Apple’s iPhone coming to Canada
November 5, 2007 Opinion, iPhone 7 CommentsEverybody knows that Apple’s iPhone is coming to Canada, eventually. Most people and publications speculate about when this momentous event will happen.
Today, few websites are excited about a blip that showed up on Apple’s site, and are extrapolating all kind of data from this blip.
Personally, I’m not exactly interested in when the iPhone will come to Canada. I know that it will. I would love to get one. But, it all depends on the ‘How Much?’ bit of the big picture.
Those outside of Canada probably have no clue on how ridiculous Canada’s wireless industry is.
For example, I’m with Fido (which was bought out by Rogers more than a year ago). I have their cheapest plan for my phone, which they advertise as “200 anytime minutes for $20 a month”. I have one additional service added - caller ID display - for an additional $3 per month. After fees and taxes and various ‘bend-over-to-stick-it-to-you-some-more’ additions to my bill, I pay $37.05 per month, not including any long distance calls that I may make.
So, the iPhone’s biggest question would be: how much will the data plans cost here in Canada?
Apple has been able to negotiate interesting deals with the carriers for iPhone buyers. I wonder if they can improve the situation here. I’m not too hopeful.
In Canada, the only GSM carrier is Fido and Rogers. But since Rogers bought Fido, effectively, there is only Rogers that can carry the iPhone.
Here is Rogers’ and Fido’s current data plans:
The screen capture came from this page.
Yes boys and girls, your eyes are not tricking you. That’s $1 per MB, up to 10 MB and each additional MB is an astonishing $30.72 + 14% taxes.
Rogers’ subsidiary Fido has more reasonable data plan rates, but still:
The screen capture came from this page.
Their only ‘reasonable’ data plan is $100 for up to 200 MB + $5 per additional MB. The cheaper ones are even more ridiculous than their parent company.
Compare the above to ATT’s data plan in the US at $20 for Unlimited data usage.
So while we know the iPhone is coming to Canada, the real question is: When the iPhone comes to Canada, will it be reasonable to buy and use?
In Tiger, if you set your window’s view to the column view and point it to a folder that has MP3 files, when you select one of those files, the right-most column shows a controller that allows you to play the audio file, select the point where you want the play head to be and control the playback’s volume. Leopard: NO MORE!
What you get in Leopard is a silly, YouTube-like preview square with a big ‘play’ button in its middle. No volume control and no skipping ahead. You can always hit the space bar to get a big window showing iTunes like display, and you can skip ahead, but you still can’t control the volume.