. So iPhone: $750 to $850 depending on your local consumer protection laws. I'd have to check but I've never had a return the phone clause to deal with on either of the occasions I had to break the contract.

Operators are arrogant too

[gilesjuk]

In the UK the network operators like to bastardise the phone as they see fit. Rebranding, removing features and often ruining the phone. With Windows smartphones they often remove MSN messenger and any VOIP software.

Re:Operators are arrogant too

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Verizon Wireless...

Re:Operators are arrogant too

[master811]

In the UK, Vodafone is generally the worst though with Orange and T-Mobile not quite as bad, O2 are generally quite good with not ruining their phones.

Re:Operators are arrogant too

[TheRaven64]

If your phone is a recentish Nokia model, it's possible to download the firmware directly from the manufacturer and flash it with the cable that came with the phone (with a Windows-only app, sadly). This gets rid of any customisations the operator has made. I haven't done it with mine, because I haven't found any features disabled by T-Mobile (just a load of branded wallpaper and other theme elements) and I'm not sure what other data is lost by re-flashing. It's tempting because apparently the latest firmware fixes a few of the bugs in the Bluetooth stack that irritate me.

Re:Operators are arrogant too

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

In the UK the network operators like to bastardise the phone as they see fit. Rebranding, removing features and often ruining the phone

This is exactly how it works in the US, too. The best provider is probably T-Mobile, who at least doesn't do things like forcing their own UI (Verizon) or preventing you from using the phone as a modem (Sprint, Verizon).

My T-Mobile Dash, for example, is missing the SIP client. It's pretty easy to add, though.

Re:Operators are arrogant too

[erwincoumans]

The same argument probably applies to the restrictions of the Apple iPhone in the US:

* Lack of Skype support

* Lack of public SDK, so there is no freedom to add your own VOIP

Does it need to find a partner?

[Aphrika]

Does Apple really need a partner in Europe? Sure, it'd be nice to have one, but the iPhone would happily sit at the high-end of the smartphone range with the N95 in pricing if supplied SIM-free. Ok, so you wouldn't get provider stuff such as visual voicemail, but you'd get 99% of the functionality. However, I don't think it would look too appealing - you can get a lot more phone for your money at N95 prices...

And I know I'll get shot down for this, but I'm still not getting the whole iPhone vibe thing at all. It's a phone with a touchscreen. It doesn't have 3G, it has a pretty average camera and overall, it's a pretty bog-standard smartphone. Symbian and Windows Mobile devices have been out for ages, are well established with thousands of software titles, work well with corporate systems and are generally more feature-complete. In that sense, a lot of European carriers are probably wondering what the hell all the fuss is about.

Granted the iPhone has the whole iPod/iTunes thing going for it which I kinda like, but I'd wait until that touchscreen finds its way into a standalone iPod. While I'd like the iPhone to succeed, feature for feature, version 1 has already been surpassed here by the likes of the Nokia N95 and the Sony Ericsson W960i. :o(

Re:Does it need to find a partner?

[iluvcapra]

Does Apple really need a partner in Europe?

If they wanna make a share of the subscribers monthly bill, like the cut they get from AT&T, then yes, they need to make a deal with the people doing the billing. Further they need a little cooperation to support visual voicemail.

Re:Does it need to find a partner?

[skrolle2]

Ok, so you wouldn't get provider stuff such as visual voicemail, You can drop the "such as", the iPhone has no other feature that requires a special deal with the provider. Everything else it can do is standard GSM.

Re:Does it need to find a partner?

[skrolle2]

If they wanna make a share of the subscribers monthly bill, like the cut they get from AT&T, then yes, they need to make a deal with the people doing the billing. Further they need a little cooperation to support visual voicemail. I really wonder if that's gonna fly up here in Scandinavia. Some others from the US and UK posted their prices, and compared to what I pay, it's outrageous and compared to how bound I am, the rules are draconian.

Here, you can always get a subscription with either no or a really small (~2-3€) monthly fee, on top of which you only pay for minutes. And those minutes still cost 1/5 of those UK prices someone posted. You can get the reverse where you pay a monthly fee of about 60€, and after that all your calls and messages are free, except roaming abroad. And you can get every kind of subscription or plan inbetween.

All of those subscriptions are totally independent of whatever phone you purchase. You can always get a phone and keep whatever subscription you have, or you can get a subsidy if you also bind yourself to a plan, but the choice as to which phone and which plan is completely up to the buyer. There are absolutely no "if you want this phone you have to get this plan"-deals. None.

So the margins are already pretty low, and consumers are used to free choice of phones and operators and plans.

If Apple tries to enter this market with the idea that they could make their phone exclusive to one operator, and that that operator would be willing to pay for that privilege, they're deluding themselves. Only the most die-hard Apple fans would purchase it at those conditions.

I Don't Quite Understand What...

[distantbody]

...Jobs expects to get out of the deal other than a middling, short-term income stream*. Because I think we all know that this is just the opening salvo of his grand plan to take a sizeable chunk of the handset market with an entire iPhone series, and with that in mind, I think that once the novelty of an Apple cellphone wears off (say after the iPhone 2 and/or the 'iphone nano'), the service provider/s will come banging on his door, possibly with an axe to grind, threatening that unless the 'revenue-sharing' stops, their new-found income will cease all together, and Apple will have to just quietly slink back to being 'Apple Computers Inc.'. Now wouldn't *that* be funny.

*I say a "middling, short-term income stream" because I do think that, as great as the iPhone is, it doesn't know its market; it's too big to be a glomour phone yet it doesn't have the features to be a business phone, it's "market-confused", if you will ;P

But their just my theories, feal free to counter-theorize.

Re:I Don't Quite Understand What...

[Space cowboy]

My theory is that you're wrong. Apple have a proven track record in making consumer goods. Bank on the iPhone being a massive hit.

Simon.

Re:I Don't Quite Understand What...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when the zune phone is kicking in.

Maybe, maybe not

[Space cowboy]

Apple never does things by accident on their adverts, and it's noticeable that the "2 year contract required" small-print was on the first few adverts, but has since been removed. They might as well shine a spotlight as do that...

So, I think AT&T will be offering more than one way to buy it, or perhaps Apple will at their stores. Whatever.

Not directed at the parent, but in terms of 3G - I have to say I couldn't really care less. Pretty much everywhere I will be, I will be in a WiFi zone. My work has open-access WiFi, my house does, up in the city does (San Francisco), courtesy of Google, and so does Mountain View where I live (well, actually I more or less live on 'Castro' :-) Now this won't apply to everyone [grin], but WiFi is becoming more and more popular - and I'm not sure the cell companies have really cottoned onto that yet...

So WiFi for me, all the way. Having been at WWDC (and seen the NDA'd presentations) I know a little bit more about the iPhone now. I'm definitely getting one.

Simon.

closed system

[fermion]

There was a time, not so long ago, that one could only hook up a certified ATT phone to you ATT landline. While this was clearly partially due to a issues related to the network, after a while it had more to do with monthly rental fees paid on these phones. After a while the government said enough was enough, and we now have the opportunity to plug any phone we want into the jacks. This, along with other factors, killed the profitability of the industry.

The cell phone companies of course see the same thing happening with the iPhone. Apple does not always play be industry "wink wink nudge nudge'rules. It has had a big part in validating digital music delivery, and, for better or worse, we will see those deliveries be uninfected with DRM. What will the iphone do to the mobile phone industry. Render meaningless the contracts by which a phone user must use a certain service for email. Allow users to create thier own ring tones, as can already be done using a Mac and some cell phones. Nip in the bud the profitable music downloads over celluar networks before it even generates any significant revenue. Force major upgrades in bandwidth. Are the Europeans afraid that the iPhone will somehow undermine their excessive roaming charges? The United States, at twice the area, has inexpensive roam free plans, despite the relative backwater mobile technology.

Apple is pretty good about delivering disruptive technology. I am sure the only reason that ATT made the deal was to remain competitive with Verizon. I can't imagine it was a happy decision for them. I wonder if there is enough competition in the EU to force a carrier to do the same.

