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T-Mobile Germany Offering Subsidized iPhones with 2 Year Contract
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Iphone sales in Germany has been disappointing :
HELLOOOOO APPLE
When americans will understand that they can not sell a product in Europe with the same sales marketing as in the US ?
But it is even worst !!!! Each European country NEEDS a specific , adapted to its own language & mentality marketing campaign .
For you Americans Europe is Europe right ? WRONG .... Europe are x countries with x history and x language and the best of all : historically speaking we all hate each others .... Why ? because they have been fighting their entire life between them .
The TV adds i have seen in the German channels are from the same " standard " but only traduced / adapted to the German language WRONGGGGGGGGG!
i was working 13 years for a American multinational in Germany and I gave up long time ago trying to explain this to them .
But then ... if they bring finally the iphone for a lower price in Spain .... better for me
saludos
Franz
HELLOOOOO APPLE
When americans will understand that they can not sell a product in Europe with the same sales marketing as in the US ?
But it is even worst !!!! Each European country NEEDS a specific , adapted to its own language & mentality marketing campaign .
For you Americans Europe is Europe right ? WRONG .... Europe are x countries with x history and x language and the best of all : historically speaking we all hate each others .... Why ? because they have been fighting their entire life between them .
The TV adds i have seen in the German channels are from the same " standard " but only traduced / adapted to the German language WRONGGGGGGGGG!
i was working 13 years for a American multinational in Germany and I gave up long time ago trying to explain this to them .
But then ... if they bring finally the iphone for a lower price in Spain .... better for me
saludos
Franz
That's the sorta marketing Telekom Pr people would be immensely proud of. What you have to imagine is an entire store in magenta, a garish pinkish red color. But here's the best part the company claims they patented the color.S, M, L or XL ???
Do they WEAR their iPhones in Germany?
I get that the visual voice mail has to be enabled on the carrier's end, but other than that an unlocked iPhone would have been such a better idea it's not even funny.
Then again, iPod marketing in the early days was horrid as well. (The Mac and Windows exclusive iPods only cemented the erronious belief that Macs are so much different from Windows that they even need completely different hardware, let alone software.)
Apple will probably fix quite a few things, including weeding out the companies that make Apple look bad. They don't like that sort of thing. Take a piss against Steve's leg and you may never piss again.
Woo Hoo . . . Maybe the USA is next
Man, my contract with Sprint is ending in a few weeks. If this deal comes to the US, I will jump all over it. The service plan is fairly priced, and I don't mind the 2 year contract. My only concern is the high initial cost of purchase. Hell, give me a deal and I'll sign a four year contract.
_____________________
freeiPhone.kicks-ass.net
Man, my contract with Sprint is ending in a few weeks. If this deal comes to the US, I will jump all over it. The service plan is fairly priced, and I don't mind the 2 year contract. My only concern is the high initial cost of purchase. Hell, give me a deal and I'll sign a four year contract.
_____________________
freeiPhone.kicks-ass.net
In germany, you can´t buy any iPhone without the need of signing a 2 years contract.
So, the american can easily buy a new iPhone (lets say the 16GB), put your old (iphone at&t) sim card in it and thats it.
In germany, you cannot do this. So, you have to stay with your old iPhone the hole 24 month. If you want a new one, you have to sign up a new contract.
So, the american can easily buy a new iPhone (lets say the 16GB), put your old (iphone at&t) sim card in it and thats it.
In germany, you cannot do this. So, you have to stay with your old iPhone the hole 24 month. If you want a new one, you have to sign up a new contract.
Not an entirely fair comparison, since you have to pay to recieve texts and calls in the US, unlike Germany, and these count against your minutes allowance. Also the US plan price doesn't include sales tax.
S, M, L or XL ???
Do they WEAR their iPhones in Germany?
T-Mobile thinks it sounds "cool".
And because their estimation of what is "cool" is apparently very accurate, they pretty much lost most of the 14-25yr-old audience to other carriers.
The comparison with O2 is fair though. We don't have to pay for incoming and VAT is included. The T-Mobile deal sucks in comparison.
Well they sell fine in the US so not needed. Barely anymore for the iPhone over an Touch, so it's a good deal there already in my opinion.
I think Apple sold it below cost at the beginning. $999 would not have been an unreasonable price.
However, SSD became much cheaper, the touchscreen probably became cheaper, etc. If you compare iPhone to iPod Touch, the price difference is enough to pay for a mobile phone - or for the extra hardware an integrated mobile phone needs.
I think this is great news. I don't really see why I should wait for 3G, given the websites I look at most of the time. The current iPhone prices were too high for my own taste, and I guess iP2.0 will be just as expensive. But for 200 only (and Complete M tariff) this sounds pretty good to me. I'm gonna get myself one.
The cost of the iphones components at launch was estimated to be $200 for the 4gig and $220 for the 8GB.
$999 would have been a ridiculous price.
That seems very punitive to the consumer - especially when the iP's specs are constantly improving and many people will want to upgrade to 3G or have larger SSD's.
You have to pay for receiving calls? I thought they only did that in South East Asia, China etc.
