Dave Thorp's Blog

So some 36 hours ago the new iPhone 4 got announced by Apple’s Steve Jobs and became the first truly worthwhile thing Apple have announced this year that isn’t just four existing products stuck together with cellotape! Plus the good news that the UK would be receiving the device at launch.

Since the announcement, what have the UK mobile networks done and what information have they released to their (potential) customers? Well the answer to that is not much. Each network have come out and said they will be selling it (in the order O2, Vodafone, Orange and new to the iPhone T-Mobile). O2 have also come out and said existing customers would be able to upgrade onto it but provided no solid details on if that is all existing customers, selected existing customers, a few customers drawn out of a hat or what.

Go onto most of the mobile phone network websites and you’ll find naff all actual information apart from harvesting e-mail addresses with the promise of being the first to find out. But the information we need such as cost and details of O2′s early upgrade scheme are nowhere to be seen. And it’s starting to thoroughly pee me and some other people off. It’s not like this has come as a surprise to the networks, they must have known about the impending announcement probably long before anyone else did. So all the information their customers need should have been ready to go the second Steve Jobs stopped talking.

If you look on the twitter feeds for some of the UK networks HERE and HERE its just full of people asking the same question that should have been answered on Monday night “how much will it cost” or in O2′s case “will I be able to upgrade and how much will it cost” and its getting ridiculous. The only reason I can think of why not one of the networks has come forward and revealed their pricing is they don’t want to be first and risk the other 3 undercutting them. Now that is fair enough but they need to realise that keeping their current and potential customers in the dark is going to thoroughly pee them off possibly to the point where they will just go to the first network to announce the prices even if the others are slightly cheaper.

Last year O2 made a right mess of the 3GS launch by refusing to listen to their customers and not allowing any kind of upgrade path without paying unlawful penalty charges, buying the device at full cost on PAYG or taking out additional contracts. This was responsible for the #o2fail tag to appear on twitter and it has had one or two mentions again this year as has my hashtag #tellushowmuchnow (which hasn’t taken off as yet).  This year 4 networks are bustling for our custom but are making an even bigger pigs ear of things by keeping (potential) customers in the dark and not giving people the information they need. Who knows, perhaps by the time iPhone 5 is announced we might know how much iPhone 4 is going to cost!

After the disappointment of Apple launching their revolutionary iPad (basically an oversized iPod Touch) I was expecting Apple to come up with something really revolutionary with the new iPhone 4.0 software update. Seems I was expecting too much and having initially been deeply concerned I jumped ship too soon having moved to the Android powered Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 last week my thoughts now are that I jumped ship at just the right time.

So what did Apple announce in their software update. Well the following 7 things to be precise

Multitasking

I went into some depth as to just why I feel this unnecessary when I talked about the oversized iPod touch and basically my feelings were (and still are) that there is simply no need to have multiple open tasks on a mobile phone. Mail polls in the background, the iPod continues to play in the background and calls and texts still come through in the background. On a mobile phone that is more than sufficient

Folders

The first of many “new features” where Apple have merely jailbroken their iPhones and then decided what are the best ideas they can use. Useful yes. Revolutionary… hardly

Unified Inbox

All your email now in one place. Useful no as I only have one email account set up on my phone and if I did have more than one email account such as for work and personal I would want to keep them separate

iBooks

The book reader announced for iPad (but only available in one country… the USA) comes to iPhone. With a free Winnie the Pooh book. Unfortunately as I don’t live in that one country, this is as much use as a chocolate fireguard

Enterprise

No not the starship but some business features that are as standard on any other business phone. Some people may care…. I don’t!

Game Centre

Social gaming similar to xbox live, PSN or the open feint system (that many games already use) comes to the iPhone. Meh

iAd

Do not get me started on this “feature” of the new OS as if there was ever a reason not to upgrade this is it. Yes I know this site uses ads but in over two years of having them on I have made the net sum of £52 of which I can’t get at £26 until I reach the withdrawal limits with those affiliate networks. However I do not want ads on my mobile phone and there is a damn good reason why I use adblock plus with firefox on any computer I use. There is also a good reason why nearly 800,000 other users download adblock plus every week. Because we don’t want ads!

Sorry Apple but if this is the best you can come up with I really am glad I jumped ship to Android. I’ll end this post with my tweet which sums up my thoughts on this new OS

“So to summarize a load of features ripped straight from jailbroken iPhones and adverts. GET IN!!”

Apple today announced a new version of the iPhone 3G. As soon as it was announced, I wanted one. However now the hype has settled down a bit and O2 have updated their prices, I’m not so sure.

The new model boasts the following improved features

• A compass so maps knows which way you are facing
• An improved 3MP camera with auto focus and video capabilities
• A faster processor so some tasks and launching apps should be faster
• More storage
• HSDPA
• Voice dialling and commands

All in all it’s not a great improvement over what the iPhone 3G can do once OS 3.0 comes out on June 17th and one of the features is available on a jailbroken iPhone 3G so clearly Apple are blocking current iPhone 3Gs from using it. Much more offputing is O2′s new crazy pricing which means the device will only be free if you agree to a 24 month contract or a £75 a month contract or the device will be approx £450 on PAYG for the 16Gb version and £550 on PAYG for the 32Gb version. Not exactly the cheaper prices making the device available to more mentioned at the keynote.

Even worse is the fact that last time a new model came out customers could upgrade for free. This time customers either have to wait for their upgrade date (for most early adopters this is January 2010) or pay to end their contracts early (again for early adopters that will be approx 7 months at your monthly rate so in my case approx £245), and then agree to a new 18 or more likely 24 month contract.

Madness in my view as given Apple’s habbit of releasing a new model every year who on earth is going to want to agree to a new contract which will likely make the customer miss the model that will be inevitably released in 2010. Not me thats for sure and frankly unless O2 change their upgrade policy and prices fast, I may be looking elsewhere come my contract expiry

EDIT Full details of the ludicrous pricing HERE