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iPhone Likely Set to Launch in the UK Next Week
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNet, the iPhone is likely to be launched in the UK next Tuesday. 'Yesterday we were invited to an Apple press conference to take place next Tuesday — and we think it's most likely going to be the UK iPhone launch. Apple, as always, is keeping tight-lipped but there are several clues that point in the iPhone's direction'. No word yet on a UK operator, pricing or whether or not it will have 3G."
After so much bad press and customer complaints, I would've expected Apple to have learned a lesson.
Guess not.
You can get a 3G plan (with data card) for your laptop for 10gbp/month here which is a bit more convenient than hooking up a cell phone.
I use my N95 as a modem (it's faster than my home DSL! 10gb/mo transfer for $25) as well as streaming BBC radio (the on demand service) over the internet direct to the phone. However most people are not geeks and don't use the software toys that come with the handset.
However they will have problems if they think they can charge for ring tones here (especially 2gbp/4usd each, which would be 2* the iTunes price as per the US). Unlike the US devices are *much less* locked down in the UK - USB mass storage mode is enabled by default and a cable comes in the box etc. This is true even of many sub $100 cheap phones. While people aren't geeks this doesn't extend to copying on/off ring tones where suddenly the most undereducated yob seems to acquire the technical skills of an IT expert. It must be something to do with motivation.
Beep beep.
In the middle of the night, in the middle of the night iPhone your name...
Anyway, Mac OS X is going completely closed source - 10.4.9 was the last open sourced release of the base kernel/BSD toolset. InputManager plugins - i.e. the technology underlying just about every Safari plugin - have been disabled as a "security risk" in Leopard, even though any application installed as a regular executable is able to cause as much mischief. Apple's iPhone has no official SDK support, the iPods have disabled video out unless you're using an official Apple dock, and a hash in the music library on the player means 3rd party clients can't sync properly with the new iPods.
As such, although the iPhone appeals to my desire for Apple's approach toward usability, its increasingly Microsoft-like lockin puts me off investing in any new Apple hardware or software. Come on, Apple, compete on merit, not on artificial restrictions!
For a good first estimate, simply take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol.
In the U.K., we're well accustomed to paying an awful lot more for tech goodies than do Americans. We'll complain a lot, but only to each other (or like me, on Slashdot), and nothing will get done about it.
Congratulations to the UK. What about us poor Canadians? I haven't even heard a rumor about when we might get our hands on one of these little gadgets.
[[whether or not it will have 3G]]
(sarcasm)Yeah, like Apple would piss off all the americans by providing a 3G iPhone to UK user first!
(/sarcasm)
*Sigh*
...not having all the hype again? Not that I don't appreciate just about every other article being about something with 'i' in the front of it, mind.
Isn't it O2?
Follow me
According to this article on The Register o2 are busy upgrading their network to EDGE. The Register's suggestion that this is linked to the iPhone is a compelling one.
Apple announces 200 GBP price drop!
...judging by this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/14/o2_edge/
I sincerely hope it's not true. Whilst Edge might work in the US market where 3G isn't really an option right now, I truly hope they don't think people will take such a step backwards for the iPhone - some networks are already offering 3.5G here. It's bad enough that it's missing features that people here in the UK expect as standard such as MMS but if it's not going to be 3G capable then I'm not sure it'll really take on amongst any group other than the Apple fanboy core.
The iPhone being a bit more expensive than its rivals may not be a major handicap in itself- after all, the iPod shows that people are willing to pay a bit extra for Apple's UI design and fashionability. However, the difference in price between an unsubsidised iPhone and a subsidised rival (which was probably already cheaper to begin with) probably *would* be a major problem.
Here's my original comment with more detail (please note that when I posted it I was unaware that Apple *did* intend to eventually launch a 3G iPhone, but the point I make is still relevant in this context).