Re:closed system

[Rakishi]

You seem to be confusing which country is the restrictive one and what Apple is actually doing. The iPhone can be used on ONE network with a long term plan.

In Europe you can buy almost any phone you want, stick a sim card in it and be on your way.

Re:closed system

[Ullteppe]

Force a carrier? In Europe, Apple doesn't need to work with carriers at all. The high-end phones are pretty much sold without contracts. Just buy the phone, pick whatever service plan from whichever carrier you want, stick the SIM-card in the phone, and off you go.

Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Every fuckin' day there are at least two "news stories" about the iPhone here. I guess on June 29th Slashdot will become iPhone.org. Hasn't Sourceforge tired of the the taste of Jobs' nuts yet?

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

Never. This is not a geek site, it's a macboi site. You come here to bash Microsoft and Linux while sucking Jobs' dick. Do something else and you'll get modded into oblivion.

Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[ktappe]

All Apple has to do is wait until June 30th. When word that iPhones can't be restocked fast enough to meet demand, European carriers will be contacting Steve Jobs' office willing to deal.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they call up Apple to offer some of their revenue? These phones are useless without a carrier.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[cuby]

Mobile carriers don't need Apple to do business. I live in a country with 112 mobile phones per 100 people and almost anyone has a phone costing more than 300 euros. Also, phone unlocking is even more pervasive than file sharing. Apple is lucky if they manage to get even a 5% share... That's nothing.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't supposed to count phones that are in landfills.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[JamesRose]

If you announce a product ~3 months before you ship (exactly the opposite of what they usually do) and then haven't made enough to keep the shelves full you are a fool.

And secondly, how the hell have you got modded up, its so typical you get modpoints for posting some crap based on no facts "Well you'll see in the future when everything goes how steve jobs wants it to go..." there's nothing insightful or interesting about that, "You'll just see when steve jobs elopes with steve ballmer next thursday" yes, I can make useless predictions about the future that we don't know is going to happen, i don't usually do it cos it has no value, because everyone knows your statement already and they know there is a posibility, but by voicing it again you aren't adding anythin. Any normal well thought out comment would have been "Well I guess the european manufacturers will make their mind up when they see the iphone entry into the US market". Think things through please.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[suv4x4]

All Apple has to do is wait until June 30th. When word that iPhones can't be restocked fast enough to meet demand, European carriers will be contacting Steve Jobs' office willing to deal.

Carriers aren't in the business to resell phones. Phones are just the means they use to sel their service.

European carries want you to buy their 3G connection and video capabilities.

Every sold iPhone means one more customer who won't buy their 3G service. And incidentally, because of the price of this device, it's exactly the people who'd buy 3G who'd buy the iPhone.

iPhone means bad business for European carriers, this is why they don't want to have anything to do with it.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[drsquare]

Why would they want to do a deal with a manufacturer that can't keep up demand? The European mobile phone market is pretty saturated, carriers won't make money on phones that don't exist.

Re:Apple just has to wait a couple weeks

[oliderid]

The design is cool...But what should I pay extra subscription?
I live in Europe. I've got a 3G mobile phone, I can already browse the web, I can receive/send emails, I can use wifi. It does play MP3 or video clips, I can use it as a modem on the road and tons of other features that I've never tried.

Everything they claim as innovation, exist already. The only new and cool feature is their new ergonomy. Hardly an argument to push new monthly fees.

Docomo (Japan) had a similar problems while coming here in Europe. They thought that their mobile phones would be so superior to the European competitors that they would gain vast market shares in few months. They were correct their own HTML/hybrid stuff was superior to the existing WAP protocol at that time. They were wrong because operators had already invested into UMTS/EDGE infrastructure and true HTML browsers were imminent. Only few minor operators have bought DOCOMO licenses. I used to see DOCOMO compatible phones in the shops few years ago. Now they have disapeared.

The only true foreign innovation used massively is Blackberry because it was "useful" and truely innovative.

I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[SeaFox]

In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

Wouldn't this make AT&T's "exclusive" distribution agreement written on toilet paper? Everyone who didn't want get a long contract or use AT&T would just get the iPhone imported from Europe.

A more interesting question would be what Apple is going to do in those countries where it is illegal to lock a phone to a network or require a contract for it.

If there's going to be any "revolution" in the cell phone industry caused by the iPhone, it's how business is done U.S. cellular industry when the rest of the world is entirely different. I can't believe we still have to pay for incoming calls in the U.S.

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[lachesis-jp]

I can't believe we still have to pay for incoming calls in the U.S.

You have to pay for incoming calls but it's cheap for the caller. In Europe, you never had to pay for incoming calls but the caller has to pay outrageous rates to call your mobile. In either case, someone has to pay. No one system is better than the other.

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[dazzla_2000]

I think I'd rather the person calling me picked up the tab. They are calling me at their convenience not mine.

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[pafrusurewa]

In Europe, you never had to pay for incoming calls but the caller has to pay outrageous rates to call your mobile.

"Outrageous" being anything from 1 to 10 Eurocents/minute for domestic calls depending on your plan but usually less than 5 cents/minute in my (European) country.

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[drsquare]

The European system is superior, because the cost is borne by the person who initiates the call. I couldn't bear the thought of having to pay everytime someone phones me up to waste my time. If you were low on credit you'd have to turn the phone off.

If the American way is any good, why don't you pay to receive mail?

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[stiller]

Wouldn't this make AT&T's "exclusive" distribution agreement written on toilet paper? Everyone who didn't want get a long contract or use AT&T would just get the iPhone imported from Europe. You're confusing a formal agreement with enforcing limitations on use. Any technical limitation could be easily circumvented, as I can have a simlock removed in nearly any telecom store in the EU. This is not Apple's problem, as long as they're not actively encouraging it. There's no way of stopping black market trade anyway. Selling it in the EU without a simlock while still stating it only be used by EU customers should be enough.

A more interesting question would be what Apple is going to do in those countries where it is illegal to lock a phone to a network or require a contract for it. I know of no country in the EU where this is the case, although it may very well exist. On the other hand, I also haven't heard of a EU country enforcing the EULA ban on removing a sim-lock. This would in fact be very hard (if not impossible) in many countries.

If there's going to be any "revolution" in the cell phone industry caused by the iPhone, it's how business is done U.S. cellular industry when the rest of the world is entirely different. I can't believe we still have to pay for incoming calls in the U.S. I don't think it's that different from other phones released by the regular manufacturers. Also, not having to pay for incoming calls only works within borders. When you start roaming, you usually do pay for incoming calls. Considering small countries like the Netherlands, this is very impractical.

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[dkf]

In Europe, you never had to pay for incoming calls but the caller has to pay outrageous rates to call your mobile.

Unless you're roaming in another country that is, when you also pay to receive calls. The amount you pay though is an excess that is supposed to cover the cost of routing the call from your provider over the 3rd-party network to your phone. (OK, the amount they've been charging for this has been far too high, and there was a crackdown by the EC recently.)

Re:I don't think it will be sold SIM-free

[Anonymous Coward]

Every cellphone I've ever seen has supported caller id. Why not just screen your calls and only answer when it's someone you want to talk to?

So much the better...

[xwizbt]

If Apple can't find someone to cripple the handset by locking it to a particular provider, I must say all is well. I'd rather pay the full price for a handset I own and can use as I see fit rather than imagine paying thirty quid a month for twenty four months really means I have a free handset. That's all.

iMslow

[kosmosik]

Rumors say that iPhone does ~25KBps on data connection. This really sucks. 3.5G network is really spread in Europe so with iPhone's pathetic ~25KBps (I easly 200KBps with my phone and laptop right now) bandwith is not really attractive for retailers in Europe. Well this is hardly a "Breakthrough Internet Device" isn't it?

Maybe next version could manage do something sane.

