I would prefer WiMAX instead of 3G. But that is absolutely out of charts. Close cooperation between Apple and Intel could lead to WiMAX, however the power consumtion is probably even higher than consumtion of 3G modules and coverage is almost 0. But building long range WiMAX network is probably much cheaper than building 3G, so it could be a way for many operators to go.
Yes. If you want a really enjoyable internet experience and want it everywhere, WiMAX would seem to be the solution.
It's sad to say [I'm a Canadian] but Apple simply doesn't care about Canada right now. We're an after thought, an extremely after, after thought. With a population of 33 million, slightly less than half of which even own a cell phone, we're viewed as a market that's too small.
Don't worry, the iPhone is almost unlocked. You can already download all its ringtones and use them on your own phone.
How does apple get pass EU laws that say phones MUST BE UNLOCKED?
There is no such EU law, that's how.
I think only Belgium has that law. In the rest of the EU it's not illegal to unlock a phone but usually they're still sold locked.
There's a few small problems with O2 as a carrier. Firstly they don't do EDGE, secondly they've the worst 3G coverage by far and thirdly they've extremely expensive data charges.
My bet is still on Vodafone and T-Mobile. Vodafone has the best coverage and ok charges. T-Mobile the best data charges and ok coverage. And the graphics for those carriers are already in the iPhone.
I think Canada should be considered sooner. I mean, look at all the Canadian interest on just this message-board, doesn't that say something? I think the importance of geography is being overlooked by Apple.
It will be interesting here in Czech Republic. We have all of the three operators (T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2) here, so it will be quite a lottery. Unfortunatelly we will have to wait for iPhone for a while as I guess it won't be possible to buy phone in other country and use it here for reasonable price.
However O2 would be an interesting choice as when you have ADSL at home you also get access to all O2's WiFi hotspots and some areas such as Prague are pretty good covered with them. You can also get a combination of ADSL+WiFi+3G/EDGE plan for very reasonable price. So, it would be a great way to fully use iPhone potential.
The touch screen requires un-gloved hands. That leaves out 90% of the Canadian popular for 10 months out of the year.
Yes, you are correct. As a Canadian I totally understand, the climate in Canada is much too cold for normal use of the iPhone!
I'll just go back to reading the news. Hmmm, weather report says highs of 100 degrees F!! And I was looking forward to snowshoe-ing to Bill's igloo for bacon and beer and maybe a hockey game later, eh?!
Find me proof of that, I came across a friends phone that was on Three that was locked.
It's perfectly legal for them to sell it locked, but they are obliged to offer unlocking if the customer specifically requests it... They may make the process a hassle, but they can't avoid it.
Contrary to what a lot of people think on this forum, european law does not require phones to be unlocked when you buy them, but the phone company must give you an unlock code after 6 months of paid subscription. Whatever the subscription. So Apple could very well sell locked phones, but after 6 months would have to provide a way to unlock them.
Hope that clears a little misunderstanding.
Sebastien
Quote:
Originally Posted by abrooks
Find me proof of that, I came across a friends phone that was on Three that was locked.
Contrary to what a lot of people think on this forum, european law does not require phones to be unlocked when you buy them, but the phone company must give you an unlock code after 6 months of paid subscription. Whatever the subscription. So Apple could very well sell locked phones, but after 6 months would have to provide a way to unlock them.
Hope that clears a little misunderstanding.
Sebastien
Welcome to the AI forums, Sebastien.
That doesn't clear up anything. Most comments I've read report that different countries have different regulations on locking phones. For instance, Germany has no problem with it and does not require you offer an unlock code after a predetermined time while in Belgium it's illegal to lock at a phone at all.
I'm tired of all this speculation. I'll try to find some documentation on all this.
Whether countries applies correctly or not the European laws is a whole different issue, which goes beyond this forum.
European law always takes over country laws, so if a German provider does not want to give you the code to unlock your phone in accordance with a local law, you could theoretically sue him or your country at the European court. Of course you are not going to do it by yourself and would probably need the help of a consumer organization.
But again it's not because some countries dont apply a european law that it does not exist. France does not follow the legal european level of pesticides in drinking water in Britanny and got condemned by the European courts. (a different issue I agree, but the same idea).
Sim locking is clearly viewed as anti competitive by the DG IV of the European Commission. Already back in 1996.
Sebastien.
Case Study: DG IV Intervention in ?SIM Locking?
