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iPhone in Canada July 11

Simon604
edited October 2008 in General
Although it's not necessarily the best phone out there, it's nice to finally see the iPhone coming to Canada through Rogers Wireless. Canada always seems to be behind when it comes to new phones and cellular plans but this should shake things up a bit and hopefully lead to lower data charges (which are uselessly high in Canada). Also the fact that they've added Microsoft Exchange Active Sync allows it to handle email similar to the Blackberry, putting the two phones in direct competition for business uses. Here's the article: http://marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=3800
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Comments

  • shadysimon
    edited June 2008
    What do you think is the best phone out there?
  • Morro
    edited June 2008
    Any sort of ETA on when they'll drop the Rogers exclusivity?
  • SpectreFire
    edited June 2008
    It's actually Rogers and Fido (even though they're the same company).
  • Simon604
    edited June 2008
    It wouldn't ever make sense to drop the Rogers exclusivity...this deal has been almost a year in the making. It's partly the reason that the price of the iPhone got dropped from $399usd to $199usd. Rogers knows about the demand for iPhones, so they have negotiated to give Apple a subsidy for each phone, allowing them to price it lower then it's actual retail value. This benefits Rogers because it's going to attract lot's of new customers and they will all be tied in for 3 years...so eventually they will make their subsidy expenses back (and then some). So if your with Fido or Rogers your good to go, but Telus or Bell will never have it.
  • Ether
    edited June 2008
    only $200? I think I'll buy an iphone and use it as an ipod touch.
  • Simon604
    edited June 2008
    *with 3 year contract...you wouldn't really want to pay a monthly fee for an ipod touch lol
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited June 2008
    Rogers might not stay the exclusive iPhone carrier in Canada...there is a spectrum auction coming up which is gonna yield at least a couple new carriers and Bell & Telus are actually moving to a GSM-overlay soon...so Rogers may lose its GSM exclusivity in Canada over time. It will be similar to what happened with the Razr I think.
  • Broken Lizard
    edited June 2008
    is this the new iphone thing? 3g or some shit i keep seeing, haha
    i know nothing about phones
  • SpectreFire
    edited June 2008
    Oh well, looks like Canada's gonna have to wait longer before getting an iPhone.

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/27/rogers-announces-iphone-3g-plans-unlimited-data-isnt-one-of-th/

    Rogers just released their data plans, and as suspected, it is utter crap.
  • lazyGUY
    edited June 2008
    lol i saw the rogers plans this morning and they are fuking horrible, u wud be better off with a blackberry/ any other smart phone and a regular plan
  • Broken Lizard
    edited October 2008
    so hows the phone anyways
    some people say its the best phone ever
    others say its garbage
  • JayDub
    edited October 2008
    What's an iPhone?
  • Broken Lizard
    edited October 2008
    i duno, ask one of the thousands of sfu students who have one, haha
  • Morro
    edited October 2008
    Like anything Apple, it's just now getting to be as it should have been in the first place, through new models and major firmware updates. Give it another year, it'll have quadruple the storage and 10x the functionality of the original release. Then it might be worth buying.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited October 2008
    Triple;38156 said:
    so hows the phone anyways
    some people say its the best phone ever
    others say its garbage
    People that have it know that it's the best phone ever.

    People that have never used it or don't care to buy it say it's garbage so that they can justify not having one.

    I have one and I can honestly say that it's made my life better in many ways, but that may be because I'm kind of a techie.

    I never have to check my email anymore, because it comes right to my phone just like a text message (attachments too). I don't have to carry around two devices for music and phone calls. I can surf the net while I'm lounging in bed or on the couch without having to boot up my computer (reading blogs on the iPhone is the best experience). I use the calendar function to remind me of appointments, assignments, events, etc. Those are the main things I use it for, different people take advantage of different features depending on their lifestyle. For example, my friend uses the notepad feature to keep a workout log so that he can track his progress. My other friend uses it to read his lecture notes on the way to school.

