Rogers updated their iPhone 3G voice and data plan page.
Data Usage - Your iPhone will be enabled for data usage. If you subscribe to a plan with no data included, data charges at a pay-per-use rate of 5¢/KB for data sent and/or received over the Rogers network will apply, unless you subscribe to a data plan, which we highly recommend. Roaming charges apply while using your iPhone outside Canada. U.S. data roaming on iPhone Packages is $3/MB. The standard international data roaming rate applies. Visit rogers.com/roaming for our roaming rates and destinations. Data usage is measured in KB rounded to the next full KB.
Basically everyone is taking this to mean you can continue to use your current voice and data plans with the iPhone 3G…the ‘value pack bundles’ are optional (and of course highly recommended) as long as you commit to a 3 year term. This seems to be a very soft form of back peddling to counter the negative press they have been receiving due to the confusion that you had to choose one of the bundles in order to get an iPhone. Some people have been told by CSRs that the plans there were announced are not final until July 11th and could change….I suspect these are the final plans but we may see some different offerings in the future but not for launch. I’d like to see a reasonable amount of data (at least a gig) and visual voicemail bundled.
I also liked this passage from the popup linked from that page (red text link popup):
Unauthorized modification to iPhone
Your iPhone is restricted to use on the Rogers network, unless you are roaming. If you attempt to unlock your iPhone and use it on another network, it may become permanently unusable. Making unauthorized modifications to the software on your iPhone violates the iPhone software license agreement, and any resulting inability to use your iPhone is not covered under your iPhone’s warranty.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I’m home now after being in various parts of the Pacific Northwest for the past five days. Here’s the tally of my iPhone usage during that time:
A grand total of 82.2mb over 5 days. Multiplied out to a full 30 days (x 6) equals 493.2mb ….I could see using something in the neighbourhood of 500mb plus or minus a hundred megs or so. Keep in mind this is strictly Edge data speeds with a first generation iPhone. I would expect the iPhone 3G to be used a fair bit more simply with the built in apps (Google Maps + GPS for example) and Mobile Me….let alone the impacts of the Apps store as I’ve mentioned previously.
As before, the 82.2mb of usage was a combination of surfing a couple hours per day, email, Google Maps and a few other apps. I used a little YouTube at the end of my last day (while waiting in the border lineup to come home). I’m the first to admit that YouTube via Edge is stunningly slow…almost to the point of being unusable…3G may be a different story. Although me personally, I rarely used YouTube on my iPhone via wifi…I’m sure there are lots of other people that would use it a ton more than me.
What does this mean for me and the iPhone 3G? I’m still not sure and here’s why:
A friend forwarded me a copy of an email he received from a Rogers PR person in response to his inquiry about the plans* that seemed to imply that the iPhone 3G data packages (’bundles’) that were posted are optional… which means that as long as you currently have a data plan (or add one of them - even the $30 for 300mb plan) and have a voice plan of at least $30/month, you can get an iPhone if you commit to the three year term.
This *could* dramatically change the opinions of many people as to if they will get an iPhone or not. My biggest concern has been the shitty voice options bundled with the data package…as well as the ‘value packs’ which are way over priced.
That doesn’t mean I think the data plans are good and it’s just the voice side that sucks. The biggest thing I don’t want to be doing while using a legitimate iPhone in Canada is worry about my data usage. I’ve gotten along for the past year on 5mb/month combined with plentiful wifi hotspots. I can’t say that will hold true with all the new features of the 3G model.
So my options are either:
- keep my 1st gen iPhone, add on a $30/300mb data plan, cut back on the unnecessary add ons I have and wait for the unlock for the 2.0 firmware to take advantage of the new features
- get the iPhone 3G from Rogers and pay the ‘bundle’ ransom
- get the iPhone 3G and live with a reduced amount of data but preserve my current voice plan which I like
- do nothing and wait and see if the petitions get anywhere with making Rogers offer better plans - which I don’t think will do anything - Rogers doesn’t care about petitions or bad press, they care about making money
I’m probably going to call up retentions and see what, if anything, I can get out of them before I make my final decision. I figure if I can preserve some of my voice plan features (I’m on a couples plan so free calling to my wife and unlimited incoming, among others are must haves) but get the $75/750mb data plan with some retention credits added to knock the price down a bit, I’ll sign for 3 years. I don’t tend to use a lot of daytime minutes and haven’t gone over my allotment ever so we’ll see what they can offer.
