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The U.K. iPhone 4 Thread

JulianL said:
If true then I wonder whether the hand of Apple can be seen in all this.

Apple opened up iPad pre-orders on a Monday but not during business hours. The iPad went live on the Apple online store in the early hours of the Monday morning and lots of people stayed up late on the Sunday night and hit the store within minutes of it going live at just before 1am on the Monday (I was one of them and I was amazed how many people here had still got orders in before me).

It's possible that Apple have told the networks that they need to leave it until 8:00am or so until they're allowed to send their emails and open their ordering. This way Apple can catch all the people who really will stay up late on Monday night and into the early hours of Tuesday morning in order to get in as soon as the online ordering opens. From the iPad experience, that is likely to be quite a lot of people so Apple are pretty much guaranteed to sell out their initial stock within hours, possibly being able to genuinely announce very soon after pre-order day that their initial allocation is sold out and that delivery dates are now pushed back (just like they did with the iPad and it's always good publicity - demand outstrips supply, grab them while you can, etc, etc).

- Julian
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Didnt someone mention that Foxconn had manufactured 43 million iPhone 4's in preparation? I think that would meet initial demand.
 
This may sound stupid but what is the difference between the O2 simplicity deals for iPhone and Blackberry. The iPhone one is £5 more expensive and seems to have the same details. Anyone know why I shouldn't buy the Blackberry deal over the iPhone version?
 
Regarding which carrier, who will you be going with? Currently, I'll be going with either O2, Orange and possibly 3. How are 3's speeds+coverage in Leicester? And I know that Orange is better in coverage over O2, but are their speeds better or are they all roughly the same?
 
Realistically are there any networks which perform worse than o2?????

I've found o2s data network terrible in almost 3 years have I had a connection I considered fast.....

My 3 mifi has embarrassed o2 regularly!

I may go on a rolling 30 day with vodafone as they seem to be a good compromise between orange and o2
 
thechungster said:
Regarding which carrier, who will you be going with? Currently, I'll be going with either O2, Orange and possibly 3. How are 3's speeds+coverage in Leicester? And I know that Orange is better in coverage over O2, but are their speeds better or are they all roughly the same?
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Orange is nit better then o2
 
Deako said:
Didnt someone mention that Foxconn had manufactured 43 million iPhone 4's in preparation? I think that would meet initial demand.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting statistic. I hadn't heard that. Is it a fairly well-regarded report (i.e. likely to be true)?

Is it 8 initial-launch countries? Assuming 50% of units go to the US, none of the 43 million units are destined for the second wave of countries, and that all of the non-US countries all get equal stock (I admit that these are all very crude assumptions) that gives about 3 million units for the UK. Even if 50% of that is pre-build for the other countries and hence the UK unit count is "only" 1.5 million units then it still seems ample.

I'm usually still up at 1am anyhow so it's no big deal for me to try and get into the pre-order for a PAYG as soon as it goes live but I hope that rumour is true because if it is then yes, supply shouldn't be an issue, and maybe it will make the whole process less fraught.

- Julian
 
Some people have a problem inside their houses with getting a signal on Orange. I don't, it's pretty decent, I also get a good signal inside my sisters house who has a problem with Orange in her house. However though I don't get a good signal inside my brothers house.
 
bigchrisfgb said:
Some people have a problem inside there houses with getting a signal on Orange. I don't, it's pretty decent, I also get a good signal inside my sisters house who has a problem with Orange in her house. However though I don't get a good signal inside my brothers house.
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Yeah Orange's signal overall is a bit patchy, but their 3G coverage is significantly better than O2's. As a result, I'm probably going to stick with them.
 
how are 3g speeds on orange???

i think i could run to the phone tower and to the servers quicker than o2s pathetic carrier pigeon powered attempt

only problem is a patchy orange signal at home, which isnt end of the world if ill get a better quality of service out and about!!!!!
 
dayloon said:
What? O2 has the worst 3g coverage out of all the networks. You can check your yourself by looking at the 3g coverage maps on ofcom's website. Orange has about 3 times the coverage of o2. So yes, orange is better
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Perhaps statistically orange is better than O2, but where I live (Brighton), O2 is always more reliable in terms of signal strength and 3G availability. I would rather go with personal experience than statistical information.
 
