An hour ago Apple’s co-founder, CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G during the keynote speech at the WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. It will be available July 11, 2008 in 70 countries around the world.
The announcement had some surprises; confirmation of built-in GPS. All in all were information that many of the rumor sites had already published: 3G radio, longer battery life, multiple colours (Black and White) and lower price. What was missing, that I had hoped for was video conferencing or Mobile iChat. Well there is just over a month before the actual release date, may be there is another higher version at the USD399.00 price point: more storage 32GB and video conferencing to be announced before the date.
Yes, Apple lower the price of the 8GB version to USD199.00 and the 16GB version to USD299.00. Making one to speculate there may be yet another model at the original USD399.00 price. I think I may hold out for that.
The most interesting is that it showed up on Apple HK’s Store, but when I try to follow the “Find a store” link within the page, it gave me a “Page Not Found” error. I guess Apple forgot to put up a “Coming Soon” page for this. As Hutchison Telecom had already announced last week that it signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone 3G through is “3″ mobile brand. I just hope that it is not the only carrier that will carry the iPhone 3G in Hong Kong.
During the keynote, Steve Jobs failed to offer any details of Apple’s business arrangements with these mobile carriers in the 70 countries. It is already know from the various mobile carrier press releases in the past several weeks, there are more than one carrier in a most of these 70 countries that will be selling the iPhone 3G.
The Apple Stock had a roller coaster ride during the 2 hours of the keynote, taking a dive of almost USD4.00 during the 3rd party application demos; which most have seen during the announcement of the iPhone SDK in January, then rising to a high of USD184+ when the 3G iPhone was (”confirmed”) announced by Steve Jobs. It then drop a USD6.00 dollars when everyone realize there’s no “Just One More Thing” announcement.
I think both the market and myself was expecting Steve Jobs (Apple) to detail their future business arrangements with the mobile carriers in these 70 countries. Being a shareholder myself (full disclosure), hopefully Apple will release more details as we get closer to the actual release date of July 11th.
The one other surprise and rumor confirmation was the announcement of MobileMe, which is the next generation of .Mac for Macintosh computers, Windows computers and iPhones. To put it simply, it is a Web 2.0 refresh of (the over due revamp) .Mac service. Although, given its compatibility with iPhones (equipped with 2.0 firmware), I may again have a use for this service. Given I can install version 2.0 of the iPhone firmware on my current hacked iPhone 2G.
[Update: June 10, 2008]
Thank to the reader, AC, I just checked Apple’s “Find a Store” link and it is now pointing to a page where it lists “3″ as the mobile carrier to purchase the iPhone.
It is reported that the first of Hong Kong’s mobile carriers: CSL (with two brands 1010 and One2Free), People (recently purchased by China Telecom), Sunday (recently purchased by PCCW), Smartone-Vodafone (with a partnership involving the mobile giant, Vodafone) and Hutchison Telcom’s Orange and 3. The latter is where Hutchison announced that they will resell the Apple iPhone later this year in Hong Kong and Macau.
Recently Apple shows signs of changing their business model for the iPhone partnerships with carriers. When Apple is predicted to make their announcement of the next generation iPhone, at the keynote speech of the WWDC, there will be multiple carriers selling iPhones for any given country.
With this in mind I am hoping the big brother of Smartone-Vodafone will be reselling the iPhone also.
The reaction to the Vodafone announcement that it has strike a deal with Apple to release the iPhone in 10 countries: Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey, was a mix bag of haters, be-littler and fan-boy.
The iPhone arriving in Asia had been anticipated for some time. The latest is definitely good news for all the countries mentioned in the Vodafone press release.
As we all know, Vodafone has one of the largest worldwide mobile network, and has 3G coverage in many of them.
Whether Vodafone waited for the 3G version of the iPhone before signing the deal with Apple, no one really knows for sure accept the parties in these talks. Whether Apple will retire the 2.5G version of the iPhone is also a speculation.
No matter which country you’re in, there are consumers who are happy with the speed and capabilities of a 2.5G network iPhone, and there are ones who need and want to pay for a 3G network iPhone. Ironically, the only exception being the United States, as 3G coverage is not that prevalent in North America.
Critics; particularly the Americans, should step back and recognize that Apple is aiming at the global mobile phone market and not just United States.
As for the original rumors about the iPhone’s Asian launch, the stages are:
India –> Australia/New Zealand –> Taiwan –> Hong Kong –> China.
Personally living in Hong Kong, should make me feel like a second class citizen; in this case 3rd or even 4th. But I am not disappointed, because like the thousands of iPhone users in Hong Kong, we are happily using our jailbroken/unlocked iPhone on every local carrier network since June 2007. Like most early adopters, will continue to do so until the 3G network version comes out, which I will upgrade to… anyone likes to buy an used iPhone?
