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Apple Unable to Find iPhone Partner in Europe?

I suppose the network operators in Europe are just going to wait and see how much money at&t make out of the iPhone and then make their decision.

If not apple will sell a sim-free, Europe compatible device through the apple store for some extortionate price and leave it at that.

It also would have to cost more than any current (or future) iPod, as it is supposed to be 'the daddy'.
 
well here in germany O2 will carry the iphone, and to think about a non sim locked iphone is just wishful thinking.
apple doesn't care, they will do what they deem right, even if it means selling a couple of phones less in order to preserve the apple experience.
we should just lean back and wait, we have one advantage: the phone will be soon out in the us, so everyone can bash it, apple can then correct it's mistakes and hopefully give us europeans a revision 2 iphone with 3g and so on.
 
macboy62 said:
I think it may be that in Europe the phone companies are used to ripping the users off, they don't seem to like having to do what they're told. :D

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.
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indeed, and I can tell. thet are really ripping us off, especially when it comes ti 'international' calls. you pay like €0.60/minute for them :mad:
lukkilly the EU now passed a law, so they won't be allowed to charge more then 50c/minute anymore starting in septmeber, and from then on the maximum will be lowered yearly by 10c till it's 30c/minute MAX.
but you should have heard the companies complain about it when the law was announced, they were acting as if THEY were being ripped of :rolleyes:
so yeah, the companies here are jsut being major ********s...

pale9 said:
jobs' ego is now elephant sized. now he wants to mico manage his partner companies. the iphone may just turn out to be the next newton...
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true, now apple is rising again at high speed, jobs may want to watch out he doesn't screw it up by thinking he's god :rolleyes:
 
Goldfinger said:
This news comes to no surprise to me. Apple really needs to rethink their European strategy. AppleTV, probably close to zero sales in europe (no SCART; hello ?). Advertising presence ? Close to zero. Market share, very small compared to the US. They're really not getting it that Europe is very different to the US. I doesn't surprise me that they are seen as very arrogant because they are indeed very arrogant.
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I simply believe that Apple has never shown much interest in Europe because of its heterogeneous market-landscape. It takes some effort to successfully market products in Europe and Apple has never been willing to commit to such an effort. Europe has always been seen as a "bonus market" - let's sell the good stuff in the US and throw it on the Eurpean markets as well, after some delay, of course. If things don't sell, who cares - we didn't put much effort into it anyway.
The same goes for other companies of course. For TV content, Europe's a second-hand market as well.
 
I do have to say that at £600 I won't buy an iPhone - it's simply too outrageous an amount of money for ANY Tech gizmo to be 'casually' carried around in your pocket.

£350 YES - JUST - MAYBE - If it's spectacularly great and only becuase I'm an Apple fan but not £600

They'd better get their head round that idea now or they'll be suffering the same fate as Sony has with the ludicrously expensive PS3 which is languishing on shelves all across Britain (currently £400 without games or extra controller).

They need to tie up with Vodafone - the no1 pan european provider and stop buggering about - offer a contract deal like they do with the RAZR whereby you pay £150 to 'upgrade your handset' and pay £25 per month for the phone with some calls and some data. They should be thinking 'iphone nano' by now and sales of about 50 million per year - the iphone one is the 'halo product' not the 'end game'....

If not sexy as it is it will flounder.

And yes Apple have always been a little europhobic - I mean there is NOT even a London Stock Exchange Widget - can you believe that - the biggest stock market in the world and NO Apple widget - plenty on the PC but not ONE on the Mac!!
 
Excellent news it is

I am quoting these two posts because they are IMHO very close to my thoughts.

Tsurisuto said:
I hope that they never find a European service provider and they are forced to release the iPhone on a Pay-as-You-Go contract in Europe. That means I can use the phone with whomever I want... which is Orange!
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Exactly. I am working now in Germany and the probability that Apple goes with my current carrier O2 is ZERO (O2 has no EDGE in Germany). I have been with them for almost 3 years now and they have excellent coverage and service. I would happily pay the premium for an unlocked iPhone if I can stay with O2.

So if anything, this is excellent news for me.