The following approach was taken by the Director ? General for competition (DG IV) of the European Commission in the case of the ?SIM Lock? feature on mobile phone handsets. This feature was, at one time, common on European handsets.
The SIM Lock feature had at least two characteristics:
It could be used as a theft deterrent (since the ?Subscriber identification module? ? or ?SIM ? integrated circuit card was uniquely associated with a particular handset); and
It effectively locked a particular handset and subscriber to a single mobile telephone service operator. The SIM card authorised a particular handset and subscriber to use a particular service provider?s network. Locking the SIM card and preventing its replacement in the handset prevented subscribers from changing their service provider. The SIM Lock feature could be ?unlocked?. However, service providers tended to impose significant charges for overriding the SIM Lock feature.
On 30 May 1996, DG IV wrote a letter to the manufacturers of the handsets and to network operators notifying then that it considered the SIM Lock feature as having anti-competitive effects. Further consultations and correspondence ensued. As a result, manufacturers agreed to modify their handsets and include the ability for subscribers to unlock the SIM Lock feature. DG IV also set out a number of additional restrictions on the use of the SIM Lock feature. These included full disclosure to consumers that they could unlock the handsets. Where service providers had subsidised handsets prices, the amount of the subsidy and specific commercial terms for recovering the subsidy had to be disclosed. Providers also had to disclose any effect that this subsidy might have on the subscriber?s ability to unlock the feature. DG IV permitted service providers to keep the handsets until such time as the subsidy had been recovered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Welcome to the AI forums, Sebastien.
That doesn't clear up anything. Most comments I've read report that different countries have different regulations on locking phones. For instance, Germany has no problem with it and does not require you offer an unlock code after a predetermined time while in Belgium it's illegal to lock at a phone at all.
I'm tired of all this speculation. I'll try to find some documentation on all this.
After reading Steve Jobs interviews on the eve of iPhone day in the us.. He cited 3 major reasons that iPhone does not have 3G.
1. Sporadic coverage outside of major metropolitan areas.
2. Current gen 3G chips are too large for iPhones current form factor.
3. Current gen 3G chips are a major battery drain..
Okay, so these are 3 reasons why the iPhone does not haave 3G in the US, but this article is about Europe and things are very different there. There is very wide 3G coverage in England with most areas of the country having coverage, Germany has good coverage and so does Italy (not sure about France).
There are some 3G phones available in small form factor and while yes 3G can be a bigger drain on batterys it is nowhere near as bigger drain as Wifi is!
Quote:
There's a few small problems with O2 as a carrier. Firstly they don't do EDGE, secondly they've the worst 3G coverage by far and thirdly they've extremely expensive data charges.
O2's 3G coverage is not nearly as good as 3, Vodafone or Orange you are right, but am confused by the "lack of Edge" comment. No-one has Edge in the UK or Europe for that matter. GPRS is the 2.5G data standard in Europe and is far too slow for browsing of web pages.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post
If the reports about iPhone sales are even remotely true then all these European carriers that have been sitting on the fence to see how well it sells in the US have just lost a good deal of their bargaining power.
yeah, now that they are sold out everywhere, they may have hit the one million sales mark in less than a week..
Yeah, i know you would love to believe this but i would not put too much faith in that idea! There have been reports of Apple struggling to sign up European carriers for the iPhone, i think precisley down to the lack of 3G. The 3G licences in the UK were sold for stupid money (around £18 Billion i think one company paid) and the carriers need to start making money back from their 3G networks, at the moment business use them a lot, and some consumers but they need more.
I know the Americans on here love the iPhone, but you guys probably need to understand that Europe has a much more mature and advanced mobile phone market than in the States. The iPone is not really such a big technological improvement over other phones available in Europe at the moment, if anyone has seen any of the smart phones by SonyErricson or Nokia lately for instance with large screens, web rbowsing, email and 3G all in one small form factor.
People in Europe are just not going to go as potty over the iPhone as the Americans (i mean come on! Queuing all day to buy a phone!!) People are less likely to change networks just to get an iphone, Most Orange customers will not want to move to O2 just for the iPhone, so things are going to be very different from the US. The carriers know this and really the ball is in their court here, not Apples. This is the issue with Apple entering a market it has no experience in. This aint like selling iPods and iMacs, you cannot just sell the same product worldwide in the mobile market.
There is an even bigger problem with Apple selling a phone to the European and Asian markets, a problem that i struggle to see being addressed, namely iTunes. The promise of 3G opened up a new business model for the mobile phone networks one that was previously unavailable to them under the old technology, the future was clear though as displayed by the rise of Broadband connections that enabled the Internet Service Providers to start becoming content providers as well as bandwidth providers.
