Update: You can also install this profile by visiting tmobile.com/isetup directly on your iPhone if your phone is on T-Mobile’s network but…
[tweet http://twitter.com/TMobileHelp/status/217994551053393921]
Apple will not receive follow-on revenue from most of its new telecom partners according to SEC filing Form 8-K for APPLE IN. This is a very interesting development for several reasons. It means that Apple is stuck in their original agreements with AT&T, O2, Orange, Tmobile, etc. It also means that the old model wasn’t optimal for Apple and it is going for a new model where it is no longer taking a cut of monthly revenues.
The new carriers will be doing the writeoff themselves for the new countries. How this will affect Apple’s sales model is unclear. Will they sell them in the Apple stores for the $199 price? Will they still be Jailbreakable and/or downgradable?
As predicted in February, US iPhone subscribers are now getting free Wi-Fi Access at AT&T hotspots around the country including Barnes and Noble and Starbucks. This correlates to the plans offered in the UK by O2 and Tmobile in Germany.
Apparantly it isn’t terribly hard to spoof the iPhone interface and get your laptop on free WiFi either – as a Macrumors forum poster shows us. No announcement from AT&T or Apple has been made but expect one shortly.
What is it like to wait on line in Holland for an iPhone? Look no further than Tmobile’s Webcam. http://hosting.dutchview.nl/t-mobile20080710/t-mobile.swf
party is over…
We’ve fielded a couple of tips (some more sketchy than others) about EVDO iPhones floating around Cupertino in the past, but today’s tipster seems a little bit more sure of himself. Besides having some Verizon insider credentials, he seems to know way too much about Verizon-Apple politics. According to him, Apple will be announcing iPhones for Verizon Wireless in 2009, perhaps as early Macworld 2009. Negotiations between Apple and Verizon are ongoing but they expect to hammer out agreements by the end of the year.
This isn’t a huge surprise for a number of reasons:
Today’s Tmobile-HTC-Google three way Android G1 event was watched intently by those in the technology community – especially by those with the defacto king of the mobile devices, the iPhone.
Well, the good news for iPhone users is that the G1 isn’t a finished product yet…you are still king of the mobile devices for the forseeable future. Most of the functionality of Google’s device is in the hands of 3rd party developers. It doesn’t mean that future hardware products won’t be more compelling. Gizmodo made a good table on the features of the leading smartphones, below:
For those Canadians who aren’t huge fans of Rogers, Bell has some good news for you today. They’ve put up an iPhone landing page for the upcoming launch. You can sign up to get more information when it is available. We’re trying to imagine a Tmobile/Verizon site like this down here. via BGR
Microsoft, after over a week of data outage and admission that they’ve lost all of their customers’ data, might have just killed the Sidekick. That’s a shame because, before the iPhone, the Sidekick was the most revolutionary smartphone platform out there.
Gizmodo asks a pretty good question today. They wonder why AT&T is charging for their 3G Microcell adapter boxes when companies like Sprint and Tmobile often subsidize the cost for users in known dead spot areas. Microcells are similar to Wifi Access points except they broadcast a 3G signal like a 3G cell tower.
Subsidization really makes sense because the carrier is using the customer’s bandwidth to provide 3G access. Charging a monthly fee, in this case $20/month, for the customer to use their own bandwidth to support AT&T’s customers seems like just a bit of a dick move.
Maybe AT&T should be paying people to use their microcells?
Add this to the 99% speculative category…
Starbucks has a nice little thing going. And it isn’t just caffeine addiction or 50 Million songs to give away. They have over 10,000 locations in the US alone and are filling each one with Wifi access from Tmobile. That is a lot of coverage…and in very important, high trafficked areas like malls, city streets, and college campuses. You could almost call them a “wifi telecom”
Apple today announced their alliance with German (former) state telco Tmobile for the German market. Tmobile will have EDGE on 100% of its network by the end of 2007 (oh and probably some 3G too?) and of course it has a bazillion Wifi hotspots around the World. No mention of whether or not the iPhone plan with Tmobile will include access at any of them like the UK’s O2’s offering.
The price is a respectable
With Apple set to announce it’s European iPhone strategy later this week, a lot of questions still remain on the specifics of the deal. What we know:
What we’d like to know:
It looks all but certain that Apple will announce its first European iPhone carrier next week. And some bad news for y’all across the pond (or Channel as it were), it is not going to be carried by Vodafone who is currently launching an iTunes competitor (and whose CTO recently publicly dissed the iPhone). It will most likely be carried by O2 only.
It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the recent iPhone hacking will have on the selection of iPhone carriers. Apple will probably have to secure its iPhone OS from these hacks if it expects to keep exclusivity contracts with the vendors going.