I mean for networks in Europe the main selling point right now is data transfer. It is like revolution - real mobile Internet. Well iPhone does not catch that. People everywhere here use phones (via their laptops) to access Internet. You have like plenty of billboards, press adverts, TV commercials focusing on GSM data transfer abilities.

Well lets see what iPhone can do... uhm... it can do phone calls and text messaging - hmm. Like any other phone really. It is not a selling point. Right now in Poland (at belive me - it is not the most advanced country in Europe) the selling point is 4Mbps data transfer.

So concluding - there is not a market (beside of really small fashion accessory one) for iPhone unless it can work as all other phones on the market (do HDSPA and modern data transfer).

Re:iMslow

[SwedishPenguin]

Yeah I read about that, the iPhone doesn't have UMTS/HSPA support, only GSM/GPRS. How could they overlook such an important feature? Is UMTS coverage that low in the US? I don't think they'll have much success in Europe until they get out of the stone age and offer support for modern 3G networks.

Re:iMslow

[Anonymous Coward]

I know almost nothing about phone markets and phones, and you used consistent capitalization in your units, but I'll point out anyway that 200 kilobits per seconds is 25 kilobytes per second.

Re:iMslow

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a shame Apple isnt trying to sell to people like you.

Apple is trying to sell to the average consumer, the average consumer doesn't give a damn about speed of data transfer, they want a phone that looks cool and does the basic things very well.

Re:iMslow

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Rumors say that iPhone does ~25KBps on data connection. This really sucks. 3.5G network is really spread in Europe so with iPhone's pathetic ~25KBps (I easly 200KBps with my phone and laptop right now) bandwith is not really attractive for retailers in Europe. Well this is hardly a "Breakthrough Internet Device" isn't it?

It's worse than you think.

The iPhone is a GPRS/EDGE device. EDGE can do 20KB/s in the best case, and 15KB/s is more typical.

Guess what, though? There's no EDGE in most of Europe. UMTS got popular before EDGE was really developed. So the iPhone "breakthrough internet device" can do 5-7KB/s in most of Europe. It's as fast as dial-up with 3x the latency!

And, you know what? The iPhone is pretty pathetic by US standards, even. Most smart devices have EVDO (~1-2 Mbps) or HSDPA (yes, we have it). Even the $79 Blackjack has UMTS/HSDPA. So does the free RAZR.

ATT/Cingular may not have great UMTS coverage, but it's improving quickly. Cingular already has HSDPA in the San Jose area (where I am from the summer), and they'll have it in the Denver area by the end of the summer. Even T-Mobile, who only got the spectrum to deploy 3G last December, will have UMTS/HSDPA running nationally by 2009.

The iPhone should have launched with HSDPA/UMTS. Period. There is no excuse for not having it when the "free" phones that Jobs so loves to trash doesn't. The iPhone cannot be a "revolutionary interent device" when it has data capabilities inferior to phones that are 5x cheaper and launched 6 months ago.

My Dash has GPRS/EDGE and WiFi. It has 2GB of storage, it has the full web (with Opera), it plays music and movies (including WMA/MP3/AAC/Vorbis and XVID/DIVX/H.264/MPEG1/MPEG2/WMV), it has HTML mail, and it even has a keyboard.

My phone came out 9 months ago and is 10 TIMES cheaper than the iPhone. For the $450 less that my phone costs, you could buy TWO 30GB video iPods. Or 40GB of microSD memory cards.

The UI had better be pretty damned good.

Re:iMslow

[Ilgaz]

As you are from Poland, you forgot that iPhone will lack the innovative stuff made by http://www.psiloc.com/ like companies.

I was setting my Nokia 7650 (S60) profile based on my cell location back in 2002 or something thanks to their products.

Re:iMslow

[adinu79]

Yeah, but for the price of a phone that can actually do a lot more. A phone that does "the basic stuff for the average consumer" doesn't have to cost more than 200 USD. And having it flashy and shiny doesn't warrant for the price difference.

Re:iMslow

[TheRaven64]

It's as fast as dial-up with 3x the latency! You must have a really good GPRS service. Before I moved from GPRS to UMTS it was more like dial up speeds with 10x the latency. No matter how good the iPhone is, there's no way I'd want to go back to two second ping times for mobile use.

Re:iMslow

[Serious Callers Only]

Guess what, though? There's no EDGE in most of Europe. UMTS got popular before EDGE was really developed. So the iPhone "breakthrough internet device" can do 5-7KB/s in most of Europe. It's as fast as dial-up with 3x the latency!

The first European release of the iphone may well be 3G; release in the EU is 6 months away at least. So all this speculation really is a bit premature. I'd be surprised if it's not 3G, given that 3G is much more prevalent in Europe.

If you are serious about transfer speeds, you'll be using wifi anyway. Built in and free.

Re:iMslow

[dreamchaser]

I can't use wi-fi in many of the places that I travel, yet EVDO provided by Sprint via my Motorola Q gets really good data rates at rest areas and many of the places I travel where I cannot use wi-fi.

If anyone tries to tell me that wi-fi coverage is somehow more complete in the US than 'wireless broadband' then I'd love to sell them a bridge.

Crippled data rates do not a revolutionary device make. Apple would have been *far* better off making the initial iPhone a 3G phone and forgoing the wi-fi if necessary. That's just my opinion, but it's the main reason I won't buy one. The second reason is I can use my Q with one hand, doesn't look like that's an easy thing to do with the iPhone.

I'm not predicting the downfall and failure of the iPhone, but I don't think it will be a smashing success in it's initial offering.

Re:iMslow

[Thumper_SVX]

Which is precisely why I'm not buying one... plus that whole third party application thing.

I have an HTC TyTN... which while not perfect is HSDPA and UMTS compatible. Hell, I use my HSDPA connection almost daily to connect my personal laptop up to the Internet while I'm at work (at lunch, thank you very much) instead of lugging my laptop to Panera. It works, and works well. Plus, having the ability to connect up and look up anything I like *even on a graphics heavy page* without waiting for an EDGE connection is worth its weight in gold to me... particularly since I spent the last two years or so with an EDGE device that was great, but SLOW!

Wake me when the iPhone 2 comes out with TRUE third party app support (not the web application crap) and HSDPA support. Until then, I think I'll stick with devices I know work and do what I want, today.

HAHA, nice product name!

[mattgreen]

Neo1973?! It sounds like the nickname of a way too old, over-zealous Matrix fanboy.

There is zero chance that product will succeed with its current name, I'll tell you that much. I hope they didn't choose it to be hip and trendy, because when you try that hard, you end up being the opposite of what you're going for. Although I'm sure people like iphoneshoulddie98214 and xxappleSux298123xx might think it is cool.

Re:HAHA, nice product name!

[Soylent Beige]

I dunno, how about the 'EarPoop2000'?

Re:HAHA, nice product name!

[Simon80]

Actually, see this:

At this point, we should tell you why we chose the name "Neo1973." "Neo" means new. Dr. Marty Cooper (the inventor of the mobile phone) made the first call ever in 1973.

We believe that an open source mobile phone can revolutionize, once again, the world of communication. This will be the New 1973.

Re:HAHA, nice product name!

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be the New 1973.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38638000/jpg/_3 8638535_bigphone150.jpg

Re:HAHA, nice product name!

[mattgreen]

That doesn't counter what I said. It is still a terrible name, regardless of whether it has an explanation behind it or not. Almost as bad as "Pidgin."

Apple Arrogant? Cell carriers would know

[MDMurphy]

It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The cell carriers have been squeezing the phone manufacturers for years, discounting the hardware to get customers locked in for 1-2 years. This has had the effect of people thinking of phones as "free" or "cheap"

Last phone I got was through Amazon. Why? Because it was almost $100 less than the same phone right from the carrier with the same plan. After rebates it cost me negative money ( not counting service ). How does Amazon do this? They get a cut for each customer they get to sign up or extend service. So the carriers are making the hardware look cheap and slipping money to the retailer.