(*) Using "2.75G" EDGE as they do in the US. I don't know if EDGE is used in Europe, but we certainly have "2.5G" (GPRS) here.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This is something that always bugs me. People quote US prices without realising that they *don't include sales tax*; so they're never as cheap as they appear. Even if an American in a given state had to pay bugger all sales tax, you still can't use that as a reason to attack the company selling in Britain- they're not the ones who get the money, after all!
Another justification for goods being *slightly* more expensive in the EU is that we have stronger consumer guarantee laws. In the US, Playstations and the like regularly come with 90 day guarantees, and I've heard of *brand new* laptops coming with only 30 days. Whilst I'm not 100% sure what EU laws guarantee (*), it's almost certain that anything under a year would be thrown out of court. This means more money on returns and such (or alternately on higher build and quality control, again increasing cost).
Whether this accounts for the remainder of the price difference is questionable, but it should certainly be taken into account.
(*) It's not a flat 3 or 5 years as some people assume- that's the upper limit on most claims AFAIK.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I have the nagging feeling that Apple will try to clone what they did in the US in the UK ignoring the differences in the market. The UK is big on all the things the iphone can't do or does in a restrictive manner. People want to download ringtones, wallpaper and games. Picture and video messaging is something people expect from expensive phones as well, the UK is big on messaging in general. As far as I know the iphone doesn't support this kind of messaging and doesn't even notify if you've received one you can't view. Other major point is the price plan. People simply won't pay £399 and have a £30+ 18 month contract. You could get a prada phone AND an N95 for that price.
I'm just guessing, but unless 3G penetration is even *close* to 2G there, it sounds like most people would have a better experience with 2G anyway.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The iPhone runs OS/2? That's the best news I heard all year... oh, wait
hurray , i can now buy a phone that has less features (no SMS, no MMS, no video calls) than my old Nokia did in 2001
I expect the UK iPhone will be as horribly overpriced as the US one - expensive (and blah) handset, expensive tariff and one specific vendor. I wonder how that will work out when you can get virtually any phone for free on most tariffs in the UK. You could save so much that you could probably buy an iPod Touch and still have a pile of money left over.
The operator is O2, this has been known for months. Vodafone wouldn't touch the iPhone with a ten-foot barge pole, whether Orange or T-Mobile competed for it though I don't know. I suspect Vodafone wasn't interested for a variety of reasons including their own offerings on the non-hardware side, and that Vodafone is in so many countries that they wouldn't be happy seeing their exclusive deal on the iPhone in the UK being undercut by it being traded by their direct competitors in the rest of Europe/world.
As for the price, we'll be shafted.
Mac OS X is going completely closed source - 10.4.9 was the last open sourced release of the base kernel/BSD toolset
That's what people were saying the last time Apple was slow getting an update out, during the Tiger release.
If Apple doesn't support InputManager plugins, Unsanity or someone will hack them back in. Apple can't stop that because OS X is not an embedded platform, it's a general purpose operating system, based on an open systems platform, with powerful debugging tools. Unless they completely redesign it from the kernel on up along the lines of Vista that's not going to change.
But none of that applies to the iPhone/iPod!
Apple's embedded devices have NEVER been either open source or open systems. Why on earth are you buying an iPod or an iPhone if you care about that kind of thing?
iPod US price does not include sales tax.
iPod UK price surely includes 17.5% VAT.
£150 + 17.5% = £176.25 (13% difference)
£200 + 17.5% = £235.00 (11% difference)
Don't get me wrong, am an avid Apple fan when it comes to some of their products, but the lack of flexibility with the iPhone is causing me concern. I have played with an LG Prada, which while lacking the raw power of an iPhone or Nokia N95, for example, does more than people think and has a great GUI. And from the video on this CNET Review it looks like their new 3G equipped Viewty now fixes the flaws in the Prada and does even more, such as the cool slo mo video and a haptic touch screen. The iPhone exists simply as a cash cow for Apple, and it's lack of flexibility could well mean it will only ever occupy the same portion of the market as their other non-iPod hardware while most of the world will purchase devices they can tailor to their requirements with memory expansion and a more open OS. While I do not believe the Viewty has a developer friendly OS, it is equipped with 3G & HSDPA and so will prove ideal for web services that can make up for lack of any more sophisticated on board applications. I want one, and I was going to get an iPhone. Probably not any more. Tell me I'm wrong.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
I'll give you 200 reasons (now in Pounds) not to get an iPhone, but it will take 2 months for our bet to be settled.