T-minus 10 days until we see how many people bite the bullet and get the iPhone…I’m betting that more people than you’d expect will still signup…especially after they’ve viewed the iPhone 3G guided tour of new features.
* It appears a number of people are starting to get responses from Rogers now. Head over to Peter’s site to see what they told him about the plans.
This morning I woke up to discover that Rogers (and Fido) had released their pricing for the iPhone data/voice plans.
Sent Incoming
Text Text Visual
Price Voice Data Messages messages Voicemail
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$60 / 150 minutes + unlimited 400 MB 75 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$75 / 300 minutes + unlimited 750 MB 100 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$100 / 600 minutes + unlimited 1 GB 200 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$115 / 800 minutes + unlimited 2 GB 300 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
I guess my previous optimism was blinded by the thought of a new device and that Apple was going to be able to influence change in Canada.
I’m going to have to think this over a bit before I decide if I’m going to upgrade or stick with my 1st generation iPhone. In the scheme of things, these aren’t horrible rates….they’re just not good ones…kinda like that sandwich in the vending machine - you don’t want to eat it but it’s the only option you have.
These plans don’t even include caller id or a reasonable amount of text messages. Of course, they’ve created additional ‘value packs’ for those things. It’s unknown if these plans automatically roll over to the next tier if you go over your minutes/data/txts in a given month or if you’re subject to high per minute/kb overages.
Get the whole sad picture here or directly for Rogers or Fido.
Update: They have finally updated the website with the plan details.
Almost a month ago, I posted my predictions for the next version of the iPhone. Let’s see how I did:
Prediction #1: Details about the iPhone release in Canada will be announced on June 9th
Steve Jobs himself will announce them during the WWDC Keynote as he reveals the next iteration of the iPhone (version 2.0/3G/whatever) and details the rollout of the iPhone to a number of other countries/carriers that also had similarly worded (brief) press releases regarding the iPhone coming out “later this year”.
1 for 5 - although this one was pretty easy if you follow Stevenotes - Mr. Jobs like to make the big announcements.
Prediction #2: Rogers will offer the 3G iPhone to Canadians.
2 for 5 - No surprise here…as I mentioned before, what better way to purge the network of the first gen iPhones?
Prediction #3: there will be a decent iPhone data plan for Canadians.
Still 2 for 5 but this part hasn’t been officially announced yet - hence my delay in commenting on my predictions. There are some pretty solid rumours floating around that seem to confirm something in the range of $30/month for unlimited data for consumers and $45/month for business users. Whether you think $30 is a decent price for unlimited data or not, it’s exactly what folks in the US will be paying on AT&T (up from $20) plus now they have to pay ($5 more) for SMS messages whereas before they were included. This is unprecedented pricing in Canada on a handset as capable as the iPhone. I’ll update this post when it’s official which is rumoured to be Friday, June 20th.
Prediction #4: the Canadian iPhone will sell for no more than $399 with a two year contract and be available before the end of the summer, if not immediately.
Not sure how to score this one….of three scorable points, I’d say I got 2/3 - The phone will be $199 with a 3 year data plan and available on July 11 - well before the end of summer…possibly even before summer if you live in the Vancouver area.
Prediction #5: I could be completely wrong about all of this.
I think I did pretty good overall….we may have to wait until July 11th (or later) to really get an idea of what Rogers/Fido are offering to Canadians. There are still a lot of unanswered questions with the rollout of the new iPhone. Here’s some of my outstanding ones:
- what is the handset price for people that recently did a hardware upgrade?
- can 1st gen iPhone get hooked up with the $30 unlimited plan (if it’s true)?
- how are the handsets going to be distributed? Instore, online or both?
- will getting an iPhone cause me to break out of my family plan?
- (assuming it’s real) are there any limits (hard/soft caps) with the unlimited data?
- what about 3rd party applications….Apple has this Apps store, perhaps you’ve heard of it?