SeaFox said:
Its because the Europeans are acting tougher. Cell phone service is much 'freer" in Europe than it is over here. Apple just got finished dealing with a bunch of U.S. carriers who love vendor lock-in (like Apple) and will fall over each other to modify their networks if needed to support their phone.

Now they are in Europe, where 1) The phones are better to start with, 2) It's illegal to lock a handset to a provider, if I remember right, and 3) People more often buy their phones outright without a contract.

It's not the European carriers who need to change their attitude. It's Apple (and the U.S.), that needs to get on the ball and run their cell phone industry like the rest of the world does.
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surferfromuk said:
They'd better get their head round that idea now or they'll be suffering the same fate as Sony has with the ludicrously expensive PS3 which is languishing on shelves all across Britain (currently £400 without games or extra controller).
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Actually, PS3 sales have rather picked up of late, and it had a good PAL launch. In fact Sony are meeting their targets in most cases.

It should be doing a hell of a lot better than it is in Japan though.

But the PS3 is a home console, with HDMI, and a Blue Ray drive, and a 60gb HD, and a freaking Cell processor - the iPhone is a phone with an expensive input device.

Nobody pays premiums for input devices.

Apple not only has to sell the iPhone for less than £600 in the UK, it needs to sell it for substantially less than it sells for in the US, because Europe is used to buying any phone they like subsidised down to near enough zero.


Apple seems to think the cellphone industry will change for it, like the music industry did, but the music industry had little to no presence in online and mp3 players before Apple, and the changes Apple wanted to make were universally considered beneficial - Apple is offering no new medium to the cellphone industry, it's simply another competitor, and it's refusal to allow subsidies is moronic and SUICIDAL.
 
verniesgarden said:
"Imagine if all the companies and all the politicians in the world redirected the resources they use to compete against each other towards the common goal that they have between them, the distance travelled would be inches to miles"
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What unregulated business does is trying to please the consumers. The ammo used in the "fight" is better prices, products and service etc.
 
Yixian said:
Actually, PS3 sales have rather picked up of late, and it had a good PAL launch. In fact Sony are meeting their targets in most cases.

It should be doing a hell of a lot better than it is in Japan though.

But the PS3 is a home console, with HDMI, and a Blue Ray drive, and a 60gb HD, and a freaking Cell processor - the iPhone is a phone with an expensive input device.

Nobody pays premiums for input devices.

Apple not only has to sell the iPhone for less than £600 in the UK, it needs to sell it for substantially less than it sells for in the US, because Europe is used to buying any phone they like subsidised down to near enough zero.


Apple seems to think the cellphone industry will change for it, like the music industry did, but the music industry had little to no presence in online and mp3 players before Apple, and the changes Apple wanted to make were universally considered beneficial - Apple is offering no new medium to the cellphone industry, it's simply another competitor, and it's refusal to allow subsidies is moronic and SUICIDAL.
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Same thing killed the original 1984 Mac - History shows the errors.
 
edesignuk said:
Apple, you can't survive in this market without the backing of the operators.
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In some countries most consumers are used to operator branded phones and buying the phones from operators. But it's not like that everywhere.

Apple should make the phone compatible with all GSM operators (ie. optional visual voicemail). And then sell them to everyone. To both operators and retailers of non-locked phones.

And by the way they won't find one single operator that covers all of the European countries.
 
Understandable. I think it's too expensive and it doesn't support 3G... no video-calls, no MMS, no television... I think Vodafone (hopefully) is going to wait till a second version of iPhone with 3G, more capacity for music and videos and cheaper. Remember the first iPod... it was expensive, heavy and very poor capacity... it wasn't until later the iPod became more popular.

I think in Spain not so many people would buy a €500 cell phone which does not have the latest technology. So I understad European phone companies excepticism.
 
surferfromuk said:
And yes Apple have always been a little europhobic - I mean there is NOT even a London Stock Exchange Widget - can you believe that - the biggest stock market in the world and NO Apple widget - plenty on the PC but not ONE on the Mac!!
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That's probably because no Mac developer wants to make one, its hardly Apple's fault.
 
