Apple Unable to Find iPhone Partner in Europe?

[Jim Campbell]

The point of MMS is to sending something (image, vid clip etc) from one mobile phone to another. 3G and WiFi don't help in that regard.

Doug

MMS is very popular here - far more so than, say, video calling. Admittedly, it largely consists of sending pictures of the pub to people who are working late/haven't arrived yet, but it gets a lot of use by everyone that I know.

My phone also has e-mail and I never use it. Again, this seems to have the potential to be a mis-step by Apple in this market.

Cheers!

Jim

 

[imacdaddy]

A part of me is glad that this has happened and another part of me is worried. I'm glad because, now maybe Apple will need to rethink their business model for EMEA and APAC for the iPhone to be a success and readily available to everyone. I'm worried that the iPhone won't be available to everyone if there's only limited partners in these parts of the world. I mean, if all the mobile carriers where I live say "No thanks Apple", then it's bye bye iPhone for me.

 

[Data]

I just hope they work something out, i want the iphone in my EU country tooooooooo , grrrrr .

 

[Philsy]

MMS is very popular here - far more so than, say, video calling. Admittedly, it largely consists of sending pictures of the pub to people who are working late/haven't arrived yet, but it gets a lot of use by everyone that I know.

My phone also has e-mail and I never use it. Again, this seems to have the potential to be a mis-step by Apple in this market.

Cheers!

Jim

I'm surprised that the iPhone doesn't have MMS - I just assumed it would. This phone is getting less appealing by the minute...

 

[emotion]

I love it. Battle of the undelivered untested phones.

Indeed. What is this thread about though. A phone that won't be even delivered until January 08.

At least SE have a history in moble phones and getting along with networks.

You all should consider that this entire article is FUD put out by the cell phone carriers to put pressure on Apple - not unprecedented.

Oh yeah, of course. Agreed.


btw. I wasn't aware of the w960i. Looks just like what I'd commit to for a year until Apple sort things out with HSDPA. I'm pretty sure my view is not that uncommon.

 

[hayesk]

While I'm not a programmer (I don't even play one on TV...), I know a few people that are, and from my talks with them... why can't the iPhone do it like this...

1. iPhone sees what network it is on (SIM card provides this info)
2. iPhone has scripts specific for each network to access the network's voicemail system.
3. iPhone caches and encodes in AAC the voicemails onto internal storage... tags each file/voicemail with caller-ID info.
4. Visual Voicemail feature allows you to flip through these voicemails just like we've been shown.

What am I missing?

Step 3. How does it "cache and encode"? The iPhone would have to do voice recognition to know how many messages, simulate digit presses and detect the start and stop of each message. It would be problematic, and would have to occur in real time. If you had 10 minutes of voicemail you would have to wait 10+ minutes before seeing the voicemail, each time you checked it.

It's not an elegant solution at all.

 

[addicted44]

They're not going to be losing any money or marketshare. Apple is entering in as nothing more than a minnow into an ocean. Nokia/Samsung/SE dominate the markets over there, especially nokia. No one is dying for an iPhone there like the sheep over here.

Using the most popular product, because it is the best available, does not make you a sheep. I have 1 ipod, and in the last 6 months have purchased a new Sony , Sandisk as well as a Creative.

The Sony sucks because it forces you to use SonicStage.
The Sandisk has an atrocious interface. The scroll wheel is simply annoying to use.
The creative was nicest of this bunch, but kept crashing and failing.

[I bought a bunch of music players, kept the best, and gave away the rest to friends. Incidentally, the owners of 2 of the 3 music players passed those on, and bought ipods themselves. Again, because they were not using them.]

The ipod does NOT have the most features. It is the MOST expensive. Yet, it is the only one I want to carry with me when I leave home, because using it is not a PITA.

If that makes me a sheep, then so be it. I am a proud sheep at that.

Similarly, the iPhone has a revolutionary interface. If it works as advertised, it will be super easy to use, and the only phone in which you will use most of the features (so while it may have less than others, you will use more. And that is not counting the innumerable web apps that will be created, and the possibility of an API being released in the future).
Agreed, Nokia and SE have great interfaces too. The Sony Ericsson Side wheel was fantastic, however, with the new smartphones, is quite useless. The only way to operate them is using a stylus to press teeny buttons.
And Nokia has just been getting more and more gimmicky (NGage, anyone?). Their latest phones cram too many buttons, which while useful for power users (who are on crackberrys anyways) they are frustrating for regular customers.

The only good hardware maker in phones is O2. Fantastic (and stylish) hardware, but unfortunately they have no control over the software (since they mostly run windows mobile).

So, yeah, the sheep will buy the iphone if it works as advertised, because it will be the best damn phone available for most people. And Apple's whole widget advantage is not going to be stolen very soon.

 

[grappler]

This, however, would require Apple to somehow bypass the provider's voicemail to enable their "Visual Voicemail" feature which requires server-side support.

Do what GrandCentral does, or hell, partner with them. That would be better anyway.