- will the iPhone 3G be Rogers branded/feature disabled in any way? My guess is no.
Counting down the days til July 11th.
If you take a look at ebay or craigslist right now, you’ll see that people are selling off their ‘old’ iPhones left and right. The prices are dropping through the floor as the ‘new’ iPhone 3G gets closer to release.
But I say hold on a minute.
Many sites are reporting that you will no longer be able to walk into an Apple or AT&T store (in the US) and leave with an unactivated iPhone. They are changing their previously open policy of letting you activate it at home. Unfortunately for them, a lot of people were unlocking and using them in other countries as Steve Jobs implied during the keynote on Monday.
What this means is that currently, aside from craigslist or ebay (and similar places) selling the 1st gen iPhone, there won’t be any place to get an unlocked iPhone without some kind of contract (string) attached. Even after the 2.0 firmware has been unlocked, most, if not all, 3G iPhones out there will be part of a contract. The 1st gen iPhones will also be getting the new firmware (and many features aside from 3G and GPS support, of course) so that will inevitably be unlocked as well.
To me, it seems likely that the value of an unlocked iPhone will start rising very soon. Even with 1.x version firmware, these iPhones will be a hot commodity to people that don’t want to lock into a long contract, users that live in countries that have multiple GSM providers or those that do not yet have the iPhone.
Today, during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced the new 3G iPhone. It’s going to be available in Canada from Rogers and Fido on July 11th.
It’s interesting to note that Fido will be selling the iPhone in Canada as well as Rogers as you can see from the screenshot below:
Unfortunately, at this time, nobody at Rogers or Fido seems to know this. Calls to both Rogers and Fido sales and customer service resulted in transfers to the clueless department. Great way to promote something this big - not tell any of your frontline staff anything. Meanwhile both the Apple Canada website and Rogers website are getting hammered with interested buyers looking for more information. I’d expect a proper press release to come out soon where they detail the pricing of their data plans so keep an eye (or subscribe) to Rogers news release page.
The phone itself will cost no more than $199US for the 8gb version so I’d expect it to be $199 Canadian. Subsidies haven’t been announced at this time but Apple said they wanted to make the phone available to more people and have reduced the cost to facilitate this.
I was at the local Apple Store to ‘watch’ the keynote coverage live with some friends (a larger crowd formed around us) and play WWDC Bingo (close but no cigar this year). Unfortunately it wasn’t broadcast via video but there was someone streaming audio via Ustream as well as a number of tech blogs had coverage. I was with a few friends and we used a 30″ Cinema Display and a fully loaded MacPro to watch the action. The store staff were pretty accommodating and kept checking in to see what was being announced. Apparently they had a computer in the back some staff was watching the updates as well but they didn’t have anything like a live feed. We were asked to turn it down a couple of times as the 3G iPhone details were spelled out by Steve….the applause was deafening on the Ustream feed.
See you in line on July 11th! Anyone want to buy a 2G iPhone?
Update: Here’s a link to Apple’s release regarding the iPhone in Canada. Still waiting for Rogers to release theirs. Thanks to Buzz for the link.
Update 2: Rogers has finally posted their news release regarding the iPhone:
Rogers and Apple to Bring iPhone 3G to Canada on July 11
WWDC SAN FRANCISCO and TORONTO, June 9 /CNW/ - Rogers Communications and Apple(R) today announced that the highly anticipated iPhone(TM) 3G will be available in Canada on July 11. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast(*) as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
“Rogers has a long history of bringing Canadians the very best in wireless services, networks and handset innovations,” said Rob Bruce, president, Rogers Wireless. “With iPhone 3G, we will provide our customers with an amazing mobile experience over Canada’s fastest wireless network.”
“We’re excited to be working with Rogers to bring iPhone 3G to Canada,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary phone in the hands of even more people around the world.” iPhone 3G will operate on Rogers’ High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) wireless network, the fastest mobile network in Canada. HSPA is nationally available in the top Canadian urban centers from Vancouver to Halifax, covering more than 60 percent of the population. iPhone 3G will also operate on Roger’s coast-to-coast GSM/EDGE network, proven to be the country’s most reliable wireless network. Starting July 11, iPhone 3G will sell for $199 for the 8Gb model and $299 for the 16Gb model, on a three-year plan. More details on price plans and retail availability will be available soon.
