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Fans Cheer as Apple's iPhone Finally Hits Europe
An anonymous reader sent in this article which opens, "Apple fans lined up through Yesterday night in Germany and Britain to be among the first in Europe to buy an iPhone, the must-have gadget that is set to shake up the mobile industry." Over 10,000 phones were sold in Germany by Friday afternoon. In France, however, the iPhone doesn't arrive until the end of month.
Have they changed the price to reflect the plummeting US dollar? In Canada, the (recently updated) Macbooks are still priced as they were when the Canadian dollar was a fraction of the American. I don't mind Apple making a profit on superior hardware, but a $350 markup just because one is forced to order within a certain locale rings too reminiscent of DVD region codes and all things loathsome.
All fine and dandy, but when does the iPhone goodness come to Canada? Impatient Canadian minds want to know.
At the Apple shop in Regent Street, yes there were lots of people waiting. However, go round the corner to the Carphone Warehouse and O2 shops in Oxford Street, and they weren't any busier than normal.
So how much do you think it will cost? I think Americans are paying full price + large markup on the hardware, plus an extra-high monthly payment (even though the hardware is not subsidized), plus they are locked into it for years, plus they are paying with the weak US dollar.
It looks like a great product, but the lack of 3G is a show-stopper for me. Hopefully this will be included in the next generation.
do people really think the one-off price (ignoring the contract) of the iPhone is high? it's about £270 for the UK, which is about what I paid for my 5G when that came out. but the iPhone features vs. 5G features (even given the time elapsed) seems a great deal.
people always bitch about Apple hardware being expensive (possibly true if you think product design and building are services that should be provided for free and companies shouldn't make any profit).
what do you think the one-off price SHOULD be for the iPhone?
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
An objective comparison:
sig?
I was walking around London's West End last night - up til about 4PM there were only about 50-70 people in the Apple Store Queue, almost outnumbered by staff,stewards and press. A few other phone shops had barriers and door staff from around 5PM but no sign of anyone interested in queuing. By 7PM many of the phone shops were not exactly crowded, with half the staff outside leafletting and trying to persuade people in to have a look. Considering there are currently >600 unlocked ones on Ebay UK, it isn't exactly surprising the 'official' launch was a bit of a flop, as anyone really interested would already have an imported one.
Like that matters here in Germany. People here say: 399? no thanx that is my 1/4 of my salary, I'll happily wait. The touch screen is good, but good browser? I use opera mini, itunes? wtf should i do with itunes? No ringtones? Germans are very fond of their own ringtones :) No 3g? oh come on. And the list goes on an on. This is not madness. THIS IS EUROPE ! ;)
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
well-known iTMS/iTunes coupling
False: There is no coupling between iPhone and iTMS. The option is there but you are in no way obligated to use it. And with respect to iTunes: iPhone Drive
I wasn't talking about the iPhone.
the fact that Airtunes only works with iTunes
False: Airfoil
That's extra software you have to pay for, and it's not made by Apple.
and is only configurable using an annoying program you get with it (no HTML interface)
Debatable: I personally have no problems with Airport Utility for the very few times I need to reconfigure my router.
To each his own, but I find it annoying to have to start a separate program for configuring the Airport thingy. Luckily you're right, It's not often needed.
and that you need Apple's BootCamp to have multiple OS'es on your Intel Mac
False: Parallels, VMWare
That's not the same.
However, I will not buy an iPhone unless I can put third party software on it
Done: AppTapp
Not supported by Apple, not out of the box.
and get one without a SIMlock and without a subscription.
Done: iPhone Dev Wiki (you need AnySim)
Tell me where to get an iPhone without a SIM lock and without a subscription.
-- Cheers!
I paid £220 for a HTC Advantage / T-Mobile Ameo a couple of months ago, with an 18 month contract. So that's a phone with Bluetooth, HSDPA, Wifi, GPS, 8 gig HD, 5 inch 640x480 touch-screen, 3 mega-pixel camera, VGA-out.
The 8 gig onboard helps to make it a little more directly comparable to an iPhone.
There's track record, and there's being a fan.
