Sunday, June 22, 2008

Waiting for the iPhone

Yes, so like many of the others waiting for the new iPhone; I’m also waiting. Here in NZ we haven’t had an “official” release of the iPhone. Not that it hasn’t been available. Our open market legal framework allows anyone to bring any device into the country and sell it, as long as they give basic support. Therefore a small number of them have found their way into the country being distributed and sold via online auction sites as well as some Computer parts stores.

However for me, I haven’t been out and got one. Although I’m interested in technology and gadgets, I’m not the type of person who will run out and get the “latest and greatest” just for it’s own sake. Currently, I’ve been using with the Motorola V3X - a phone I bought around 2 years ago. While it was still working, there was no justification to upgrade or change. However recently the V3X has started misbehaving, becoming unreliable, dropping calls, missing txts, turning off at random times and generally giving strong hints that it is no longer in a sufficiently reliable enough state to be in permanent use.

Given the upcoming July 11 launch of the iPhone 3G, I am interested to see whether the pricing and cost model will fit within my budget. Therein of course comes the issue. While Apple have made a big announcement and confirmed the launch date of July 11 and it has been confirmed that Vodafone are the local launch partner - no details of pricing, data costings/plans etc. have been released. Nearly two weeks after the news that NZ is getting the iPhone - no one really knows under what terms it will be available. The only thing that one can hope for is the enigmatic quote from Steve Jobs during his speech; “…in almost every one of these countries, the price is a maximum of $199 all around the world…”. Lots of time and effort, is being spent trying to understand the implications of that. Does this mean $199US converted into local currency? Are we the implied exception to the “almost every one of these countries”? What does this mean for data?

Hopefully Vodafone NZ will announce things soon. To be honest, holding off and missing the opportunity to get anticipatory exposure, is probably hurting them in some way.

For me, I simply need to be able to plan what to do for my increasingly alarming phone situation, to be able to understand whether I can afford an iPhone or whether I should be looking for some other alternative. Hopefully we all find out soon!

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