Schließlich kommt das iPhone nach Deutschland! Yes, thats correct, finally, next week, the iPhone comes to Germany via T-Mobile. That is according to an unnamed industry insider who has recently spoken with Reuters. Apple will allegedly use its London press event to announce the deal next week. Apple has been reported to have privately worked out a revenue-sharing deal, much like the one it did with AT&T, with the German telecommunication giant.
If true, it would be remarkable for several reasons: One, the speed in which the two giants, T-Mobile and Apple, have come to actually agree to share revenues. Before the Apple, AT&T deal, the whole concept of such a deal would have gotten you committed had you even suggested such a deal in the first place and two, and one that personally leaves a sour taste in my mouth, is that Germany and Europe (The U.K. and France are expected to conclude similar deals) will be getting the iPhone before we Canadians can! You know, the poor saps living right next door as opposed to those Europeans living, across the pond, some two or three thousand miles away!
The above unnamed industry expert, of course, didn't reveal any information on what pricing or services T-Mobile will be offering its German iPhone customers, but it will most likely be somewhat similar to the deal AT&T offers its American customers. One thing, however, that we do know for certain is that German iPhone customers won't have to pay the original high price our American cousins did. They now have the luxury of the recently announced price cuts that Apples bashers loved to complain about because they really didn't have any real complaints to complain about anyway. It has also been leaked, true or not, I don't know, that the Germans and Europeans might receive a second iPhone model complete with 3G internet service, using HSDPA and sell for for 499 Euros ($693) for the 16GB of memory model. Lucky bastards!
Meanwhile, getting back to Canada, Rogers Communications, the company that will eventually carry the iPhone here in Canada, has already warned its customers not to expect the iPhone anytime soon. It has stated that Apple is much too involved in its European negotiations that Canada isn't even on its radar screens yet. Bummer!
Never before has a company, until Apple, been able to take a long entranced industry and turn in on its head the way it did with the iPod and iPhone. But then again, Apple is no ordinary company. As I told four or five people that I recently help buy a Mac, "When you get a Mac you also get a new Mac religion with a new Mac family thrown into the deal." Mac users are really like a family which helps explain that whenever Apple's stock is down, it leaves me distressed, as if a family member was seriously ill or something..... and yet I don't even own so much as a penny, not even a Canadian penny worth of Apple stock!
The idea that we Canadians who share the longest undefended border in the world, two nations that are basically the same peoples, will have to wait until the Germans and Europeans to get the iPhone seems a little unfair, but thats life, I guess? I'm not really complaining, just wishing that the iPhone would go on sale here in Canada sooner rather than later.
On the plus side, maybe at the rate Apple is taking to bring the 'Jesus phone' here to Canada, it will have had evolved several more models past the present one and into a better, more capable, sexier and more functional and, last but not least, cheaper phone by the time it gets here?
I could live with that.
And thats my 2 cents 4 this Sunny (where I am, at least) day of Friday, September 14, 2007.
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