I just can't freakin' believe people let Apple get away with this crap.
If Microsoft had pulled the same stunt, Gates would have been lynched.
What little OS X malware there has been seems to feature them more often than not.
What OS X malware are you talking about?
There's been one OS X malware release in the wild, and that was a social engineering attack over AIM. The only protection against social engineering exploits is user education. You can't solve them through hardening the OS or applications (though you CAN avoid them by not training people to answer affirmatively to routine security dialogs by having as many of them as Microsoft does. Alas Apple has started down the same slippery slope.
The biggest categories of vulnerabilities exposed in OS X so far are buffer overflows (which everyone is subject to) and attacks through LaunchServices, half of them using Safari's daft 'Open "Safe" files' option. These are also two of the three biggest categories of vulnerabilities in Windows (the third, and probably bigger than either, is ActiveX embedding in the HTML control). InputManager plugins don't even rate.
If Apple was concerned with security, they would:
* Remove 'Open "safe" files after downloading' and improve the Safari download manager to force attackers to use social engineering to get people to launch attacks on secondary applications for them.
* Provide an API for applications to register as "safe applications" for web browsers and other applications that display untrusted documents. Applications opening URIs, downloaded documents, and viewers would check in *that* database instead of the standard LaunchServices database.
Microsoft needs to take these actions, too. I don't think any UNIX desktops provide the APIs that Windows and Mac browsers use to allow these attacks... apps have to explicitly add themselves to the browser's own MIME and extensions registry. If they do, they need to take the same kind of actions.
Obviously I agree with you. Why not put your name on such a well thought out post?
Agreed. But, people have a choice. Apple are not forcing anyone to buy one, and if they upset people, they will see returns and lawsuits and change their ways. Believe it or not, the only thing I like about the iPhone is the ease of use and photo viewing as it syncs with iPhoto. But then, with the Viewty, you can take the photos on the phone and keep them there, while with the iPhone you take photos with your posh camera, upload them to your Mac or PC and then have to sync them with the iPhone! Confusing really. :-)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
With the phone market being more competitive and generally more price sensitive in the UK, the question remains will the iphone make a dent. Handsets have a life time here of a year or less and we're very used to getting the newest handsets for free or very little. The hype here is still very high so its an interesting situation. Until the iphone the £200 handesets are all smart phones/ PDA's targeted at the business user / early adopters.
The 3G point is very overblown. The market penetration is still not very high in the UK, and even those with 3G capable sets see it as mostly novelty. The kind of demo graph the iphone is targeted at eg. the ipod market 10-25 is not the same as the 3G market.
As you've noted, VAT is 17.5%, all too often us Brits get charged 50% - 100% more for some items over US prices, with no valid excuse other than simply ripping us off.
It's not going to change though because it also benefits the goverment far too much in that if the consumers are being ripped off, there's an even bigger amount for them to scrounge as tax to make up for all the shite they waste our already plentiful taxes on. Having worked for the goverment, I'm simply sickened by the billions of pounds that are wasted on incompetence, ignorance and stupidity every single year.
"The iPhone does support SMS (and always has.) It also has real email (which is far more useful than MMS has ever been)"
Yes, if you have a laptop or PC with a proper keyboard in front of you, however SMS excels over e-mail at putting together and sending quickly small messages, which is what people want on their mobile phone. Email is simply too cumbersome for a phone and 99% of europeans realise this hence why they use SMS over e-mail.
"a real web browser"
Just like just about every other mid to high range phone and every PDA that's been out in Europe for the last 5 years then? How innovative.
