3G iPhone Expected in June

MaineCoasts writes "The Times Online reports that European sellers of the iPhone are braced for 'significant losses' on unsold inventories of first-generation iPhones which must be cleared away for the new 3G versions expected in June. The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"

Comments

Features i'd like before considering getting one

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be cool if we could see:
3g
uncripled bluetooth so it pairs with a gps mouse
mms
copy/paste
camera with flash
flash support in browser

Unlocked

[chiller2]

Until the phone is available unlocked it's worthless to me. I need to travel between the US and UK, and don't want to have to pay extortionate roaming fees when I already have sims for networks either side.

Re:Unlocked

[chiller2]

If you visit any international airport you'll find plenty of people travelling in and out who switch their handsets sims. It's hardly unusual.

You're quite right that the iPhone can be unlocked easily, but that's not the point. It shouldn't be limited to those with the technical savy to do so. Anyone should be able to buy an iPhone handset and use it on any network they please.

In the not so distant past, iPhones unlocked with the simple as pie hack you suggest were bricked by a subsequent Apple update. Non techies should not have to worry their unlocked iPhone may die in this way.

Whether we can hack our way around the roadblocks is irrelevant. We shouldn't have to play these games with devices we spent a lot of money on.

boo-hoo

[Maavin]

O2, which sells the phone in the UK, and T-Mobile, the German distributor, are said to have significantly overestimated the number of first version iPhones that would sell in Europe.

What they really say is: "Damn, we shoudn't have been THAT greedy." or "Hm.. maybe our pricing model was too over the top?"

Re:The ridiculous monthly fees

[Naughty Bob]

Just prove that most of us europeans aren't retarded enough to fall for their stupid pricing schemes. I bet that we Europeans are retarded enough, but we have a much healthier marketplace for the moment.

Not to be pessimistic, but I can only imagine that O2, T-Mobile and Orange are looking at their excess inventory, looking across at the US market with envious eyes, and are then beginning to try to figure out how they can conspire to handicap the EU market, just like US politicians have been paid to do over there.

£100 price drop in the UK

[ItsIllak]

The three UK retailers (Apple, 02 and Carphone Warehouse) have all dropped the price from £269 to £169 a few days ago. They claim this price is valid till the 1st of June. It's still stupidly priced - I can go into a shop, buy one for £169, go home, jailbreak it and that's it. If I follow what they want me to do and sign up for the semi-unrelated contract, I get screwed for £35/month and for some reason have to agree to being screwed monthly.

By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.

Say no to the new pricing model - if you have to, buy an iPhone, but get another phone for free on a new contract and sell it to recoup the costs.

Re:The ridiculous monthly fees

[Frag-A-Muffin]

Just prove that most of us europeans aren't retarded enough to fall for their stupid pricing schemes. I would never buy a fucking phone for 18.000 sek of which only 3.000 sek or so was payed at purchase.

Nerd as I am I don't have any friends, girls and don't do phone calls. So the "services" I get for the monthly fee are more or less completely useless. Just give me the gadget!

I've been thinking about getting one and unlock it but I'm to lazy to read how it's done, but I've got the impression it's easy and you can do it yourself nowadays? But I don't think they are sold in Sweden yet so I still have to buy it from some other place and then someone have probably already unlocked it and try to earn some cash on it.

I'm from Canada, and perhaps it's a blessing that it isn't available in Canada yet :)

I purchased mine in the states and unlocked it to use with Rogers. I've done a bunch for friends too. Gets easier by the day (Thank iphone dev team!)

Anyways, my point is, It's probably cheaper if you buy one from somewhere else and unlock it and use it on your own terms. No pesky contracts, you pick the plan that you want (or keep your existing plan).

I've never used my cellphone so much before the iPhone. It just does so much. It's an amazing device.

Just my $0.02 CAD.

Re:The ridiculous monthly fees

[Concerned Onlooker]

I see your point. I mean, who really wants to pay a monthly fee for a phone? I think what you're looking for is the iPod Touch.

Re:The ridiculous monthly fees

[Lemmy Caution]

Don't you think that unlockability (without voiding warranties) is a major issue for European consumers? Swapping SIMs when traveling is something that seems taken for granted. Even my can-barely-turn-on-her-computer mother-in-law does it when she travels between England and Spain.

