How long will it last?
So what happens when Jesus relases a firmware upgrade and relocks phon again ????
Keep blssings the team!! Again & again, Cats n mouse, anyone?
If an O2 contract’s all that’s standing in-between you and an iPhone 3G, then hardware hackers the iPhone Dev Team have a treat for you: an upcoming unlocking tool. According to the team’s blog, it has successfully cracked the iPhone 3G for use on any network with an unlock codenamed 'yellowsn0w'. Unfortunately, the unlock …
Being a current o2 iPhone 3G user their 3G coverage is simply rubbish for me. The two places I spend the most time at (home and work) neither has good coverage. At home I don't even get Edge all of the time.
I didnt want to be on O2 but I just wanted an iPhone.
At least now I could in theory unlock a PAYG model and use it on a decent mobile network.
Yep - anonymous coward. Dead right. Orange was miles better on 3G.
I just had an amusing conversation with an O2 call centre operative, who freely admitted it that their 3G coverage was crap. And it seems pretty unlikely to me that, absent more pressure from Ofcom, O2 is likely to want to spend any money to do anything about it.
I'm waiting for someone to produce an iphone app which monitors signal strength/type, records it alongside GPS data, and periodially calls back to base to update a coverage map, which can then be viewed as a google maps mashup. Crowdsourcing loads of iphone users in this way would give a great and realistic coverage map - which I suspect is a lot patchier than the maps that O2 uses to submit to Ofcom.
Ofcom has already threatened to dock O2's licence if it fails to meet coverage thresholds. I suspect some real coverage data would put a lot more pressure on them.
- Andrew
I agree that O2 is not great with the 3G, but given that 3G eats your battery I don't bother with it. I have wifi at both home and work, and a satnav in the car so dont use the GPS either, I find that this gives me really good battery use, and all the functions I actually use day to day.
I live in the North West and get great coverage at work in Chester or at home, also good around Sheffield too when i'm staying up there.
I have a N95 8gb, not saying its the iPhones fault (Almost definately its just bad coverage by o2) but you never know...Could be hardware.
Does the iPhone for "3.5g" for data??
It's not just O2 that are an issue (though their customer service is rubbish). The biggest issue I have with the whole malarky is that I have to have iTunes installed. Yesterday it installed an update, that bindled quicktime in and changed all my media file associations! Apple software is bordering on malware with its intrusive nature.
... Apple just get the fucking message that people do not want it dictated to them which mobile network they should be on to get a phone, and that by offering a SIM free version - or even an agreement with Orange & T-Mobile in the UK also, they could potentionally earn millions more?
As long as they sort out the whole MMS issue, and networks offering the iphone give decent tariffs - the whole issue I have with O2 is that they offer a sim only deal with unlimited texts and great minutes yet the iphone tariffs are a bag of shite, and from their customer service team you can NOT put any other O2 simcard into the iPhone as it will not work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My year on o2 has been painful - having moved from Orange to what's described as a better network my conclusion that o2 is more notwork than network. The sheer number of coverage gaps in places where you could reasonably expect good coverage is very surprising e.g.
- large parts of many train stations and airports
- much of the above ground sections of the district line
- centre of richmond
- many rural areas in the south west where even T-Mobile have good coverage
Even when you do have a signal, it's mostly EDGE and not 3G. Then there are the delays to voicemail and SMS alerts of anything up to 24 hours, calls going straight to voicemail in the evening because the network capacity is piss poor, and cell breathing on 3G which means the coverage changes depending on the time of day. By way of balance, o2 customer service is better than Orange's, but for having a phone that works in most places then o2 is clearly not a very good choice.
It's a shame that Apple have shot themselves in the foot by "partnering" with the network that has the worst 3G coverage at present, and no involvement in the future 3G / mast sharing arrangements put in place between Three & T-Mobile and Vodafone & Orange.
I agree, O2's 3G coverage is crap. Even when you can find a good signal it's still barely faster than Edge for web browsing as far as I can tell. I'm certain they throttle 3G right down to Edge level speeds, with only YouTube and a few other apps given full access to the bandwidth.
