back to article Another day, another iPhone rumour

Speculation was rife this week that O2 was about to sign a deal for UK distribution of the hypefest which is the Apple iPhone, though on Monday it seemed that Vodafone would be getting the deal, and prior to that those in the know were saying Carphone Warehouse was a dead cert. Make no mistake; Apple will be talking to all …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    3G

    To me any new handset promising so much from the 'internet' needs to be 3G for an European launch. I'm sure Wi-fi is everywhere but the perception by the public is 3G the de-facto standard today. The operators spent so much time and money ramming 3G video calls and data down our throats it would look to be a u-turn on all that. That said I wouldn't be surprised if they insisted wi-fi is disabled>!? Operators will become pipes - utilities like water, gas and electricity but with data.

    sidenote -

    I wonder if Vodafone will mess up the mobile transcoding with iPhone like they did last month with WAP, is it mobile or is it web?

  2. Martin McNulty

    Opinion?

    You seem to state the contents of this article as fact, but without quoting or referencing so much as one source. (Not even a made-up 'high-level' or 'closely involved' one...). Sounds plausible enough, but also fairly spurious if it's simply a guess. Is this just your opinion or is there some evidence in there somewhere?

  3. PH

    Carphone Warehouse – Apple

    Having gone thorough the painful and ultimately futile experience of trying to connect my mum's OS X Apple Mac to her Carphone Warehouse broadband in late 2006 I think it's hilarious anyone's seriously suggesting Apple releases the UK iPhone in partnership with them.

    CW broadband staff, I found, have very little Apple product knowledge and at one point when I'd had enough I was informed that CW "don't have a customer complaints department". If Apple want the iPhone to be a serious contender they'd be crazy to release it through these cost-cutting budget amateurs.

  4. Fred Fnord

    Carphone Warehouse?

    Bear in mind that AT&T, one of the biggest broadband providers in the United States as well as a huge cell phone provider (and a dessert topping, and a floor wax, and...), is probably no better at supporting Macs than CW. In a word: suck. (I say 'probably' because I have no experience with CW... I have plenty with AT&T.)

    So don't count CW out just because they couldn't actually handle it. AT&T self-evidently couldn't either, yet they got the job.

    -fred

  5. Sampler

    All talk - no data

    I support around 50 Vodafone GPRS/3G/HSDPA enabled tablet pcs for field data collection and rarely have I seen a 3G signal on these cards and never a HSDPA.

    My mobile (HTC Prophet - being doing what the iPhone claims to be revolutionary for over a year now - and allows third party software development) has only twice ever found an EDGE connection - even when travelling round major cities like London, Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow, as my support calls take me.

    I think on paper a 3G enabled iPhone might be a must - but in reality all it needs is GPRS as it's never going to get chance to use all those other radios.

    If the major airtime providers have spent millions on rolling out such technology than I think I'm in the wrong job as that sounds like a nice paycheck for nothing.

  6. Cameron Colley

    RE: All talk - no data

    I'm not sure about HSDPA, as my device desn't support it, but I'm posting this over UMTS from Leeds city centre. I agree, coverage could be better, as it can be patchy, but 3G is available Leeds.

    I'm not that thrilled by the idea of the iPhone anyway, but not having UMTS and HSDPA nowadays is just pathetic.

  7. Steve

    All talk - no data

    I support around 25 3G data-cards as part of our mobile connectivity for consultants, also on Voda. They have problems once in a while and drop back to GPRS, but most of London has very fast 3G connections.

    I also use a Sony Ericsson K800 in and around London for Google Maps and Gmail over 3G on T-Mobile and have only had it drop back to GPRS 4 or 5 times in the last year.

    I wouldn't give up that speed for a phone which although very nice to look at, has less features and is not running a proven OS. However many people use the very buggy HTC phones using GPRS for Exchange email and so on, and although they complain about the web browser speed most email transfers are done in the background. There is a market but not for long as HTC preps 3G phones, I hope Apple upgrade the model for their sakes.

  8. Cameron Colley

    ..as HTC preps 3G phones?

    The HTC device I'm posting on uses UMTS which, I am lead to believe, is 3G?

  9. Mark

    IPhone firmware upgrades...

    I'm sure Apple will be upgrading their model for this...who knows though. They have already begun to design the next generation iPhone!

    http://iphone.corank.com

  10. leslie

    Title

    Problem with 3g is not coverage anymore, but pricing, its not worth using, hell I keep my 3g turned off in case the damn phone connects while its in my pocket!

