back to article New iPhones are latte-sipping inner city elitists

Not only has Apple reintroduced the “Australia tax” for its newly-launched iPhone 5 series: it turns out that LTE support doesn't include the 700 MHz bands Telstra and Optus purchased earlier this year. In fact, the iPhone 5c and 5s LTE models only support one of the LTE bands currently in use in this country – the 1800 MHz …

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  1. Knoydart
    Alert

    No really surprising, when a US based company wont support the non US based band plan at 700 MHz.

    The irony is that long term, the APT band plan at 700 MHz has a larger potential user base that the US band plan, with the Canadians and the top slice of Mexico being the only followers of the US mess.

    1. Regbs

      Nice anti-American cheapshot complete with September 11th time stamp

      @Knoydart

      The US mess as you call it has 95% LTE coverage. That's more than anywhere else in the world. Despite being the 4th biggest in area on earth, that saturation dwarfs even tiny Nazi-collaborators Sweden & 3rd world ireland, where moving <50 miles outside their capital cities you'll struggle to get old 3G speeds. It's the marketplace beating the central planners yet again. South Korea's telecoms regulator imposed the wrong standard that never caught on anywhere. Australia's colonial masters, the British, whose queen is Australians', Kiwis' & Canadians' head of state, despite Commonwealth subjects' laughable ignorance of their true non-citizen status, has headlines touting 5 UK cities getting LTE in 2013. London itself has only tiny pockets of LTE, set up in an emergency so the bbc could say that the uk had initiated its LTE rollout. In contrast, a small 2000-person town in rural America will have >12mbps. Australia's telecoms regulator fetters industry with 3G, hspa-wannabe+ obsolescence & somehow America, the inventor of the hi-tech that Asia & Europe copy, is at fault. Check your misuse of "mess". Hilarious that living in nowheresville Oceania gives you the temerity to take cheapshots at the country without whom you'd be Japanese or Chinese subjects instead of British ones. Now go beg your British colonial master governor-general to approve your laws while your leftist politicians continue running your great land into the ground with subsidies for "asylum" seeking boat people.

  2. paleoflatus

    Paleoflatus

    Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

    An iPhone is like a large diamond ring. The diamond adds no useful function, but everyone who sees it is impressed, because they know it was expensive. Likewise, an iPhone has similar functions and quality to any of the better Android phones, but everyone knows it cost you heaps more - and they're similarly impressed!

    Apple used to be innovative, but, like most ageing corporations, they're now playing catch-up and the iPhone 5S is almost as good as an HTC One, or a waterproof S4, apart from its dated look and its small screen. I suspect that cheap little screen is so that you need to buy one of their tablets as well.

    A fool and his money are soon parted - and there's no shortage of those.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Paleoflatus

      Costs you heaps more?

      Perhaps you ought to review the retail price of a iPhone 5S and that of the Samsung GS4. The HTC One probably does cost significantly less, since they've likely had to discount it to compete with the Samsung marketing machine. But at introduction I'll bet it was similarly priced.

      Also note that iPhones hold their resale value FAR better than any Android phone, so unless you're keeping your phone until it dies, you can subtract $100-$200 from the difference between the for that factor.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They support 2300TD

    The new iPhones do support Optus' new 2300 TD-LTE network, which exists today - I believe there is only one other phone that does.

    They also support Optus, TPG and Telstra's upcoming 2600MHz LTE coverage.

    That's in addition to the existing 900MHz and 1800MHz LTE.

    Considering the 700MHz rollout is quite some way off - Melbourne and Sydney still have TV broadcasting there, coverage on bands that are already in use is probably preferable - especially when almost no handsets support 2300TD today.

  4. KiwiGraham

    Just in case they stray out of range???

    > Vulture South is sure that iPhone 5 buyers won't mind holding onto their iPhone 4 devices, just in case they stray out of range.

    Huh? This would seem to imply that new iPhones are incapable of falling back to 3G or 2G when LTE is unavailable. I can't see anything in their specs that says that.

  5. Snortimer

    Good point there...

    Yeah, I was wondering about that backwards compatibility. Also, remember that LTE, 4G (these two are not synonymous), and 3G are primarily data technologies, and not voice. Voice should work even outside of LTE range without problems.

    As for the Apple haters, just buy your phones as you like, and let people buy iPhones if they like. "Looking dated" is a subjective evaluation, as is "cheap little screen". Just because you don't agree with another's opinion doesn't mean they're wrong, or that it has merits you don't appreciate.

    And yes, iPhones are price-comparable to similarly specced Android phones (or as close as you can get). Your diamond ring analogy is clever, if inapt. You can get a free iPhone (with contract), a US$99 iPhone (with contract), or a US$199 iPhone (with contract), which pretty much means it matches any price point. I don't know what the price structure is like outside the US, of course.

    That being said, I WOULD like to see Apple step up the pace of development, and allow a couple release cycles per year.

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