"a high-quality video player"
Just a shame there's no high quality camera to go with it, like say, the Nokia N95s with it's ability to film DVD quality video at 30fps. The iPhone's camera is equivalent to that of pre 2003 European mobile phone cameras.
"and arguably the best music player ever on a phone"
Arguably not also, I suppose it comes down to whether you're a biased Apple fanboy or well, not.
"It has also become very easy to install third party software [fiveforty.net] on and has a rapidly growing community of developers. Someone has even managed to implement video chat [macdaddyworld.com]!"
I'd rather be able to install applications without voiding my warranty thanks. Again, just like every mid to high range phone in Europe for the last 6 years has allowed.
"The iPhone isn't about having a ton of features though. Its about having a phone with a UI that isn't really really shit and having the features that it does have work very well. These are the things that differentiates its from your Nokia."
Yes, because Nokia's UI's are so utterly hard to use, oh wait, no they're not. Seeing as just about everyone between the age of 4 and 90 in Europe/Asia owns a mobile phone and quite happily has done and has used it for the last 5 to 10 years the current UIs are clearly not that bad, nor a barrier to using the device. You're suggest a whole paradigm shift in mobile phone useage from the existing UI's is somehow going to not confuse people who are more than happy with their existing phone's UI? Fact is the iPhone's UI is gimmicky, it looks fancy and that's about it, when it comes to it's simply not anymore usable that much is certain.
As usual, Apple's products are 99% hype, 0.5% quality and 0.5% features.
Finally the world knows the truth, that Canada is the tortuga if the internet! So come americans, come up here and buy your drugs at discounted prices, get your gay relitives married, use our web cafes to dowload warez, its the one stop shopping trip for all that your goverment and the corps that control it wont let you do!
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Not sure about the LG but the N95 has a flickr client on the phone to upload pics directly to it. Its quite handy if your out on the road and need a pic available onine. Ok you do need a flickr account first but most peeps have those anyway.
In Belgium locking phones is illegal. That would mean that there won't be a single operator who can get an exclusive deal. That would mean everybody would be able to buy it and use it anywhere in the world.
Also it means that the price will be the price for the phone and only for the phone.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I seriously doubt Apple with do 3G first in Europe. I suspect if they did it would put a wet blanket on US sales. Some/most US buyers would wait for the 3G model. Some have suggested that they will announce 3G and also a 3G phone. That to me makes no sense, it too close to the follow on to the original iPhone and I think Apple, with its price drop, is pretty much fixed for the Christmas selling season. I would then expect a new 3G 16GB phone in January (you know, this happens all the time with electronics, right after Christmas the newer new goodies come out).
-- Sammy with iPhone
Good grief. We all, us iPhone users, carry iPhone in our pockets. Get a real nit to pick.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
For a good first estimate, simply take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol.
:P
In Israel, you take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol, and only THEN you convert it to sheqels
finally, someone else who says 'peeps'! sweet! You must be Blitish like me!? Anyway, come the always on everywhere (& I mean everywhere) wireless broadband, yes, simply accessing your content remotely is the future. I for one find flickr annoying as it's trying to be cool rather than useful. it's tag system is very limiting.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Smartphones were going to eat iPods marketshare. The iPhone is the response to this. Now iPhones are the ones eating iPods marketshare, so no lose for Apple.
Selecting another smartphone or another MP3 player based on merits is simply the best choice.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
In other words, I am the kind of person that uses e-mail and SMS the same way, in other words e-mail in no way forces you to use a keyboard and write huge essays for every message.
I'm no iPhone fanboy and I'm not defending it, but I have to answer to your point that looks to me like an ilogical rant and out of touch with reality. "SMS excels over e-mail at putting together and sending quickly small messages" I still don't understand why e-mail can't do the same if that's how I use e-mail everyday.