There is a reason why the 3G licences in the UK sold for billions of pounds, 3G delivers such good data rates that it would be possible to start selling music, videos and TV shows over the network, a potentially bigger revenue stream that just selling minutes, the networks knew this and wanted a piece of the action.
There has been a change in the attitude of the mobile phone industry in Europe of late, The market has always been controlled and owned by the manufacturers, Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson have made the phones that people wanted to buy, they have been the brand that people bought into. But now the carriers are trying very hard for this to reverse, Orange want you to buy into Orange not Nokia, the networks want to own the customer and therefore have a bigger say in which technology is deployed to enable them to sell more services accross the network. The mobile networks want to only sell phones that will give them the market to sell content to, this is where their money is going to come from. Minutes are a commodity now, just like consumer ADSL is, minutes and mobile data packages could even become (or has become?) a loss leader in the chase for long terms contracts with the promise of media sales.
So the question is what has iPhone got to offer these networks? Will they be able to sell Music or TV shows to their iPhone customers? I think iTunes already takes care of that and the fact that the iPhone does not even support 3G means that even if Apple allowed them to sell content to iPhone customers they cannot anyway as the network would not support it. So what else does that leave for the networks? Selling data packages, this is already becomming commodity so why on earth would a network want to sell this phone at all?
The only reason i can think of is to gain market share, i.e. exactly what AT&T are trying to do. If you can churn enough customer onto your network from your competitors then you can try and keep those customers and then sell them a new phone in the future that will allow you to sell them content. As i said in an earlier post, In Europe the lure of the iPhone is probably not going to be enough to churn enough customers over to a new network, the market is more advanced, the majority of customers do stay loyal to their network, The networks reward people heavily for loyalty. There are a wide choice of advanced, smart phones on the market that means the iPhone while obviousley a great looking phone and a big leap forward in areas such as multi touch, the slow speeds it supports is exactly what the networks are not looking for.
Comments
I would prefer WiMAX instead of 3G. But that is absolutely out of charts. Close cooperation between Apple and Intel could lead to WiMAX, however the power consumtion is probably even higher than consumtion of 3G modules and coverage is almost 0. But building long range WiMAX network is probably much cheaper than building 3G, so it could be a way for many operators to go.
Yes. If you want a really enjoyable internet experience and want it everywhere, WiMAX would seem to be the solution.
How does apple get pass EU laws that say phones MUST BE UNLOCKED?
Turn up the RDF.
Need more POWER, Scotty!
It's sad to say [I'm a Canadian] but Apple simply doesn't care about Canada right now. We're an after thought, an extremely after, after thought. With a population of 33 million, slightly less than half of which even own a cell phone, we're viewed as a market that's too small.
Don't worry, the iPhone is almost unlocked. You can already download all its ringtones and use them on your own phone.
What about CANADA!!!!! CANADA!!!! CANADA!!!!
Sorry, but Canada is not even the fourth, fifth or sixth largest country in Europe.
The touch screen requires un-gloved hands. That leaves out 90% of the Canadian popular for 10 months out of the year.
How does apple get pass EU laws that say phones MUST BE UNLOCKED?
There is no such EU law, that's how.
I think only Belgium has that law. In the rest of the EU it's not illegal to unlock a phone but usually they're still sold locked.
There's a few small problems with O2 as a carrier. Firstly they don't do EDGE, secondly they've the worst 3G coverage by far and thirdly they've extremely expensive data charges.
My bet is still on Vodafone and T-Mobile. Vodafone has the best coverage and ok charges. T-Mobile the best data charges and ok coverage. And the graphics for those carriers are already in the iPhone.
i see that amazon.co.uk are listing it as out Dec 1st at £329 8gig and £279 4gig
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-iPhone...3656576&sr=8-1
And already the Windows fan boys have stuck their reviews in.
edit: I just noticed one of the whingers seems to spend most of his time reviewing self help books and games where you shoot people. What a loser!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/membe...stRecentReview
interesting i wonder if the hand set will be sold both without a sim ie on amazon and then through the network (maybe O2) at a reduced rate?
cheers for posting the link i forgot
interesting i wonder if the hand set will be sold both without a sim ie on amazon and then through the network (maybe O2) at a reduced rate?
Do neither caps, nor punctuation, work on your iPhone?
(PS: From my iPhone)
But it's probably not a HUGE deal for them.