  11. Danny Thompson

    Its not 3G thats at fault

    ...but the utterly stupid and punitive Data tariffs (no matter what G you are using)!

    T-Mob's Web n Walk is probably the most sensibly priced £12.50 for 3GB a month, followed by 3's £5 for a Gig. But Voda, O2 and Orange are still playing the rip-off game.

    So it does not matter really if the iPhone is 2G/2.5G/3G - the Data Tariff on anyone but T-Mob or 3 will cause you to heamorrage your hard earned.

    I use Web N Walk all the time, on the handset and via it to the PDA and Laptop (Wintel and Mac - both work at well). No fears about using it.

    And Leslie - don't turn your 3G off, just set your handset up to not use the GPRS APN unless you specifically allow it - most handsets will let you configure that up easily enough!

  12. heystoopid

    Say

    Say , the tale of the coming of the new age of the Iphone , is getting better then waiting for the forthcoming Harry Who book!

  13. Jan Weijers

    another rumour

    Last Monday the Reg predicted a 3G iphone

    http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/29/euro_3g_iphone_announcement_monday/

    So you create rumours to, don't you?

  14. min

    Is CarPhone Warehouse...

    still going to be selling Nokia (R) 3330s? Now that's a phone i was hyped up about...

  15. jai

    finally a realistic article

    nice to finally see an article that admits that no one, at the moment, knows anything about the Uk/EU release.

    to be honest, i'm not going to believe anything until i read the press release on the apple website

  16. tp

    Australia

    i have bought a new iphone (waiting for it to arrive) - will it work in Australia?

    is it a 3g phone?

    will it work on the 3 g network that i am contracted to ?

  17. Stu C

    3G Pricing

    I've slagged off the iphone for not having 3g, but truth be told I have 3g turned off on my phone as it just rapes the battery as most of the time it isnt even doing anything and I have no interest in making video calls (w950i - no video capabilities anyway), as its so over priced and awful quality. Or anything else like that.

    I agree with others in this thread about pricing generally being over the top for 3g. Vodafone charge £1 a day for 15 megs of use.... I'm sure I could probably get satellite broadband cheaper than that.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Australia

    tp, it depends what you define as "work"

    it is possible that you'll be able to plug it into iTunes and get yourself an AT&T contract and activate the phone - but then you'll have to pay roaming phone charges for every call you make, they might get expensive. also, you probably need a valid address in the states to register it to so they can bill you. And more likely, iTunes will realise you're not in the states and will refuse to let you

    if you don't want the phone stuff (and apparently youtube vids either) then you can use the hacks that have appeared that will allow you to run the iPod and wifi applications and so on.

    no, it's not 3G. as it mentions in this Register article that you commented on, no one knows if the european version will be 3G yet, but certainly all the iPhones that have currently been produced are not 3G

    it won't work on your current network. at least not yet. the phone part of the iPhone is locked to AT&T and i don't think they've found out how to unlock it yet to allow it to work with a different SIM card. they might work out how to it in teh next couple of weeks - but it'll probably be a complex process, at least to start with

  19. Stu C

    Title

    I've slagged off the iphone for not having 3g, but truth be told I have 3g turned off on my phone as it just rapes the battery as most of the time it isnt even doing anything and I have no interest in making video calls (w950i - no video capabilities anyway), as its so over priced and awful quality. Or anything else like that.

    I agree with others in this thread about pricing generally being over the top for 3g. Vodafone charge £1 a day for 15 megs of use.... I'm sure I could probably get satellite broadband cheaper than that.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unlimited?

    I admit to having only casually looked at AT&T service for the iPhone so this is asking for advice (not a diatribe against the device, please).

    AT&T tariffs all seem to include unlimited data, variable amounts of minutes with 200 texts. Unlimited is now, it seems, a variable in its own right!

    Is it likely, given the habits of UK suppliers, that unlimited data will form part of the packages offered here?

  21. James Pickett

    Er..

    Is this a moon-landing, or maybe a rocket plane we're discussing here? No - it's a phone. Think I'll go and lie down for a bit...

  22. Sean Casaidhe

    Non-3G iPhone

    Good to see the Reg catching up with the rest of us on the non-3G problem for european carriers...

    http://seancasaidhe.wordpress.com/2007/07/01/iphone-hmmm/

    Here in Sicily I use UMTS all the time over a pay-as-you-go phone. I get 100 hours (unlimited AFAIK) with Vodaphone for Eur50.

    So it's only in Ireland and the UK that Vodafone rip their customers off (£1 for the first 15Mb, and £2/Mb after???? WTF?)

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