iPhone launch, followed by epic crash and burn
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Hardware
Well last night I was browsing around and ran across TWiT Live, which was broadcasting Leo Laporte’s 24 Hour iPhone Launch Coverage. He started Thursday morning, and the stream just ended today (Friday) at 1PM (my local time), damn I hope I’m still able to do that when I’m 51. What an awesome job Leo.
I caught about 2 hours last night, as I only stumbled across it in the wee hours of the morning, and another 2 and a half just now. Leo started his global coverage by talking to people in Australia, moved over to parts of Europe (Austria, London..), then over to various places in the US and Canada.
Out of the couple of hours I got to participate in his broadcast, we learnt a few interesting facts. The lineups at various stores were almost non-existent, specially when you compare with the launch of the previous model, and even more interesting was that a lot of the people who took the time and effort to get in advance lines were already iPhone owners!
We also found out that some of the Australian pricing actually puts Rogers attempts at playing the miser to shame, not only is there no unlimited data plan, but the maximum data you can get is 400mb. For well over $100 of course. And on the opposite side of things, the British plans for the iPhone are roughly the same price as any other average plan for any other phone, yes with all the necessary features.
But as my title says, there were some unexpected hurdles surrounding the launch. As Leo spoke to various people around the world, we learnt that there were problems activating the iPhones, and that some stores even opened late (possibly as they tried to remedy the problem?). In fact, I thought it quite ironic, as a huge part of the “iPhone 3G Experience” was the fact that it had to be purchased and activated at the same time in the store. You couldn’t walk out without have a signed contract looming over your head for the next 2-3 years.
But, since the procedure was that once you have purchased the iPhone, you were then to activate it in a separate transaction, it turns out, that a lot of people ended up purchasing the iPhone but then walking out because of the activation problems.
Which of course meant that ebay has finally received their shipment of the new iPhone 3G.
But on positive side of things, I finally received my Dropbox invitation!
And since MobileMe is out, I get to now debate real hard whether to get it or not.
Tags: Apple, Dropbox, iPhone, Launch, MobileMe, TWiT
