My old iPhone is on its last legs (I still have a iPhone 3G, which is before 3GS, 4, 4S etc. and am still on iOS 2 or 3). It’s battery life is terrible etc.
I’ve been holding out on a new phone for the iPhone 5 announcement, figuring I might as well upgrade to the newest.
And then I saw Apple’s Australian pricing. The cheapest US model is $US199. At current exchange rates, that’s $A190. Apple’s Australian price is $799. I’vevgrown accustomed to paying roughly double and a bit, but that is a 400% mark up for what’s essentially shipping costs. WTF is with that?
That would have to be the most cynical ripoff of international customers I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, Apple isn’t’t getting a cent from me at those prices. It’s beyond a joke.
Can anyone recommend a similar phone I should look at somewhere else?
If you think that’s bad, we have just had to fork out £120 for two power-cable/adapter things, because the originals are in such bad shape that my soon-to-be-at-uni children won’t be allowed to use them in halls because they’d fail any safety test. (“I’m 'fraid they’re frayed” – from one of my all-time favourite books --any guesses which one?)
£120! Just to plug in a couple of 3-year-old base-model MacBooks! And all because the original power supplies were so shoddily built that they can’t survive normal use! Grrrr.
It is downloading to my Kindle as we speak… I’m a bit worried that it might be rather sad, being real life rather than realistic invention (although the original was sad, too, of course, in a funny sort of way). But the reviews look good. And wodehousian sounds promising.
Sam Leith’s review sums it up very well. It is quite sad, and consistently appalling, but also at times laugh-out-loud amusing. At least, I found it so. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
The US prices Apple shows ($199) are the SUBSIDIZED prices the carriers pay. Basically the three American Carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint) pay $500 to get you to agree to a 2 year contract.
The vast majority of the line rental in the UK on a new mobile is the finance charge on the handset.
To use a personal example, when I first got my iPhone 3G (a fair few years ago now) it was GBP45 a month. When I got out of contract it was reduced to GBP15.
My wife just bought an iPhone 4 under a contract from T-mobile, giving her unlimited texts, unlimited internet access, and 2000 minutes of talk to any network. We also looked at buying the iPhone up front from Apple — which would have the advantage of it being unlocked, though. If you add up the contract cost over 24 months, add in the £20 odd up front payment, subtract the cost of buying the iPhone and divide the remainder by 24, it came to something like £5 pounds a month cheaper than her previous deal with Orange — which gave her unlimited landline calls but only 400 minutes to other mobile networks, a limit to the number of texts, which she never reached, mind you, and no internet — and £10+ pounds cheaper than a similar SIM only contract from T-Mobile.
She’s not one to go net-work hopping (she was with orange for about 20 years!), and unlike me, doesn’t spend much of the year on the other side of the world, so a 2-year contract is neither here nor there.
On the other hand, a friend who moved back to the US last year, bought an iPhone 4 deal from Apple, only to find that she was being charged so many extra charges that were outside the contract, that she took it back within a couple of weeks!
How it works out in OZ or elsewhere, is not something I know.
I’ve just finished it, and it was a brilliant read. Thank you for the recommendation, Hugh. How wonderful of the father to have written so lovingly, so movingly and so amusingly for all that time, despite the disappointments. My children are heading off to university soon, and my daughter has already asked “Will I get post? Real mail? In envelopes? Like people in books?”. Having read Dear Lupin, I feel inspired to oblige. Occasionally. Or once, at any rate.
And now, vaguely back to topic…
You should be on commission, Mark. After reading your post, I signed up for this particular special offer as well, having surprised myself by deciding to go for the older iPhone model, rather than buying the all-singing, all-dancing new one. A decision driven almost entirely by the £10-per-month-discount built into this deal, and not being able to bring myself to spend as much as the regular deals demand. Plus T-Mobile shares network coverage with one of the two networks which are actually usable where I live. I will be joining the smartphone generation when my phone arrives on Tuesday! There is great excitement from everyone in the Siren household, and reprehensible jealousy in some quarters…
And that contract will cost you a minimum of $2,160.00 US, per phone.
I’ve owned two 3Gs and two 4s (not 4S), and I regard them as both
a great convenience and a huge waste of money.
Convenience comes when we travel. At home, they are a pain.
Whenever the phone rings, I am far away and can’t hear it.
If I want to have a long chat with Brazil, I use Skype.
The MagicJack is a better long-distance client than AT&T.
And every year, Apple adds more junk to the phone.
Siri…who needs it? I can’t remember where or how to buy beer?
I’d like to see an iPhone mini, with phone, mail, calendar, tasks, messages, period.
And also a monthly service bill of about $30, like the old landlines.
(I do like knowing who’s calling…in case it’s vic-k) :mrgreen:
The only thing I have to say is that I hope the move is slightly more smooth for you than for my wife. It seems that the merger between Orange and T-mobile has been causing enormous systems problems all round. It actually took 5 days (including the weekend) to move her old number from Orange to T-mobile, and yesterday, the whole Orange-T-Mobile network was down from mid-afternoon to around 9 o’clock this morning.
And when your first bill comes it will look wrong, because they are so overwhelmed with people taking up the offer — on top of that they’re doing everything manually! And then of course, they have had to set up extra lines for people wanting to order iPhone 5s, already!
Mark
EDIT: They’ve given my wife a £10 credit for inconvenience resulting from the number transfer problem.
.)