Father Jack Hackett

just checked O2's website. Existing iPhone customers can get a free upgrade to the 3G phone between 11 July and 11 Oct if they sign up to a new 18-month contract. Yazaa!

Simon C

Note quite free

I read that as, if your happy to pay 45 quid a month then yes its free, if not, its £99 quid regardless.

RichB

Do you get to keep the old one?

PeteBrant

Almost certainly. Unless it different to every upgrade offer ever. (Which it of course, could be)

ChefDude

is it unlimited data?

and which 3g? 3megs or 7?

PeteBrant

I've just read up on the O2 site.

The free iPhones and tarrifs apply to new customers too.

Pay Monthly - iPhone - O2

So all they are "doing" for you , to reward your loyalty, is allowing you to take out a brand new contract as if you were a new customer.

Isn't that good of them

Father Jack Hackett

Hmmm. It's actually not such a great deal. I paid £320 for a 16gb iPhone 3 months ago, on a £35 tarriff. If I want the same phone on the same tarriff I have to pay another £159. Time to get in touch with O2 ...

PeteBrant

Have a look on ebay and see what the prices are of V1.0 16GB iPhones. If you can sell it for over £159, then you will effectively get a new one free.

Simon C

Prices of V1's now will plummet.

PeteBrant

Indeed, but you should at least be able to get something back on them, Especially if you unlock it.

APPLE IPHONE 16GB 1.1.4 JAILBROKEN UNLOCKED with Extras on eBay, also, Mobile Phones, Mobile Home Phones (end time 10-Jun-08 15:02:45 BST)

Markus

I don't think the 1st Gen phones are completely out of the game, for a start they will be able to run the 2.0 software, which gives them the majority of things the 3G has. Another factor is that Apple is tightening things down to prevent jailbreaking. You will now have to activate the 3G at the point of purchase and not via iTunes, thus you cannot simply buy one, take it hope and jailbreak it to run on any carrier you choose.

That's not to say that people won't be able to jailbreak the 3G, we'll just have to give the hackers a few months to do it.

I would have liked to see a 32 or 64GB iPhone, but at the end of the day it's not primarily an iPod, it's a phone. I guess that I'm going to have to learn to pare down my music collection to 16GB for when I'm out and about

GC8WRX

I still say that apple should have sold them sim free, as a standalone product!

If you could put any simcard you like in one the desireability factor would have gone throught the roof

O2 ripping ppl offf with s **** contract with **** all free minutes is what stopped it becoming massive in the uk ( as well as 3g)

And apple blocking jailbroken phones with every update just takes the **** (you dont bite the hand that feeds you!)

messiah

Agree, I don't see what benefit limiting the phone to carrier has, only thing I can think of is Apple auctioning the selling rights off...

It certainly would have sold more units if it was available on all networks, as long as those carriers could guarantee the level of connectivity then I don't see why they didn't choose this. Apple taking a share of the monthly tariff's - if there's only 1 carrier they can keep them artificially high I suppose...

jowl

Eh? While that might have been the case initially, the tarrifs now are pretty good value if you ask me. Especially as you get 'unlimited' data.

PeteBrant

75 Mins and 125 text per month for £30 is not good value

It's absolutely dreadful, considering you are paying £99 or £159 for the phone.

I pay £30 a month, and I get 900 minutes anytime any network and 500 texts , plus obviously a free Sony W910 and various other goodies. And I am sure there are better deals out there.

jowl

Yes, granted the new £30 tarrif is not so good.

But the £35 quid one certainly is IMO.

PeteBrant

Ah yes, just looked, that's much more like it.

God, how mental would you have to be to go for the £30 tariff in light of the £35 one?

jowl

I suppose it's to tempt people who think over £30 is too much - but would like the data useage.

Still, you'd be pretty crazy not to spend the extra fiver.

Markus

I think part of the reason for locking with AT&T is that no other carrier in the US was willing to bend to the demands Apple was making of them. There was some revenue sharing going on, but also the data side of the plans. Carriers make a hell of a lot of money from data plans, so being told by a computer company that you must offer unlimited data with a decently priced plan probably make them baulk at the idea.

Yes Apple could have done the sim free thing, but I think they'd have been criticized there too, as consumers would get creamed on the data charges, people would have said "why didn't you do some deal with the carriers?". Some carriers might also have had additional charges in place, as people could try and use, for example, a nicely priced and specified blackberry plan, with their iPhone, and the carrier wallops them with some extra fee for doing this.

I believe this is one of the primary reasons it's taken so long for the iPhone to appear in Canada. Rogers is the primary wireless/mobile provider in Canada and their data pricing is very hostile, they have only recently changed their pricing structure, for example $40 per month gets you something like 8MB of data, yes, that is MB not GB! $100 per month gets you 1GB, plus if you go over they charge you a silly amount too. I can see how they would be very, very reluctant to give up this very nice slice of their profits just to appease Apple.
I think they have seen that the 1st Gen iPhone has sold a hell of a lot and that they can maybe make up for having to give an unlimited data plan out by being the only iPhone provider in canada (before anyone says Fido is listed as a carrier, Fido is owned by Rogers ).

It's this abhorrent data pricing that has primarily kept me from getting a 1st gen iPhone and jailbreaking it, as I don't use the phone side of things much, and paying more just to have data capabilities doesn't make much sense.

I'm still waiting to see what the price plans for the iPhone with Rogers actually are before deciding what to do, but I think I'll end up getting a 3G.

scoobyboy

have they done it so it can play mp3's as a ringtone?

GC8WRX

Fair enough, but on my network i can get unlimited data for 7.50 a month.

So if apple had sold them sim free, i would have sold the viewty and bought one, safe in the knowledge that firmware updates wouldnt kill my iphone!

Rogers sounds like a monopoly to me! *****!

Markus

looks like the format is mp4, in other words AAC files, so no it won't handle mp3's as ringtones, so some conversion will need to be done.

There are a fair few apps to convert from various formats into an iPhone compatible ringtone, you then need to get it onto the iPhone, and I have a feeling iTunes itself may not let you do this, but I don't have an iPhone so can't say for sure if this is true or not.

messiah

Itunes has ringtones listed under the music, movies, podcasts etc area - can you not just drag and drop one from the library?

Markus

I'm not sure, I think they do need some kind of conversion. I do know that they can only be a max of 40 seconds long though.

BuRR

You need itoner, which is cheap

Drag and drop MP3's to ringtone, and works on virgin iphones, too

In my experience, there's not another handset (yet) that can handle the web like the iphone does.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Seems to me the iPhone has some great features which really sell it but there are a lot of little things which it really lacks. I remember trying to get mp3's as ringtones on my old Sony Z5 some 5 years back. The no MMS and cripled BT all would put me off.

scoobyboy

does the new one still not do mms then? what happens if someone sends you an mms then?

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Not as standard. You should be able to see the MMS but to reply you will have to email them a and then send a text to tell them to check their email.

PeteBrant

Please would whoever negged STi's post go and do yourself a favour and go and check yourself into the nearest mental health clinic. I fear for your safety when you are in the pub and someone says something that isn't 100% complementary about the iPhone, and you start crying and sobbing and screaming at the top of your voice "LEAVE IPHONE ALONE!"