Track record means that as a quite happy owner of an HP laptop, I'll probably be slightly more likely to buy from HP next time as well. But that doesn't mean I won't look for reviews of multiple manufacturer's hardware, and definitely doesn't mean I'll buy the first HP laptop I see.
I also generally favor AMD hardware, but bought an Intel laptop because at that time the Intel option was clearly superior.
A true fan, IMO, is somebody that buys from $COMPANY because it's from $COMPANY and therefore cool, even if much better options exist. For instance, I'm not going to order RAM, a charger or a hard disk from HP's site, as it's much more expensive than buying the same stuff elsewhere.
Of all the phones I've use - and I've used most of them - the iPhone has the best UI. No doubt about it. It, as they say, just works.
But, sadly, the UI is a trade off against everything else. I won't list all the ways in which the iPhone is deficient in the current mobile market - but trading them all off against the UI *and* and £230 price tag is lunacy.
Would you use Vista if it cost £230 more than Ubuntu? It's prettier and easier to use?
No? Didn't think so.
I've no doubt Apple will sell a fair few of the things, and I've no doubt that the promised 3G version will be a spectacular improvement. Similarly, by 2009 I expect all smart phones to be colloquially known as "iPhones" just as all MP3 players are "iPods". But right here, right now, the N95 and any other high cost phone blows the iPhone away in terms of functionality and price.
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
What, like downgrade to 2G? No thanks, I may be a mac user, but there's no way that I'd buy a phone that doesn't have video calling, reasonable international roaming and most importantly : NOT LOCKS ME INTO AN EXPENSIVE CONTRACT!
I think the iPhone is pretty gay and jolly good for the twits who don't realise better phones are available.
What I expect is that phones will be 3G, with video calling, feature expandable memory slots, have bluetooth stereo headphones, may connect to wifi (for skype), be able to store txts through java onto phone main memory or online (I really hate only having room for 200 txts, bring on gmail for txts).
In addition, I'd expect on plan or pre-paid to be able to : have unlimited calls, video calls & txts to a few friends. Have a thousand national txts per month. Have an international happy hour rate to various countries. (For calls at a time convenient to them)
If anyone wants to do java gmail for txt, they can, as long as it's not patented. Oh I'd like it on my phone, save me from deleting just cause my phone is old.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
You managed the first sentence, now read the rest of the post to understand what he was actually complaining about. Basically:
Regular phone: You pay up fornt OR you get a locked contract.
iPhone: You pay up front AND you get a locked contract.
Now, if the up-front price of the iPhone was lower than other phones, then you could argue that they just use a different payment plan. However, the iPhone is more expensive AND binds you to a less favourable contract. I.e, its already horrific price tag is even worse than it appears.
A friend who works for Carphone Warehouse (who shall remain unmentioned) received an email on launch day from "the powers that be" saying that he expects staff to push for "80% penetration on insurance, 50% penetration on accessories". It's no wonder you were harassed into getting insurance...
The title of this thread is proof positive that hype overrules fact. There was nothing like the sort of chaotic scenes that came with the US iPhone launch, at most stores it was business as usual with no queues. Whether that's general apathy towards a handset that is so unusually priced in the UK (as mentioned previously we're used to getting high value handsets for free on £35+/month contracts), the delay between the US and UK/EU launch (lots of people buying unlocked from the States) or whatever - either way it wasn't the grand launch with people queueing everywhere that Apple and co would have you believe.
Pretty much all the news stories highlighted the Regent Street branch as it was a rare example of a store with a queue. My local CPW and O2 stores had no queues at 6:02pm.
Does that include the taxes such as VAT? The Apple store in the US doesn't include the sales taxes so a $100 item will be somewhere between $100 and $112 depending on the local sales taxes. What are the import duties and how are shipping charges calculated? Exchange rates tend to be calculated about once per quarter so they might have used a rate of about 1.36. Once all that is figured out, the rest is just international gouging.
While the US style of tacking on the taxes after the price is annoying if you just want to spend $20, it means that every time the politicians raise the sales tax, every single voter gets reminded of it with every single purchase. That might be why US sales taxes are much lower than places where VAT is included in the price.
Besides we know what the real cost of the iphone is... its the price of the iPod touch plus about $30.