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iPhone Arrives In France
Apple's long-awaited iPhone is launched in France tonight, with a fanfare usually reserved for big movie premieres.
The €399 portable phone, internet browser and media player goes on sale in selected shops in 12 big cities, launching country wide the next day. It isn't clear whether recent launches of the product in Britain and Germany, alongside the (hacked) iPhone's wide availability in independent mobile phone shops, have dimmed anticipation of the official launch.
Orange, which is the exclusive (legal) carrier for the French iPhone, claims 50,000 pre-orders for the iPhone. It isn't clear where the company gets these figures: Orange and Apple hosted a website dedicated to the iPhone, which requested interested readers to enter their email address for "updates" on the telephone's release. Your correspondent did so: He has received no emails on the iPhone's release to date. Is Orange counting a declaration of interest as an intention to buy? Try as we might, we could find no "pre-order" feature on the Orange or Apple sites.
Anyone truly desperate for an iPhone might have bought one in the States, where it has been on sale since June: Hacking techniques to make it usable on any network have been circulating since the phone's release. In recent weeks, mobile phone shops all over Paris have been stocking hacked versions of the iPhone, at wildly varying prices. Apple's iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone minus the phone functionality, has kept some of the Apple faithful happy (your correspondent included).
The Orange launch of Apple's flagship product hasn't run smoothly. As we reported in October, the relationship between the big French company and Apple has been fraught at times. Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO (and yesterday declared the most powerful man in business by Forbes) is rumoured to have taken issue with the declaration by Orange's CEO that Orange was releasing the product before Apple's official announcement. Orange was unhappy with Apple's demands for a large share (reportedly 30 percent) of subscription fees for the iPhone. There were even reports that the French launch of the iPhone would not go ahead, because French law demands that phones be offered nu ("naked") or without subscription. Apple's business plan is based on taking a hefty percentage of carriers' income from subscriptions - an iPhone which could be used on any network obviously wouldn't sit well with this earnings stream.
Added to these rows has been a certain coyness about the iPhone, bordered on bungling, on the part of Orange. One of the iPhone's key features, a "visual voicemail" interface which allows users to see who has left messages and select the most important, won't be working until the end of January 2008 at the earliest. It's only this week that Orange revealed the forfaits or tariffs for the iPhone (so if they were taking "pre-orders", then they were essentially selling a product without having given it a price). And those tariffs are weighty, given that the phone itself is unlikely to drop in price as subsidised handsets do in Europe. Forfaits start at 49 euros for 2 hours of calls, a further 2 hours of weekend calls and 50 text messages. They rise to 119 euros for 8 hours (plus 8 weekend hours, 1000 SMS). Internet use is "unlimited" but by this Orange means the mobile phone industry's version of "unlimited" rather than how it might be understood by English speakers. The company reserves the right to cap internet use at 500Mo a month. Fine if you're reading newspapers or browsing the web, not so good if you plan to watch a lot of YouTube over the EDGE network.
Furthermore, the forfaits don't include appear to international calls. Most "Pro" tariffs offered by French phone operators include international calls in the EU as part of the package. A lack of this option could hit sales among business users - perhaps the few who can afford iPhone tariffs.
Most readers will be familiar with the iPhone's technical specs: The lack of 3G communications hasn't been the subject of as much fuss in France as in the US and UK, but many potential customers are aware a 3G iPhone2 is on its way. Rival carriers, who thanks to the delayed release of the iPhone have had plenty of time to come up with "iPhone killers" are trumpeting their products 3G capacity on billboards all over France, even if their promises of "unlimited internet" are about as reliable as Orange's. Other producers are making much of the video or multi-megapixel capacity of their new phones - the iPhone boasts a 2 megapixel stills-only camera.
Beautiful and advanced it may be, but it is a year since the iPhone was announced and while rivals have been unable to come anywhere near the iPhone's interface and user experience, its other features are beginning to look old. Will this prevent Apple's dedicated followers from queuing outside Orange's stores tonight to be the first to get their hands on the Orange iPhone? We'll see tonight: Your correspondent will sit this launch out, play with his iPod Touch, and wait for the next version of the iPhone - hopefully one which Orange will see fit to offer with a tariff which reflects the fact that many potential business customers work on a Europe-wide basis.