However O2 would be an interesting choice as when you have ADSL at home you also get access to all O2's WiFi hotspots and some areas such as Prague are pretty good covered with them. You can also get a combination of ADSL+WiFi+3G/EDGE plan for very reasonable price. So, it would be a great way to fully use iPhone potential.
The touch screen requires un-gloved hands. That leaves out 90% of the Canadian popular for 10 months out of the year.
Yes, you are correct. As a Canadian I totally understand, the climate in Canada is much too cold for normal use of the iPhone!
I'll just go back to reading the news. Hmmm, weather report says highs of 100 degrees F!! And I was looking forward to snowshoe-ing to Bill's igloo for bacon and beer and maybe a hockey game later, eh?!
Find me proof of that, I came across a friends phone that was on Three that was locked.
It's perfectly legal for them to sell it locked, but they are obliged to offer unlocking if the customer specifically requests it... They may make the process a hassle, but they can't avoid it.
Contrary to what a lot of people think on this forum, european law does not require phones to be unlocked when you buy them, but the phone company must give you an unlock code after 6 months of paid subscription. Whatever the subscription. So Apple could very well sell locked phones, but after 6 months would have to provide a way to unlock them.
Hope that clears a little misunderstanding.
Sebastien
Find me proof of that, I came across a friends phone that was on Three that was locked.
Hi,
Contrary to what a lot of people think on this forum, european law does not require phones to be unlocked when you buy them, but the phone company must give you an unlock code after 6 months of paid subscription. Whatever the subscription. So Apple could very well sell locked phones, but after 6 months would have to provide a way to unlock them.
Hope that clears a little misunderstanding.
Sebastien
Welcome to the AI forums, Sebastien.
That doesn't clear up anything. Most comments I've read report that different countries have different regulations on locking phones. For instance, Germany has no problem with it and does not require you offer an unlock code after a predetermined time while in Belgium it's illegal to lock at a phone at all.
I'm tired of all this speculation. I'll try to find some documentation on all this.
European law always takes over country laws, so if a German provider does not want to give you the code to unlock your phone in accordance with a local law, you could theoretically sue him or your country at the European court. Of course you are not going to do it by yourself and would probably need the help of a consumer organization.
But again it's not because some countries dont apply a european law that it does not exist. France does not follow the legal european level of pesticides in drinking water in Britanny and got condemned by the European courts. (a different issue I agree, but the same idea).
Sim locking is clearly viewed as anti competitive by the DG IV of the European Commission. Already back in 1996.
Sebastien.
Case Study: DG IV Intervention in ?SIM Locking?
The following approach was taken by the Director ? General for competition (DG IV) of the European Commission in the case of the ?SIM Lock? feature on mobile phone handsets. This feature was, at one time, common on European handsets.
The SIM Lock feature had at least two characteristics:
It could be used as a theft deterrent (since the ?Subscriber identification module? ? or ?SIM ? integrated circuit card was uniquely associated with a particular handset); and
It effectively locked a particular handset and subscriber to a single mobile telephone service operator. The SIM card authorised a particular handset and subscriber to use a particular service provider?s network. Locking the SIM card and preventing its replacement in the handset prevented subscribers from changing their service provider. The SIM Lock feature could be ?unlocked?. However, service providers tended to impose significant charges for overriding the SIM Lock feature.
On 30 May 1996, DG IV wrote a letter to the manufacturers of the handsets and to network operators notifying then that it considered the SIM Lock feature as having anti-competitive effects. Further consultations and correspondence ensued. As a result, manufacturers agreed to modify their handsets and include the ability for subscribers to unlock the SIM Lock feature. DG IV also set out a number of additional restrictions on the use of the SIM Lock feature. These included full disclosure to consumers that they could unlock the handsets. Where service providers had subsidised handsets prices, the amount of the subsidy and specific commercial terms for recovering the subsidy had to be disclosed. Providers also had to disclose any effect that this subsidy might have on the subscriber?s ability to unlock the feature. DG IV permitted service providers to keep the handsets until such time as the subsidy had been recovered.
Welcome to the AI forums, Sebastien.
That doesn't clear up anything. Most comments I've read report that different countries have different regulations on locking phones. For instance, Germany has no problem with it and does not require you offer an unlock code after a predetermined time while in Belgium it's illegal to lock at a phone at all.
I'm tired of all this speculation. I'll try to find some documentation on all this.
After reading Steve Jobs interviews on the eve of iPhone day in the us.. He cited 3 major reasons that iPhone does not have 3G.
