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iPhone UK price theory
- Thread starter timmillwood
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I honestly believe that we probably won't see the iPhone in its current version here in the UK. By the time the device has been released in the USA, and Apple have had time to sort the initial bugs out, a 2G version should hopefully have been developed and deployed. Personally, I'm hoping for:
Whether any of that materialises or not by the end of the year will remain to be seen. I've been looking to replace my 3G iPod for the last six months, but I'm more than willing to wait if I can get the phone/wifi capabilities, and keep all my music with me.
Either way I can't wait
- A hard-drive, or at least enough flash memory to make hard-drive capacities feasible
- 3G capability
- A reduction in price
- No exclusive contracts with the phone companies
Whether any of that materialises or not by the end of the year will remain to be seen. I've been looking to replace my 3G iPod for the last six months, but I'm more than willing to wait if I can get the phone/wifi capabilities, and keep all my music with me.
Either way I can't wait
I can't see it being any more than £200 on a £40 tariff (for which you get high end smart phones for free at the moment). Plus there will be the extra revenue from data charges, music / video sales and so on which will help keep the cost down.
The UK mobile market is very competitive, a lot more than the US, with five major players (O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin, Vodafone) all cross selling related products (broadband, home phone, mobile phone and TV). This will drive the price down even further, unless one of them gets an exclusive.
I reckon Virgin (who will be a major player once their merger with NTL / Telewest has an effect) will make Apple an offer they can't refuse, as Richard Branson will see it as too good an opportunity to miss.
If apple does choose 1 company from the uk to go with, and that turns out to be T-Mobile, doesnt virgin still run off the t-mobile network, because i can remember getting an mms onto a crappy old fone on virgin and it then directed me to the t-mobile site.
so what im saying is, if it goes to to t-mobile, will virgin user be able to use it?
so what im saying is, if it goes to to t-mobile, will virgin user be able to use it?
EDGE services don't seem to be heavily promoted by either the UK wireless providers or their handsets, so I'm imagining that coverage is not as good as 3G services (and slower). I'd be very surprised if they didn't address this before a UK/Europe release.
As for the cost, we'll have to wait and see... However, regardless of the economics, I would be surprised if Apple allowed their phones to be given away for free. The apple mindset is that their products are WORTH paying a premium for - free deals undermine this perceived value.
J
I agree, I think it will be around £100-200 with spendy contract in the UK.
I brought a o2 XDA mini S with contract for about £100 when it first came out, and it had a similar contract-free price to the iPhone at the time.
iPhone prices will come down, capacity will go up.
Now, the iPhone is a lovely bit of gear, but I'm not sure how well it will actually suit me.
1. UK market is heavy on texting, it's cheaper here than in the states (do you still have to pay to receive texts??), and I think I'd be a lot faster with a real keyboard like my XDA mini s, where I can feel the keys, rather than typing on a flat bit of glass on the iPhone.
2. Is there a vibrating mode? The iPhone is 11mm thick and Steve Jobs / the Apple website make no mention of any vibrating mode, only a 'silent' mode. At first I thought 11mm was too thin to fit a vibrator in, but the Samsung X820 is 7mm thick and has vibrate, so it's clearly possible.
I'm deaf. I'm not buying any phone that has no vibrate. I owned some of the Nokia 9000 series communicator phones, which were heavily marketed to deaf people despite having no vibrate. What a disaster that was, imagine checking your phone every 5 minutes every day Never again.
Anyway the iPhone won't be here for a while, and should get cheaper by then. I think I'll dump o2 and go with a T-mobile Vario II to tide me over for this coming year as T-mobile seem to have excellent data-service price tariffs.
Do the T-mobile website services work well with macs? O2's website seems a little wobbly with non-IE browsers.
xoxo T
I brought a o2 XDA mini S with contract for about £100 when it first came out, and it had a similar contract-free price to the iPhone at the time.
iPhone prices will come down, capacity will go up.
Now, the iPhone is a lovely bit of gear, but I'm not sure how well it will actually suit me.
1. UK market is heavy on texting, it's cheaper here than in the states (do you still have to pay to receive texts??), and I think I'd be a lot faster with a real keyboard like my XDA mini s, where I can feel the keys, rather than typing on a flat bit of glass on the iPhone.
2. Is there a vibrating mode? The iPhone is 11mm thick and Steve Jobs / the Apple website make no mention of any vibrating mode, only a 'silent' mode. At first I thought 11mm was too thin to fit a vibrator in, but the Samsung X820 is 7mm thick and has vibrate, so it's clearly possible.
I'm deaf. I'm not buying any phone that has no vibrate. I owned some of the Nokia 9000 series communicator phones, which were heavily marketed to deaf people despite having no vibrate. What a disaster that was, imagine checking your phone every 5 minutes every day
Never again.Anyway the iPhone won't be here for a while, and should get cheaper by then. I think I'll dump o2 and go with a T-mobile Vario II to tide me over for this coming year as T-mobile seem to have excellent data-service price tariffs.
Do the T-mobile website services work well with macs? O2's website seems a little wobbly with non-IE browsers.
xoxo T
as posted elsewhere iPhone is on exclusive with Tesco Mobile and cost is about 500 clubcard points
only downside is the blue and white stripe re-branding
And for any curious Americans, Tesco is like a sort of low-class wall mart!
Apple will likely use 3G in place of EDGE in European markets.
T-Mobile have very very poor 3G reception, Virgin also use T-Mobile to provide their service so these two are out.