Worse still, is the unreliability of O2's network. I was trying to use the web and YouTube over Edge last night and it just would not download anything. I'm certain they have outages and don't tell anyone.
It's not just Apple who are limiting phone choice to network. I'm in the market and possible change to another network, and the 'best' 4 touchscreen phones are on different networks:
* iphone 3G - O2
* Blackberry Storm - Voodofone
* HTC HD - Orange
* G1 Google phone - T-Mobile
So don;t just jump on apple here, makes decisions so much harder when you like a phone, and don't like the network, or like me have been with one operator with a very discounted tarriff.. I've decided to wait till next year when hopefully they'll release a better google phone, as the OS looks good and promising, just don't like the G1! The HTC HD + Android, would be my choice right now, and whilst it is 'possible' maybe to run android on it, u're tied in for 18 months, and I dont want issues. Hopefully HTC will bring out another Android phone early to mid next year.
Currently using 2 iPhones, one on orange and one t-mobile!
I used to use my n95 on o2 with some ppp script as my main internet connection. I got over 100k/sec on downloads most of the time and I never got told off for using a few gigs a month when the policy says the max is 200mb.
Maybe the antenna design/radio hardware in the iphone is crap? Apple's stuff does look pretty but the build quality is generally only skin deep.
Title says it all. I don't use 3G for much (I don't have a Jesus phone, and am on a cheap contract so it's quite expensive) but I have used it all over the country for checking football scores [not the most data intensive use I know] and I rarely run out of signal. As for their voice signal, it's unsurpassed in my experience. I even manage to get signal on the underground (Only enough to receive a text message, and it didn't last long) but I was none the less impressed :D
"As long as they sort out the whole MMS issue, and networks offering the iphone give decent tariffs - the whole issue I have with O2 is that they offer a sim only deal with unlimited texts and great minutes yet the iphone tariffs are a bag of shite, and from their customer service team you can NOT put any other O2 simcard into the iPhone as it will not work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
My iPhone works great with my Works SIM card inserted!
Not so long ago I used to have my own T-mobile 'phone rather than the copmpany Orange offering. When asked why I pointed out that, being on call at the time, it'd be helpful if the thing could get a sodding signal in my house (or even outside it without walking to the end of the garden and holding the handset above my head).
Our chaps said they'd look into it. The response they got from Orange was an enquiry as to which remote part of the UK I lived in so they could do something about it. When told exactly which bit of west London it was, their incredibly helpful response was to point out that they had 100% coverage in that area.
Can't criticise though. It must be terribly difficult to see a problem when your head's that far up your own arse.
I have also had massive problems with Orange. Lived in many different parts of a major city and had appalling reception in all of them. Orange were disgustingly unhelpful and just gave me the run around until I got sick of telling them how shit their service was. Got an iPhone on O2 now... not perfect but a hell of a lot better than Orange.
this is actually a mini-hoax ... all new iphone 3gs come with baseband 2.28, which is NOT unlockable, and will not be for the foreseeable future, iphone dev's upcoming release unlocks basebands 2.11 and earlier .... (although an iphone having either will also have firmware 2.2 which can be jailbroken) .... confused? so was i, which is why i got rid of my iphone 24 hours after i got it .... complete bollox, especially for anyone used to the functionality of windows mobile...
It did occur to me that that signal strength/connection mode info might not be available in the API, but in practice I'd be stunned if there's any way Apple would allow such an app into the app store anyway. So Ross, you're right about having to jailbreak it. I must admit I didn't know enough about the configuration of the OS to realise that you also have to jailbreak to run the app in the background (which to be any use it would clearly have to do), although what you have said makes sense: my favourite app is last.fm, and it really bugs me that it won't run in the background like the ipod app. It also needs 3G (or wifi) to work properly - hence my irritation with the crappy 3G coverage.
Quicktime is and always has been part of iTunes because its the software that plays video. As long as you've had iTunes installed, you've also had Quicktime.
Can't comment on the file association stuff, usually even(!) iTunes / Quicktime will prompt before it changes associations.