The iPhone thread

Originally Posted by Matt D

Oh, & once your 18 month contract is up with O2, you have to *stay* with O2 on a month by month rolling contract if you want to continue using the iPhone as a phone.

Do you have a link for that? I will not be remotely surprised if that clause turns out to be illegal. How can they justify selling you a phone and then locking you into an indefinite contract with a single operator in order for you to use it for its intended purpose?

Originally Posted by Chris T

Do you have a link for that? I will not be remotely surprised if that clause turns out to be illegal. How can they justify selling you a phone and then locking you into an indefinite contract with a single operator in order for you to use it for its intended purpose?

O2 is the only network with the correct tech to run the services?

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Damien

O2 is the only network with the correct tech to run the services?

So you would lose visual voice mail, maybe using another network would be slower on the data as there would be no EDGE coverage but it is still just a GSM phone. As Chris T said in 18m time that phone is yours and you have the right to use it on any network you choose. You just need to pay o2 the twenty quid for the unlock code just like any other handset. Otherwise it is illegal.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Do you have a link for that? I will not be remotely surprised if that clause turns out to be illegal. How can they justify selling you a phone and then locking you into an indefinite contract with a single operator in order for you to use it for its intended purpose?

Ah... I really should've given a source... & also added "allegedly".


Info comes from someone at the DS forum, they've been in contact with O2 & been told that:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...&postcount=253

Originally Posted by Sananda Maitreya @ DS

i have also been told the following by 02:

1. No, the iPhone will not be available on Pay&Go

2. No, the device and Sim are sold together and activated together as
one package. The device won't work if another SIM card is inserted.

3. After the end of the initial 18 month period, customers can give
notice if they wish to terminate their contracts with O2, or they can
continue with the contract on a month-by-month basis. However, as this
is an exclusive partnership between O2 and Apple, the iPhone will only
work as a mobile phone on O2's network in the UK. Several systems which
support the iPhone, including visual voicemail, are only available on O2
in the UK.

4.I do not believe you can use a pay as you go SIM card after the 18
months but will need to double check this.

And also...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...&postcount=234

Originally Posted by Sananda Maitreya @ DS

i am assuming that it will be the same here. i called ofcom to find out if there is any requirement for a network here in the uk to unlock a phone at the expiration of the contract. i was told that there was no such requirement at all. ofcom only suggest what a reasonable fee might be for unlocking.

Does anyone know what the actual legality is?

[SMHarman]

Certainly it has a good legality challenge about it. Imagine if you bought a car and you could only continue to drive it if the manufacturer serviced it at the appropriate schedule. If you did not it would stop working and become a pile of steel, plastic and rubber.

[jonifen]

There is an extreme bending of the rules going on with this whole deal in my opinion.
From what I've read online (which may/may not be believed, I'm unsure), France and another country have already banned the iPhone from being sold in their country due to Apple's demands of limiting them to certain networks.

Apple are getting a huge slice of the proceeds from o2 and Carphone Warehouse for the whole thing, I'd love nothing more than to see the whole iPhone thing crash and burn... but as I said in my previous post, there are too many Apple fanboys for that to happen.

This is the best use for the iPhone - linkage (apologies if this has been seen before)


My current contract with o2 ends in January... my next phone? It looks like the k850i... I can send MMS on that... unlike the iPhone...

French law requires a unlocked version to be out there. English law only requires the handset be ready after the contract ends.

[Cerberus]

Ok Ok settle down!

As a member of staff I got an iPhone today to strictly help with customer queries.

There are going to be a few problems from what I can see and that is mostly from activating the iPhone.

From playing about with the iPhone, I can honestly say (No I am Am Not An Apple Fan Boy) it is a decent phone. The touch screen will take a while to suss out (ish) and mainly the other problem would be from syncing with iTunes. Other than this I don't see any other major problems at all.

IF any users of this forum are buying one or any other O2 users here are a bit on the errrr side then PM me and when I have time I will answer your queries. It is a nice bit of kit, but it could have a few things added for us Brits.

The Wi-Fi is amazing (forget EDGE and you will soon see why [OK it's not 3G]).

The touch screen is a fantastic user interface, but I could see that causing a slight few probs. Once you got a slight hang of it you will suss it.

It looks good, it's interface is good, the idea is good and Apple or any other manufacturer can only improve/learn from this.

Again I am not an apple fan boy.

Anymore questions then ask me.

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Cerberus

Anymore questions then ask me.

Can I have it off you ?

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Cerberus

The Wi-Fi is amazing (forget EDGE and you will soon see why [OK it's not 3G]).

EDGE is light years away from 3G. I have google maps on my k800i the difference between using it in the US on 2G vs the 3G in the UK is amazing, you scroll the map in the UK and it just keeps filling the screen. In the US, you wait.

[Tezcatlipoca]

As I'm rarely in a McDonalds/Airport/Starbucks/Hotel etc., if I had an iPhone, I'd have to put up with EDGE most of the time.

And EDGE sucks.

Really, really sucks.

Was on the train to London last Saturday... 3.5G icon on my phone went at one point, to be replaced with GPRS/EDGE. Such a difference.


WiFi *is* very good when you have access to it, but isn't exactly something exclusive to the iPhone (I've had WiFi enabled phones for ages...).



Apple should have delayed things a bit & released a proper UK/Europe iPhone, with all those things that us Brits & Europeans now expect to find as standard in a phone...3G, decent camera, video recording, MMS, custom ringtones, etc. etc.

And a less mickey-taking tariff would've been nice too. Probably wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for Apple's slice I guess.

£35 with unlimited data seems ok to me...

---------- Post added at 22:22 ---------- Previous post was at 22:17 ----------

Not including the price of the handset of course....

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by Damien

£35 with unlimited data seems ok to me...

---------- Post added at 22:22 ---------- Previous post was at 22:17 ----------

Not including the price of the handset of course....

Exactly - Not including the price of the handset.

You have to pay the kind of inflated tariff some charge for a free/cheap subsidised phone, yet you *also* pay for the phone.


And even then, the allowances are poor.

200 minutes & 200 SMS for £35?!!

OK, so it has "unlimited" data (they have admittedly dropped the 200MB/month hard limit), but it is still subject to the FUP (IIRC... reasonable use, no P2P, no streaming, no modem use, etc...). [& you're stuck with EDGE... if you can actually get EDGE, otherwise it's the even more slow GPRS].


I pay T-Mobile £37.50 for Flext35 + Web 'n' Walk.

£180 allowance (1800 SMS, or 900 minutes, or any mix thereof), plus 1GB/month data.


Even a normal non-Apple-finger-in-the-pie O2 tariff is better than the iPhone tariff IMO, & you can always add the £7.50 Web bolt-on (which AFAIK is still 200MB/month unfortunately).

---------- Post added at 22:39 ---------- Previous post was at 22:35 ----------

Interesting thread:


http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=207692

I think it will be much more attractive once the iPhone has 3G.

[Tezcatlipoca]

If/When.