Note that it will be $199/$299 (8gb/16gb models) on a 3 year term with Rogers or Fido.
Update 3: Tod Maffin has some more info from an inside source - if true, could mean that current 1st gen iPhones may be usable on Rogers if you lock in to their data plan(s) which still hasn’t been outlined
Today is the beginning of the “Auction of Spectrum Licences for Advanced Wireless Services and Other Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range“.
Huh?
What this means is that Industry Canada is basically paving the way for some fresh blood to enter the Canadian Wireless (cellular) space. This should translate into some competition for the ‘big 3′ (Rogers, Bell & Telus) in this country as 40% of the available spectrum is earmarked for new players to start offering wireless services possibly as soon as early next year.
It’s unclear how long the auction will last and who all the bidders are but it seems to be a number of communications companies across the country, including Shaw Communications. Hopefully there are rules preventing someone from Shaw winning the auction only to be bought up by Rogers or Bell in a few years time, effectively killing off the competition. This has happened in the past when Rogers bought Fido, Telus bought Clearnet, etc.
Possibly not so coincidentially, today Bell began offering ‘unlimited data’ for $30/month on all of their smartphones - previously it was only available on specific models or non-smartphones (wap only).
Could this be the beginning of the decline of high data prices in Canada? My money is still on June 9th as the main turning point when Apple is expected to outline the iPhone rollout in Canada among many other countries.
UPDATE: Wirelessnorth.ca has a lot more details about the auction with daily play by plays of the bids.
There has been a lot of talk and speculation about the rumoured 3G iPhone as well as when it will launch in Canada since the ‘if’ part has been established (’later this year’) and how much the data plan might cost to Canadians. I figured I’d throw my thoughts out there and see how close I get it later.
Prediction #1: Details about the iPhone release in Canada will be announced on June 9th
Steve Jobs himself will announce them during the WWDC Keynote as he reveals the next iteration of the iPhone (version 2.0/3G/whatever) and details the rollout of the iPhone to a number of other countries/carriers that also had similarly worded (brief) press releases regarding the iPhone coming out “later this year”.
It’s interesting to note that a number of ’soon-to-be-carrying-iPhone’ countries have been mentioned previously in various places like Apple’s shareholder meetings well in advance of their official rollout - except for Canada.
Prediction #2: Rogers will offer the 3G iPhone to Canadians.
It makes sense that Rogers would want to negate the thousands of unlocked iPhones already in Canada by selling the latest version. This would mean that all current iPhones (mine included) would still work but would potentially be locked out of any sweet data deal (more on that in a second) since the 1st gen iPhone wasn’t offered by Rogers.
Prediction #3: there will be a decent iPhone data plan for Canadians.
There has been a lot of talk about IMEI tracking, user agent string logging and other forms of identifying users on the Rogers network in order to charge them for using data via 3rd party applications and non-sanctioned websites. I have a hard time believing Apple would allow Rogers to sell the iPhone without some kind of decent data plan….perhaps not quite as generous as the AT&T plan ($20/month all you can eat data) but even that could change down south with the release of the SDK built 3rd party apps via the iTunes App Store that will also be unveiled at WWDC. The bottomline is that Rogers will have to offer a compelling data plan, targeted at consumers, not businessmen, if they hope to sell a decent number of these phones. Canada is a relatively small market for high(er) end phones in the first place, so it has to be decent to get any kind of penetration with the Facebook generation. Just look at how many non-businessman currently have Blackberry Pearls - mostly for email and Facebook.
Prediction #4: the Canadian iPhone will sell for no more than $399 with a two year contract and be available before the end of the summer, if not immediately.
They will make the iPhone available very quickly in order to not slow down sales. Dragging out the release would only cause people to hold off on new activations or give competitors a chance to steal potentials away from Rogers with sweet deals. Despite it being Rogers modus operandi to do everything with a 3 year contract these days, because of the way Apple will require them to sell the iPhones, there won’t be a requirement for a 3 year deal, a 2 year deal will be required. There has been a lot of rumours that AT&T will be offering the iPhone for $199 with a 2 year contract once the 3G version comes out so I could see Rogers doing something similar but with a higher markup than AT&T. It just really depends on what the 3G version looks like from a specs standpoint and what it offers above and beyond the 1st gen model.
