Who You Calling A Jesse?

…but it will burn many hours of your work day talking about this enlarged iPod/iPhone. Everywhere I turn people are either making fun of it, dismissing it (passionately), or ready to pull out the credit card and buy one. What really gets me are this new group (to me) of people that think you need a half inch, desktop powerful, physical keyboard using device or it just isn’t good enough.

Here’s my position on the iPad the day after:

• It is a consumption device.
• It won’t burn your bits when you try and watch a movie on it.
• I sat in the coffee shop with morning with email, a web browser, and tweet deck open for 3 hrs—didn’t need my laptop for that.
• It isn’t expensive for the early adopters that will buy version 1
• It is a product release that had features dropped that didn’t meet the quality control requirements (think iPhone before the 3G)
• Developing apps for it will likely be awesome
• If I were a student, I would be beyond excited to have all my text books on that (hey higher ed, how many will be offering this to first years loaded with all their text books, notes, slides, podcasts, etc?)

I will admit my bias and say that a big iPod touch that can tether with my iPhone is all I really wanted. A full OS would have been nice but I am really excited to see how developers take advantage of the HTML 5 stuff that Safari supports.

Will it be for everyone? No. But I would bet their $50 billion company is safe for now.

Last night (but dated today) an article on how the iPhone comes with a cost for Rogers appeared on the Globe and Mail web site. The article points out how Apple was able to simplify the silly billing practices of mobile carriers in the US and the EU (the iPhone launching in the EU November 9th). They compare the equivalent bill in Canada for the unlimited data/voice at $70 a month (leaving out the AT&T monthly charge with the exchange rate is actually lower in the US). Sadly in Canada if you try to use the data people have been seeing on their iPhone you could go well over $1000 a month. In theory, that is why Apple has not released the iPhone in Canada yet.

I know of a few people with an iPhone in Canada. Some not using their data, others lucky (or silly for paying that premium for so long) enough to have kept the old Fido (a GSM carrier that didn’t have long term contracts then either) unlimited data plan that was around in 2000 before the phones that would use said data were really in use.

Personally I think the iPhone is cool but the lack of iPhone in Canada doesn’t mean the carriers suck. It is the fact they refuse to have phones that are less than a year on the market in the US (never mind Europe), have wifi, with a two year plan still costs hundreds of dollars, and don’t in reality cost close to $150 a month if you actually use them for talking, texting, etc. Their inability to change this practice when the profits of AT&T, likely in part thanks to the iPhone, are stated is what makes them suck. Then of course there is the possibility that Canadians think both Bell and Rogers (CDMA and GSM carriers and our only real choice) are terrible companies in terms of customer service and technology adoption/reliability and that alone means they suck. They could be happy with the money they are making and fear change but that should mean the CRTC needs to stop protecting them and open up the market, now!

I have seen it stated before but I will say it here too… Apple’s big coup with the iPhone is not the technology, it is taking the position to tell the carriers to stuff it and change or loose out on the coolest technology out there (according to Apple’s marketing machine). One lesser mentioned observation I have had is that Nokia (and Motorola) is also sending a message to carriers but in a more subtle way, they are selling their phones unlocked for a decent price in North America (at least). With the US/CDN exchange rate just drop into a Nokia store in any trendy US mall ;) You will still be screwed on the data plans but you can always just use wifi where you can, maybe a little VoIP.