myopiclunacy.com

So let me get this straight. Apple creates a culture of limited options with this iPhone (no A2DP, no bluetooth sync, no SD slot, no cut-and-paste, among other issues) and when people in Canada get upset at Rogers for doing the same with their service plans,
Apple tries to feign disgust? Sounds verrrrry convenient to me.

Apple, disgusted with Rogers Wireless for dumping egregious service plans on would-be iPhone 3G buyers, has decided that its Canadian retail stores will have no part in helping the carrier market the new handset to customers, AppleInsider has learned.

As a result, Canadian Apple Retail stores won’t be selling the new 3G touchscreen phones come Friday, representatives for the Cupertino-based company said during a private conference call on Monday evening. Instead, it will be up to Rogers and its partner Fido to lock subscribers into steep 3-year contracts that require a minimum monthly payment of $60 for just 150 minutes, 75 text messages, and 400MB of data.

Calls to Canadian Apple retail stores early Tuesday confirmed the move once over. Although the majority of the of stores contacted by AppleInsider said they were still unsure whether they’d be selling the new iPhone, one representative ultimately confirmed that Rogers and its partner stores will be the only place to buy iPhone 3G come Friday. Canadian Apple retail stores will, however, have demo units on hand the same day.

Asked whether the decision not to sell the iPhone was a result of Rogers’ poor service offerings, the representative would only say that: “We have nothing to do with the service plans. Those are Rogers’ plans.”

It’s hard to believe that Apple would sign an exclusive distribution deal with Rogers and not have some inkling about what Rogers would charge for service - a very important factor in people buying Apple’s product. So you’re telling me - they had no idea and are disgusted? Gimme a break. A jailbreak.

Word of Apple’s abandonment of in-store sales comes just days after the company was reported to have sanctioned Rogers by diverting a significant amount of Canada’s iPhone 3G shipments to Europe as initial retribution. As a result, the Canadian carrier will likely receive only about 10 to 20 units per store, and therefore should “exercise caution” not to promise ample stock on launch day, people familiar with the matter have said.

Apple’s knee-jerk reaction is believed to have been further stimulated by public outrage on the part of Canadian consumers following the release of the local pricing plans. Always concerned with its image, the iPhone maker has watched nearly 50,000 of its loyal customers sign an anti-Rogers petition at ruinediphone.com, which has in turn sparked hundreds of potentially damaging reports on the matter by bloggers and members of the mainstream media.

This smacks of the whole Christian Dior/Sharon Stone issue or the Dunkin Donuts Rachel Ray kerfuffle - both of which marinated in the news cycle before the corporate benedicts turned tail and ran.

For its part, Rogers in official statements has attempted to justify the cost of its service and data plans by arguing that the “majority” of international iPhone carriers have capped data. As such, a spokesperson said Rogers believes its plans to be better than those of Orange France, for example, which include a 500MB ‘reasonable use’ limit versus the 2GB maximum on the top-tier Canadian iPhone plan that fetches $115 per month.

“Unlimited plans could end up costing customers more for what they don’t use,” the spokesperson said. “Our iPhone plans more than accommodate the vast majority of customers.”

Rogers is a convenient target because they have a long history of screwing over their customers - and given Canada’s physical and lifestyle closeness with the US - they were bound to catch flack for not being competitive with AT&T, but for Apple to say they had no idea is laughable. Apple didn’t get where it has gotten in the past 10 years by being stupid. If they really cared and knew Rogers was going to do this they would have either pushed harder for an unlimited plan (even if the rate was astronomical) or not done the deal at all and let folks do the same thing they do to get iPhones working on T-Mobile. Apple knew and this supposed rift isn’t fooling me - they’re getting a free pass on this one.

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Wow - a huge case if it stands up. This means that you will never get locked in because a phone is tied to either Sprint or Nextel (or the other CDMA carriers). But how will the brand-specific services work - I suppose that’s where they’ll charge people. Does this mean that exclusivity deals will be a thing of the past (Hello iPhone/AT&T)?

An under-the-radar class action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel is winding its way towards a settlement this week, and it contains a pretty huge concession by Sprint: the company will unlock phones for both current and former customers, and will begin training its customer service reps on how to connect non-Sprint phones to its network. The settlement was tentatively approved by a California judge on October 2, but hasn’t had a final approval hearing yet, according to Sprint — but it’s still a huge win for US consumers, who haven’t been able to buy mainstream unlocked phones from any of the major carriers. Of course, since Sprint’s network is CDMA, unlocked phones will only work on other CDMA carriers like Verizon — and there’s no guarantees those companies will be happy about it — but at this point we’ll take whatever we can get.

