iPhone Day

ComputingMoneyGPSPersonal

All the net is abuzz with iPhone unboxing reports etc.

I gave my iPod touch to my 14 year old godson a few weeks ago, a bit rash, I miss it a lot, but my intention had always been to pass it on when the 3G iPhone came along.

I am bursting to get one now ……. specially after I spent half an hour looking through the iTune AppStore and already found about 10 apps I would have downloaded straight away!!

One app that caught my eye immediately was FileMagnet. One of the reasons I jailbroke my iPod was to be able to copy files to it for viewing on the device, reference material, stuff like pdf public-transport maps of places I am visiting …… it was never an easy process …… entering those darn file:/// urls into MobileSafari, FileMagnet looks a lot easier.

But there is one hell of a bitter pill to swallow!!!!

There is only one carrier in the UK, no competition in most countries, therefore often ludicrous prices. O2 has a bad rep (but then I guess all carriers have a bad rep). The deal itself in the UK is not so bad, I’d be paying only a little bit more than I do now and I’d get more service.

But the international data-roaming charges!!!!!!!!

£3 per Meg in Europe, £6 per Meg in the rest of the world!!!!!! WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! This is utter madness!!!!

When I am abroad in a strange city, that is just the time when I’d want data-access, GPS + Google Maps would be indispensable.

An article in ArsTechnica today, outlines the amount of data transferred per hour to use different applications.

Using Google Maps comes out at 6.5Meg or £19.50 per hour in Europe!!!!

For crying out loud!!!! And you cannot even work around it by legally de-SIM locking and using a local carrier. This just ruins the whole purpose of the device and I think the bad feeling from this will ultimately rub-off on Apple.

The EU is currently trying to force a reduction in call-roaming charges across Europe, apparently they also have data-roaming charges in their sights, I really hope they get a move on!!!