iPhone Likely Set to Launch in the UK Next Week 127
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNet, the iPhone is likely to be launched in the UK next Tuesday. 'Yesterday we were invited to an Apple press conference to take place next Tuesday — and we think it's most likely going to be the UK iPhone launch. Apple, as always, is keeping tight-lipped but there are several clues that point in the iPhone's direction'. No word yet on a UK operator, pricing or whether or not it will have 3G."
I don't think no 3G is really a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I use my N95 as a modem (it's faster than my home DSL! 10gb/mo transfer for $25) as well as streaming BBC radio (the on demand service) over the internet direct to the phone. However most people are not geeks and don't use the software toys that come with the handset.
However they will have problems if they think they can charge for ring tones here (especially 2gbp/4usd each, which would be 2* the iTunes price as per the US). Unlike the US devices are *much less* locked down in the UK - USB mass storage mode is enabled by default and a cable comes in the box etc. This is true even of many sub $100 cheap phones. While people aren't geeks this doesn't extend to copying on/off ring tones where suddenly the most undereducated yob seems to acquire the technical skills of an IT expert. It must be something to do with motivation.
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2G iPhone also has problems with Euro telcos (Score:3, Interesting)
Selling a device like the iPhone in a market like Europe without 3G support is destined to failure. 3G is a much bigger deal in the UK than in the US.
That's true from a consumer point-of-view. However, a 2G iPhone would also have problems with the network operators here. Even if it were able to provide a near-3G experience (*), they have invested heavily in 3G and would be unlikely to want to subsidise a phone that goes against this grain.
The iPhone being a bit more expensive than its rivals may not be a major handicap in itself- after all, the iPod shows that people are willing to pay a bit extra for Apple's UI design and fashionability. However, the
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Leaked German launch ad? (Score:2)
http://files.macbidouille.com/news/200709/iphone_release_ger1.jpg [macbidouille.com]
Re:I don't think no 3G is really a problem (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, Steve Jobs, your lock-in turns me off (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, Mac OS X is going completely closed source - 10.4.9 [apple.com] was the last open sourced release of the base kernel/BSD toolset. InputManager plugins - i.e. the technology underlying just about every Safari plugin - have been disabled as a "security risk" in Leopard, even though any application installed as a regular executable is able to cause as much mischief. Apple's iPhone has no official SDK support, the iPods have disabled video out unless you're using an official Apple dock, and a hash in the music library on the player means 3rd party clients can't sync properly with the new iPods.
As such, although the iPhone appeals to my desire for Apple's approach toward usability, its increasingly Microsoft-like lockin puts me off investing in any new Apple hardware or software. Come on, Apple, compete on merit, not on artificial restrictions!
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Where do you get that "statistic"? (Score:2)
What OS X malware are you talking about?
There's been one OS X malware release in the wild, and that was a social engineering attack over AIM. The only protection against social engineering exploits is user education. You can't solve them through hardening the OS or applications (though you CAN avoid them by not training people to answer affirmatively to routine security dialogs by having as many of them as Microsoft does. Alas
Well said, anonymous one... (Score:2)
Re:Oh, Steve Jobs, your lock-in turns me off (Score:4, Insightful)
The artificial restrictions are a definite merit as far as shareholder value and suitability for media from the perspective of the MAFIAA is concerned. Most MAFIAA members are making funny noises about going elsewhere with their wares. So, I would expect Apple to show itself as even more compliant and more determined to deliver obscene market models. They want the MAFIAA members back onboard and they do not care about the consumer in the slightest.
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I was referring to merit in the eyes of the consumer. Any successful publicly traded company has pleasing its shareholders as an aim, but there are more ways to do this than simply earning more custom - you can also make it harder for existing customers to leave you.
Precisely, and Apple locking iPod to iTunes is nothing to do with pleasing the MPAA - it's an act of self-preservation in the
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The artificial restrictions are a definite merit as far as shareholder value and suitability for media from the perspective of the MAFIAA is concerned.
It's ironic that Apple should buy this unsubstantiated ranting by Big Media, though, considering that they are the single most successful example of doing something Big Media basically claimed couldn't be done for years: making a lot of money by selling legal downloads cheaply.
Most MAFIAA members are making funny noises about going elsewhere with their wares.
The MAFIAA have been making funny noises about a lot of things for a long time. But realistically, Apple should be their best friend right now, and they should be aggressively promoting similar services as a new distribution chan
Why does ANY Linux user have an iPod or iPhone? (Score:2)
That's what people were saying the last time Apple was slow getting an update out, during the Tiger release.