This is bad news (AAPL will tank come Q3/4)

In fact, it's so incredibly bad, that we all better start praying Apple/Steve Jobs has one hell of an explanation. If not, Apple Inc. (AAPL) is all set up for a huge corporate meltdown. Here's why:

Once upon a time Apple/Steve Jobs was very late to market with CD-burners (I could be wrong about the product/category, but that's beside the point). When they eventually caught up with everybody else, and include it, Apple and Steve Jobs admitted that they had plain and simple missed the point on this new technology.

This situation is very similar, except this time the technology in question is both mature and widely used. With Apple aggressively pushing expensive iPhones with contracts in Europe, but without 3G and MMS they are for all practical purposes screaming to the world: WE DON'T GET IT!!!.

Unlike that previous long forgotten Apple fumble, this time the stakes are an order of magnitude bigger. In other words, take Apples big time hyping of the iPhone as "a revolutionary mobile phone", and subtract from that "WE DON'T GET IT!!!". You don't have to be a genius to see how bad this is going to turn out.

Bottom line (pun intended): Sans 3G and MMS (aka. "We have no clue") arrogant Apple won't sell anywhere near the estimated 8 million iPhones thru 2008. Further more, it's a pretty safe bet that Apple will get ridiculed non-stop over this, making Microsofts businessplan for the Zune look avantgarde in comparison.
 
surferfromuk said:
Same thing killed the original 1984 Mac - History shows the errors.
Click to expand...

You got that right. Stevie better learn to play ball quick if he wants Apple to survive in this market. Cant just come in & think everyone is gonna change up their business model for you, no matter how cool the phone is. That goes for customers too.
 
Apple has it's place

MrSmith said:
I need it spelled out. Is this problem because Apple are acting differently in Europe than America, or because the Europeans are acting tougher?
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1) Apple have a much more favorable position in the American market than they do in the European market. Apple is tiny here meaning the iPhone is not that awaited for.

2) The current iPhone corresponds the demands of an American consumer. To us Europeans, the iPhone has nothing exceptional, so once again meaning the iPhone is not that awaited for

3) The European mobile market is WAY larger than the American one, add the fact that the mac fan club is 0.00002% of the users, making the iPhones' potential very limited( at least for kick-off). Therefore Apple has to adopt a different attitude, a more humble one.

So to get the your question, Apple is dealing with the EU just like it did with the Americans and it just won't work here. This is a typical American attitude which is most hated in Europe. European operators aren't acting any tougher it's just that Apple has it's place in Europe and that place is (sadly) all the way down.
 
I'm completely baffled by this to be honest. Apple knows full well that several countries in Europe ban phone subsidies and/or subsidy locks, and how that does tie the hands of the operators (rightly, I think, FWIW. Contracts might have had their place back when operators had to subsidize phones typically costing well over $500 for something basic, but a low end Nokia typically costs the operator around $50 today, with a more advanced phone costing $100-250. It's no longer the case that some kind of subsidy has to exist in order to ensure the customer can get on the mobile phone ladder to begin with.) They also know that Europe does not have a single union-wide carrier. I'm not even sure there's a brand that has coverage in more than 50% of the member states.

I'm baffled that Apple thinks they won a massive victory with their "exclusive" Cingular contract. Locked yet unsubsidized phones on an overburdened, hacked-together, network with most of the marketing and support done by the phone maker. What exactly are they getting from Cingular here? The "cut of the monthly fees" thing sounds bizarre. And is this the real reason why Apple can't sign the Europeans on? Because unlocked phones in Europe = threat to Cingular's monopoly in the US?

And all of this is necessary why? Visual voicemail?

What about this, Apple? Cingular/AT&T, T-Mobile, and a bunch of smaller carriers in the US are GSM carriers. That means you don't need any of them to sign on to anything for you to sell phones to their customers. Just make the phone GSM, and it'll "just work". The user just has to insert their SIM card. That's all. They're all open networks, none of them give a flying for-crying-out-loud what devices are being used. You could have, sans Cingular agreement, done exactly what you're doing now, sold phones via the Apple Stores and online and everything, dealt directly with independent mobile phone dealerships so the whole "getting a phone and a plan at the same time" base could have been covered, etc. And your hands wouldn't have been tied vis-a-vis dealing with carriers across the world. You never needed Cingular's cooperation to do 99% of what you're doing, you just thought you did. In the end, you got visual voicemail, but your ability to sell the phone outside of the US was severely compromised, and your would-be customers inside the US aren't happy about the terms and conditions for using their phone. Was it worth it?
 
