Australian 3G iPhone Review

Posted under Latest News by Adam Guerin

There’s been so much hype about the new 3G iPhone.

I’m one of those types who usually avoid the hype - as much as possible - sit back and watch and wait while others frantically get caught up in the whirlwind. I like to look at a product after it’s been around for a little while, when the initial buzz has died down, and the thing can get looked at with neutral eyes.

So while I’ve yet to personally get my hands on Apple’s new 3G iPhone released in Australia just yet, I’ve been reading a lot of the reviews of them from people that have.

I came across quite an interesting review on the ITNews website over the weekend, and wanted to point it out because it’s picked up on one of the major failings of the iPhone that I have noticed - which a lot of people arn’t considering in their zeal to get the new toy.

Data Limits.

iPhones were meant to delight Australian technophiles. As with most consumer trends, we patiently watched footage of lucky Americans queueing for iPhones, using their iPhones, getting mugged on the subway for their iPhones. We waited patiently because iPhones themselves are technically excellent. So we assumed that when they came to Australia, they’d be just as good.

Regrettably, telco providers have completely fouled up the iPhone’s Australian launch. From announcements, to pricing, to data limits, to service provision, telcos have gotten it wrong at every step.

Start with communication. On the day before the iPhone launch, I visited an Optus Store, a Vodafone Store and a generic telecomms store. (If this sounds like the beginning of a joke, don’t be surprised.) None of the stores could tell me how many iPhones they’d have in stock; when the phones would be arriving; or how their plans worked.

One Vodafone staff member said that they would stock 16GB prepaid iPhones, but customers would need to get a new phone number, both of which turned out to be false. “Sorry,” said one customer service clerk, “They don’t tell us much.”

Then there is the usual Australian issue of availability. You all know what I’m talking about right?

You walk into a store on a Saturday afternoon looking to buy something. Let’s just say, for arguments sake, that you’re after an AppleTV.

“Have you got any AppleTV’s in stock?”, you say, hopefully.

The first thing the clerk does as soon as you smile at him is start shaking his head and frowning, almost as if you have just asked him to donate his kidneys to science.

“No.. no.. no.. They are WAY to popular. We sold the last one a few minutes ago. We’ll have more in a few months.” he says.

I don’t know about you guys, but I gave up trying to buy things in Perth from the shops a long time ago and now ordr just about everything online.

You would think after all the hype and advertising though, that stores throughout Australia, not just Perth, would have had LOADS of stock of iPhones right? Well wrong, read the next part of the article.

The availability of iPhones was equally problematic. It is not possible to buy an iPhone. First one chooses a provider. Then one chooses post-paid or pre-paid. Then one chooses a plan. If you’re after a 16GB iPhone, then you choose a colour. Having made a selection from one of forty choices, one then hopes that the corresponding iPhone is in stock.

At the generic telecomms store on iPhone Launch Day, the manager noted that he had no control over his stock; he simply had to receive whatever they sent. At 10am the courier arrived with a pile of 8GB iPhones, all bound to contracts. “I guess it doesn’t matter what you wanted,” he said; “since an 8GB iPhone is what you’re gonna get.”

At the Optus flagship store in Sydney, the extremely limited stock of pre-paid iPhones was sold out between midnight and 2am on launch day; other Optus stores didn’t receive any at all. An Optus representative said that more stock will arrive in a week, though she didn’t know how many pre-paid phones would be included.

And then there is the nightmare with the plans. You need to really look hard at these because some of them are designed to just simply rip you off - it’s the “lets get the stupid people to subsidise the smart ones who choose the good tarriff” plan.

The next puzzle is pricing. Since I lack a degree in advanced astrophysics, I had some difficulty comparing plans between providers. Optus voice calls are charged per minute, except for voicemail and international calls. There’s “Mycredit” and also “Mytime Money”, neither of which are defined.

Vodafone’s dizzying array of plans contains prices per month, but no mention of how long the contracts last. Nor, for that matter, does the advertisement list call rates and flagfalls—the very bottom of the page makes reference to it, but there’s no link.

You can be assured that carriers are laughing at us when you read about the data plans. Most plans sit at around 500MB per month. The Sydney Morning Herald front page is about 1MB in size, and it refreshes every three minutes. By the time you read the news every day, you’ve blown your quota.

The cost of a data plan is hidden in the package. Vodafone $49 plans give you $310 of calls and no data. A $69 plan gives you $310 of calls and 250MB of data. So you’re paying $20 for 250MB of data. But data transfers aren’t that expensive. Over at 3, they’re offering 1GB downloads for $15/month. So why do data plans cost so much?

If you’re like me and you avoid the hype around these things, then you might also be wondering if the Apple 3G iPhone is even worth waiting for.

As it is, I find mobile phones annoyingly over complicated these days as it is. I want a device that allows me to answer calls and send text messages. I also don’t want to have to commit to spending thousands of dollars a year for a pimped out iPod.

Here’s a link to the original, full article over at ITNews.

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