Re:The ridiculous monthly fees

[UnxMully]

I suspect you've misunderstood the saying "I'll be fucked if I'd pay that much for an iPhone."

only 3G

[gEvil (beta)]

But I can already get a 16G iPhone now. What's the big deal?

Phones doesn't require monthly fees.

[aliquis]

No, since it just cost slightly less and have much less functionallity. Also I would so much prefer the new Sony mp3-players, cowon d2, Sansa Clip/Fuze, over an iPod.

Over here you can buy a card with credits on it which you spend if you make phone calls, so it's easy to have a cellular phone which doesn't cost anything / month if you don't use it. Or you can get a real cheap subscription with free calls within the network and eventually other networks and/or landlines to.

If I could get the iPhone for 3000 sek as a gadget and then only pay for the phone calls I would actually make I would probably have gotten one by now.

Sources My Ass

[His Shadow]

Are these the same "sources" that attempted to screw with Apple's stock price by inventing a "whisper number" of one million expected iPhone sales at release when numbers of expected sales were in the 150 to 350 thousand mark?

I'd like to take a moment to say: I told them so!

[MacDork]

What they really say is: "Damn, we shoudn't have been THAT greedy."

Says who? O2/T-Mobile, or Apple... Apple is the one demanding a cut of the carriers' revenue. Hence, no carrier subsidized iPhones.

What I find interesting is.. oh wow, only 50 posts in the first 90 minutes? Where are the fanboys now? Seven months ago, when I predicted with prefect accuracy that Apple would fail, you couldn't get them to STFU. They were gaa gaa over the iPhad, and now look... They are nowhere to be found. Fair weather fanboys as always. Those fanboys aren't real Mac fans. They don't care if Apple is delivering great products. They buy Apple as a status symbol.

Apple has failed. Apple failed for reasons I outlined months... almost a year ago. I predicted it before the phone even launched. Apple is selling a locked product that is defective by design. Worse, Apple is spitting in the face of the Mac developers who are truly the most hardcore mac fans out there. That's bad business.

Re:I'll take one

[Derek Pomery]

GPS isn't that useful in urban areas.
The accuracy when you can't get 3 satellites is no better than using cell tower information.
And many times you can't even get that. Indoors of course, nothing at all.
In the country, it is better, but then, most of the time when I want directions for Google Maps I don't care if it positions me to a "mere" half a kilometre of precision (which is about as bad as it'll get - in city you can often get to within one or two hundred metres).

Battery drain and increased internal demands of GPS on the already space-tight iphone isn't worth that for my uses of it.

So. Basically, hell yeah I'll take what amounts to a UMPC - especially at a discount.
And for the /. crowd - it now runs linux... (Damn Small Linux at the moment - more to come I'm sure - and still needs work on, oh, the radio and touchscreen)

Re:Why I won't buy an iPhone anytime soon

[thanatos_x]

With respect to your critiques of the iPhone, you're comparing a device that is 4-6 times as much and weighs almost 4 times as much as the iPhone.

It's got a number of features that the iPhone doesn't... but i could say the UX is a toy compared to a regular mobile laptop, and that such a laptop is a toy compared to a desktop replacement, so really everyone should lug around a desktop replacement.

The iPhone easily slips into a pocket, and fills it's intended role well. I'm very happy to see the shock it's given the market. There are 4-5 iPhone-esq phones that should be available in the US in 2008, which will hopefully encourage more than incremental improvements from apple.

The UX is 5.9x3.75x1.5 inches and weighs 1.2 pounds. It's certainly tiny, but it's not something that would fit into most pockets. They're built different roles, and should be judged as such.

poor showing

[nguy]

The three European distributors of the iPhone 'sold 330,000 units to the end of December, but industry sources say that European sales of the iPhone were forecast to be between 500,000 and 600,000.'"

That's a really poor showing. The Nokia N95 sold more than a million units in the UK alone in 2007; that's a single model and a single country, and it didn't have anywhere near the hype surrounding the iPhone release:

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/11/28/brief-nokia-n95-sales-in-the-uk-top-1-million.html

I can't figure out why anybody would buy an iPhone: it's a clunky phone with clunky desktop integration. Adding 3G doesn't change that.

Re:I'd like to take a moment to say: I told them s

[dangitman]

Well, I'm not a fan of the iPhone. But I don't see how you can say that Apple has failed with the iPhone. I don't think making millions of dollars selling a popular product is failure.