If Apple doesn't support InputManager plugins, Unsanity or someone will hack them back in. Apple can't stop that because OS X is not an embedded platform, it's a general purpose operating system, based on an open systems platform, with powerful debugging tools. Unless they completely red
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That was not Apple's decision, and they have continued releasing Darwin updates since then.
macosforge has seen no posts since November 2006
I know, and it's annoying that this seems to have been a PR response to the last time this came up... but on the other hand it may have been a matter of testing the waters. Remember, that means nothing from Apple *and* nothing from the rest of the open source community either. If they were testing to see if the FOSS community woul
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Yeh, and it's been par for the course for Linux support of a product to require a completely new effort for each version of some product. I remember when 3COM ethernet support just started getting good, and 3COM kept screwing with the drivers buy shipping multiple different chipsets under the same model name. Sometimes these hurdles just keep coming back.
When that hurdle is ALSO a
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Apple has said it's going to keep releasing the source so STFU about stuff you don't know about.
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Now that is a confusing idea. How could Apple possibly violate the GPL on their own kernel? They own the thing, right? They license the code to you under the GPL, not to themselves.
Apple isn't bound by the GPL for code that they license to you under the GPL. Only you are.
Or am I missing something here?
UK pricing (Score:5, Insightful)
For a good first estimate, simply take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol.
In the U.K., we're well accustomed to paying an awful lot more for tech goodies than do Americans. We'll complain a lot, but only to each other (or like me, on Slashdot), and nothing will get done about it.
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iPod Touch
8Gb - $299 (~= £150) - £199
16Gb - $399 (~= £200) - £269
The US iPhone is the same price as the 16gb iTouch, so I imagine that's the price it'll be over here.
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Do those US prices include an equivalent of VAT?
At the UK rate of 17.5% the difference in prices isn't quite as large:
Another reason EU prices are more expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
Another justification for goods being *slightly* more expensive in the EU is that we have stronger consumer guarantee laws. In the US, Playstations and
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Don't know about Britain specifically but generally in the EU there is an automatic two-year warranty for most products. The vendor (or manufacturer) doesn't have to offer any kind of warranty specifically, it's all automatic. During the first year any defects are assumed to be manufacturing faults and the vendor has to prove otherwise, after that you have to prove that the produc
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To be fair sales tax varies from state to state. If you buy it in New York it's 8.25%, but in Oregon or New Hampshire there is no sales tax at all.
What I said wasn't an attack on the US system at all; it was simply pointing out that US customers *might* have to pay substantial sales tax- and that even if they didn't, you couldn't criticise the companies themselves for having to charge VAT in the UK (for example). It's not like they get to keep the VAT, or even have any say in the matter.
Uh. The Playstation 3 has a 1 year warranty in the U.S.. Most brand name laptops are the same. Yes, there are some with 90-day warranties but they tend to be on the low-end, special deals or off-brand. Maybe you're thinking of store return policies?
Perhaps the PS3 does; frankly, I'd consider it risible if something that expensive didn't. I was thinking of the PS2 or PS1 (though I forget which it was). No, I'm n
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Add further 10-15 pounds for compliance with the EU Electronic Waste disposal directive and you are more or less there. If it has radio (I do not know the spec) there is an extra levy for EU which will put it bang on the 199 mark.
This is actually much better than the usual 1USD=1GBP price conversion practised by most US companies.
VAT accounts for part of the difference, no? (Score:2)
iPod UK price surely includes 17.5% VAT.
£150 + 17.5% = £176.25 (13% difference)
£200 + 17.5% = £235.00 (11% difference)
Part being the key term (Score:2)
It's not going to change though because it also benefits the goverment far too much in that if the consumers are being ripped off, there's an even bigger amount for them to scrounge as tax to make up for all the shite they waste our already plentiful taxes on. Having worked for the goverment, I'm simply sickened by the billions of pounds that
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I've been a Windows system admin, so I can sympathize.
Re:UK pricing - dont be so sure (Score:1)
The 3G point is very overblown. The market penetration is still
Much worse for me (Score:1)
In Israel, you take the US price, and change the $ to a £ symbol, and only THEN you convert it to sheqels
What about Canada? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Rogers has said officially that you'll be required to buy a data plan for it. Rogers data plans are EXPENSIVE. There's a petition going around for Rogers to bring the iPhone data plan in line with the rest of North America.
One can guess though! (Score:2, Funny)
(sarcasm)Yeah, like Apple would piss off all the americans by providing a 3G iPhone to UK user first!
(/sarcasm)
*Sigh*
Would Americans actually want a 3G iPhone? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm just guessing, but unless 3G penetration is even *close* to 2G there, it sounds like most people would have a better experience with 2G anyway.
