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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.
I'm sure the fact that Apple will finally have to reveal how much the iPhone will cost unlocked / sans contract has nothing to do with the fact that France is getting it last...
Jerm
Oh, you're not a real doctor, are you?
... who clearly has never had a girlfriend ;)
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Actually, I understood that the launch wasn't so great.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I heard other things about this:
Bus charters to bring buyers to stores were cancelled.
It costs over Eur 1,600 in contract fees.
From DE press:
"The big run like the startup in the United States, however, didn't show"
"US hysteric, DE deep-relaxed"
"People using software to break the SIM-lock and use cheaper services"
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.
In the UK, we're used to getting our phones for free. Now, nobody is expecting to get an iPhone for free, however, this contract does show a marked change... Here, when we take out a phone contract, we get a phone for free ( higher the rate of contract, the more expensive phone you can have ). The carrier will lock you into the contract for usually 12 months ( sometimes now 18 months ), in order to recoup the cost of the phone. That's fair enough, good value, everyone happy. If you *buy* a phone here, you aren't locked into a contract, and can switch provider or have Pay-As-You-Go etc. With the iPhone, you have to *pay* for the phone, *and* you get locked into a min 18 month contract. So what cost is the carrier recouping? The fees it's paying to Apple, that's what. In the first instance, the benefit and the cost-penalty go to the consumer. Fair play. In the second instance, the cost-penalty stays with the consumer, but the benefit moves to Apple. Someone somewhere is rubbing their hands with glee, but it's not the little guy on the street. Sorry, it's a nice shiny device, with a very cool interface, but it's lacking in some important features, and I know a bad deal when I see one.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
An objective comparison:
sig?
Firstly: I admit, I bought one last night. I'm an Apple fan; but NOT a fanatical one.
:-D
I bought mine in Southampton, where there's an Apple store. I did go there with the intention of buying one there, but the queue was longer than outside O2 or Carphone Warehouse (the only other two sellers) and the staff had obviously been hyped up to whoop and holler and run along high-fiving the queue, which might herald excitement in the US, but in the conservative UK is distinctly embarrassing and probably put a lot of people off queueing.
I bought mine at an O2 shop and there were more staff (at least 15) than people queueing, even at quarter past six when I turned up (the launch was at 6pm). The staff looked a little embarrassed.
What was most irritating was that I simply wanted to hand over my £270 and take away the damn phone, but while I was waiting I was besieged by O2 staff asking if I was OK, offering me muffins, trying to demo the iPhone, trying to get me to sign up to some expensive insurance deal, trying to sell me accessories, trying to lick my ass... if they had put all these staff behind sales terminals, they would have sold them a damn sight faster and probably sold more of them, as several people got bored and wandered off!
When the Apple shop in Southampton opened for the first time, and when the Nintendo Wii was launched in a variety of local shops, I saw excitement and queueing that deserved this kind of reception. However, it was patently obvious that Apple have vastly overestimated the demand for the iPhone in the UK; I haven't seen the local papers today but I suspect Apple won't be delighted with the coverage (I saw some photographers having a field day making the queue look as small as possible).
As to why, I'm sure everyone knows, but here's a recap as to why it's not the saviour of the UK's mobile industry;
1. We're used to either paying for the phone, or the contract, but not both;
2. We're used to accessing mobile internet on 3G, which was rolled out wider and earlier here than across the USA;
3. There have been several competing devices launched recently, which appeal to a range of demographics; for example, techies will like the N95 while fashion victims will like the Prada wotsit;
4. It's quite chunky as phones go - which might sound pernickerty but the market here is very much geared towards fashionable, neat phones (for example, no manufacturer would dare launch a phone with an aerial here within the last few years as they look so dated, while I hear they're still available in the US).
A final thought on a different note though; I have no doubt that the iPhone will be a success here, it's just Apple misjudged the launch a little. Apple have the marketing power that other manufacturers only dream of, and at the end of the day, the public have little regard for technical features or even cost, it's what they perceive to be fashionable and/or popular that will be a success. And I hope it is; despite it not being perfect, it does a few simple things well, and is a pleasure to use.
And me? I say, roll on the open API
The iPhone does several things that no other phone in the world does. But that's not the point. Those "super-advanced" European cellphones don't do anything that 5-year-old phones do. Perhaps locate themselves a bit more accurately. Perhaps have a higher-rez camera. Perhaps have a faster Internet connection with a half-baked "web browser".
The point is that the iPhone does mostly what other phones do in a new way. The phone works like a cellphone would if it had just been invented, unlike other cellphones which are essentially a lot of bling and tech-spec thrown onto foundation/philosophy from 10 years ago. And that's why the iPhone is all that. And that's why you'll read reviews on European sites that say things like "my head says no, but my heart says yes." The iPhone makes sense, and has a unique feel, even if it falls short in certain individual categories.
In terms of actual new things, the iPhone has visual voicemail. All of those other "advanced" phones have voicemail that works like a 1970's cassette-tape answering machine.
The iPhone has a proximity sensor to turn off its light and touch surface when it's next to your face on a call. (Perhaps other phones do this. I have not seen or read that any do.) It has accelerometers so it knows what way it's facing (landscape or portrait), which may actually exist in other phones, but is certainly not widespread. The iPhone has a consistent, fingers-only interface with things like pinch and stretch (which are unique).
Just look at how you move through photos or through tabbed web pages: they made it work the same. Other phones don't even have real web browsers, much less tabbed web browsers, much less one where they've rethought how you move between tabs so it's clean and consistent with the rest of the phone.
In the end, I'm glad to hear the naysayers. The more the better -- up to a point -- for my stock investment. Apple stock does so well because so many people underestimate Apple. "Death spiral", "iPod-killer", "iTunes-killer", "nothing new iPhone", "market share too small and can't grow", "no halo effect", etc, etc.
(Not to mention this is iPhone 1.0 and it's competing against Nokia 15.0 (or whatever) and Windows mobile 6.0 (?). Not that much different from the initial iPods, which did not exceed then-current MP3 players in many aspects, but did do it in a more stylish and polished way.)
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!
The iPhone isn't about features. Of course, other phones have camera's and music players and whatnot. The iPhone is about getting it right. I have a simple Samsung phone. I picked it because I wanted a phone with a music player and a decent amount of storage. When I got it, I realized that feature listings aren't everything. The interface is impossibly complicated, the music player is enormously whimsical, it's impossible to get it to play a specific playlist, once it's playing you can't turn it off, file transfer between phone and computer works only if you're lucky and, well, the list goes on and on.
That's why the iPhone is different. It not only has the features, but they're designed to be used. They got it right. The iPhone really is beautiful and exceptional, not because of all its features, but because of how they work and how well they work. Most phones are designed to be bought, the iPhone is designed to be used.
I'm getting a bit sick of seeing that tag on every "Apple" story.
Look, up there at the top -- see the Slashdot logo? Look immediately below that. The leftmost link should be your name (or you need to get an account, you Coward). And just right of that, "Preferences".
Inside Preferences, click on "Homepage", and scroll to "Customize stories on the homepage".
And in there, click the leftmost radio button next to "Apple". Scroll down again, and save your changes.
You can now shut the fuck up and stop trolling the Apple stories, because you won't even see them.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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.