Yeah, having to get a contract with the iPhone really sucks, especially considering what you get. With prepaid cards you are usually better of here, and customers here usually get a lot of money for signing a contract (often repaying what they have to pay over the 2 year course, sometimes returning even more (free Wii + free contract e.g.).) At least if they are smart enough to look for good deals. So the iPhone is really extremely expensive, I guess many people are importing their iPhone from the US. Haven't seen anyone with an iPhone over here in Germany though. No one seems to have one... only Nokia N series, HTC models, or more ordinary phones.
Btw. T-Mobile may not be perfect, but I am very satisfied with them and their customer support in Germany. Pretty good if you ask me. No comparison to the Spanish Telefonica for example (easily a contender for the absolutely worst customer service/provider overall. They like to be paid for a phone line that doesn't work for weeks, without sending out a technician etc.).
I thought they only did that in South East Asia, China etc.Yeah, having to get a contract with the iPhone really sucks, especially considering what you get. With prepaid cards you are usually better of here, and customers here usually get a lot of money for signing a contract (often repaying what they have to pay over the 2 year course, sometimes returning even more (free Wii + free contract e.g.).) At least if they are smart enough to look for good deals. So the iPhone is really extremely expensive, I guess many people are importing their iPhone from the US. Haven't seen anyone with an iPhone over here in Germany though. No one seems to have one... only Nokia N series, HTC models, or more ordinary phones.
Btw. T-Mobile may not be perfect, but I am very satisfied with them and their customer support in Germany. Pretty good if you ask me. No comparison to the Spanish Telefonica for example (easily a contender for the absolutely worst customer service/provider overall. They like to be paid for a phone line that doesn't work for weeks, without sending out a technician etc.).
Do you really want an iPhone in Spain? Think about it for a second:But then ... if they bring finally the iphone for a lower price in Spain .... better for me
If Telefónica/Movistar gets it, it will be even worse priced than in Ireland with service that ranks at the absolute bottom of all customer services for all mobile providers in the world.
If Vodafone gets it, well, they won't. Apple seems to be snubbing them in Europe big time.
If Orange gets it, it might be okay, but they'll increase your monthly fees a few months in.
If Yoigo gets it, it might be okay, but they'll drop your allotted minutes a few months in.
Not to mention with all the companies it will be more expensive than anywhere else in Europe. Sadly Telefónico seems to be winning in its bid from what the Spanish media are reporting.
Good point. Sooner would be just fine by me!
We in Germany think that the next iPhone would first come out in the US. That is typical for Apple. Didnt they speculate that the next iPhone would be an clamshell phone?
If that is true i would buy the iPhone for 199 (Sorry for my bad english^^)
Greets
-Muplo
Don't trust him
If you are in a contract (lets say t-mobile 24 Months) you are able to buy another mobile phone.. but it is more expensive than the phone you get when you sign your contract (in the most cases : 1)
Greets
-Muplo
It's supposed to be like 90% coverage of the whole country, like it is in Switzerland, for example. Less than 10% of the US population have access to 3G - that's a joke. Sorry.
US has higher 3G penetration rate than UK, France and Germany.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/apple_waiting_for_3g_iphone_before_spain_italy
I suggest you carefully read the article you just referred to - there's a big difference between the number of 3G devices that have been sold and the network coverage. Close to all 3G devices also work on legacy networks when there's no 3G coverage. 3G coverage reaches somewhere between 50% and 90% in Europe and is nowhere even close to that in the US.
Again, the US is at least 2 years behind Europe when it comes to UMTS coverage. There are some in-between networks (EV-DO et al.) in the US that we wouldn't even call 3G here in Europe. I'm talking about full-blown high-speed UMTS here.
Verizon Wireless' ev-do rev 0 network covers 240 million Americans (which is upgrading to rev A right now).
http://b2b.vzw.com/broadband/coveragearea.html
UMTS has a peak max download rate of 384 kbps. EV-DO rev 0 has a peak max download rate of 2.4 mbps.
There is also a difference between having 3G phones and having 3G coverage ---- vs. actually paying and using for 3G services. You can talk all you want about how much 3G coverage is in Europe --- but if nobody in Europe actually uses these 3G services (like the infamous dud of a video calling feature), then the whole point becomes academic.
Go and look at the public filings of all those European carriers --- the vast majority of their data ARPU is still coming from SMS. No point of talking about how useful 3G coverage is in Europe in nobody ever uses them.
If you want to compare CDMA2000 to UMTS, don't compare the "power-up" EV-DO to basic UMTS. Compare EV-DO to HSPA and they'll be quite similar.
However, UMTS is compatible with GSM (uses the same SIM card), so you can roam anywhere in the world. Try to use a CDMA2000 phone overseas.
The current UMTS standard (HSDPA) has a (theoretical) maximum downspeed of 14.6 mbit/s. Currently, most networks support 3.6 mbit/s and some already 7.2. The 384 kbps you're citing were achieved when the first UMTS networks where launched in Europe several years before anyone in the US even knew what 3G meant.
3G data usage has spiked massively lately - usage went up more than 40% in the last 6 months only as mobile data plans finally start to be reasonably priced.
Anyway - as I said: the US are at least 2 years behind Europe when it comes to high-speed coverage, about 5 years behind when it comes to GSM coverage and probably about one year when it comes to the handsets.
kis