MacBidouille, an excellent French-language Macintosh site, has posted what they say is a leaked advertisement for the Tmobile iPhone in Germany. Of note, the specs indicate 3G speeds and a 16GB capacity. These specs are in line with our reports from August from our Orange (France Telecom) sources. They also stated that the Germans and British would get the iPhones slightly before the French were ready to roll it out.
While this image could easily be a fake (they at one point call it an iPod in the advertisement), the specs are likely to be realistic as the next iteration of iPhone will likely match the iPodtouch‘s 16GB capacity. Additionally, with 3G phones all but ubiquitous in Europe, it would be an embarrassment for Apple to release a EDGE-only phone. The price point also make sense when one takes into account the Euro/Dollar exchange rate and the absurd VAT Tax rates that add close to 20% of the cost…
Update – we just got some new intel from Orange
Bet you forgot about ol’ Apple Expo Paris didn’t you? Well, from September 25-29th, 2007, Paris will be LE place to be for Apple aficionados the world over. The Fall event is held at a perfect time for a European iPhone announcements in front of the home crowd – a month ahead of the release.
Additionally, the Eurocentric crowd will likely get their own version of country-specific television shows on iTunes and an expanding iTunes Movies coverage.
Jonny Evans over at Macworld.co.uk has announced that both Vodafone and O2 would be carrying the iPhone in the UK – something we voiced a few months back. The release date has been speculated to be
The Washington Post is reporting that TMobile will carry the iPhone in Germany on November 1st. This is big news for a couple of reasons.
It means that Apple is probably going with the “National Carriers” AT&T in the US (used to be a monopoly), Tmobile is Deutsche Telekom – the former government telecom. So from this we can likely assume that Vodafone (or more likely O2) in the UK and Orange in France will also be exclusive iPhone carriers
OK, we’ve been pretty hard on the 1.1.1 iPhone upgrade, the people who’ve happily upgraded, and Apple for having done it. For people not interested in the additional applications and who bought into a two year AT&T contract, it probably makes perfect sense. We even recommend the upgrade to a colleague that would never find any use in the additional apps – they actually didn’t even use email application either. That is cool. To each their own.
Dear iPhone 1.1.1 Updaters,
We know the feeling – we want the latest software too. Apple says, “update your iPhone, trust us, it is better for you, we’ve given you a new way to buy DRM’ed music from us, louder speakerphone AND a new way to write a period! Not enough?? How about landscaped email attachments, new passcode lock time intervals and adjustable alert volume! Are you kidding me, how could you not want that? You know you want all of this stuff – how can you possibly resist?” Dowit!
Apple, as expected released the iPhone 1.1.1 software update today. Initial reactions are that it breaks the anySIM hack and Installer.app so this is a one way street. We know it is tempting to hit the red button and download and install but hold on just one second while we let you take a gander at the pluses and minuses.
Listed on the 1.1.1 updates page is the following:
Not bad for a incremental update but nothing earth shattering. We think Apple could have called this 1.0.3 but when you juxtapose (triple word score) these features with what you get in the 1.0.2 HACK version you may want to pause..at least until everything becomes clearer..
We’ve known for awhile that TIM Italy was in the iPhone carrier settings…but for some reason they haven’t gotten the the green light to announce the iPhone. Perhaps it all went bad. Or they are waiting for 3G? Or maybe it is only a matter of days. Strangely, the created on dates for TIM are the same (Dec 12th 2007) as Orange in France, O2 in the UK and Tmobile in Germany, with Tmobile Austria and O2 in Ireland created later (February 2008).
Something tells us that TIM and Apple had a falling out.
Onto a possible Russian iPhone possibility…
Tmobile is offering the iPhone in Austria as expected. Details below. With Ireland, the iPhone is now officially available in 6/180+ countries.
Plans after the break…
The timing seems right for more iPhone countries to be announced at the iPhone SDK event next week. Earlier we reported on Italy, Spain and Switzerland getting on board around the time of the SDK launch. Recent rumors have also included Rogers in Canada, O2 in Ireland and Tmobile in Austria and possibly in the Netherlands.
Update: Ireland (O2) and Austria (Tmobile) by extension are officially on.
Adding fuel to the fire, Morgan Stanley is reporting that El Jobso has been getting some serious private jet time in over the past quarter – indicating he’s been doing some global traveling and possibly sealing some deals.
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854
You have to admire Walt Mossberg for taking his position as grand exalted leader amongst technology journalists directly to the US telecoms. He is single handedly trying to break the hold on consumers that the Sprint/Tmobile/AT&T/Verizon Cartel has on the US Mobile industry. To his credit, he has gotten Verizon to promise that in Q3 2008, that it will accept any device on its platform – as long as it meets a very simple set of requirements (like no VoIP?). If he were running for Office, we’d vote for him.