 

[rjwill246]

Thank you

Good? Good that Apple will, just to sell more phones, cave in to demands from yet another group of businessmen who have become fat and happy with their income stream and don't want to raise a finger to improve features that they perceive as good enough? C'mon... how is that good? I don't care how you feel about Apple or Steve Jobs or the iPhone, but you have to admit that the way Apple pounces into markets and stirs things up has already yielded loads of improvements that primarily benefits consumers.

Apple's arrogance is a Mac user's confidence that the product will be damn excellent-- at least at some point. European idea of arrogance, is "Vee vill NOT be told vot to do! Ve vood rahder die dan, dan, let a Yankee kommen here und taking over our mahkets! Humfgh!!!"

You can bet that on the inside, these dingbats are praying to get a deal with Apple. Not being able to stranglehold Apple must really be driving them nuts. I would rather Apple didn't do a deal for the sake "having" to get into the European market. Once the European consumer sees the iPhone (ultimately they will), they will get mad with their arrogant providers. Now, that would be fun to watch.

In the meantime, all that will do is strengthen Apple's position in the cold European landscape (unless this summer is a scorcher). Let's hope Vodaphone is hungry enough and willing to take some risk here. BT and Orange-- blah! Finland?-- hey, you have Nokia-- and how many people? What was that number again?

Don't you love it when the tail tries to wag the dog? There is indeed a place for docking!

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

There seems to a lot of talk about how T mobile are going to be offering the iPhone. I really hope they don't as they are probably the worst network within the UK. Orange always want to brand their phones and Apple won't let them, so thats a no no. O2 has never really recovered after the ill fated problems they had in 2002. That leaves Vodafone. Are they the biggest provider within Europe?

T-Mobile? As a TM customer..this would interest me quite a bit.

Too much phone for my lifestyle though.

I sure hope the iPhone does well here upon release. We'll see how it goes from there.

 

[nubero]

no, they don't. At first, they always ignore the European market and make everything USA-only.

uhm.. that's exactly what i meant. even though i wouldn't really talk about copying from the u.s. when talking about the cell phone market.

problem is that the european divisions of american companys are mostly satellites that may not decide for themselves. they always have to push to the market whatever the mothership tells them, in the way it's told.

now, i can understand the need for control by a single headquarter in the u.s. but most of the time they fail to have any common sense when it comes to deliver to other markets...

take the apple website as an example: the headline for the new macbook pros "vroom with a view" is so badly translated in german that it's lost all it's power. some poor bastard had to find an equivalent in the german language and came up with something that's not bad but not great either.

instead of giving them the freedom of finding something themselves they have to copy the whole campaign - even when it doesn't make sense - from the u.s. version.
when it comes to the look and the pictures that's ok but the text is always screwed. and this exapmle is one of the better ones. in the past there have been some really bad headlines. you could have shown it to anybody here without product names or other context and they would have said "that looks like someone from america wrote it"

that much for companys acting international...

 

[Ghibli]

Those two statements are very different. Simlock is very legal in the U.S.


Belgium as well.

In Italy GSM phones are NOT locked (even if branded by the phone operator). Some phones are subsidized if purchased with a contract. Just phones from 3(that is a a3g Phone company) have the simlock.

 

[Digitalclips]

So be it. OK AT&T move into Europe

 

[pwfletcher]

Ohhhh noooooooo ... those poor telecommunications conglomerates are going to have to share some of their money. I really feel sorry for them!

 

[sananda]

1) Just look at the January Keynote, it's state definitively there.
2) We don't know what the ATT deal is. Apple removed the contract requirement from their ads. We don't know what contract will be required and what the cost will be.

Why is the cost of SE offline irrelevant. Its the only way to compare 'costs'.

in the keynote jobs only said they were working on 3g. he didn't say anything about it being in the european phone.

 

[whooleytoo]

So be it. OK AT&T move into Europe

Cool.. a European AT&T! We could call it.. "ET&T". And its marketing slogan? "Phone Home!".

 

[troshy]

yeahhh
we always get ripped off over here....
especially in the uk.

iphone'll go really well in the states, and all our companies (vodafone, o2, tmobile, orange, virgin, 3 etc) will all be begging for it.
my guess is vodafone, vodafone is generally the 'apple' of phones, more expensive but typically very good reliable service.

3 won't want it, because its not a 3g phone.

I think Virgin will be the ones who will want it most, because they are desperately trying to gain market share, and target the younger market (sponsorship of big brother, v festival, virgin mobile free gigs etc.). The only problem is that they are piggy backing on T-Mobile's network, so they would need to twist their arm to get visual voicemail going.

I dont think Vodafone will be too keen on offering the phone, because they are actively trying to get their customers only to buy their phones because they want the larger profit margins. If Apple want revenue sharing, thats not going to go down well with them wanting large profit margins on their handsets.

Orange are focusing on music handsets, but want the customers to buy music from their own store. They might see iPhone/iTunes combo as a threat. T-Mobile are targeting business customers more than consumers, so the iPhone might not be right for them. O2 on the other hand could be a possibility.

