I realised the other day that there are two things keeping me from getting an iPhone. First is the price combined with the 18- or 24-month contracts. Second and far more important is that I didn't want to look like Sad Dad with a Young Person's Toy. iPhone usage had to pass a certain unknown but clear point where anyone could have one and not look like they were trying to look like someone who “really” used one of the things. By the time Vodafone put it on their network, that usage point will have been reached. At least in central London.
Now to the price comparison. Or rather, putting my professional hat on, the price / feature comparison. Apple are often considered “expensive” as in “you can get a laptop for £400, and a MacBook costs £800”. This is true, but irrelevant. You can't get a Dell or HP laptop with the same spec as a MacBook for £400. Try it on the Dell website and see what happens: you wind up very close to the Apple price.
The iPhone looks bloody expensive compared to a £15 pcm Nokia 6303, but it has just a few more features. Apple control the price plan so that all the operators offer the same product and it's a full-weight plan: 600 minutes, 500mb download domestic use with 100 minutes and 20mb roaming. (There is a 150 minute option, but it's there to make the 600 minute one look good – it costs all of £5 a month less.) There's a charge for the phone at the lower end of the price plans. Spreading the charge for the phone over the term of the contract, the 600 minutes x 18 month contract works out at £50 pcm, 600 x 24 at £39 pcm and the 1200 minute plans at £44 pcm for either length of contract. Ignore that £50 pcm plan: that's there to upsell you to the 24-month version, or to the 1200 minute plan. Even so... ouch! Fix “the cost” at £39 pcm over 24 months.
The comparable Vodafone plans for the comparable kit from Blackberry (Storm 2), Nokia (E72 or N97 Mini) are, including the phones, £35 for 24 months. Step down to the Blackberry Curve 8520 or take the HTC Tattoo and you're at £30 pcm. So the “iPhone Premium” is £4 a month, or £92 for the 24 month contract. That's about the price of two seats in the Stalls of a top West End show. Or look at this way: for 13p a day, you get a nice warm glow of cool every day for two years. Over having anything else.
The SIM-only 600-minute with 500 MB of Internet and webmail is £20 pcm on a 30-day contract. So the I-need-a-new-phone-that-does-e-mail-really-well-with-a-QWERTY-keyboard premium is £10 pcm, and the touchscreen-and-really-good-web-browsing premium is £15 pcm. So the choice is between an 8520 (I need Mac synching) at £30 pcm and an iPhone at £39 pcm. And if I have Berry, I still need an iPod. It's coming up replacement time for my old iPod Mini. That's about £5 a month over two years. See how the gap closes?
I wouldn't even be thinking about this, but remember The Bank has banned us from using Google Mail and the like. If I had the sort of life where I needed to deal with personal mails during the day, I would need to be spending an extra £15 - £20 a month because of it, which is a direct cost of working there. There will come a time when I will need easily managed e-mails. I'll need to send and read attachments as well. But then, I'll be looking for a new job and will easily be able to justify the cost of the mobile Internet.
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