Gerard’s CC:World

Since its launch on July 11, 2008, the “new” online service from Apple had a bumpy start and reviews have been negative overall… even Walt Mossberg says that “Apple’s MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable”. The problems that have plagued the service have not helped… and Apple also changed the tone of their messaging from “Exchange for the rest of us” to “The simple way to keep everything in sync”. But overall, the re-branding of .Mac and new web interface to the online service that Apple Inc charges $99 per year in the US (pricing does vary around the world, and I don’t think it will be lower) has all the base components that make it already worth for me, and that could become great with a few little “tweaks”.

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As a follow-up to my previous post where I looked at the costing for data plans on Rogers in Canada for iPhone users, I needed to update the information based on the latest changes and limited time offers. For those who follow me on Twitter already know, I got myself the iPhone last Friday (that was fun). Just before the launch, Rogers announced a special time limited data plan at CA$ 30 for 6Gb of data per month, that could be added to any voice plan you wanted.

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There has been a lot of commenting, discussions and complains about the price plans that Rogers / Fido are offering for the 3G iPhone in Canada. The Ruined iPhone web site is an online petition for Rogers to revise their monthly pricing.

The one huge thing that is a potential show-stopper for me is the 3-year contract that you have to sign to be able to have an iPhone in Canada. I don’t know what will happen in 3 years time, but I am 100% certain that I won’t have the same phone (iPhone 4.0 should be out by then). I would not mind paying more more for the phone now so that I don’t need to get locked in for such a long period of time.

Digging further into the offering, I wanted to do the math behind cost for data usage, to get a better picture of what we are actually talking about… and the findings are quite interesting. All pricing below are in Canadian Dollars.

In a nutshell, if you expect to transfer more than 2.1Gb per month and don’t use the iPhone as a phone a lot (under 150 minutes per month), go with the $60 plan, it’s cheaper! If you transfer 5Gb per month, it will cost you $229.80, $234.30, $251.08 and $235.36 on the $60, $75, $100 and $115 plans respectively.

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OK, we are about 3 weeks (my guesstimate) of knowing what will really happen with the iPhone 2, which is widely expected to be announced at the WWDC conference. Over the last few weeks, more and more mobile operators around the world have announced the upcoming availability of the cell phone from Apple on their network in many different countries (the iPhone blog has a good summary post). Looking as this list getting longer and longer almost every day, this can only mean one thing in my mind: the iPhone 2.0 will be unlocked.

Update (June 10, 2008): OK, my unfounded rumor was completely wrong… that must be why it was unfounded

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My online AT&T GoPhone account tells me that I have International Roaming activated… so why doesn’t it work when I am in Canada? And why is it that when you call AT&T about this, they tell you that this option is not available on the iPhone GoPhone plan???

Yes, I know, i still have a AT&T activated (on GoPhone) locked iPhone. But yesterday, the port of ScummVM was announced for the iPhone. Getting Days of the Tentacle, Sam & Max or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on the iPhone, now that’s an excellent reason to unlock and jailbreak my 1.1.2 iPhone. And then I would also be able to get a Rogers account and get back EDGE connectivity that I got hooked to last week while travelling in the US. Let’s see how long I can wait before having all these applications installed on my iPhone.

Just trying out some features of my blogging server… Sorry to add irrelevant messages to your RSS reader.

For someone who had a whole theory about why he wouldn’t buy one, I am very surprised how long I lasted before getting my iPhone. Yes, I finally have one and it is, all in all, and amazing combination of technology and user experience design.

Living about one hour north of the US border, I drove down to a small town in upstate New York last weekend to get my iPhone and activated it as a pay-as-you-go cell phone from a Starbucks (you know, the other Apple partner when it comes to this device) and updated it to the 1.1.1 firmware. As soon as I crossed the border back, I took the SIM card out so that the battery would not drain to quickly, especially as AT&T dosen’t offer international roaming on their GoPhone plans. Oh yes, Apple, I know I removed the SIM card… no need to remind me about that on a regular basis with a modal dialog box.

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Yes, I know, I should get another area of interest… but the topic of the month for me seems to be related to Apple’s first generation of cellular phone. Last week, I shared my completely unfounded thought about the business model behind the third-party applications for the iPhone. Well, having a quick look at the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines available from the Apple Developer site, I noticed something that seems to have been missed by all the tech blogs out there: Native third-party applications ARE coming.

Well, it’s not stated in such an obvious way, but I thought it would be fun to apply the same type of translation as between the Apple PR and the geeks community. So what is actually included in this document. Well, there is a simple sentence that states:

Currently, developers create web applications for iPhone, not native applications (page 7 of the PDF published on Sept 27, 2007)

I highlighted the word “Currently”, but if that’s not the best source for the rumors to explode, I really don’t know what could make it happen

And if you wonder what for a crazy idea I have to read these times of documents, I always found the Apple UI guideline documents very interesting to read, especially when working in Product Management for a software company.

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, opinion

Time to get a new completely unfounded rumor out of thin air: Apple is expected to announce the first four third-party applications as well as the SDK for the iPhone at the upcoming World Wide Developer Conference in San Fransisco, California. All these applications will not only be available for iPhone users, but will also be compatible with the iPod touch. And to make it the best user experience, all these applications will be available directly from the iTunes store for as little as $9.99. For the third-party developers: think about the game consoles model.
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Yes, I know. A few weeks back, I came up with a theory about why I didn’t want to have an iPhone… Well here I am playing with a collegue’s one and I now have to rationalize the purchase decision as I so want one. It takes a while to get used to the keyboard (it sure isn’t a Blackberry) but I start to get the neck of it and the predictive detection works quite well.

The web browser experience is really great (blogging from the iPhone right now) and Google Maps is fun to use. YouTube will be fun, but this small device won’t replace the AppleTV. I haven’t tried the mail client (it is not my phone) and the phone doesn’t work as this is a locked US iPhone with an AT&T pay as you go SIM.

Rogers, can you please speed-up the introduction of the iPhone in Canada? I would rather not want to buy it in the States and have to hack it. Well, let’s see how long I can wait

Update (Sept 18, 2008): the big question is much more iPhone 8Gb or iPod touch 16Gb… is a de-featured device with more space better? After trying out the email client with my IMAP server I’ve got the answer: iPhone, even one where the phone part doesn’t work

I have to say, Apple has done an amazing job with the hype around the upcoming iPhone. We are two days before the actual availability of this new device, and it’s the number one topic of interest online and off-line. I only hope that the amazing Cupertino, CA based marketing machine hasn’t oversold a “revolution” in smart-phones that cannot be delivered.

I was a few days in the USA for a user conference and had the opportunity to experience first hand the work done by Apple’s communication and marketing teams in preparation of the iPhone availability at 18.00 local time on June 29, 2007… Blogs and news sites are buzzing like crazy about this new device, Podcasts covering the whole tech world spend most of the show talking about it, and the daily nation-wide newspapers provide in-depth coverage of the convergence between and iPod, a Phone and an Internet device, some even doing so on the front page.

Technorati Tags: apple, hardware, iPhone, smartphone

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