1. Sporadic coverage outside of major metropolitan areas.
2. Current gen 3G chips are too large for iPhones current form factor.
3. Current gen 3G chips are a major battery drain..
Okay, so these are 3 reasons why the iPhone does not haave 3G in the US, but this article is about Europe and things are very different there. There is very wide 3G coverage in England with most areas of the country having coverage, Germany has good coverage and so does Italy (not sure about France).
There are some 3G phones available in small form factor and while yes 3G can be a bigger drain on batterys it is nowhere near as bigger drain as Wifi is!
There's a few small problems with O2 as a carrier. Firstly they don't do EDGE, secondly they've the worst 3G coverage by far and thirdly they've extremely expensive data charges.
O2's 3G coverage is not nearly as good as 3, Vodafone or Orange you are right, but am confused by the "lack of Edge" comment. No-one has Edge in the UK or Europe for that matter. GPRS is the 2.5G data standard in Europe and is far too slow for browsing of web pages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post
If the reports about iPhone sales are even remotely true then all these European carriers that have been sitting on the fence to see how well it sells in the US have just lost a good deal of their bargaining power.
yeah, now that they are sold out everywhere, they may have hit the one million sales mark in less than a week..
Yeah, i know you would love to believe this but i would not put too much faith in that idea! There have been reports of Apple struggling to sign up European carriers for the iPhone, i think precisley down to the lack of 3G. The 3G licences in the UK were sold for stupid money (around £18 Billion i think one company paid) and the carriers need to start making money back from their 3G networks, at the moment business use them a lot, and some consumers but they need more.
I know the Americans on here love the iPhone, but you guys probably need to understand that Europe has a much more mature and advanced mobile phone market than in the States. The iPone is not really such a big technological improvement over other phones available in Europe at the moment, if anyone has seen any of the smart phones by SonyErricson or Nokia lately for instance with large screens, web rbowsing, email and 3G all in one small form factor.
People in Europe are just not going to go as potty over the iPhone as the Americans (i mean come on! Queuing all day to buy a phone!!) People are less likely to change networks just to get an iphone, Most Orange customers will not want to move to O2 just for the iPhone, so things are going to be very different from the US. The carriers know this and really the ball is in their court here, not Apples. This is the issue with Apple entering a market it has no experience in. This aint like selling iPods and iMacs, you cannot just sell the same product worldwide in the mobile market.
Do neither caps, nor punctuation, work on your iPhone?
(PS: From my iPhone)
It's clear that your iPhone's "be a dick" setting is working fine!
There is a reason why the 3G licences in the UK sold for billions of pounds, 3G delivers such good data rates that it would be possible to start selling music, videos and TV shows over the network, a potentially bigger revenue stream that just selling minutes, the networks knew this and wanted a piece of the action.
There has been a change in the attitude of the mobile phone industry in Europe of late, The market has always been controlled and owned by the manufacturers, Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson have made the phones that people wanted to buy, they have been the brand that people bought into. But now the carriers are trying very hard for this to reverse, Orange want you to buy into Orange not Nokia, the networks want to own the customer and therefore have a bigger say in which technology is deployed to enable them to sell more services accross the network. The mobile networks want to only sell phones that will give them the market to sell content to, this is where their money is going to come from. Minutes are a commodity now, just like consumer ADSL is, minutes and mobile data packages could even become (or has become?) a loss leader in the chase for long terms contracts with the promise of media sales.
So the question is what has iPhone got to offer these networks? Will they be able to sell Music or TV shows to their iPhone customers? I think iTunes already takes care of that and the fact that the iPhone does not even support 3G means that even if Apple allowed them to sell content to iPhone customers they cannot anyway as the network would not support it. So what else does that leave for the networks? Selling data packages, this is already becomming commodity so why on earth would a network want to sell this phone at all?
The only reason i can think of is to gain market share, i.e. exactly what AT&T are trying to do. If you can churn enough customer onto your network from your competitors then you can try and keep those customers and then sell them a new phone in the future that will allow you to sell them content. As i said in an earlier post, In Europe the lure of the iPhone is probably not going to be enough to churn enough customers over to a new network, the market is more advanced, the majority of customers do stay loyal to their network, The networks reward people heavily for loyalty. There are a wide choice of advanced, smart phones on the market that means the iPhone while obviousley a great looking phone and a big leap forward in areas such as multi touch, the slow speeds it supports is exactly what the networks are not looking for.