Apple iPhone 3Gs ‘S’ for speed
We all now that as far as mobile phones go the Apple iPhone has come along and whupped the behinds off the established phone giants. Along with the rest of the world we have been caught in the hype and been itching for the new iPhone 3GS to land – ‘S’ for Speeeeed apparently.
T-Mobile must be really pissed off ’along with everyone else’ that they are losing customers hand over fist to O2; just because we want a cool phone and are willing to so easily shun years of customer service and haggling for upgrades to better phones, Oh how fickle we are.
O2 on the other hand have secured their agreement to exclusively run the iPhone on their network. Which I must add is a great notch for O2, going from a runner up to probably the most well known operator in the UK on the back of a single sexy device. However there is much pissed-off-ness going on around the web as O2 are rinsing existing customers who want to get out of existing iPhone contracts for the new device.
As one rather upset customer wrote:
“£300 to terminate my old iPhone contract and get a new one. No thanks at all for being an existing customer,” wrote thedotnetfox.
And another poster on O2s own website posted:
“I know you are a business, here only to make a profit. I get that, I honestly do,” wrote Bluemoonin65. “But can I suggest that before the end of Wednesday careful consideration be given to the following points – you are in a long term business where keeping customers loyal and happy is increasingly important. ”
Wise words indeed!
That said we’re just shallow gadget freaks where brand and price rules – so like most people we were ready to ungratefully hand in our T-Mobile Nokia N95′s (rubbish battery life - I have a charger on my PC, one in my car, and one at home just to get through the day) earlier this year in exchange for iPhones when we got news of the new model coming out. Well it’s finally here and we are happy not to have ordered the iPhone 3G in haste, but i’m frustrated that we can’t pre-order from O2 and will probably be queing another 3 months before we eventually get our hands on them.
For me the iPhone is not just a groovy mobile phone – which it is. I sold my soul to Microsoft years ago when I went to work for Zen internet as the senior designer and they didn’t use Macs. I’m now of the camp that claims computers are just tools to help you express your creativity (Mac die hards will be ROFL). So the switch to an iPhone is really a thinly disguised attempt to atleast return my roots by proxy. Maybe having that Apple badge on a sole device will be one small step in reclaiming my graphics heritage, I will be able to hold my head high when I go to see my Mac using design buddies – instead of demo’ing the durability of my Duck taped N95. Saying that I did own an iPod nano until some SonofaB+yaa+ch nicked it out of my gym locker along with £20. I’ll catch you one day!