This is part of the reason people said Apple was nuts to make a cell phone, the manufacturers have been getting squeezed for years. Apple instead said no, no discounts and they want the kickback for new contracts. The carriers have been making tons of money in the long run and Apple wants a piece of the action.

In reality, they don't need a partner. Europe has even more MVNOs than the U.S. They could buy minutes in bulk and sell the phones themselves. They may not want to, but they could.

A partner also isn't necessary for visual voicemail. All of these phones have internet access. I already use a 3rd party for my cell phone voicemail since it provides more features ( YouMail.com ) I have the option to get an SMS when I have voicemail that tells me who the message was from, and have it delivered via email as well as the indicator on my phone. It would not be hard for Apple to do the voicemail part themselves, independent of the carrier.

So the whole article is BS. By choosing GSM Apple has a phone than can be used in more countries than any other, and enabled with a new carrier just by slipping in a new SIM. By going with GSM they're out of the Broadcom/Qualcomm fight as well.

Offtopic

[Petra_von_Kant]

Sorry for the OT question, just a simple Australian-German here.

What does this mean? "oh noes" I see it all over /. but cannot work out the meaning. Is the writer trying to say "Oh no", or has it some other veiled or cultural meaning?

"You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

"oh noes!" is typically a sarcastic form of "oh no". One might use it in a situation where they don't really care about the outcome.

For example: if my local Perkins Restaurant ran out of maple syrup (I like apricot, so I don't care about maple), I might express my apathy by exclaiming "OH NOES!"

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a joking/sarcastic way of sayong "Oh no".

"Oh noes, don't hit me with that fluffy pillow, anything but that!"

Isn't it funny to think you can pluralize "oh no"?

iPhone not being made available in PR

[Kildjean]

Or how about this? AT&T published a note in the local newspaper stating the iPhone was not going to be sold in PR by either Apple, AT&T or any 3rd party vendor (like compusa for example). Why is this? Puerto Rico is a US territory and without us going into political talk, we are rightful US Citizens by birth. So if we are so attached to the US that we use the currency, have the same laws, speak the same language (and actually spanish too), and have the same business guidelines as the US. Why is Cupertino being a prick with us then? We have well over 50 thousand people interested in getting an iPhone, and they wont be able to get it because Apple won't be selling it in the island. What furthermore sucks, is that AT&T is saying that the phone won't work on the Cingular networks in Puerto Rico and that they will be adding Sim and area code blockers, so no one in PR can use an iPhone.

I think Apple likes to bully us a lot and disregards that they have people in PR who buy their ipods, use their computers and love their computers and their genius behind what they do.

The should appreciate us more, but they don't... So I in a way understand the European Government...

Re:iPhone not being made available in PR

[digitalchinky]

I wouldn't imagine those restrictions will last long, someone will figure out a way to open up the simlocks, there is a great pile of gold just waiting for the first one to do it.

Re:iPhone not being made available in PR

[SageMusings]

Puerto Rico is a US territory and without us going into political talk, we are rightful US Citizens by birth

You don't pay taxes (at least to the our Federal Government) or vote.

Re:iPhone not being made available in PR

[Kildjean]

im pretty sure a hacker or two will crack the system... but legally speaking we don't know when or if they will be available to purchase down there...

Re:iPhone not being made available in PR

[Kildjean]

Actually we did pay taxes, just in a different way the states do. And that changed now. The government changed that and now there is a %5 tax, just like maryland. We don't vote for president (don't blame us for bush being up there, if it were for us, somebody else would be in the presidential chair...), that is so true... but we fight your wars, we went to korea, vietnam, desert storm, desert shield, iraq and went after Saddam's and Osama's ass like shit on velcro, because we also lost friends and people to 9-11, so don't turn this into a political issue.

The point is we as US Citizens and as a US Territory, should be able to use the iPhone at launch... We have everything you guys got here, cingular, at&t, hot women and cheap rum. Mi casa es tu casa, i want my iPhone sold in Puerto Rico! We have to deal with the same shit, with the warranties. So apple can sell their shit in PR, but they can't cover the warranties... that is swell...

Note to Jobs: Screw the europeans... they are snobs... you can sell around 3 times the amount you would sell in europe in Puerto Rico easily... so screw europe and come to our little islita and bring an iphone...

Re:iPhone not being made available in PR

[Gary W. Longsine]

Uhm... the lack of iPhone sales outlets in Puerto Rico is not due to some strange type of discrimination against islands by Apple. They just make the handset. AT&T determines which geographic coverage areas have the proper network to support the device, and you can believe that they wish they had their poop in a group to be able to sell it everywhere, but they probably don't.

The initial sales of the iPhone are being restricted to Apple Stores and AT&T Wireless stores, probably to make the logistics of the initial rollout simpler. AT&T recently said that the number of retail outlets for the iPhone will expand after the initial launch. There are plenty of places in the 48 mainland states that can't get the iPhone too, including the entire state of Montana.

Think about it the other way

[melted]

Cell phone company is going to get $600-1000 out of you per year regardless of what phone you own. You might as well own a good one. I'd much rather see them stop subsidizing phones altogether if I get unlimited voice for $20 a month and unlimited voice+data at $35. That, unfortunately, won't happen. Evar.

Re:Think about it the other way

[SeaFox]

Cell phone company is going to get $600-1000 out of you per year regardless of what phone you own. You might as well own a good one

Looking at the growth of cell phone users of the last few years, two years is a long time in cell phone history terms. A network infrastructure that is adequate at one time may be undersized for a subscriber base a year or so later. Where will you be when your carrier can't handle all its customers and you're stuck in a contract?

Re:Think about it the other way

[aaarrrgggh]

Where will you be when your carrier can't handle all its customers and you're stuck in a contract?

With customer service, stating such and being given either a significant credit on service or an "out" on the contract.

Both parties have to live up to their obligations in a contract. If they aren't, take them to small claims court (or something).

another data point

[Hucko]

I've never sent a picture message, nor received one. I know one bloke who has for sure, may be 2 or 3 others who have. No one uses it regularly.

Re:another data point

[Ilgaz]

I've never sent a picture message, nor received one. I know one bloke who has for sure, may be 2 or 3 others who have. No one uses it regularly. In Europe there are millions (if not billions already) MMS messages which are sent daily. It is the most easy and guaranteed way to send a small photo or even sound to your recipient.

My provider (Turkcell) uses MMS technology for voice messages. When you enable it, the voice messages you receive are "pushed" to your phone instead of dialing anything or mess with buttons. They also use it with service partners to send premier league goals almost realtime via 3G video files.

I guess the reason why Apple doesn't include MMS and it is really shame for my platform of choice.

Re:another data point

[walt-sjc]

Maybe because sending / receiving messages / pictures is a costly thing to do with most plans in the US - especially if the other person is on another network. It's insane that most plans still charge you for incoming calls!

Re:another data point

[Hucko]

Ummm... I'm Australian.

Re:another data point

[ijdod]

I'd be the last to state that I have (and use) the latest & greatest in mobile phones, but I know quite a few people who do keep up with the latest models, and none of them uses MMS on anything that could be considered a regular basis. SMS? Sure. Everybody uses that. SMS is also pretty much guaranteed to work on any phone out there. But MMS? It was too rare when it was introduced, and only fairly recently (2-3 years) did it become a common feature.

They have that option here as well...

[argent]

In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

They could do that here, sell a generic GSM phone. T-Mobile customers atleast would be able to use it.

Re:They have that option here as well...

[TheRaven64]

I don't know what it's like in the US, but here in the UK it's pretty hard to buy a contract without a phone. Oh, most of the carriers will do it, and they might even give you a discount, but they don't advertise it, and the sales reps in the shops don't like to admit to it. If you sold it unlocked, most people would end up buying two phones (the iPhone and the one with their contract), making it even more expensive.

Re:They have that option here as well...

[argent]

I don't know what it's like in the US, but here in the UK it's pretty hard to buy a contract without a phone.

Oh, I thought that was a particularly US perversion. I tried to get T-Mobile service for a phone I already had several years ago and ended up walking out because it wouldn't have been fair to yell at the bloke... it wasn't HIS fault.