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What is crucial is that the UK market bears a closer resemblance to the European market than the US one. We get slightly newer, sleeker phones some of which simply never see the light of day in the US - and those that do, by the time the
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Any chance of... (Score:1)
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Operator (Score:4, Informative)
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Not likely to be UMTS (Score:2, Informative)
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AFAIK Crackberries have been doing E
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The Pearl doesn't have 3G either...
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And the other obvious question is that if the 2G GPRS network is overloaded with Blackberry data, wouldn't it be better to "encourage" all other device makers to use 3G instead?
(Does EDGE actually provide muc
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On average - you get 3-4 times more capacity with EDGE compared to GPRS. The investment to do this per MBit via an upgrade where applicable is only a fraction of the investment into deploying the same capacity via 3G. In addition to that if you are using dynamic channel allocation on the base station (and most operators do), deploying EDGE capacity for data frees some GSM capacity for voice.
EDGE is no replacement for 3G, but not deploy
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Next headline in 3 weeks (Score:5, Funny)
Differences in the UK market (Score:5, Insightful)
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MMS is the killer for me (Score:2)
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Works like a charm here in the UK. I've even used it while roaming (well, I did until I discovered how much they charged me...)
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I guess HP, along with HTC and Blackberry are Apple's main competitors in this market.
Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
hurray , i can now buy a phone that has less features (no SMS, no MMS, no video calls) than my old Nokia did in 2001
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hurray , i can now buy a phone that has less features (no SMS, no MMS, no video calls) than my old Nokia did in 2001
If the iPhone doesn't text, it is dead in the UK. DEAD. Everyone texts here.
I can't see that Apple would make that big a mistake here, so even if the US one doesn't, I would expect the UK one to.
So if someone does know, please enlighten me.
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"iPhone, how quaint" or "iPhone, how Amish".
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You sound like you're used to Europe's networks (Score:2)
SMS works just fine. I am thinking of developing an application that sends text messages via EDGE rather than GSM so that you don't have to spend as much on text messages. I really couldn't care less about MMS since the iPhone has email (and there is now an application that lets you attach photos).
Video Calling (Score:2)
This is one of these features that look great on paper, and in ads, but nobody would ever use in real life. Except for phone sex, I guess.
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Anyone saying the iPhone doesn't do SMS is just spreading FUD. But that's what Slashdot is for.
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I just couldn't see that Apple would have missed that one.
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hurray , i can now buy a phone that has less features (no SMS, no MMS, no video calls) than my old Nokia did in 2001
The iPhone does support SMS (and always has.) It also has real email (which is far more useful than MMS has ever been), a real web browser, a high-quality video player and arguably the best music player ever on a phone. It has also become very easy to install third party software [fiveforty.net] on and has a rapidly growing community of developers. Someone has even managed to implement video chat [macdaddyworld.com]!
The iPhone
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iPhone in my pocket, not just happy to see you (Score:2)
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The iPhone isn't going to break. From what I've seen, it's one of the sturdiest cell phones ever.
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The primary use for my phone, apart from being a phone and occasionally media player, is providing my laptop a network when I'
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I had the SE K800i. My wife has the iPhone. The SE product is VASTLY inferior, and it really shows when you use them side-by-side.
iPhone antifanboys are so... full of themselves. (Score:2)
In other words, I am the kind of person that uses e-mail and SMS the same way, in other words e-mail in no way forces you to use a keyboard and write huge essays for every message.
I'm no iPhone fanboy and I'm not defending it, but I have to answer to your point that looks to me like an ilogical rant and out of touch with reality.
"SMS excels over e-mail at putting together and sending quickly small messages"
I still do
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Again: the iPhone does support SMS. I don't understand why you don't seem to believe this. I said that email was a better alternative to MMS, not SMS.
Just like just about every other mid
Consumers face a tough choice (Score:2)
LG KU 990 Viewty more innovative & versatile.. (Score:2)
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Selecting another smartphone or another MP3 player based on merits is simply the best choice.
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WOOT (Score:1)
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In spite of Brussels' inflated view of itself, when you're a global company losing Belgium is no big deal.
3G not yet (Score:1)
iPhone this, iPhone that (Score:2)
Argh, I just can't understand how some people can be so interested about anything concerning iPhone: I'm looking at you Slashdot editors, bloggers, telecom journalist etc.. The iPhone basically is just like the Ericsson R380s [mobile-review.com], but with newer components. Just look at the thing, it's very much like iPhone. Actually it follows same concept as the iPhone: it's completely locked down, so no addable software, and it was designated to mainly function with the network. According to a Swed who I had a pleasure to me