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Sure, when Apple came out with iPhone during the summer, the gasps were audible. Every jumped on the bandwagon hailing it as yet another technological milestone for the company. Of course, there is always the fine print. Seems the only way you can get your own application on the thing is to hack it. I suppose the majority of folks are satisfied with the included iTunes, iPhoto, Safari and what not, but to me smart phones are just mini computers. Computers that I like to customize with my own stuff. There are tons of 3rd party developers out there just waiting to outfit this thing with all kind of useful programs. In fact they already have via hacks. So what happens when Apple’s firmware update comes out and wipes all these hacks away? Well, some people start to :

It’s understandable for Apple to wage a war on unlocking the iPhone, since the company shares revenue from fees with AT&T. But the truth is, if cellphone service was awesome, like it is on iTunes, there wouldn’t be a need to unlock the iPhone. Secondly, bricking these things is totally uncool, and apparently, malicious—according to some early code investigations by the independent iPhone Dev Team, Apple could have avoided this entirely.

I get that Apple might not have wanted to wage a long back-and-forth war with hackers, as the PSP developers are. And this kind of big blow is going to be a devastating and effective scare tactic, even if a fix comes a few days later. Unlike a Sony PSP, people can’t go a few days without their phones, without social or work hiccups. This is why I never unlocked my main iPhone, only testing these hacks on a spare 4GB test dummy. But I don’t want to be held hostage like this. Did I buy these phones or am I just renting them?

Perhaps there is some grey area in this whole mess?

Unfortunately, we suspect the truth isn’t quite such a juicy story for those looking to lay blame. We’ve seen just as many reports of legitimate, “factory fresh” users getting bricked iPhones as those who’ve just added apps, SIM unlocked their devices, or done both. In fact, besides a lot of hearsay and anger from the tech community, we’ve seen absolutely nothing which indicates to us that Apple is targeting users who’ve hacked their phones and is bricking them on update. In an informal and totally unscientific poll here on Engadget, the number of iPhone users who had never hacked their device but wound up bricked was very similar to the number of users who did hack and brick their device — and that’s even with polls showing far more voting users hacked their phones than not.

Without any correlation in bricking between hacked and unhacked iPhones, it’s easy to imagine the v1.1.1 update went out without proper QA testing, and is bricking a certain number of phones indiscriminately. For further detail, we asked iPhone hacker extraordinaire Erica Sadun, of our sister blog TUAW, to weigh in. She said iPhones upgrading to v1.1.1 appear to have a completely “random distribution of bricks”, implying the far simpler and likelier explanation is that the update was rushed to meet its release deadline. We know Apple promised the update would be out by September’s end, and considering how much iPhone software was changed with this update, it stands to reason that Apple worked until the 11th hour just trying to finish up and push it out the door — not testing it exhaustively for weeks before shipping to consumers.

Still, this is a dangerous trend for Apple to take with its consumer devices. They risk losing the harmonious relationship that they’ve so carefully cultivated with their users over the years by being the anti-Microsoft. There is no other smartphone on the market that doesn’t allow real 3rd party development. And short of a non-replacable battery, it’s not something you’d expect from an Apple device.

Look, we, your users, are smart, and we demand more from every company we buy from. And as a consumer electronics company, you have a responsibility to your customers to continuously provide more. You can’t put your Lego model in a kid’s hand and throw a fit out when they make something better than you did. Like it or not, 3rd party developers found a way into the iPhone, thus fulfilling the inherent expectation that the iPhone should be an extensible platform. Whether or not you choose to publicly acknowledge it, that expectation is there, period. Sure, you can try to see this one through, but from where we sit in the middle, an inordinate number of first adoptors, smartphone user that switched to the iPhone, people that comprise your core customer base are starting to see you as villainous and money grubbing.

So what is the direction here. Is Apple trending towards the Sony school of hack-nullifying firmware updates that reduce the machine to only a shell of what it could be and what the market dictates it should be? Or will they see the light and honor their consumers’ wishes before the adversarial relationship becomes too toxic? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough if/when the new Newton is announced.

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It’s not often that hundreds of thousands of people flock to buy a $600 cell phone on a 2 year contract. But when that phone gets discounted by $200 bucks only 2 months later, you can imagine how even the bLeading Edge techies might feel a little jilted, even if placated by a $100 Apple store coupon. This article from BBSpot “reports” a similar situation from the Apple HQ.

Jobs Offers Apple Lisa Early Adopters Store Credit

Cupertino, CA – Early adopters of the iPhone weren’t the only ones receiving in-store credit from Steve Jobs. In an overlooked announcement, Jobs said that early adopters of the Apple Lisa would be receiving a $7000 in-store credit.Apple LisaApple released the Lisa in January of 1983 for $9,995, and the similar Macintosh was released a year later for $2,495.

And there you have it. Personally I’ll wait until it can browse the web in real 3G and allow legitimate 3rd party apps before I shell out that kind of cash. Oh - and an option for a real keyboard wouldn’t hurt either.

technorati tags:iphone, humor, stevejobs, bbspot, cell, apple, lisa

Popularity: 6% [?]