Oh, most of the carriers will do it, and they might even give you a discount, but they don't advertise it, and the sales reps in the shops don't like to admit to it.

This wasn't like that. This was... you can't get service without buying a phone, period, and not less than a two year contract. I just wanted a couple of months of service to fill in a gap, I already had the phone.

Though maybe I should have blown up at this guy:

"I don't want to buy a phone, I just want the service."

"OK. You still need to give me a credit card or pay a deposit."

"I'm paying up front, why do I need that?"

"In case you cancel."

"Why should you care if I'm cancelling? All I'm buying is the service, you've got nothing at risk but a couple cents worth of plastic."

"Everyone has to sign a contract."

I suspect now that he was planning on keeping the phone himself. But he wasn't kidding about the contract, I tried another couple of outlets and they all said the same thing.

This has changed since, though. Now you find people reselling service in little hole-in-the-wall places all over. I had the impression that in Europe they didn't have that problem, or is this one of those "the UK isn't in Europe really" things?

Re:They have that option here as well...

[TheRaven64]

I had the impression that in Europe they didn't have that problem, or is this one of those "the UK isn't in Europe really" things?

It's more of a 'the people in the retail outlets are paid on commission' things. Most of their commission comes from the phone. They get nothing for selling a cheap contract. If you want an expensive contract and no phone, then they might listen, but a cheap contract with no phone gets them nothing, so there is no incentive to sell it. The shops that are covered in a particular network's branding are not actually owned by the network, they are franchise operations and have to offer the complete range of services, but don't actually make anything from some of them.

If you look on the web, it's usually better. The web sites are run by the networks themselves, and so are interested in selling you something, even something that doesn't make much profit, if the other option is selling you nothing. A couple of years ago, Vodafone was giving away two free pre-pay SIMs with £6 of credit to anyone who wanted them (delivery also free). I grabbed a couple, and used one in an old phone for my girlfriend at the time who was in the USA and didn't have a phone to use when she visited me (I posted it to her with the battery full so that she could call me when her flight landed easily). I put a bit of extra credit on it, so Vodafone made some money, but not enough to have been able to pay a commission to someone selling / giving me the SIM in a shop.

Re:They have that option here as well...

[real gumby]

"Why should you care if I'm cancelling? All I'm buying is the service, you've got nothing at risk but a couple cents worth of plastic."

"Everyone has to sign a contract."

I think it's an anti-privacy thing. The gov't (who can take away their business) wants to be able to identify every customer.

I don't carry a drivers license but did have my passport; Cingular wouldn't sell me service unless I had a valid united states driver's license! Oh yeah, and like you I was happy to pay for two years of service plus their stupid deposit right up front.

BTW you can call yourself to verify these stupid policies. The person in the shop have me this number to call; it's not on their web site: Cingular's compliance office 800 635 6840). I was unable to find out how, if at all, they protect the personal info they collect.

I used to buy phones at the grocery store in Europe (procedure: pay for your service, open box, discard packaging responsibly, switch on phone, call your friend). Is this still possible anywhere?

Re:They have that option here as well...

[argent]

If you want an expensive contract and no phone, then they might listen, but a cheap contract with no phone gets them nothing, so there is no incentive to sell it.

Yeh, I get that. They don't want to sell a month-to-month SIM, but...

a) back when I went through this it wasn't *possible* to get month-to-month service in the US. Period.
b) This wasn't a matter of him not wanting to sell it, this was him refusing to sell it.
c) Back then you couldn't do better on the web either.
d) Now I can get a month-to-month contract with no phone at a hole in the wall in just about any shopping center.

Can you really not just buy service and stick the SIM in any phone in the UK? Sounds like trading places.

Of course they did...

[stubear]

"Verizon reportedly passed on the device..."

Of course they did, because they know that anyone will be able to dump their contracts with AT&T and Verizon will be there to offer ex AT&T iPhone customers with a competitive deal without having to make any concessions to Apple.

Re:Of course they did...

[pweent]

they know that anyone will be able to dump their contracts with AT&T and Verizon will be there to offer ex AT&T iPhone customers with a competitive deal without having to make any concessions to Apple.

iPhone is GSM. Verizon is CDMA. I don't think Verizon is going to see much in the way of iPhone business anytime soon.

As far as Apple arrogance goes, I can actually almost picture Apple telling Verizon, "We'd love for you to be our exclusive iPhone partner in the U.S.! There are a few conditions. First, we require you to switch your network over to GSM..."

Re:Of course they did...

[Ullteppe]

I think the offer was never made in the first place. Why should Apple make a device that could only be sold in the US, versus one that could be sold everywhere (except Japan and Korea)?

Re:Of course they did...

[Professor_UNIX]

I think it had more to do with Verizon being braindead. THEIR demands were probably that it only supported WMA format for playback and ringtones and you had to buy all the tracks exclusively through their Vcast service. No tethering to laptops or syncing to desktops allowed either.

Prediction

[Frankie70]

If the iPhone gets launched at a 500$+ price point
in Europe, it would be a huge flop. This phone can
be a hit in Europe only if Apple reduces the price
by 25% atleast & sells it unlocked. The US is the
only place where such an expensive locked phone
can possibly sell huge numbers. But this time I
think even in the US, iPhone is not going to be
a huge hit - at best it would be a moderate success
at current price levels.

Re:Prediction

[Corbets]

Well, admittedly I'm living in Switzerland at the moment, which is to the the rest of European prices as 5th avenue is to Gary Indiana, but...

I see a LOT of phones here that cost more than that, and even some that exceed that price point with a 24 month contract.

So here, at least, and maybe in major metro areas like London, I'd say the iPhone has a chance.

That being said, I have no desire to purchase one, I don't see anything in it to like. :)

Re:Prediction

[Mathiasdm]

It will definitely be a flop in my little country (Belgium): locked phones aren't even allowed in here!

Re:Prediction

[weg]

This phone can
be a hit in Europe only if Apple reduces the price
by 25% atleast & sells it unlocked.

Last time I checked, all Apple products were 25% more expensive in Europe than in the US (before tax).
So, look forward to that 999 Euro Apple iPhone ;-) (in the shops, it will be sitting right next to the PS3).

SIM

[funkyloki]

This is not an option for the US market because several providers do not use Sim cards, and because operators use different network standards that prevent the iPhone working on some networks. Both Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile use SIM cards on GSM technology. Nextel uses them too but for iDEN. Only Sprint/Verizon of the big 5 carriers use CDMA which is SIMless.

TBD

[rufusdufus]

Not only does this product not exist yet, its not even designed. Its still TBD

Re:TBD

[Anonymous Coward]

Look again. http://www.flickr.com/photos/koenkooi/412593301/

I am shocked...

[etnu]

By the number of people defending the phone companies. Phone companies are amongst the most vile, corrupt, textbook evil entities around. It doesn't matter what country or company we're talking about. In most places, they're either current or former government-sanctioned monopolies. Their time is coming to an end, fortunately, as municipal wifi and voip will destroy their business model.

Re:I am shocked...

[cuby]

I'm a little tired of this "evil phone companies talk". In most of the western countries you have broad choice... My example: I work for a phone company, but I personally bye services from 2 others because I think the offer the product I want... No problem with that. Everybody do their business.

The problem with apple is that they also are a company, and nobody seems to remember that!
Their business is create a product, over hype it, make it a cult object, get free publicity in every 10 or so articles from slashdot and maintain a horde of fanboys that will buy without a thought.

That's their primal objective, sell bye means of hype and buzz words. The technology inside only provides the means to that.
Apple products are designed to be desired, like most of these gadgets.
Ostentation is the word.

Re:haha: FAKER ALERT!

[bwy]

Come on, +4 interesting? Did you guys who modded this up even click on the link? If you did you'd see that it is a bogus site. Total vaporware. There is no "Buy" link therefore there is no price because there is nothing to buy. Simon80 is trying to pad his karma by posting bogus shit.