Orange are also unlikely to get the contract because they have poorer 3G as do 02. BUT Orange do support EDGE (i think)
Vodafone and Three are the two likely candidates for selling the iPhone in the UK. Both have good 3G reception. As well as Orange as they have EDGE
T-Mobile have very very poor 3G reception, Virgin also use T-Mobile to provide their service so these two are out.
Orange are also unlikely to get the contract because they have poorer 3G as do 02. BUT Orange do support EDGE (i think)
Vodafone and Three are the two likely candidates for selling the iPhone in the UK. Both have good 3G reception. As well as Orange as they have EDGE
I can't see current 3G / Edge support being that relevant. At present there ain't a killer app to justify the expense of rolling them out fully for some of the networks. If there was, I'm sure they'd get them up to speed quickly.
I haven't used Orange 3G for nearly a year and the coverage wasn't that bad - in big towns and cities it was fine which I'd of thought would be enough.
Either that or don't live in whatever ****hole MacboobsPro happens to be.
I don't understand that thing with the phones music through speakerphone. Is it done for the sake of saying 'look, I've got a speakerphone'? Are speakerphones somehow desirable?
I happened to be on a bus not so long ago and there were two youths playing music through their phone. I asked them to stop, they ignored me. So I asked once again, and they sequenced an insult, a racial slur and the threat of violence in rapid succession. Very protective about their apparent right to annoy everyone else, I must say.
I'm sure companies such as Expansys will offer it as a sim-free, contract-free phone. Expect correspondingly high prices though.
I believe there would be a market for a pocket-sized focussed EMP generator for such moments. iZapper, perhaps?
At the moment, phones are subsidised with the contract being used to pay off any loss made. The reverse could be done with the iPhone, where the contract is fairly cheap, but the hardware can be priced at near sim-free prices.
This significantly reduces revenue for network operators, though, so it really may just be a sim-free-priced phone on an expensive contract.
£200 + price of contract would just alright. Any more would need serious thinking.
This significantly reduces revenue for network operators, though, so it really may just be a sim-free-priced phone on an expensive contract.
£200 + price of contract would just alright. Any more would need serious thinking.
As long as that's on a 12 month contract, with higher discounts for higher monthly pay contracts. There's no way in hell I'm ever signing on to an 18 month contract, only fools do that!! Could be different on the iPhone if you buy Applecare for it but most phones only have a 12 month warranty time so you'd be a (expletive)-head to sign up to an 18 month contract with one of those.
It's getting hard to find a 12 month deal which doesn't suck at the moment, the networks really want you to go on a 18 month deal now. Sod them though, after 7 years of contracts, I'm goin back to Pay as you Go. £10/month with Orange for 600 mins of evening calls to other Orange Phones and 300 texts and you still have the £10 to spend on other stuff.
Vote with your feet and refuse these 18 month deals until they start taking notice.
I hate chavs, and would hate chavs to get an iPhone, but i think they want little phones like the Moto V3 and Samsung D900.
I think it will be over £100 because it would knock into the iPod market too much, i think £129 for 4gb and £169 for 8gb +18 month contract
There are a few Edge networks here, so i hope it goes with one of them, but if not it should have 3G or HSPDA on it (or whatever its called) i HOPE it will go on Vodafone, never used them but they seem good & upto date.
I think it will be over £100 because it would knock into the iPod market too much, i think £129 for 4gb and £169 for 8gb +18 month contract
There are a few Edge networks here, so i hope it goes with one of them, but if not it should have 3G or HSPDA on it (or whatever its called) i HOPE it will go on Vodafone, never used them but they seem good & upto date.
Luckily I'm on a great tarriff right now and I'm not moving off it. The current 12 month contracts suck compared to my one. 700 anytime minutes, 700 texts, 12 month contract for only £35 a month on top of which I managed to blag a discount so I only pay about £27 a month. Luckily if you're on one tariff they can't kick you off it.
If you don't like it then leave. The taxes that you are talking about are an effort to promote more environmentally friendly behaviour - it seems that people can't manage to do this without being forced to. Don't blame the government for your own indolence.
As it stands the UK isn't such a bad place to live - if it were would we have such a high immigration rate? So as I said you've really only got two options: leave or put up and shut up. Harsh, but fair.
Very true. I'm currently on a student deal with unlimited texts etc, but its still £35 per month where I could get by on £10 per month. However, one tactic I've found the networks love to pull is if you're on a tariff they'd really really like to discontinue, then when you ring to upgrade your phone after a year, they insist on 'reviewing' your tariff, basically to one of their current ones. I've known one person to buy a sim-free phone as an upgrade rather than have the network force him onto a less attractive deal. I've had that with O2 and Vodafone so far. Sneaky buggers the lot of em
In the UK Asda is Wall Mart and it's pikey heaven so I'm not sure where you got that from. I'd say that it goes Waitrose - Sainsburys - Tesco - Asda - Morrison in increasing order of chaviness, although the order of sainsburys and Tesco might be reversed. Haven't even bothered listing M+S because while the foos is nice they only sell their own stuff.
lol @ us in the uk! we ant even have a uk based thread without moaning about taxes and pikeys...you'd think england was just taxes and pikeys...which isnt far from he mark. O well, im seventeen i dont do tax...yet
oh my god.. i forkin hate asda in one of the area's in notts.. proper skanky..
but there is another asda in a better area, which is pretty pleasant..
altho i shop at sainsburys
the taxes in the uk are no wher near as bad as scandinavia etc.. so quit complaining!!!