I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
No idea why Voda decided to announce they won’t support the iPhone
iPhone decision cuts off fans’ hopes
Perhaps it’s to cool down people getting a jump at Parallel Imported.
But voda won’t be that dumb. Seeing the reaction to the iPod Touch at the boys L’affare table this morning and with the team at work (who are queuing up to play - I’m hearing lots of ooo’s and ahh’s from the room next door) voda are not - not going to have the iPhone.
Once a couple of voda exec’s walk around San Fran or London later this year they will be all over it. With Telecom going GSM next year competition for the device will be intense. But consumers will find a way to make it work on both networks. So I hope that both the networks have techies working on visual voice mail.
Oh, and I have been hassling CafeNet on ‘no keying’ authentication. Not sure they get it yet so make it known in the comments.
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Frustrating! I was hoping they’d make it available over here too having drooled over several on my trips to the states. I wonder how much of that is due to their current play with the Blackberry?
From what I hear, Vodafone is very much at Apple’s mercy when it comes to the iPhone. Normally, the situation is the opposite, with the handset makers wooing Vodafone.
Surely a company with 0.000% market share and that doesn’t have any experience whatsoever making phones can’t just walk in day one and dictate terms to massive phone companies?
thy can when they’re apple!
I think some of you have hit the nail on the head. Apple would want to extract maximum money and unlike Nokia, Sony etc will not sell there phone to everyone in the great unwashed public. Apple has sold 1 million iPhones, Nokia sells 1.25 million phones … a day!
Which begs the question what all you guys with iPhones are going to do with them next week when Uncle Steve turns them into iBricks with a software update.
Oh that’s easy — tell iTunes a polite “no” to the update until others have verified that it is safe to apply and/or have cracked the new version. It does ask, y’know. Or, at least, did for 1.01 and 1.02.
Demand for the iPhone is driven from the consumer, backwards through the chain.
Nokia et al drive their product through the chain to the consumer.
That is the simple reason why Vodafone are left hanging on hold by Apple … and I say good luck to them. - Vodafone in NZ are rubbish. Just try and find a good, solid, basic plan that isn’t full of own-network hooks and complicated rubbish. Even the Vodafone salespeople in NZ don’t know how their plans work.
Vodafone in the UK are still rubbish, but slightly better rubbish (compare websites between NZ and the UK for plan clarity). But then, they’ve got Oftel keeping an eye on them (FWIW).
OK, I’m finished now.
“no key” stuff would be good, but they shouldn’t be able to redo the site to just “work” in PocketIE et al without major changes - ditch the javascript for a start….
the touch looks interesting, but without the wifi penetration that the US has, it’s kinda just a toy. a nice pretty toy, tho :)
“Game Changing” is one of the many descriptions I would put on the iPhone and iTouch tsunami of innovation that will one day hit these shores.
Rod and I saw too many examples in the US over the past few weeks which led our thinking into some cool ideas. These devices will become more useful than any mobile phone, iPod or laptop you’ve ever owned.
We saw iPhone was being used in conversation, being referred to, being communicated with, being stored on, being shown off but sadly not being connected easily to Wi-Fi (yep, even in the USA - land of the free Wi-Fi hotspot). The pain of the poor 2.5G Edge service there also proved difficult for web stuff but it was good enough for google maps and small overhead apps like weather and stock prices.
The Vodafone stance to staunchly “rub out” the iPhone hype is actually quite clever. The monopoly position here in New Zealand means they can say anything they like and confuse the market - I would if I was in that position. They don’t have to support the phone, people will use them anyway. Maybe the Apple deal is too rich for Vodafone to swallow. I would’ve thought it can drive data services through the roof but never mind, maybe leave that to the Wi-Fi guys.
Like mobile data service, Wi-Fi needs to be very easy to use on these devices. At Wi-Fi Hotspots such as Tomizone, the log in process is a little more bearable on the iTouch and iPhone. But it is still a process that needs an efficient fix. This extra process can take out the energy in a conversation where you want to show something on the gadget via the web. To make things worse, the iTouch and iPhone DO NOT CURRENTLY support the 802.1X authentication protocol which is the backbone of many Wi-Fi networks in the corporate space (this is where your device can see the network and quietly connects and authenticates without intervention from the user).
Making the iPhone and iTouch standard based for Wi-Fi (with 802.1X auth) can make 2.5G mobile bypass a reality - I’m looking forward to a day where my iPhone is always connected to the nearest Tomizone hotspot or metro-zone which it automatically authenticated into.
Needless to say, my iPhone is my new pet and fondly regarded. Lucky I only have to feed its hungry battery!
I’m off to catch a wave - Europe has to be the next stop!
So .. the iPhone update came as promised, and reports are that once updated phones are again locked and the previous jailbreak no longer works.
But, as I said up above, you’re free to decline the software update (it does ask) and keep on using an unlocked iPhone running the 1.02 software forever (or at least until someone figures out a hack for the new version).
I personally opted for an iPod Touch to use in conjunction with my el-cheapo phone, which is perfectly acceptable for talking and txting. But the iPod hasn’t yet been jailbroken meaning I can’t put my own or others’ 3rd party programs onto it) and I know others who now grabbing an iPhone while they’re still available with the old firmware because they value hackability more than the new features.
I can understand why Apple doesn’t want SIM unlocks — they’re getting serious revenue out of the telcos that they’ve signed up for exclusive deals around the world. But I really can’t see why they don’t want to allow 3rd party programs on them — and *especially* on the iPod, which does not have revenue or network integrity issues.
I’m picking I’ll become clear by Macworld in Jan.
“It’s a watching brief but it is not on Vodafone New Zealand’s road map for the rest of the year, and it could be years before we see it here, if we ever do,”
One would of thought it would be at the top of their priority list as at the Digital Media and content summit last week VF stated that they will be looking to push wireless data over the next year. The consumer can expect to see significantly better pricing very soon way better than the $10,000 per MG that standard users experience at the moment.
Maybe Telecom are beavering away to launch its new GSM Network with the promise of being New Zealand’s Iphone network.
Devicescape have just released their WiFi login app for the iPhone. All you need now is them to start supporting some NZ WiFi providers!