Apple’s New iPhone Availability in Canada?
Steve Jobs officially announced the much anticipated Apple iPhone during the opening keynote yesterday at Macworld 2007. The phone has been in production for five years and features a 3.5inch touch wide screen display, core animation based on OSX, a rich HTML email client and a ton of other bells and whistles. Initial price points are a little heavy starting at $499USD for a 4GB and $599 for an 8GB model. iPhone will be available exclusively this June through Cingular, the largest US wireless carrier.
That’s swell for US residents, but what about Canadians? When can we expect the iPhone in Canada? It turns out that Apple will not be releasing a CDMA version of the iPhone which eliminates Bell/Aliant as a carrier. Looks like we’re stuck with Rogers, the largest Canadian GSM wireless carrier. If there’s one thing Canada lacks it’s a good ol’ battle between Telecommunications providers.
I have spoken with several representatives from Rogers regarding the availability of the iPhone and it turns out that they are in fact planning on providing the iPhone to Canadians. There are no official statements but the average wait time is 6-8 months minimum once they become available in the US (check the track record with previous smartphones). I’m also told the iPhone will be available on a two or three year contract, and a data plan must also be purchased (data plans in Canada aren’t cheap). Looks like an accurate release date in Canada is sometime Q4 2007 and into early 2008. About the same time that the phone will be available to European carriers.
First Apple iPhone Review by Walt Mossberg
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[tags]iPhone, Canada, Rogers, Cingular, Apple, MacWorld, Digg[/tags]
i spoke with telus and they ahve also confirmed that the iPhone will be available, and gave a relatively similar timelime, ~ Q4 2007/Q1 2008.
~Mike
So, it looks more and more like this is a non-starter.
Besides the phone being grossly expensive, Rogers air and data plans are not cheap. I’d also expect Rogers to gouge us for missing voicemail, ringtone and picture sharing capabilities.
Also, am I the only one who thinks 8GB on the phone isn’t enough space? I already have 10GB of music on my Ipod and if I wanted to watch a movie…well forget it.
I’ll wait for Iphone 2.0 and hope Bell figures out a way to pressure Rogers on price and services.
so call it $650 CAN for the phone on a 2 year contract, and then $50 CAN a month for service… weak
estimated total cost of ownership over 2 years inc. taxes
$2100 CAN… ouch
[...] Edit: Okay, so unnamed Rogers execs are saying that Rogers will be offering the device. However, you’ll be paying their usurious data plan fees to use it. Just be careful and read their novel redefinition of ‘unlimited’ before signing on the dotted line. [...]
The only point I would tend to dispute is the 6-8 month release delay after the US release… It may very well be the case for the iphone, however the last year and a half has seen rogers and cingular release products very close to each other. Recent examples are the Treo 680 and the LG Chocolate. It should be noted that not so long ago Rogers Wireless was called Rogers AT&T.
I would second the comment that canadian data plans are ridiculously priced, and competition would do us all good!
[...] Story taken from HERE [...]
Well, that seals it. Looks like I’ll just be coveting other people’s iPhones until those bad boys come down in price, or become more available (IE. on Bell).
Thanks for the great info. It’s a shame that a data plan will be compulsory since the only one I would consider is over $100/month. If they lowered it to $50/month I’d jump onto rogers in a heartbeat.
Rogers data plan means 100$ per month for 200Mb, after that you’re paying 5 cents per kilobyte.
Ridiculous!
Awesome!