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update: iPhone & Belgium & opinion
There are many ways to blow up a good marketing campaign, but the price for screwing up best goes to Mobistar.
After Apple announced the iPhone loud and clear, also for Belgium, soon things changed a bit from launch on July 11th, to launch unknown.
Also prices: unknown.
How hard can it be to announce a cristal clear price? I am sure they had enough time to think that over.
I hope for most 'longers' that Veerle hasn't it right, meaning that it will take a while before iPhones show up over here.
Why do I use the iPhone?
Uh? For calling?
Can't you use a normal phone for that?
Of course , but this one is much cuter, and a lot user friendly. Try to open an adressbook in your normal phone, or try to add a person, or even worse, open your settings.
I also like the fact I can easily sync my contacts and my agenda, not to forget, the UI is very simple and for that reason I like to take pictures with it.
It is much easier than on my former phone.
Would you buy a new iPhone?
I don't think I need a new one now. What does it add? 3G, but with the current Belgian data plans, it feels like my pockets are being emptied.
For the GPS, this dataplan is also needed as it uses Google Maps for GPS.
Maybe if they'd add TomTom, and I wouldn't need data, I'd be tempted. If there would have been a better camera, I would have been interested too.
Anyhow, I don't believe in the 200$ price. This will never be the case in Belgium, because we are not allowed to sell packages. (*Note, in Italy an untied 8GB costs 499, a 16GB 569.)
And next to that the OS will be upgraded for all phones, so I'll get the same phone, but without 3G and a GPS.
My further remarks: we know my opinion on 3G and seriously, the plans are way too expensive in Belgium..
So that leaves me to the GPS, which is actually interesting.
But... why did Steve Jobs compare the 3G with the N95, and he didn't do this with the GPS? Simply because it isn't faster.
And thus, it is pretty useless, as we already know the GPS in the N95 is bullsh*t. According to Bart, it is good when walking in the streets, but not very useful in the car.
As I understand it doesn't take the signal well. So it simply isn't strong enough (probably because it would drain batteries too fast.)
I don't understand why Apple decided to put a lousy GPS in the iPhone. They could have put a good 5MP camera instead of a bad GPS.
They could have enabled 3rd parties to make a good GPS receiver. (like many others did)
And put TomTom inside of it, instead of the Google - I need a dataplan- Maps.
My conclusion:
-3G at too high prices
-Lousy GPS
-Still 2MP camera
-Ugly black back
-And a free update to iPhone 2.0 for old phones
So here at home, we're pretty happy with our old (i)phones ;) and stick a little longer to it.
Posted on June 14, 2008
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Comments (6)
Comments
Ine, you'll be right, after all. Damn it!
I've never trusted Mobistar. The iPhone-launch should have gone to Proximus! Proximus is my current operator and I'm very happy with that.
Posted by Pieter | June 14, 2008 3:14 PMIne,
Vodaphone Italy has announced their price for the new iPhone 3G in Italy (if sold without a carrier plan): 499 EUR for the 8GB version and 569 EUR for the 16GB version.
Posted by Kris | June 14, 2008 4:58 PMMore at http://www.rackham.be/blog/?p=358 (article is in Dutch).
Not to be negative or anything Ine, but if your grammar during the phone interview was of the same quality as the English spelling and grammar in this post, I can really understand how the interviewer had a hard time trying to understand what you were going on about.
Please, I know you use a Mac and I know Safari spell checks textareas in webpages by default. Try to mind the red underlined words next time... mmm-k?
As for the iPhone, rumors say the launch has been moved back to July 17th. I'm not saying those rumors are correct, but the whole arm flailing 'the sky is falling' mentality that's doing the rounds is really starting to irk me. Yes Apple and Mobistar made a booboo. Get over it... please.
Weren't you self-employed by the way? Check the Proximus site for the Mobile Internet Anytime2 plan at € 28,92 /mnd. That includes 2GB of data transfer/month. Don't tell me that's such an outrageous price. I've yet to reach 1GB/Month with my iPhone, let alone 2GB. By the way for € 41.31 /mnd you get 5GB of data transfer (for all those data hungry mobile users out there).
If the Italian iPhone is any indication the price will be around 500 euro. In my opinion not that much different from the competition. It's not because they can sell the phone for $200 bundled with a 2 year plan at $60/month in the US that they'll sell the device for $200 without the 2 year contract in Belgium. Why people suddenly fail to think in a logical manner as soon as they hear the words Belgium and iPhone in the same sentence really baffles me. 'Oooh shiny gadget! Must stop all reasoning'.
*sigh*
Posted by Thomas | June 16, 2008 1:57 AMNot to be negative or anything Ine, but if your grammar during the phone interview was of the same quality as the English spelling and grammar in this post, I can really understand how the interviewer had a hard time trying to understand what you were going on about.
Please, I know you use a Mac and I know Safari spell checks textareas in webpages by default. Try to mind the red underlined words next time... mmm-k?
As for the iPhone, rumors say the launch has been moved back to July 17th. I'm not saying those rumors are correct, but the whole arm flailing 'the sky is falling' mentality that's doing the rounds is really starting to irk me. Yes Apple and Mobistar made a booboo. Get over it... please.
Weren't you self-employed by the way? Check the Proximus site for the Mobile Internet Anytime2 plan at € 28,92 /mnd. That includes 2GB of data transfer/month. Don't tell me that's such an outrageous price. I've yet to reach 1GB/Month with my iPhone, let alone 2GB. By the way for € 41.31 /mnd you get 5GB of data transfer (for all those data hungry mobile users out there).
If the Italian iPhone is any indication the price will be around 500 euro. In my opinion not that much different from the competition. It's not because they can sell the phone for $200 bundled with a 2 year plan at $60/month in the US that they'll sell the device for $200 without the 2 year contract in Belgium. Why people suddenly fail to think in a logical manner as soon as they hear the words Belgium and iPhone in the same sentence really baffles me. 'Oooh shiny gadget! Must stop all reasoning'.
*sigh*
Posted by Thomas | June 16, 2008 1:59 AMOops, looks like we were a bit too eager to post. You can delete one of the entries :D
Posted by Thomas | June 16, 2008 2:01 AMThanks for a wonderful post, l ve been looking for such information, I will join jour rss feed now.
Posted by Mike | March 22, 2010 3:52 PM