You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Vodacom’ tag.
Having spent a couple of days now with the iphone I think that I’ve seen most of what it has to offer and where it hits the mark or hits the hair. (Follow the link and you should get the joke).
As I am sure all of you know that the iphone is a touch screen mobile, with all the bells and whistles one could want and enough DRM that blends magically together giving you a beautiful marriage of S&M and IBS.
Now you are able to buy a cover for your iphone, but I unfortunately don’t have one. Thus the iphone’s screen quickly becomes a greasy mess of finger prints… much like my first girlfriend. Sorry, sorry I’ll stop with the cheap jokes.
So buying a cover is a must, protecting your ridiculously expensive investment should be of major concern to you.
As one reader pointed out,
“You are wrong about us not having the itunes store.
apple has opened the itunes store for south Africa.
the only trick is that in the itunes store the only thing we can buy is applications.
so they have opened it, but no music, tv shows or movies.
still, its cool that we can buy apps”
Thank you for commenting on the blog Matthew. I always enjoy getting feed back from loyal readers. However as you stated in your comment, that we do in fact have an itunes store, I would disagree. Heres why.
In order for it to be a store, it would have to be somewhere a transaction would take place. According to Google a store is ‘a mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services’
Our itunes store does none of that. All we are able to do is download free applications. We aren’t able to purchase music, videos, ring tones or even applications. Its more that we have idownload than a itunes store. I thank you again Matthew, I always enjoy hearing other opinions on topics, even when they are wrong, so wrong in fact that I am sending someone to take your keyboard away from you.
Vodacom, are you listening? We need a itunes store for South Africa. You brought us the most wanted phone in the world, but now we need what made it so wanted. The applications, music and other stuff.
You see, we want to get the most out of our iphones. Where is the support? Where are the ringtones, music, videos, applications? We don’t have it, and doesn’t look like we will for a long time.
Vodacom or anyone, please somehow open an itunes store for South Africa. According to Wikipedia, Apple has opened an itunes store in New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta. And these aren’t even important countries and they get an itunes store. South African’s have more than enough disposable income than people living in Malta. Where the bloody hell is Malta anyway?
See Vodacom, I take my hat off to you from bringing the iphone to South Africa. Let me keep the phone and I’ll take my pants off for you. Bring an itunes store, and Apple product owners around SA will throw money, children, the elderly and vital internal organs at you to get hold of itune’s content. Consumers are waiting, wallets open, cash in hand, so what are you going to do about it?
One the reasons we need an itunes store for South Africa is that, it is only with songs purchased from itunes are you able to make ring tones for your self. Don’t like the stupid ring tones that come with your R7000 phone, well sorry you’re stuck with it.
Want to be able to watch a TV series or movie on your iphone? To bad, because you have to rent it through itunes. Which as you know, we don’t have
I guess its time to jailbreak this baby then?
At idownload (note: not itunes store, as we established it is not in fact a store), you are able to download a number of free applications. It will take a while going through all of the crap trying to find the diamond. But if you look hard enough and long enough. You should be able to find one or two free applications that rock.
Stanza is a great free app, allowing you to download ebooks that you are then able to read on your iphone. Another that I enjoy is Twittelator, enabling you to twitter from your phone. You are also able to take a snap shot of your current GPS location and send that through to Twitter. Your friends and family will be able to then use Google Maps to see were you are. Some times it gets it right, other times your in the middle of the ocean. Its a hit or miss affair.
Also recommend downloading a application called Fring, its skype on your Iphone. No need to try to sell this to you. I think we all know how awesome thats going to be.
Vodacom’s data blundes, packaged with its contracts is strangely enough, large enough for the average user out there. Checking your email and chatting online doesn’t eat up bandwidth to quickly. However, with the iphone in my hands I was able to eat through 64.9MB in five days. I think that maybe Vodacom needs to up the bandwidth, for its iphone packages. But lets wait and see how this thing rides out. Maybe Vodacom’s bandwidth packages is enough, but only time will tell.
I hate going back on my word, even more so when I’ve spent two blog posts slagging off the i-phone. I hate to admit it, but Apples i-phone is good… nay, great… awesome even.
For what it does, its with out par in todays cellphone market. Nothing I’ve seen comes close to it. That doesn’t mean it wont happen. But at this current juncture its an awesome piece of hardware that brings the mobility a cellphone with the versatility and functionality of a PDA. Blending it together in something that has set the benchmark for all other cellphone manufactures.
So lets begin a week long look at what the i-phone is, isn’t and where it misses the mark.
The i-phone 3G, out of the box and plugged into either a wall socket or a USB port takes about an hour and a half to be fully charge. I am unsure if Apple intended to make the battery quick charging, but none the less it is. So its only a short amount of time before your are ready to start playing with your i-phone. A single charge can last up to one whole day, depending on how much you use it and weather you have updated the firmware to 2.1. Updating to 2.1 is something I recommend doing as soon as you have your i-phone fully charged. It not only increases the battery life of the phone but also fixes a number of issues that people have been having with the phone.
During my firmware update, the phone thought my desire to upgrade it foolish and decided to bomb out on me. Apples tag line of, It just works, seems to be more of a marketing slogan than a reality.
After much screaming and gnashing of teeth, I got it working again. Only to find that all my contacts that I had so lovingly put in were now gone…its just working on my nerves. I sync up the Ii-phone with i-tunes, which to my luck had backed up my contacts. This was a double edged sword, I got all my contacts back, however there were now two of everyone…its just working my my blood pressure.
The i-phone as I am sure you know, is a totally touch screen cellphone. The touch screen is simple to use, and doesn’t take to much to master. If you’ve used an I-pod touch you should be right at home with the i-phone. However with all touch screen items, the screen quickly has more finger prints on it than the girl I took the my Matric Dance. Tomorrows look at the i-phone i will explain the various figure commands for the i-phone.