    I know their are other phones out there that do these things (ie. the blackberry like lazyguy said) but the clincher is that the iPhone does them sooooooo freakin well. Like...you can surf the net on other phones but it's only if you have to. On the iPhone you actually want to. Or say you are listening to music, it will beep a couple times and you can take the call without even taking off your headphones and once the call is done, it will go back to the music. Or if your surfing a website and there is a link to a youtube video, it will play the video (on the great high res screen) and when the video is over you are taken back to the page...usability is very smooth all around. Say if your searching for things on craigslist, and the seller has their phone number their...you just touch their number and it will call it for you...smooth.

    @Morro...it already has 90% of the functionality of my laptop and you don't need more than 10 gb of storage unless you are downloading movies which you wouldn't do on your phone anyways. of course it will get better, but it's already so innovative and so good so theirs no reason to wait other than if you want to buy it later without a contract or want to wait for it to get cheaper. the only room for improvement they have is changing the gui and increasing the speed and ram so that things are more responsive...it lags a little sometimes when you click on things. other than that it's perfect

    And if anyone is on the fence about getting one of these things, the iPod touch is really good too. It does everything the iPhone does other than make calls (which could be doable soon using a skype app) without the contract or monthly charges. and it's thinner.

    Anyways, if you get this phone you will enjoy it and you will have fun with it just like you enjoy your computer.
  • Morro
    edited October 2008
    How does the internet stuff work? It just connects up to any wireless signal out there, like the SFU wireless network? I was checking out the plans and it says there's a 1GB data transfer cap, don't know what that means...
  • IVTIVT
    edited October 2008
    Morro;38183 said:
    How does the internet stuff work? It just connects up to any wireless signal out there, like the SFU wireless network? I was checking out the plans and it says there's a 1GB data transfer cap, don't know what that means...
    that's only if you use the 3G network. If you put a data block on the phone and only use wifi, it's free.

    here's a friend's blog with a bit of info on the subject: http://cvol.blogspot.com/2008/09/dodgey-rogey.html
  • lazyGUY
    edited October 2008
    Kevin M.;38177 said:
    People that have it know that it's the best phone ever.

    People that have never used it or don't care to buy it say it's garbage so that they can justify not having one.

    I have one and I can honestly say that it's made my life better in many ways, but that may be because I'm kind of a techie.

    I never have to check my email anymore, because it comes right to my phone just like a text message (attachments too). I don't have to carry around two devices for music and phone calls. I can surf the net while I'm lounging in bed or on the couch without having to boot up my computer (reading blogs on the iPhone is the best experience). I use the calendar function to remind me of appointments, assignments, events, etc. Those are the main things I use it for, different people take advantage of different features depending on their lifestyle. For example, my friend uses the notepad feature to keep a workout log so that he can track his progress. My other friend uses it to read his lecture notes on the way to school.

    I know their are other phones out there that do these things (ie. the blackberry like lazyguy said) but the clincher is that the iPhone does them sooooooo freakin well. Like...you can surf the net on other phones but it's only if you have to. On the iPhone you actually want to. Or say you are listening to music, it will beep a couple times and you can take the call without even taking off your headphones and once the call is done, it will go back to the music. Or if your surfing a website and there is a link to a youtube video, it will play the video (on the great high res screen) and when the video is over you are taken back to the page...usability is very smooth all around. Say if your searching for things on craigslist, and the seller has their phone number their...you just touch their number and it will call it for you...smooth.

    @Morro...it already has 90% of the functionality of my laptop and you don't need more than 10 gb of storage unless you are downloading movies which you wouldn't do on your phone anyways. of course it will get better, but it's already so innovative and so good so theirs no reason to wait other than if you want to buy it later without a contract or want to wait for it to get cheaper. the only room for improvement they have is changing the gui and increasing the speed and ram so that things are more responsive...it lags a little sometimes when you click on things. other than that it's perfect

    And if anyone is on the fence about getting one of these things, the iPod touch is really good too. It does everything the iPhone does other than make calls (which could be doable soon using a skype app) without the contract or monthly charges. and it's thinner.

