Big yawns all around with iPhone and O2’s announcement in the UK. Now I use a lot of Apple gear. I like the iMac and OSX and our army of MacBooks and I can even stomach the iPod/iTunes marriage/lock-in — but even this is a really bad deal or St Steve’s Reality Distortion Field™ is not what it used to be.
Or both
So, let’s recap on my having to sit through 45 minutes of Jobsian puff…
* iPhone not subsidized by carrier = £269 plus tarriff (£35/£45/£55) (Excuse me but buy a crippled 2.5G phone? [snigger] who does St Jobs think we are… American?)
* No 3G = EDGE only
* 2MP Camera (what era was this device made in?!)
* No MMS
* No video recording
* Minimum tariff with limited unlimited data – but no real ability to get at the data.
Upside #1: O2 will now offer ‘unlimited’** data to its other customers from Oct 1st. So O2 is catching up with T-Mobile and 3 but again, this is EDGE only. Those of us packing 3G sets in our kecks aren’t going back (nor can we O2 is relatively alone in backing EDGE while the rest of the world goes HSDPA etc)
Upside #2 WiFi access to The Cloud included in tariff — however The Cloud offers very sporadic and patchy access service. Bear in mind the very limited access 802.11 has in a city and 7,000 hotspots is simply not a lot.
UPDATE: And here is the pricing structure. Not good at all.
Apple is being historically consistent here with a rather retarded phone tarted up by the inclusion of a reasonably innovative iPod. By comparison: my Nokia N95 has a very good 5MP cam with decent (for a phone) optics I got in March was free (or rather subsidized by) Orange and £35/Month gets 600/300 texts/minutes, 8MB data, Plus home broadband (with Livebox for free evening phone calls) — and despite being Wannadoo its been OK so far — plus the N95 does all the extra stuff iPhone does sans touch which isn’t an issue to me.
Personally? I have an itch to get an iPod and stick with my phone/contract. No O2 coverage where I live so the deal is not sweet enough to be worth jumping even if the phone were any good. I think that will apply to a lot of people now the hullabaloo has died down and American iFans have been exposed for the fleece-worthy genuflecting idiots they truly are. I’ve 12 months left of a 16 month Orange contract (with all the extras) anyway and by then better phones will come along which will make the iPhone even more retarded.
So nothing has changed; as before its best to have two devices (N95 plus iPod) that do the job really well than one device that happens to be a storage-restricted iPod and a really very so-so phone.
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(*except its not as trading standards have already agreed)
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