I-tunes, as with all Apple products is a must. Enabling you to upload music, pictures and video onto your i-phone. You are also able to download a couple of free applications from the “App store”.
The App store is a clever little shop where you can purchase third party applications that can run on your phone. From games to navigation to even budgeting software. Seeing as we do not have an i-tunes store for South Africa, most of us will have to be content with the free applications.
You are able to access the App store from you i-phone, but it is a waste of valuable bandwidth. So rather do it on your computer. Talking about a massive waste of bandwidth, getting the i-phone up and running and working at its finest requires a massive 300meg download. I-tunes and the 2.1 firmware upgrade take a massive bite out of your monthly cap. You’ve been warned, its something you’re gonna have to just grim and bear through.
One nice little feature with the i-phone is that I was able to import all my gmail contacts, right onto the phone. All it asked for was a username and password, and I have total access to my gmail account. If you are not using gmail and prefer outlook, that to is supported, but no Thunderbird support. So even the technologically illiterate are able to have their email on the go.
I also, much to my surprise, able to access google maps and with the I-phones GPRS I am able to have an accurate to the metre of where I am standing. You are able to purchase navigation software from the app store, but seeing as we dont have an i-tunes store for South Africa… we are bum out of luck with that. None the less, you are still have access to google maps navigation, but this only has major roads in South Africa. So no finding your way around Durban once you get there.
After Day 1 with the I-phone, I can already see that Vodacom is going to have to pry this phone from my cold dead hands… I don’t want to give it back. Get it in your hands, and you will quickly see that its just want you want.
Add Tech Noir to your RSS Feed, so that you can see what the rest of my time playing with the i-phone brings.
So the speculation of yesterday wasn’t to far off. It seems that the Apple I-phone3G from Vodacom is only going to cost you an arm or maybe your first born child. It seems that Vodacom’s pricing and data bundle is somewhere in the realm of insane, delusional or maybe sadistic dominatrix with delusions of grandeur.
According to the Vodacom website, there are an number of options for the I-phone.
   |
250 megabytes per month… oh thanks. I can see that coming in really being useful, that one day a month that I feel like using the I-phone what it was created for, accessing the internet. Sure you could buy more data, that goes with out saying, but when you’re spending on average R700 just to hold it in your hand its getting a little ridiculous.
The business offers, prove with out a doubt what I said in the previous blog, that only rich spoiled pounces, criminals and politicians will be able to afford the I-phone. I stick by those words.
I-phone 120s package, with an 8 gig model is going to set you back about R559 a month.
Vodacom will force you to sign a 24 month contract. Bringing the total amount spent on the I-phone after two years to R13416. Remember you’re only getting 6gigs of data, 2880 free minutes and 2400 free sms’s in those two years. That my friends is what I like to call, a rip off. Do the math for your self and see.
The prepaid offer… that’s a lot of cash to pull out even before you’ve made the first call on it.
Vodacom seems to think that, if they ride the wave of hype and chatter about the I-phone 3G for long enough all those in the Vodacom boardroom can take an extra holiday at the end of the financial year.
Spending those amounts of money on something that, cant access flash video or data, unable to do video calling or even take photos at today’s picture quality. Just doesn’t seem worth it. But you do get a whopping 8 to 16 gigs of solid space, where you can store MP3′s, video and pictures of your bitter tears as you regret buying into the hype.
The tragic thing is, that the I-phone could be awesome. But reality is that the only people we will see with them are stuck up rich poppies and materialist pounces that have access to daddy’s credit card, listening to latest offering deemed appropriate by the MTV overlords.
As Apple fanboys across South Africa, attempt to hide there ever increasing bulge in their ever tightening pants and setting their alarm clocks an hour earlier (cos I doubt very much that even the most loyal fan boy is willing to fight a hobo for his sleeping spot, just to get an I-phone). The Geekgasm is about to climax.
Yes boys and I very much doubt girls, Vodacom will be releasing Apple’s I-phone tomorrow. Yes, stores across South Africa will be packed to the brim with geeks and trendy Indy types, sporting the most stylish of brown loafers and daddy’s credit card. Hoping to get their little hairy palmed hands onto the I-phone.
I to was interested in seeing what this I-phone could do. I even thought, hey lets be proactive for once and Email vodacom asking them to send me a I-phone when the release date comes closer. Hell, I even ambushed the provincial head of Vodacom for the Eastern Cape, while at the Weekend Post Matric of the year. Begging him to send me one so that I could review it. I went as far as emailing the head of Vodacom’s communications begging to be assigned a I-phone. Well I didn’t get one to review.
So who knows what the I-phone will bring?
According to IAFRICA, from the MYADSL Forums, the I-phone will be available on Pre-paid and contract packages ( no surprise there)
What is a surprise, according to IAFRICA, is what the I-phone will sell for.
According to the Apple.com site, the I-phone in America costs approximately $199 for the 8 gig model and $299 for the 16 gig model.
Thus at the current exchange rate, that should sell for about R1,616 for the 8 gig model and R2,425 for the 16 gig model.
However IAfrica states that the prepaid I-phone will be selling for… wait for it… R 7999.00 for the 8 GB version and R 9799.00 for the 16 GB version.
Contract consumers can expect to pay in anything between R 1500.00 and R 2000.00 for their iPhone when taking lower end contracts.
Thus the only people we will see with I-phones will be spoilt rich ponces, criminals and politicians. Not that these are mutually exclusive.
It goes with out saying that Vodacom is making a pretty penny from the craze that has been whipped up around the world and South Africa.
However this is still open to speculation, and if I am proved wrong I will write a retraction. But if I am proved right, the games have just begun.
Only tomorrow will tell. Lets wait and see.
