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.
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.
I recently stumbled across Matt Darey’s podcast (iTunes link) which is basically a rebroadcast of his show on the XM satellite radio station BPM.
It’s completely free and from what I’ve heard so far, it is fantastic. The first half is his own stuff/mixes followed by an exclusive set by a guest ’superstar’ dj. If you’re a fan of electronic music, I encourage you to check out his podcast and the rest of his site which has a media player.
Did I mention it’s free, high quality electronic music? Hours and hours of it (over 200 hours worth)!
Even if you don’t like Matt’s style, chances are you’ll like one of his guests.
Shane and I seem to live in parallel worlds with a few differences.
We both are pretty hard core nerd/geek types that like our gadgets.
We both have blogs.
In Shane’s world, he has a cute pug named Serendipity.
Sadly, I do not have a dog (but would like one).
In my world, I have an iPhone.
Sadly, Shane does not (but would like one).
We both have a Google Reader Shared feed thingy (yes, that it is it’s official title) that we each call it a different name. Shane’s is called a Link Blog and mine is called a Link Feed. There are a couple of ways you can ‘consume’ these nuggets of wisdom. Either by following those links or subscribing to them in your feed reader of choice (we both appear to <3 Google Reader).
Both of these things are basically links to stuff we find on the internets that interest us that may or may not be worthy of a full blog post, is something that someone we know may find of interest but we're too lazy to email it to them since they block our emails or just a sort of bookmark so we can find it easily again at a later point in time. This is all possible by the power of greyskull RSS…is there anything the little orange icon can’t do?
Sure, Robert Scoble has one too (maybe even before us)….but think of ours like taking a sip from a drinking fountain versus Scoble’s firehose-at-your-face volume of links. Actually his is good too…you should subscribe.
Shane’s world is slightly ahead of my world’s time and space as he managed to beat me to posting a reminder about the Google Reader Shared Feed thingy.
Strangely neither one of us has a goatee…at least not yet. But he might have a Trans AM or a big rig …I don’t know since I’ve never seen his ride.
Just upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress (isn’t that what all geeks do on their vacation?) and of course my theme isn’t compatible…so you get the default until I make it work or find another one.
UPDATE: And we’re back…just had to comment out one line of PHP code and the world is once again safe from the evil widget monster.
Everything is finally setup on the new server now.