Now that the iPhone has been officially released for over four months, in four different countries. What is the most desired native application you wish someone, other than Apple, will release?
By “native” I mean application that runs on the iPhone without Safari (MobileSafari).
Before anyone say it, I do know about the vast number of 3rd party applications alresdy out there. I have used many of them, but what I am talking about here are the sanctioned 3rd party applications released by developers utilizing Apple’s official iPhone SDK.
My most desired is something that will be the IM (instant messenger) consolidator, like Adium on the Macintosh and Trillian on Windows. Currently there are MobileChat and Apollo from 3rd party developers, but neither works consistently nor do they allow simultaneous logins to multiple IM services at the same time.
The other thing that I really really wish the iPhone has is copy-and-paste. Apple being the first to made popular the concept of copy-and-paste in its Macintosh OS 24+ years ago, did not release a subset of Mac OS X for the iPhone with copy-and-paste, is very surprising. Now with 6 revisions of the iPhone firmware, we still have yet to see this feature on the iPhone. I wonder if a 3rd party using the official Apple SDK will be able to bring us this feature prevalent across every user interface and applications in the iPhone.
Another cool app will be something to do with the built-in camera on the iPhone. A simple application like MobilePhotoBooth or a more complexed application which will assist with uploading taken photos to the various photo sharing sites: Flickr, Smugmug, etc.. I know there are currently iFlickr and Pushr, but both are flaky and unstable.
Sorry for the late posting of my findings regarding the most appropriate package(s) to subscribe to from Smartine-Vodafone.
After one and a half month of use, I have a fairly good idea whether my original proposed “Internet Browsing” and “2G/3G Data” plans are sufficient to allow for the freedom of using the iPhone, without worrying about the amount may be charged for the privilege.
Although these packages are not unlimited usage plans, they do provide enough data (GPRS/EDGE) allowance to cover the typical use of an iPhone. This includes features like: Mail, Stock application, Weather application, YouTube application, web browsing and various 3rd party applications that require Internet access.
These Smartone-Vodafone plans are: the HKD38.00/month “Internet Browsing” and the HKD118.00/month “2G/3G Data” plans; both these are non-commitment/contract prices.
As explained in my previous posting, for some undisclosed reason, the “Internet Browsing” plan does not cover all data usage on the iPhone, therefore one needs to also subscribe to a “2G/3G Data” plan. Otherwise you will be charged a data charge of HKD0.06/kb.
My test last month had me using 5.5MB of additional data usage aside from my “Internet Browsing” plan allowance. If I did not have a “2G/3G Data” plan I will have to pay an additional HKD330.00. If I had the HKD48.00/month “2G/3G Data” plan (the lowest available), I will still have to pay an extra HKD100.00.
Therefore I found the HKD118.00 “2G/3G Data” plan is the most economical choice, while allowing me to use the iPhone without any worries of being charged an extremely high data usage fee.
I hope these findings will help my fellow iPhone users in Hong Kong.
On November 12, the German courts ruled against T-Mobile and issued an injunction preventing T-Mobile from selling Apple iPhones requiring a 2 years contract. The injunction also prevents T-Mobile from selling Apple iPhones with the so called “SIM lock” that prevents users from switching the Apple iPhone to any other carriers.
This evening T-Mobile announced that they will be selling the Apple iPhone for EUR999.00 without a 2 years contract and continues to sell the Apple iPhone for EUR399 with a 2 years contract commitment. In addition T-Mobile will remove the SIM lock for any customers who wishes, including any customers who previously purchased the Apple iPhone from them. Read the rest of this entry »
Instead of my readers having to scroll down to the comments in my original article or email me about the following must have knowledge about hacking your iPhone. I will post it here for all: Read the rest of this entry »
An hour ago Apple’s co-founder, CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G during the keynote speech at the WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. It will be available July 11, 2008 in 70 countries around the world.
It is reported that the first of Hong Kong’s mobile carriers: CSL (with two brands 1010 and One2Free), People (recently purchased by China Telecom), Sunday (recently purchased by PCCW), Smartone-Vodafone (with a partnership involving the mobile giant, Vodafone) and Hutchison Telcom’s Orange and 3. The latter is where Hutchison announced that they will resell the Apple iPhone later this year in Hong Kong and Macau.
The reaction to the Vodafone announcement that it has strike a deal with Apple to release the iPhone in 10 countries: Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey, was a mix bag of haters, be-littler and fan-boy.
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