And I can write SMS in my phone using my computer's keyboard, I don't think I can do that with the iPhone. Totally offtopic detail, of course.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Argh, I just can't understand how some people can be so interested about anything concerning iPhone: I'm looking at you Slashdot editors, bloggers, telecom journalist etc.. The iPhone basically is just like the Ericsson R380s, but with newer components. Just look at the thing, it's very much like iPhone. Actually it follows same concept as the iPhone: it's completely locked down, so no addable software, and it was designated to mainly function with the network. According to a Swed who I had a pleasure to meet in a trip in Sweden, said Ericsson at the time of the phones introduction, in 2000, said that it wasn't a phone but an terminal.
If there are any engineers from Sony-Ericsson reading my comment, please for the love of god and everything that is good, bring back the R380s with modern technology. The P-series that Sony-Ericsson introduced afterwards is just rubbish when compared to R380. The R380s had the right form factor, it just felt right. Actually when reminiscing my memories of it, I actually took it from drawer, the phone functions still, except it's OS is unfortunately corrupted with out possibility to have a master reset via phone. :-( Does somebody have an advice on how to get it reset otherwise?
PS. Actually there is one big advance that the R380 had: as a Finn having the R380 and not a Nokia phone, you got instantly more friendlier reception, "oh you have an Ericsson, your mine friend!" ;-)
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
There was a rumor a week ago about a leaked ad for the German launch. Does anyone know if it was confirmed or (convincingly) debunked? By the way, the ad claimed November 12 launch AND 3G!
http://files.macbidouille.com/news/200709/iphone_release_ger1.jpg
E-mail is designed to be extensible somewhat so by default it includes extra headers that are irrelevant when all you want to do is send a simple text. You also need e-mail addresses, e-mail accounts (including settings), there's the possibility of e-mails not being sent as plain text and so on. It may not sound like much but when people are sending lots of messages it can build up and add a noticeable amount on your data transfer bills, not to mention low-end phones still have limited memory, storing 256 bytes for a text is a whole lot better than storing a few k each time.
It's just too much extra shite that you don't need when all you want is to send a simple text message from one phone number to another. Not everyone uses e-mail, whereas everyone uses SMS here in Europe and also in Asia, what happens if I want to send an e-mail from my phone to someone that doesn't actually use e-mail?
What if someone sends a massive e-mail to my phone, a device on which I really don't want to be reading paragraph upon paragraph? The limitations of SMS can be extremely advantageous in this scenario in that SMS is perfect for what it's designed for, small quick text messages. MMS is just an extension of that, it keeps it simple by allowing you to attach an image in a standard format and nothing else, no need to worry about if the image is gif, jpg, png, bmp or whatever.
Does anyone actually USE video calling?? WHY?
SMS works just fine. I am thinking of developing an application that sends text messages via EDGE rather than GSM so that you don't have to spend as much on text messages. I really couldn't care less about MMS since the iPhone has email (and there is now an application that lets you attach photos).
+++ATH0
MMS (picture SMS) is the killer feature for me. I use it regularly. In fact, I hardly ever use the phone part of my phone - it's all SMS and MMS. I can live without 3G and custom ringtones (I have my phone on mute anyway), but MMS is going to be the deciding factor. I really want an iPhone. I hate my current phone (a P990i), and I've hated all phones I've ever owned to varying degrees, but no MMS (and no workaround - maybe the mail app could be used to send MMS and the browser to receive them?) kills the iPhone for me.
Yeah, I used video calling. Once. To see whether it would work.
This is one of these features that look great on paper, and in ads, but nobody would ever use in real life. Except for phone sex, I guess.
If the telco knows your handset doesn't support MMS, on receipt of a message you'll typically get an SMS containing a URL to visit to view the message at your leisure.
No idea if that would work with iPhone's Safari - I doubt it as they've mostly been proprietary Flash interfaces from what I've seen.
The 8GB device will hit stores on November 9, priced at £269.
It will run on the O2 mobile phone network, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs told a press conference at the firm's flagship UK store in London's Regent Street.
After the £269 upfront cost, customers will sign an 18-month contract with O2 on a tariff of either £35, £45 or £55 per month.