Australian News
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
SMH: The rise of fast web browsing on 3G mobiles such as the iPhone has prompted the competition regulator to investigate whether carriers are misleading consumers into a trap of high excess usage fees.
A new breed of smartphones has enabled mobile users to browse the web at blistering speeds with similar functionality to those of a regular PC, but web data allowances offered on most mobile plans haven't kept pace, leaving the user at risk of being slugged with high excess fees should they go over the limit.
As with home broadband plans, web data allowances apply to all mobile internet usage including visiting web pages and downloading content. Most plans come with a set allowance - for example 200 megabytes - but slug consumers huge fees for every megabyte of excess usage.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a stern warning to consumers today, advising them to consider their likely data use - and carriers' excess fees and charges - before choosing a handset and plan.
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Friday, 18 July 2008 |
Yes, we're aware this is a bit old, but raises a few good points about carriers offering good call costs, but bad data
Stilgherrian:Australia’s mobile phone carriers may not completely grok Apple’s new iPhone 3G, but they know it’ll bring them customers — because they’re all scrambling to be Steve Jobs’ iPhone bitches. It’s an embarrassing spectacle.
Three carriers have announced packages available from tomorrow: Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. (Presumably 3, who’ve been asking their customers to beg for iPhones, haven’t bent over far enough.) There’s a comparison over at news.com.au.
According to my sources, all three Aussie telcos have bent over even further than US carrier AT&T. Apple already demands a bigger subsidy from carriers than other smartphone manufacturers. In the US, for example, AT&T pays Apple US$325 per unit compared with the usual $200 or so. However two individuals working within Telstra confirm that all three telcos offering iPhone here are also paying Apple an ongoing percentage of revenue. AT&T has escaped that revenue-sharing deal, but not the Aussies — and that’s presumably reflected in the somewhat disappointing plans on offer.
All three Australian carriers have missed the key point. Yes, iPhone can make phone calls. But its true role is a pocket-sized internet-connected computer.
In May, by my count 80% of the audience at Australia’s Mobile Content World conference were so out of touch they’d never even seen an iPhone screen. “They were deer in the iPhone’s headlights,” wrote entrepreneur Rand Leeb-du Toit. “The full browser experience is going to shake their businesses to their foundations.”
Overseas, data from the first year of iPhone users bears this out. They conduct 50 times more Google searches than other phone users. In Germany, they consume 30 times more data.
Australian iPhone plans are all skewed towards cheap voice calls and expensive data.
As John Allsop’s analysis points out, on Telstra’s data packages just looking at the smh.com.au home page would cost you $8!
When Vodafone release its pricing yesterday morning, comments on Twitter were scathing. “Vodafone gives you 5GB on modem. but all telcos have weighted plans for calls, not data. Wrong wrong wrong,” said one. “Nice to see Vodafone continuing the theme of gouging iPhone customers,” said another. And: “Boo Vodafone Australia iPhone plans, Optus here I come!”
Without a doubt, Apple’s new iPhone 3G is sexy. It will be a huge hit. But it does have flaws.
Just one of the Top 10 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G is the sealed-in battery. A year from now, when you no longer get a full day’s usage from one charge, your choice is $100-odd for Apple to replace the battery or $199 for the new model. Like the iPod, consumer replacement cycles get ever shorter, and the mountain of toxic used electronics grows — just like Apple’s profits.
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Friday, 18 July 2008 |
SMH:
Apple's iPhone 3G has finally landed in Australia, but choosing which telco to buy it from can be a challenge.
Telstra, Optus and Vodafone are all selling the iPhone 3G. You can buy them from other stores, but you must sign up to one of these three networks. The 3 network is expected to offer the iPhone 3G in August. iPhone 3Gs are generally sold with a 12 or 24-month plan, although it is possible to buy a pre-paid iPhone 3G. It is, however, still locked to that network unless you download a hack from the internet or pay the telco yet another fee to have the phone "unlocked".
Like all smartphones, the iPhone 3G isn't cheap. Unfortunately the plans from the three networks are complicated, making it difficult to make direct comparisons. The iPhone is available with a choice of 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage.
While you're likely to have an idea of the monthly call and SMS allowance you require, choosing a data plan is more difficult. The data plan determines how much you can use the phone for checking email or surfing the web via the mobile phone network. If you go over your monthly allowance you'll get slugged with hefty excess data charges. Telstra and Vodafone didn't release full details of their iPhone 3G plans until less than a day before they went on sale.
The iPhone 3G's ease of use means you're more like to use the advanced features and chew through more data - especially because of the fast data speeds. The Google Maps feature is great for figuring out where you are, but downloading the maps uses data. It's also very easy to configure the iPhone 3G to check your email. The big screen and great web browser means you're more likely to use the internet while you're on the road. There's also a YouTube link on the iPhone's home screen, which can be a real data trap.
Even light users will struggle to keep their usage under 100MB a month. The iPhone offers the option of push email, which automatically forwards your email to the phone rather than waiting for you to check your inbox.
The iPhone 3G lets you connect to the internet via wifi, rather than the phone network, which is great when you're at home or near a public wifi hotspot as it doesn't count towards your monthly data limit. Unfortunately when the phone goes to sleep it disables its wifi adaptor to save power, which means it switches back to the expensive mobile phone network.
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Monday, 14 July 2008 |
Image from Gizmodo
From MacRumors: With the worldwide release of the iPhone complete, numerous publications are releasing their reviews of Apple's latest gadget.
Gizmodo provides some interesting observations about the iPhone 3G. They comment on the plastic backing, and acknowledge that the device feels cheaper than the original aluminum backed iPhone. This "cheaper" feeling, however, has been somewhat debated by individual observations. The trade-off in using plastic, of course, is improved signal strength. Gizmodo found that Wi-Fi reception was a bit better in the new iPhone. In their testing, they were able to walk up to 120 feet away from an access point before losing a connection. In the same test, the original iPhone dropped the connection at 100 feet.
The screen is also described as warmer, slightly brighter and better for daylight viewing. This "warmer" quality has generated some complaints about a yellow-tint to the 3G's screen that is most noticeable when compared directly to the first iPhone.
Audio quality in the 3G phone has been said to be much clearer, with Gizmodo describing it as the difference between "someone with their hand over their mouth and with their hand taken away." This improvement was also mentioned by a number of earlier reviewers. iLounge had a dissenting opinion on this and found that with the exception of Bluetooth calls, in which the iPhone 3G was superior, the handset and speaker audio were comparable.
Engadget notes that the GPS acquisition is "surprisingly fast for a cellphone" and credits this to the iPhone's use of both GPS, cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points to help determine location.
One point of confusion is whether or not 3rd parties will be able to offer a turn-by-turn GPS solution for the iPhone. Questions about SDK conditions and antenna size have been raised in previous reviews, but TeleNav confirmed to Gizmodo that they will be launching a 3D moving map GPS application with turn-by-turn voice guidance.
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Saturday, 12 July 2008 |
Thanks to krisx for sending us this photo of the two stores at Hornsby!
If your photos have been published on this site, send us an e-mail > we'll send you something nifty this week.
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