I’m still not convinced that 3G is all that great having used Edge in a lot of places, it’s not that bad for many things you’d want to do on the iPhone and would rather have slower internet speeds than a battery-killing 3G speed any day. I still don’t believe that videophone capabilities will really matter that much to most people. I personally don’t know anybody that either has a video capable phone or would even use that feature if they did. Streaming video is another story completely and could be a more compelling reason for 3G.
Prediction #5: I could be completely wrong about all of this.
One of the fun things about Apple announcements is that more often than not, they find a way to make people that predict what they are going to announce look foolish. They do it again and again.
So I’m not putting any money on my predictions. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on June 9th.
Beginning tomorrow, Rogers will begin offering the Nokia N95 8gb smartphone to Canadians.
This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s the first time in North America that this model phone is offered - previously only available unlocked directly from Nokia. As I mentioned previously in my post about the iPhone coming to Canada, Rogers isn’t known (to me at least) for being the first on the block to offer new mobile tech so this is a positive step in the right direction for them.
If I didn’t already have an iPhone, the N95 is probably the phone I’d be using right now. It has a really nice 5 megapixel camera (with flash!) and can also shoot video which can be streamed via Qik.com. GPS is integrated as is Wifi and features a very hackable S60 operating system.
The only caveats I’ve heard of with the device is the short battery life and some clunky software. I’m not sure how it would perform using it the way I use my iPhone so I tend to discount battery issues until I get my hands on one - I get 2-3 days per charge with my iPhone with wifi and bluetooth enabled all the time but I’m not streaming video or powering a flash.
The press release also mentions the unlimited browsing with the Vision mobile plan (and a 3 year contract). I wonder if this means that software like Qik are included? My guess is that only using the built in browser is supported and third party apps aren’t included. I guess we’ll see once people start pushing the limits of the data plan with an ‘official’ phone and not an unlocked one being used on the network.
Things are definitely getting interesting in the Canadian mobile market.
Thanks to BlueFur for the reminder.
Even though the iPhone SDK has been out for awhile now, there are still lots of people cranking out some cool apps for jailbroken iPhones. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in June when things get a lot more official from Apple with the availability of the SDK-developed apps. But until then, here are a couple of ones that I’ve been playing around with lately.
While you could FTP these into your iPhone, the easiest way to get these apps is via the Installer app. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you probably already have it.
Customize 2.0
Very recently updated and released, Customize is one of my favorite apps. It lets you, um, customize a lot of aspects of the iPhone. Everything from the color of the buttons to the text of “slide to unlock” can be changed via this app. I did have a problem getting it running on my 1.1.3 version iPhone (it would crash on loading) but there is a patch on Installer (under Tweaks for 1.1.3) called SUID Lib Fix that made it work. There is now a theme preview option built in to Customize that lets you view screenshots and individual images for the various themes and filesets before you install them. There are over 800 themes to browse and tons of individual images, sounds and sets to tweak your iPhone with.
Snapture
There has been a couple of different apps that extend the iPhone’s camera but Snapture is my favorite (and it’s freeware). Packed with features, some highlights include a digital zoom slider, color or B&W photos, up to 3 pictures can be taken in a row in multishot mode - perfect for those self portraits where you can’t see the screen and one of my favorite features is that the whole screen becomes a shutter button instead of having to try to hold the iPhone in one hand while you’ve got a finger on the Home button - an accident waiting to happen.
It’s a little buggy but a new version just came out today so it continues to get better.
Twinkle
A location aware Twitter client. It features a slick presentation not unlike the web version of PocketTweats but also locates you and enables you to see who else is using Twinkle near you. Kind cool and kinda creepy….but could be useful to use at a conference like SXSW. You can also add a photo (which doesn’t show in the actual Twitter timeline - just to other users of Twinkle).
It’s also a pretty nice Twitter client but is still subject to the API issues that Twitter is prone to have.
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