Re:haha: FAKER ALERT!

[Simon80]

Oh, I'm sorry, you couldn't figure out whether or not that blog is real, so obviously it must be a fake. See http://planet.openmoko.org/

Re:haha: FAKER ALERT!

[Simon80]

Err, nevermind, you meant openmoko.org itself. Read the mailing lists, and you'll see that real phones have been shipped, and there are hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of active community members.

Re:...but does it run OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not nearly as open or flexible as OSX for the Mac, which makes it pretty irrelevant to most people. It's like saying that the primary appeal of the XBox is that it runs Windows. The primary appeal of the iPhone is that it is made by Apple. If it was anyone else, it would be an overpriced toy.

OpenMoko Exists

[PAPPP]

While the consumer Neo1973 phones aren't shipping, calling it vaporware is a bit of a stretch, there are a healthy number of developer units out there, including some that are near-identical to the pending commercial release hardware. Read carefully at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973 and you'll see that the phones are being produced by FIC , a fairly large Chinese electronics manufacturer who initiated the project. The software stack (a nice scalable gtk on linux environment), while missing some applications and features, is basically complete, and can be run in an emulator on the PC or on a few ARM platforms which are currently available. So. Its' not quite shipping yet, but a hefty Chinese corporation is vested in the project, and a truly impressive amount of work is already done and out there to look through. Weather either platform (iPhone/OpenMoko) takes off depends on the market, and its too early to say if either one has a chance of long term success. Who knows, one of these things might actually make me decide my featureless clamshell could be improved upon. (also remember, the US cellphone market is not in any way representative, and the phone market in Asia is far larger and more diverse than in the US or even Europe.)

Re:OpenMoko Exists

[Thumper_SVX]

The only problem (and I stress ONLY problem) with the Neo1973 from my perspective, is that it's HUGE! I mean, it's larger than my TyTN, and to-date that's the largest phone I've ever owned. My TyTN also has a REAL keyboard built in, and although it doesn't run Linux yet there are people working on that :)

Seriously though, I love the OpenMoko conceptually... I am a firm believer that this sort of project is how the future of smart phones is going to go and I really want to be able to justify one. However, if I can't keep it on my belt when I'm driving (I can wear my TyTN but not my work mandated Blackberry in the car) then it becomes less useful to me. I usually have my sound system cranked in my car when I'm driving... my sound system is probably worth about half what my car's worth (and I listen mostly to classical... go figure) so hearing a ringer from my center console is impossible. I want to be able to feel when I'm getting a call so I can mute my sound system and click the button on my Bluetooth headset.

The Neo1973 is not a thick phone; the TyTN's definitely a little thicker, but in terms of height and breadth the Neo1973 is more like iPaq 3855 size. I carried one of them for years as well, so that's the closest size analog I can come up with and I never could wear that and a seatbelt comfortably.

99% of the people bitching about no 3G...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are Asian or European.

I, for one, wish they would shut the fuck up about it already. Americans don't care.

No different with Canadian carriers

[Man in Spandex]

Rogers and Fido (owned by Rogers) are the only GSM carriers of Canada. The same GSM bastardized phones that are locked that may not enable you to customize your ringtones without buying them are sold unlocked directly from the warehouses from Taiwan at a way cheaper price, the RAZR being the best example because it's everywhere you look at.

What I hope is that someone will find a way of unlocking the iPhone. It sucks when you think that you're slowly paying for the iPhone with your 1-2-3 years contract and then you're stuck with a device that is finally yours, you realize you're still suck with that same carrier.

Re:Apple Arrogant? Cell carriers would know

[Ullteppe]

You are on to something here. Notice that Nokia has refused to play the bondage game with US carriers. Apple is trying to do the same: get people to focus on the phone and forget the carrier. Face it, in the high-end markets it is the phones that are unique, the carriers are in a commodity business. If you are a manufacturer making an excellent phone, you shouldn't want to be tying yourself to any exclusive deals, you want to sell it to as many people as possible.

Not another iPhone story

[plusser]

A few truths:-

1. If you go to Tokoyo, you will find most people walking round with a 3G/4G phone in one hand and an ipod in the other. The iPod has massive market penetration in Japan; the iPhone will when lanuched in Japan will have a large potential market. However, the previous generation of mobile phones (i.e. those before 3G) are totally incompatible with GSM. This is the main reason while the Asian market will have to wait until the battery technology improves.

2. 3G phones are still massive in size and have poor battery consumption when compared with GSM, hence the 3G version of the Mototrola V3 RAZR is almost twice the thickness of the GSM version. Europeans have a tendancy to go for smaller, more stylish phones, hence market penetration of 3G phones is fairly low. There are older members of the European population that like bigger phones, but they also don't like lots of technical functions; they are not in the market for an iPhone.

3. Most of the rest of the World have GSM, but 3G support is not consistent.

4. There are many phone users in European countries that now use pay as you go phone packages. This is because of the stupid attitude of mobile phone operators with regard to roaming charges for different countries; something the EU has recently tried to resolve. As the people whom are likely to buy an iPhone in Europe are likely to be those that travel a lot, having an unlocked phone will probably be a competitive advantage.

5. If I select an ISP, for my broadband connection, why should I be restricted to which model of computer I should use? Surely it is much better to buy a phone and then buy a contract for data/phone calls separately?

Re:Not another iPhone story

[71thumper]

Actually GSM phones in Japan will only work if they support UMTS2100 -- which is a Japan (and Korea?)-only UMTS frequency range -- the rest of the world is using UMTS at 1900Mhz.

While some phones support both frequencies for UMTS, most don't. The Nokia N73 and the Treo 750 are two phones that I know support both ranges, but a Samsung Blackjack, for example, does not.

Re:Not another iPhone story

[earlymon]

This is the main reason while the Asian market will have to wait until the battery technology improves.

Maybe. Easy to understand economics may be another reason - "Asia" is a place to many Westerners, but it's not to people here - here, there is Korea, Singapore, mainland China, Taiwan .....

In Taiwan, the big story on phones in the last few days was the HTC Touch - and when I first saw it, I thought, iPhone competitor/knockoff....

Then I left my Western-centric thinking behind (not so easy, as I'm an Apple fanboi) and seriously considered the HTC Touch. Here's what I came to - aside from free software that most ITs won't grok, the HTC has (advertised) a simple-to-configure (target for) email push that the iPhome seems to lack, and so forth. In addition, the HTC directly benefits the island's income - something the iPhone ( which, as a fanboi, I've been on the waiting list for) seems to lack.

The usual standards apply in Taiwan - iow, my AT&t (nee Cingular) RAZR does fine here, whereas in Tokyo, no soap. So while I welcome G3 (JPN-capable), it's not fair to say that G3 or battery power in and of themselves may drive sales in Asia - the truth is a bit more complicated....

Re:Not another iPhone story

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude - you have you facts so wrong. The rest of the world uses UMTS2100. Only North America uses UMTS 1900. And there are quite a few that support 1900/2100 and also UMTS 850

Denver doesn't have it...

[SuperKendall]

About half a million people, major metro, no 3G. No plans for it either.

Heck, we even have StreetView. But no 3G.

Re:Denver doesn't have it...

[Moridineas]

Really?

Sprint seems to claim they do http://www.sprint.com/business/products/products/e vdoCoverage2.jsp?map=Denver_CO&mrkt=Denver,%20Co

It looks Verizon also claims too, but their site isn't as good.

Or whole states

[SuperKendall]

Colorado is not even covered at all yet. Around 100 major metro areas does not a country of metro coverage make.

They can already launch in Belgium

[Krommenaas]

Here in Belgium it's actually forbidden to sell phones with contracts, we only get to buy phones straight from manufacturers at the actual price and then pick an operator. Thank Papa Smurf for government intervention - sometimes. So, Apple, you can launch the iPhone here right away, no need to waste time looking for a partner :)

2.8G EDGE?