Tangenten said:
This situation is very similar, except this time the technology in question is both mature and widely used. With Apple aggressively pushing expensive iPhones with contracts in Europe, but without 3G and MMS they are for all practical purposes screaming to the world: WE DON'T GET IT!!!.

Bottom line (pun intended): Sans 3G and MMS (aka. "We have no clue") arrogant Apple won't sell anywhere near the estimated 8 million iPhones thru 2008. Further more, it's a pretty safe bet that Apple will get ridiculed non-stop over this, making Microsofts businessplan for the Zune look avantgarde in comparison.
Click to expand...


I think you are spot on, without 3G the iPhone will suffer in the sales, it will still do well though. Hell, 12 months on, we still have can't buy movies or TV shows through iTunes. Is this a reflection of Apples attitude to Europe in general? Only time will tell.
 
Tangenten said:
This situation is very similar, except this time the technology in question is both mature and widely used. With Apple aggressively pushing expensive iPhones with contracts in Europe, but without 3G and MMS they are for all practical purposes screaming to the world: WE DON'T GET IT!!!.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. Even here in NZ, where the mobile phone market is tiny compared with Europe, the features of the iPhone are pretty laughable for the price - especially with the lack of 3G.
 
mkjj said:
I think you are spot on, without 3G the iPhone will suffer in the sales, it will still do well though. Hell, 12 months on, we still have can't buy movies or TV shows through iTunes. Is this a reflection of Apples attitude to Europe in general? Only time will tell.
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I think the UK has shown time and time again that it doesn't give a toss about 3G. Every attempt to bring it to the mainstream has failed miserably, and it's still only techno-geeks that know what it is even. If the iPhone is to succeed (in the UK, at least), I think Apples best strategy is simply to market it as a phone and an iPod in an attractive package. I don't know anyone who gives a stuff about video messaging, or any such malarky. But everyone I know has to carry round a phone, and most people I know have an iPod. At the same time, it has to be subsidised because phone buyers here are now so used to buying massively subsidised phones from contractors that they wouldn't make an exception for the iPhone regardless of how good it may turn out.

I fear Apple may balls it up big time in the UK at least.
 
Anyone else find this at least a small bit similar to Sony's attitude with the PS3? Does Apple really think hype and a large fanbase is going to sell a phone (possibly) priced at €500+? Didn't work for Sony, can't see it working for Apple.
 
Goldfinger said:
C) 60% uses pre-paid in Europe. And up to 90% in Italy. Those people are NOT interested in a locked phone that comes with a contract and a fixed montly fee.
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I agree that people in Italy are NOT interested in a locked phone that comes with a contract and a fixed montly fee. I think that a contract is made almost only for "tvfonini" which are UMTS/3G phones which allow to see the TV. But this is considered a subscription to a TV service.

Here in Italy we have 4 main operators: TIM, "3", Vodaphone and Wind.

"3" has only a UMTS/3G network so I do not think it could be interested to a GSM phone which need to work in roaming on the network of another operator... Moreover "3" is interested to sell its many 3G services, like e.g. "television on your phone", so I do not believe that it is interested to sell a phone where these services do not work.

The other operators sell 3G and GSM phones marked on the body but sim-free. As an example, I have a Sony P990i 3G phone. It was in sell also at the TIM stores. For a short time I tried a "3" sim card but then I was forced to return to TIM because its offer for Internet access fits better my needs. Video-calls are more expensive but I am more interested to a cheap internet access.

The only solution for Apple in Italy, in my view, is to sell the iPhone sim-free both in common shops and in operator shops. Moreover Apple should make an agreement with the operator which has the best offer for Internet access. This operator should provide some specific iPhone services, like voicemail, and a special price for Internet access, because likely an iPhone user will use Internet very heavvily. In this way, majority of iPhone users will buy a card of this operator but the other will be free to follow their specific interests (as an example, someone could be more interested to have the same operator of his girlfriend because he pay less -or nothing- the calls to her)

Honestly I suspect that Italian peoples will be more interested to the tarif which best fits their needs than to voicemail or similar.

Piermac
 
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