When I was in my last job I switched from O2 to Orange and could no longer get a signal inside the building (Birmingham city centre office block). I also had issues receiving text messages. Sometimes I wouldn't receive a text until 2 or 3 days after it had been sent. this happened numerous times.

I complained to Orange about this in writing several times and it took MONTHS to get a response which was "unless it never turns up, it's not a problem". They would offer no assistance, compensation or anything.

I ended up paying off my contract and going back to O2 because it just wasn't a reliable service.

I'm not a huge fan of O2 (I'm considering using a 3 sim if their tariffs looks okay) and I'm sure mine was an isolated incident but I will NEVER use Orange again.
 
Planky said:
Exactly!

I bet no one can beat 28kbps max download.
This is my best O2 download rate over the last two years.

The little circle does mean that you are getting 3G yes?
Oh, does it mean you are getting EDGE?
Oh…:(:(
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I'm afraid that the little circle is one down again from edge. It's GPRS which is the way phones got the Internet way back at the start of mobile Internet. SLOW!
My O2 in the years I've had the iPhone in my home regularly fluctuates from 3G to Edge and to GPRS. There appears to be no logic involved at all. lol
Loopy
 
Just want to chime in about orange as well, the last time I used them, signals were very patchy and I'd be lucky if I got anything indoors. Coverage may show a much wider area in the uk, but what good is that coverage if it doesn't perform well? This is just my experience however, I'm sure there are many in more centralized locations with better reception.
 
bigchrisfgb said:
Some people have a problem inside there houses with getting a signal on Orange. I don't, it's pretty decent, I also get a good signal inside my sisters house who has a problem with Orange in her house. However though I don't get a good signal inside my brothers house.
Click to expand...

In my personal experience this is spot on. I used to be with Orange and coverage in my house was very poor. Outside was totally fine. I swapped to o2 a few years ago and coverage in my house is excellent, with no dropped calls. I don't think I can notice much difference between o2 and Orange during my travels around the country either.
 
dayloon said:
What? O2 has the worst 3g coverage out of all the networks. You can check your yourself by looking at the 3g coverage maps on ofcom's website. Orange has about 3 times the coverage of o2. So yes, orange is better
Click to expand...

Hmm

I have just switched my Orange sim from my 3G to my 3Gs and for some reason I am now getting 4 bars of 3G. On my 3G with Orange I was getting 1 bar.

O2 don't really offer a 3G signal in my house and no edge, but their customer services is better and they have visual voicemail. I use wifi at home anyway so 3G is not such an issue. I was going to go with O2 but now I am not sure!

Alex
 
I used to be on orange till the iPhone, never really had an issue with their coverage just with their CS, O2 however seems fine, good CS. I never thought I would like O2 as I was with orange for years but IMO O2 just has the edge.
 
camperdown9 said:
Hmm

I have just switched my Orange sim from my 3G to my 3Gs and for some reason I am now getting 4 bars of 3G. On my 3G with Orange I was getting 1 bar.

O2 don't really offer a 3G signal in my house and no edge, but their customer services is better and they have visual voicemail. I use wifi at home anyway so 3G is not such an issue. I was going to go with O2 but now I am not sure!

Alex
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Orange don't have visual voicemail?
 
ct2k7 said:
Right, how to swap your sim for a microsim :/
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walk in to your networks mobile shop and say 'hey can you transfer my account from my sim to to microsim' they punch at the keyboard, ask you a couple of questions, like name address, stuff to make sure it's you, they scan a new sim card and hand it to you, it will work exactly the same as if you went in and you had lost your sim, in the process your old sim card will be canceled
 
androiphone said:
walk in to your networks mobile shop and say 'hey can you transfer my account from my sim to to microsim' they punch at the keyboard, ask you a couple of questions, like name address, stuff to make sure it's you, they scan a new sim card and hand it to you, it will work exactly the same as if you went in and you had lost your sim, in the process your old sim card will be canceled
Click to expand...

This will be explained today in a page-long article by O2's Guru James.
 
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