Michelin play hard to get, and it is the same with Apple.
Their iPhone (and let’s face it pretty much all of their products) is so damn good that I simply must have one to satisfy my technolust.
Yet by partnering with buffoons like Vodafone NZ, Rogers Telecommunications in Canada and pretty much all of the other telcos, Apple has made it wildly expensive and complicated to own their product.
Witness Optus’s plans on the left – that’s on webpage. Theire plans are incredibly hard to understand, and like the hapless Vodafone New Zealand, assume that big data users are also big talkers.
They are not. And indeed big datas users may well prefer to be using data to connect rather than talk.
It’s a really really long page from Optus, and it’s complicated as well. I gave up.
I’ll also forget about Vodafone, the smirking monopolists from New Zealand will no longer get any discretionary business of mine – in any country. I say doscretionary, becasue I’ll be forced to use their services in New Zealand – at least until Telecom get their act together. (That’s really Hobsons choice right there)
So I went to Telstra, who, mere hours before launch, do not have iPhone plan details on their website. Geekzone do though:-).
Telstra coverage is what I want – in the rural areas where I’ll be motorcycling Vodafone and Optus fade away.
Their prices apparently include a 3GB plan, with $400 up front and just $25 of calls per month. That’s essentially perfect for me – minimum monthly spend, and it’s all concentrated on the data.
However, try looking for a Telstra store that sell these things, and you realise just how few they will have.
There is just one iPhone-selling store in the Perth metropolitan area, along with one in Kalgoorlie – about 6 hours away. I may try tomorrow, but I’m guessing that they’ll be sold out before I get out of bed. Else I’ll be in Kalgoorlie on Monday, and so I can stare forlornly at the empty displays.
No pricing, no phones and poor distribution – that’s not a great way to attract customers, but I still want one, and I’ll still (I think) try to get one. I’m 99% positive that I’ll be disappointed, and so sleeping in seems like an increasingly good thing to do.
Lance Wiggs 