    Anyways, if you get this phone you will enjoy it and you will have fun with it just like you enjoy your computer.
    The new Nokia Tube is gunna blow the iphone out of the water...
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited October 2008
    No way man. They said that about the HTC Touch and then about the google "Android Phone"

    No phone can compete with iPhone...yet anyways
  • Broken Lizard
    edited October 2008
    the hell is the nokia tube phone
    shaped as a tube of toothpaste?
  • Morro
    edited October 2008
    I would buy that phone, actually.
  • lazyGUY
    edited October 2008
    Kevin M.;38202 said:
    No way man. They said that about the HTC Touch and then about the google "Android Phone"

    No phone can compete with iPhone...yet anyways
    This is gunna come down to what OS is better.....and symbian > everything else...
    plus the Android G1 has the better OS...the phones hardware was just lame
  • Magnificent_BastardMagnificent_Bastard
    edited October 2008
    The iPhone is actually a very decent phone, and I never understood the hate expressed towards it. Yes, there are many things it doesn't do, fair enough. If that's the case, get another phone. Why bash it?

    The reason I like it, compared to other touch screens, Nokia Tube included, is because the touch screen is easy to use, and the interface just becomes an extension of the touch-based controls. The GUI is really intuitive, if you've tried it.

    The main difference in the touch screens, between the iPhone, and pretty much every other touch screen phone, is that the iPhone seems to use a capacitive touch screen, whereas other phones have a resistive touch screen. With resistive, you have to apply pressure to get a response. For example, I tried out an HTC Touch Diamond. Beautiful screen, horrible interface, and terrible to control. Not only that, the predictive text system is awful.

    With the iPhone, even the slightest contact with your finger, and it'll respond. Not only that, the screen is capable of mapping and tracking touches at two independent points on the screen. My point is, having a touchscreen phone is useless if the touch controls are only good for tapping icons. Either way, I've tried out a lot of phones, and I find that the iPhone, while lacking features, is a great multimedia device.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited October 2008
    Great point MB...when I first heard that the iPhone was going to be released and that it was going to be a touch screen phone, I yawned because other companies had tried this and failed in the past (due to the resistive touch screen, which is much cheaper). Apple clearly figured this out and got it right...the first time I played around with one, I was surprised at how responsive it was. I can't remember the name of the company that developed capacitive touch, but Apple bought the company and applied the technology towards the iPhone, and later, the iPod touch. Coupled with the very intuitive OS X based interface and the smooth slick form factor Apple got it right from a software, and a hardware perspective. As a bonus, the App Store has been a huge hit so Apple now has first mover advantage with a mobile based commerce system which other companies have been (unsuccessfully) trying to develop for years. iTunes is one of the main reasons Apple has had such a dominant effect with the iPod. It's not only became the best mp3 player, but it helped spawn an online music downloading industry. And instead of other companies learning from this approach, Apple comes along and does the same thing with the iPhone. Android is offering the same type of service with their Android phones, but it's now an imitation of apple rather than an innovation. Case in point: Apple iPod vs. Microsoft Zune (which was hyped to be a iPod "killer" for over a year before it was released).

    P.S. just out of curiosity, which features do you consider the iPhone to be lacking?
  • Magnificent_BastardMagnificent_Bastard
    edited October 2008
    1.) Video recording - Not a big deal, I hardly ever do it, but just as a feature to have, it would've been nice. The most video recording I've done on a phone was with my Nokia N93, but that's because it recorded in VGA at 30fps, so the videos looked decent.

    2.) Auto-focus camera, possibly with an LED flash - The quality of the pictures are pretty lackluster.

    3.) The ability to FWD SMS's, would've been a nice touch. I actually used it on my other phones.

    4.) MMS, once again, not something I did a lot, but it'd be nice to have the option to be able to.

    That's all I can think of for now.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited October 2008
    You missed copy and paste! haha
  • Broken Lizard
    edited October 2008
    no copy and paste?
    wtf
    ill get something else then

    :P
  • DaNoobie
    edited October 2008
    iphonewji.jpg
  • Broken Lizard
    edited October 2008
    what the hell is MMS anyways
  • Morro
    edited October 2008
    It's the Multi-Mammary Simulation plugin!

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