The NZ tech world has been abuzz today, and not in the good way. Vodafone finally announced the iPhone pricing — on its website at 10am — and outrage was the response. Oh, and the Vodafone website immediately went down under the load of Kiwis wanting to know the prices and plans. It was down for at least the first hour and then up and down for hours afterwards. ReadWriteWeb summarise pricing and responses nicely:
New Zealand will be the first country in the world to get the Apple iPhone 3G, because of the country’s position on the international dateline. Vodafone NZ is the carrier which is offering the iPhone, but its pricing plans – released today – have attracted a storm of criticism. Vodafone NZ has decided to charge extortionist prices for the iPhone 3G. Kiwis (including yours truly) are naturally outraged.
The top of the line price is $250 per month for the 16GB iPhone 3G (plus $349 to buy the phone). For that kiwis get a comparatively measly 1GB data per month and have to sign for a 24 month contract. The cheapest deal for kiwis is the 8GB black iPhone 3G, for $80 per month (but you have to shell out $549 clams for the phone).
[Via : Vodafone NZ Charges "Like a Wounded Bull" For iPhone 3G - ReadWriteWeb.]
I’ve been busting to get myself an iPhone since the first model was announced, but wanted a ‘legitimate’ iPhone. Hundreds of Kiwis already use imported and jailbroken first generation iPhones here.
At Vodafone’s prices I won’t be buying the 3G iPhone.
Thank goodness the Sony Ericsson K800i I bought a few months ago is actually a very nice phone, with a great camera.
Of course, I won’t be surfing the web with it, or checking email, looking up maps. But I can still make calls and send and receive text messages. Ahhh, the good old days …
And as for Vodafone: yes, you have the exclusive iPhone contract, but the phrase Pyrrhic Victory comes to mind. Or is it that one about cutting off your nose to spite your face? Or maybe it’s just unfettered greed.
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I had the K800i before upgrading to my current Nokia N95. I used Google Maps and the Opera Mini browser on the K800i, and although it has a smallish screen, both apps worked really well. Links below:
Google Maps: http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps/index.html
Opera Mini: http://www.operamini.com/download/sms/
i just blogged my thoughts – and i’m very happy to have bought an iPod Touch – combined with my current phone it gives me everything the new iPhone has except GPS (which i have as a separate toy anyway)
Thanks stuartm and Jo.
I have (attempted) some surfing on my SE cellphone, but the data charges have been a killer, and the web page experiences tended to range between clunky and appalling.
Jo: I love my iPod touch and it works wonderfully on a wireless network, but the Internet features are no good to me while out and about. That was what I wanted from the iPhone – in some random cafe or park somehwre and I have a yen to google something. I’d hope that would be possible on an iPhone whether there were a wireless network nearby or not.
I just tried Google Maps on the SE and yes, it worked, after painful typing and squinting at the small screen. I’d rather have an iPhone though….
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