[the_lesser_gatsby]

Edge(sic) is commonly referred to as 2.8G

I work in this industry and I've never heard EDGE called that. 2.5 or 2.75G maybe. The journalist should stick to works of fiction.

From a European point of view

[fluor2]

From a European point of view, I cannot see the fuzz about Apple's iPhone. It's just a standard phone, but with a touch-screen. Nothing more. All other European models (Sony Ericsson, Nokia etc) have plans for feature-rich phones like iPhone. I do understand that this is a big deal in the US, where crippled cell phones have mostly been sold (just standard phones with SMS and some WAP-services). Let's face it. The US is _way behind_ when it comes to mobile phones.

Re:From a European point of view

[doctormetal]

It also depends how much it will cost.
Looking at its features you can probably classify it as a mid-range smartphone, not a high end one.
If the price is acceptable (at most EUR 300 for just the phone) it will probably sell well.

Re:From a European point of view

[GauteL]

From a European point of view, I say that your point of view is no different than the typical Slashdot point of view, regardless of country of origin.

Apple's success has nothing to do with providing more features than their competitors, but providing regular features in a sensible and intuitive way. That is what they have done with both Macs and the iPod and that is what they are trying to do with the iPhone. Yes, Sony Ericsson and Nokia has the same features, but those phones suck. They have absolutely terrible user interfaces with almost no innovation on the usability side of things since the mobile phone was introduced. The mobile phones are incredibly stagnant from a UI point of view, despite having had lot of features added to them and the industry desperately need a shake-up.

Huh?

[kt0157]

I use T-mobile in the UK. I pay nothing per month. I have no contract. I pay $0.20/min for the calls I make, $0.10 for the texts I send, nothing for the calls I receive. When I use the net the amount I pay is capped at $2 for the day. I have 3G coverage at home (semi-rural). I do not pay for MP3 ringtones because I download them into the phone from my Macbook. The Bluetooth on my phone has not been disabled by the operator.

Am I being screwed then?

MMS

[LKM]

I don't think 3G is such a big deal in Europe, either. What matters, though, is MMS. And the iPhone (so far) doesn't have MMS (as per the iPhone training manuals).

Re:MMS

[doctormetal]

I don't think 3G is such a big deal in Europe, either. What matters, though, is MMS. And the iPhone (so far) doesn't have MMS (as per the iPhone training manuals).

Not a big deal in europe? What part of europe do you mean by that?
Here in holland all phones, except for the really cheap ones, are internet capable (just GPRS or GPRS + UMTS).
This year there are a lot of smart phones and pda's sold instead of simple phones.
So yes: 3G IS a big deal here.

Re:MMS

[LKM]

Here in holland all phones, except for the really cheap ones, are internet capable (just GPRS or GPRS + UMTS).

They sure are, but do you actually know anyone who uses that stuff? Watching TV on your cell phone is fun for 10 seconds, until you realize that you'll never, ever use that, ever again. Browsing the web is somewhat more useful, but you're going to use this so rarely, given the crappyness of pretty much all phone browsers and the mere cost of the experience, that the slower transfer rates don't really matter.

Re:MMS

[Moochman]

You seem to be claiming that both GPRS and UMTS are 3G technologies. GPRS is not. In fact, EDGE is a superset of GPRS.

Re:MMS

[athmanb]

Phone browsing is one of the things you never think about using until you actually have access to it. Once you do, you can't figure out how you were able to live without it.

The ability to look up public transit schedules, city maps, restaurant menus, phone numbers and street addresses wherever you are can sometimes save you a large amount of time.

Re:MMS

[LKM]

That is great, I do that from time to time. It works perfectly fine with 2G phones.

Re:MMS

[Muffhead]

Odd, I use the browser on my Blackberry almost every day on the train & get annoyed at how slow it is.

Re:MMS

[LKM]

Odd, I use the browser on my Blackberry almost every day on the train

What for?

Do you see a lot of people doing that?

Re:MMS

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't that the whole point of the iPhone ... it DOESN'T have a crappy browser ... it has a full-featured version of Safari that will browse the "real" internet, except that the old GSM network made browsing WAP sites next to impossible by it's slowness, trying to browse the "real" internet at those kinds of speeds will be crippling ... you can't promote "real" internet on a phone and at the same time withhold the one key feature that will make it fast enough to make proper use of it. 3G is a necessity that the iPhone can't do without if it is to live up to it's own claims.

Answer:

[LKM]

How do you switch operators?

You don't. That's the point.

Re:Answer:

[Jerry Smith]

How do you switch operators?

You don't. That's the point.

Wow. Just... wow. This screams for a car analogy...

Re:Answer:

[LKM]

Maybe something like "get a new, free, but crappy car if you change the fuel brand, and throw the old one away?" :-)

False.

[LKM]

And it seems one needs a iTMS account to use an iPhone

False. Entering your existing iT account or creating a new one is a step during setup, but you can skip it.

There's more than T-Mobile USA to life

[theolein]

Here in Switzerland (where the prices are generally very high), Orange
In Germany, with T-Mobile, the plans don't charge for incoming calls and are quite competitive.

You did know that different Europeam countries have different tarifs, didn't you? and you did know that no one here charegs you for incoming calls?

Or was this just another yay USA pissing match?

(T-Mobile is a German company, btw)

But

[Danathar]

But it's not an iphone so people will not buy it.

enough said....

Not to make anyone Jelous...

[El-Wrongo]

But guess who is getting a iPhone on Wedensday...

reality distortion

[nanosquid]

In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

Apple has the same option in the US. I know: I only use unlocked phones on US networks because I don't like the default phone choices.

The real problem with offering unlocked iPhones is that, unlike other smart phones, the iPhone is not fully programmable and that it is dependent on server support.

Get a Symbian or Linux phone, a phone with MIDP support, or even (holds nose) a Windows Mobile phone; they may not be as pretty as the iPhone, but unlike the iPhone, they make sense unlocked.

Re:...but does it run OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that's the primary appeal of the iPhone, right?

Are you crazy? Nobody gives a fuck about OS X. The primary appeal of the iPhone is that it looks sexy and has a slick interface.

(With, thank God, none of the clunkiness of the OS X desktop, with its counter-intuitive "dock" and horrible, horrible "finder".)

Unlocked phones

[Poromenos1]

In Greece, where I live, all network operators I know of offer their phones unlocked. I have used some 40 phones over the years and none of them were locked.

Re:Unlocked phones

[golgotha007]

I've lived in both Germany and Russia. I am now under the impression that the whole "simlock" thing is a US only stupidity and just waiting for a class action lawsuit before it's finally abated.

Here in Russia, you buy the phone you want. Then you get the service you want.

I can't think of a smarter method than that.

Re:Unlocked phones

[J.Y.Kelly]

I've lived in both Germany and Russia. I am now under the impression that the whole "simlock" thing is a US only stupidity and just waiting for a class action lawsuit before it's finally abated.

Actually it's not just the US. All of the phones I've purchased in the UK have been simlocked to the network I got them from. This really isn't an issue though. Any town centre will have a market stall or small shop who will unlock your phone for about 5 pounds. It beats me why the networks still bother with these kinds of ineffective protections.

Re: arrogance = $$$$

[neutrino38]

The demand from Apple that European Operators does not want to give in is simple: Revenue sharing on subscriber voice / data traffic charge.

Sprint not GSM

[SuperKendall]

They may have some faster data connection (though data coverage maps can sometimes include older and slower services, not just 3G), but it's not GSM based and so not really useful for the iPhonet. Mostly what I know is that I have a number of friends with 3G devices that complain they can't get 3G service in Denver.

The answer is yes

[snowwrestler]

You: I pay $0.20/min for the calls I make.

From the GP post:

We pay $60/mo for three phones (about $25/mo per line), and although we only get 500 peak minutes, we make more than 6000 minutes of calls in a typical month.

For the same call volume, you would pay $1200 per month. Compared to $60/month for the GP. That sounds like being screwed to me.

