DISQUS

DanLane · 1 year ago

easy tiger, the iPhone is only free on £45/month (8Gb) or £75/month (16Gb) tariffs... it's still very competitively priced at £99 / £159 (8Gb/16Gb) on the other tariffs but it's not "FREE".

My biggest fear was that they'd ditch the at-home activation which seems to be where they are heading, luckily O2 seem to have sorted themselves out recently and have some very appealing tariffs (unlimited wifi from The Cloud and BT Openzone is worth about a tenner a month on it's own) and I think I'll be going for the £35/month deal.

Ewan · 1 year ago

Free, in this context, is sure judged by the consumer thus:
Do I have to pay money to take the phone out of the shop?

No. Ok, it's free then.

That's ten years worth of assimilation!

DanLane · 1 year ago

I don't think the normob consumer will stretch to paying £75/month. They might just do £45 but then they'd still have to pay £99 for the 16GB model (which they'd do because let's face it, EVERYONE has more than 8GB of music!).

This creates a situation where the uninformed consumer is told it's free but is met with disappointment when they come to purchase.

MartinSFP · 1 year ago

The only let-downs for me are the camera (no hardware upgrade and still no video) and lack of built in online sharing options for anything other than Mobile Me.

That said, presuming the SDK allows access to the camera in the right way, video software (including Qik!) will be round the corner. Flickr/Shozu will also have a free applications up on the app store soon too no doubt, meaning sharing online won't be a problem.

As for Mobile Me - I love it. My music library is on my Windows PC while my contacts and calendar (which I sync with my current phone via iSync) are on my Macbook. I was concerned about having to shift a load of music over to my Macbook if I got an iPhone but that's no longer a problem. Mobile Mewill sort it all out without me having to worry. It's a shame it costs money but working out at just under a fiver a month it's worth it.

The last iPhone was not my cup of tea but this one? I've already registered at O2's iPhone page!

rachelgraves · 1 year ago

I am really excited about Mobile Me and look forwards to trying it out (I wonder if Apply will launch an enterprise server version!)

Ewan · 1 year ago

Will you be swapping on an iPhone Rachel? I seem to recall you were heavily
into Windows Mobile!

rachelgraves · 1 year ago

I already have one Ewan! Windows Mobile was very good for a time, but has really not improved much since my C600. I tried the HTC Touch Dual but just could not get on with it so finally spent my cash on an iPhone, typically just before they dropped the price (no refund available to me) and just before the 3g one comes out. I had mistakenly thought there was another 6+ months before we would a new one.

If I see an "I Love My iPhone" bumper sticker, I'm buying it.