iPod Touch… or unlocked iPhone?
Yesterday afternoon, Garry walked into the office and asked, “so, have you seen the new iPod then?”. I hadn’t and, after waiting and waiting, then finally getting a 5.5G iPod with video just a few months back I promptly stuck my fingers in my ears and said something like “na-na-na-na I can’t hear you” until he finished telling me about it. Later, when I was feeling a bit more rational, I checked it out and, apart from only having 16GB of storage (I’m presently struggling with 30GB) it’s looking pretty sweet – almost everything I’d asked for and more.
In his interview alongside Bill Gates at D5, Steve Jobs said that Apple was working on something special and he was not kidding. There is now an iPod for everyone, from the tiny (and low-cost) Shuffle, to a Nano with Video, the iPod Classic (now with 160GB on board… I had already been considering a hard disk upgrade for my 30GB), the Touch and the iPhone. Then there is Apple’s iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store tie-up with Starbucks (which is not limited to the iPod and iPhone, although it does appear to be limited to United States metropolitan areas for the time being with no mention of a global rollout any time soon).
But the more I think about it, the less I want the iPod Touch. It may be (almost) everything I wanted and I did previously dismiss the iPhone (the people at The Register were happy to hand theirs back) but now it appears to have been hacked and the price has dropped to $399 (which should translate to around Â£200 here in the UK, except it won’t, because we have extortionate 17.5% sales taxes and US products never sell here at anything like the exchange rate comparison price) – based on the pricing of other Apple products, I’d expect to see the iPhone sell in Europe at around â‚¬399 or Â£275. I won’t buy an iPhone with an O2 contract when it finally reaches these shores but if I was to unlock one and use my Vodafone SIM… (or just buy one in France, where Apple will be legally obliged to unlock it for me) now that would be good.
Previous PostNikon finally releases a full-frame DSLRNext PostUnconditionally contactable – no thanks.
And for all the disgruntled Apple customers who bought an iPhone in the initial landrush (i.e. before the price was slashed by a third), there’s an open letter from Steve Jobs.
It looks as if my prediction at European iPhone pricing wasn’t too far off the mark as wirelessinfo.com indicates that the iPhone will launch at Â£269 in the UK and â‚¬399 in continental Europe. Whilst the iPhone will not subsidised (making it an expensive proposition), the situation regarding unlocking is less clear. I’ll be very interested in how this shakes down over the next few months, although it maybe worth waiting a digital year or two to see what a second generation iPhone device will look like.