 

[kingtj]

Revenue sharing....

Actually, I think the "revenue sharing" idea is an interesting one. Sure, it's a "bold move" - but IMHO, Apple has a point. If their new phone drives people to sign up with the carrier, then why shouldn't they get a piece of the resulting revenue?

It's not like the carrier themselves offered anything that earned them the new subscriber....

Apparently, AT&T understood this and was willing to work something out with Apple. The other carriers are just too short-sighted to think outside the box of "the way we've ALWAYS done business before".

Here in the U.S., Verizon's the one that sounded more "arrogant" than Apple, if you ask me. After initially working with them and failing to come to an agreement, they started bragging about planning on offering more attractive alternatives to the iPhone to their customers. (And which would THOSE be? Verizon can't even help but lock down EXISTING features on the phones they sell today! What do THEY know about creating more powerful, more useful cellphones for their customers??)

Serves them right if they're still asking for revenue sharing, what a load of bollocks. Just as the article said, just because it's a hot product, doesn't mean Apple should screw everyone else over.

If it all fails, it'll be their fault, no one elses.

The product might be perfectly fine, but because of their heavy-handed tactics...

I don't care about visual voice mail so much, if it can't happen here in Asia or Australia, it's not the end of the world for me. I'll live. Perhaps some day it will work, but it doesn't have to be a launch feature, as I can understand that it's going to be tricky to implement for the carriers.

 

[michelepri]

european market more competitive

The European cell phone market is a lot more competitive than the one in the US. They are usually a few years ahead in this sector. I had my doubts about the ability of Apple to sell a phone under such restrictive conditions. You can't expect European consumers to make 2 years commitments to one single company just to get one particular phone. They expect a choice of more companies or even to get it unlocked.

You see some phones in the US branded as if they were produced by a mobile operator. This concept would never make it in Europe.

 

[usarioclave]

Cell companies complaining about arrogance?

Have you ever had to deal with a cellphone company from the vendor side? If you had, you'd laugh at the cellphone companies calling Apple arrogant. Cellphone people are the biggest pricks on either side of the pond. They suck money out of users and abuse handset makers like you wouldn't believe.

Puh-lease. Someone will pop the cork once they see how much new uptake AT&T has. Apple greedy? Yeah, what about those companies who don't want to share the revenues that you suddenly got by stealing all your competitors' high-end customers?

 

[j26]

... European idea of arrogance, is "Vee vill NOT be told vot to do! Ve vood rahder die dan, dan, let a Yankee kommen here und taking over our mahkets! Humfgh!!!"
...

Funny how most stereotypes of European "arrogance" is always in a German or French accent. What about the English speakers, the Mediterranean countries, the Nordic Region, Central Europeans, Benelux, Iberians. We are not all the same, and our phone markets are not all to be modelled on the US. And not liking your model of phone use does not make us anti-american (although the attitude displayed by the poster could have something to do with the rise of anti americanism)

What the poster fails to realise is that the mobile phone market in Europe is VERY flexible and in general can give the user what s/he wants. You want a good phone on PAYG and are willing to pay upfront? You got it. Want a basic phone, but make a lot of calls, so want a contract Not a problem. Want a super duper piece of kit on PAYG Not a problem mate, provided you're willing to pay.

To me it sounds like Apple is trying to force a less consumer friendly deal in the interests of getting a share of the monthly. How is that in my interests?

If this is the model that Apple adopts in Europe, I will not be getting one, on principle alone - no matter how good it is. I'll stick with Sony Ericsson, who do very good phones.

 

[deannnnn]

I just hope Apple don't get too big headed about this. There will be other copy cat phones out soon, and with the way the publicity on this is going the public will think it's Apple over charging and choose one of those copy cats and say I got it cheaper.

They are going to get too big headed about this. I mean don't get me wrong, I lovveeee Apple and all of their products... but Apple tends to get big headed when something is a hit.

If I owned a cell phone company, I'd turn Apple down too if they wanted to change the way my company does business

I don't plan on ever getting a iPhone anyway.... I mean I live in the USA... so I could get one if I wanted to... but I'm not going to deal with Cingular. Maybe if it comes to Sprint (HAHAHAHAH YEAH RIGHT!) I'll get one.

 

[michelepri]

competition

Also, as much as I like Apple and the Iphone, it won't be long before some companies will pick up on the concept and produce something very similar, if not better. If an operator allows revenue sharing with Apple, they will be losing to all the competition that will be able to pick up the new phones without revenue sharing.

There are some Chinese companies already producing some interesting copies. Not the same functionality yet but similar philosophy and in some cases higher resolution.

 

[eenu]

i would be happy for it just to be sold in apple stores and online and just allow me to drop any sim i want in.

 

[ts1973]

What are you talking about? Locked phones are all over the place here and I've never heard that simlock is illegal anywhere outside the USA.

simlock is illegal in Belgium... as is ANY linked sale of a phone and a provider, in other words : customers have to be able to choose the network they want here. That, or no (i)phone