The answer:

[skinfitz]

Is they don't have to. According to this, it appears that iPhone will simply be sold SIM free, which is great.

Will be interesting to see how much it costs in the UK and if we are able to take advantage of the $/£ 2:1 exchange rate, meaning we will be looking in the region of only £300 for an iPhone, which would make it attractive to the 'looking for a new iPod' crowd, however I suspect a SIM free iPhone will cost at least double that with resellers offering their own tariff bundles. The lack of third party apps and 3G of course making it nothing more than an expensive toy for the serious Smartphone user crowd who are used to being able to install third party apps that do not require a data connection to work (and considering the extortionate price of some data plans here and lack of EDGE then just as well). I can see T-Mobile with their 'web and walk' package becoming very popular with people who simply want an iPod that does email over GSM.

Personally I'll consider one as my next iPod once they up the storage and /or make it 3G (as perhaps we will see a move to streaming music live from the net and cheaper data by then). If they allow third party apps then I'll have one for sure.

No need for a Euro partner

[Tjp($)pjT]

It is very common in Europe to have an unlocked GSM phone, unlike the US, and most users will buy a high end phone that has the features they want. Locked phones are uncommon, save Great Britain in my experience, and are considered less worthwhile.

Apple can sell them through the Apple stores and dealers based solely on features and be successful if the phone is really worth it.

Re:No need for a Euro partner

[Dan Hayes]

But in Great Britain you can get your phone unlocked for a fiver on almost any high street corner ;)

Why is parent modded "troll"?

[Nursie]

He makes a lot of valid points, the iPhone is seriously lacking capabilities compared to what's on the european market.

Re:Why is parent modded "troll"?

[adinu79]

Because fanboyism makes some people blind to any form of criticism to the subject of their "idolatry". And once in a while they get mod points :D

Yes, because the N95 is "free"

[Nursie]

It's not a comparable device (the iPhone is missing a lot of capabilities), but the UK market is driven by heavily discounted handsets. N95 free*

*if you sign up to 18 months at lots of money per month

Buying sim-free phones is extremely unusual behaviour here. Even if people know they're paying for the phone through their contract, they just don't sheel ou a few hundred for a handset, they split the cost.

So whilst apple *coul* sell it sim-free for around the same price as some other sim-free high end phones, it just won't shift much volume.

Nothing to do with the goverment...

[argent]

I think it's an anti-privacy thing. The gov't (who can take away their business) wants to be able to identify every customer.

I'm pretty sure that's an excuse. I'm not complaining about them having my ID, in any case, I'm complaining about having to sign up for a 2-year contract and put a $200 deposit down (or give them a credit card # they will charge $200 to if I break the contract) just to get service.

Not only that, but my experience was before 9/11... and now in Dubya's Amerika month-to-month SIMs are available.

Actually They Already Have

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that (hence posting as AC), Swisscom will be offering it. Swisscom owns a number of assets in other tel-companies, so it is likely that they will offer it too.

I know that Swisscom's CEO already played around with it (psst!).

There are lots of non-network stores in Europe.

[mjj12]

Many phones in Europe are sold through stores belonging to the networks, and this works very similarly to how most phones are sold in the US. You go into a network store, sign a contract with that network (usually 12 or 18 months), they give you a new phone (usually at no upfront cost if you commit to a contract) and the phone you get is usually SIM locked to a particular network and has custom firmware from that network. You then pay your monthly bill.

However, there are also "independent retailers", the largest of which is Carphone Warehouse / The Phone House. The business model here is that the network pays a commission to the retailer when the retailer signs up a customer. This commission can be quite a lot ($800 is not unheard of in the UK, although it varies a lot from country to country). That retailer then usually purchases a phone (either directly from the manufacturer or through an intermediate distributor) out of the commission and then gives the phone to the customer (again usually for free) along with a SIM for the network. . The base profit of the retailer is the usually the difference between the commission and the cost of the phone.

The important issue here with respect to the iPhone is that the network is not involved in the choice or the purchase of the phone. A company like Carphone Warehouse buys the phone directly from the manufacturer and provides it directly to the customer. It is often possible to obtain a phone from Carphone Warehouse for (say) use on the Vodafone network that is not available directly from Vodafone. Also, phones obtained from Carphone or their competitors are generally not network locked and have the manufacturers standard firmware rather than special branded and crippled firmware from the networks.

The largest of the independent retailers in Europe are extremely powerful. They are larger customers of Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola than are the networks themselves. The networks do not like this, as they think commissions are too high, and they realise that the retailers have different interests to theirs. (Networks want customers to stay on the networks as long as possible. Retailers want customers to upgrade and generate them a new commission the moment they are out of contract). As a consequence, the networks have been opening more and more network branded stores. It is debatable how well this is working (networks are generally lousy at retail), but there is a fight going on.

So, what does this mean for the iPhone? Well, if an exclusive was given on it to a retailer like Carphone Warehouse rather than a network, that retailer could then offer it on a number of different networks. That retailer could simply accept commissions from networks using its existing deals with networks, customers would buy the iPhone from the retailer with a SIM from a network (and a 12 or 18 month contract), and Europeans could get the iPhone. Carphone Warehouse has stores in many more countries than does any individual phone company either - it is in all major markets besides Italy - and Apple could do a simple deal with one company.

The advantage of dealing with Carphone is that it is a much more aggressive company than the networks themselves, who are staid, conservative, and fearful of changing their business models. Carphone would be willing to accede to a great many of Apple demands in order to do a deal, as long as there was some money to be made. CEO Charles Dunstone certainly knows that getting the iPhone would give his business a lot of publicity and sales and would be a huge positive in his battle with the network owned stores, and I am sure he is going out of his way to explain this to Apple. Going with a retailer in Europe makes much more sense than going with a network, and my hunch is this is what will happen. The only issue is the visual voicemail. If this genuinely requires a network upgrade, then Apple is going to either have to not offer it in Europe, or redesign how it works so it does not require a network upgrade.

(And one other interestin

Re:There are lots of non-network stores in Europe.

[Anonymous Coward]

(And one other interesting fact. Carphone Warehouse is so powerful in the UK that it does receive a percentage of the money customers pay on their monthly bills from some networks Doesn't this apply to every reseller? The "small but perfectly formed" one that I work for certainly does, and we shift low 100s pa - somewhat less than CPW!

Re:There are lots of non-network stores in Europe.

[mjj12]

I don't know. Carphone are always delighted in telling investors and analysts how special are the deals they get, and I have perhaps believed too much.

Separate the hardware and the service

[zerofoo]

I would gladly pay full price for the device, if a carrier would let me go month-to-month on the service.

I'm tired of being locked into contracts. Most carriers will not even let you buy the hardware at full price - why? They know that the contract you are signing is worth WAY more than the hardware cost. They use the hardware subsidy as an excuse to get you to sign a contract.

The bullshit has gotten so bad that in the last 10 years, handset prices have fallen tremendously, and the average contract has gone up from one year to two years. What kind of crap is that?

I remember selling cell phones at Circuit City 10 years ago. People used to pay $50-$300 for a phone with a 1 year contract, and $300 to $600 without a contract. Sure, we had free phones, but they only required a one year contract.

Now, thanks to the advances of the chip industry, handsets are dirt cheap. Have you ever seen the price on prepaid phones? Those things are almost throw-away phones. Buyers that can not afford full price hardware can still go the prepaid route.

The hardware is now cheap enough - it's time to separate the hardware from the service.

-ted

Good luck to them

[Anonymous Coward]

In the uk, not so sure about europe in general, we are used to subsidised phones where u can get the phone for free nd u pay say £40 a month. Apple is talking about selling the phone to us, say around £250 to £300 pound no doubt and then charge for a contract and a two year one at that, if its similar to USA. Most people wouldn't dream of payin that much even if it is a lower £30 a month. No 3G, nd at £30 no unlimited internet nd phone, in my eyes no sale.

I'm not being a coward btw by not posting as a user i've just forgotten my password nd my history was deleted so its not saved anymore, along with my email account.