The iPhone – Part Two

So here we are again, thoughts on the iPhone. Don’t worry, this one is gonna be shorter.
Lately some posts and rumors have reached my ears when it comes to the iPhone in Europe which confirm my suspicions.

The iPhone, when introduced in Europe wil be a 3G phone, not just EDGE and will most likely have Vodafone as its carrier.

The choice voor Vodafone is quite obvious. Vodafone is present in 59 countries including almost every European country. They have an excellent network. Vodafone is well known for very good coverage and a network that incorporates the latest techniques in mobile phone technology, something the iPhone will need. This also means that Vodafone will pimp its voicemail to enable the use of visual voicemail for iPhone isers.
Since it is going to be a 3G device I can only assume two camera’s will be added, one in the top left corner of the front side to enable video telephony and another one on the back in order to be able to take pictures.

So far so good, but here comes the catch.
Though Vodafone has a very good quality they don’t have such good prices. If I take the Netherlands as an exampole Vodafone has call fares that are a cent or three more expensive than other providers BUT one Vodafone minute is equal to one sms, you pay the same fare for sms and call, which isn’t the case. Take T-Mobile with a Relax 200, calling is 10 cents but sms’ing without taking an extra sms pack is 25 cents the message…
So for calling adn texting we’ll be quite well off with Vodafone.
Now comes the data part.
Considering the Vodafone BloX plan. To access the internet we’d need a Vodafone BloX Mobiel Internet Plus which allows us free access to all Vodafone Live! sites (yiha, yuck) and 10h or 10Mb of surfing on the net. See, there, you’re getting screwed, access Google Maps once or twice from your iPhone and with all the images you’ll be well above 10Mb in a matter of seconds, meaning you’ll have to pay your ass off at the end of the month for internet usage. Compare it with T-Mobile. 10eur a month and you have a Web ‘n Walk, unlimited access to the internet over GPRS. Obviously the T-Mobile dataplan is a lot more for the same amount you’d be paying at Vodafone.

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us at Apple yet again. Apple needs to cut some sort of deal with Voafone for its iPhone users when it comes to dataplans cause otherwise, I ain’t buying it and with me quite a few people. If I end up with a bill of about 70eur a month where 20,50 is my calling and SMS bill and the other 50 is for internet access, well sorry, no can’t do!