Earlier this year I dropped my Palm m505. On a really hard surface. At Orly. It survived, but would no longer sync. Clearly the Universe was sending me a message it was time to upgrade my PDA. And, of course, that would mean re-evaluating my entire gadget strategy, including my PDA, cell phone, iPod, and camera. And there, in front of me, was the answer, clear as day: it was time to get an iPhone. I heard a choir of angels singing. Oh, it was so right.
That was mid-March.
So I started asking friends who had an iPhone. There weren’t many, as I live in Toronto, and Canada didn’t officially have iPhones yet. So, how had they got their hands on it? How much did it cost? Who was their carrier? And so forth. I learned about unlocking, and jail-breaking. I learned how much more expensive it was to buy an iPhone in Canada than in the US.
This was about the time I bought Bender, my MacBook Pro: I was becoming a damn Apple fanboy.
Slim chance of that now. Rogers have announced their usurious rate plans, prompting thousands of Canadians to register their ire at ruinediphone.com (well over 56,000), as well as the Facebook groups Petition Rogers for fair mobile rates for the iPhone (closing in on 4,000), and the more radical ROGERS IPHONE PLANS ARE EVIL. MAKE A STATEMENT. DONT BUY ONE (850 at last count).
Just a bunch of malcontents, you say? Nuh-uh. All this flack is having an impact. Smithereens blogger Daniel Smith has a mole at Rogers, and reports all the brouhaha has cooled relations between Apple and Rogers. The upshot?
- Apple has slashed the number of iPhones destined for Canada (aka Rogers)
- Rogers stores have started laying off the extra staff they’d hired to handle all that iPhone business they were expecting
On a personal note, I’ve decided to forego the iPhone experience for a number of reasons:
- Rogers throttling BitTorrents
- Rogers’ usurious data plans
- Apple’s iron fist on the iPhone platform with the App Store
This video, from our friends at Rant Puppets, beautifully explains the frustration Canadians feel. To Ted Rogers.
This just in: Rogers in full backpedal mode, threw a bone to the protesters. They’re increasing the data plan to 6Gigabytes, but only until Sept 1st. Then it’s back to the previous offer of 400Megs. For more on the data plans, see https://getthefactsonrogersiphone.com/.
So yeah, they can still bite my shiny metal butt.
But, hey! At least they’re not charging for incoming text messages.
Who cares? A ton of hype for a block that you can barely type on. Granted the browser is nice, but I would much rather have a real decent keyboard and a workable ssh client. RIM Rules for productivity. If you want consumer grade pablum and flash with less storage than most MP3 players, and a UI that is good for entertainment rather then productivity, get an iPhone. Besides, Blackberrys are Canadian.