According to this translation of this story, Spanish newspaper ‘El Pais’ interviewed Vodafone’s Arun Sarin about the company’s level of interest in Apple’s iPhone. Sarin had this to say:
‘Everybody is interested in the iPhone… Everyone is speaking with Apple nowadays to see under what terms and conditions the product will be brought to Europe. But if they want to distribute it in all of Europe, not only in Spain and England, but also in France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Portugal… I can continue listing all our different subdivisions. With whom would you make business? There is only one such company.’
(Via iPhone World and Zonai Phone)
I like VodaFone and I think it’s great that the could be Apples UK partners. But my only concerns are:
- Will they price it higher than it is in America.
- If so how long would that contract be!!!
- Will we get the same features as American cell networks such as the visual voicemail.
Apart from this, I’m all with the idea for VodaFone!
Let’s hope that it’s not dollar-to-pound! Seriously, though, we doubt it will happen. However, Apple faces an interesting challenge with pricing in the UK, because we have a different pricing structure compared to the US. UK telcos usually subsidise handsets more aggressively… which is fine unless you’re, say, a large American hardware manufacturer about to launch a new version of the world’s most-popular MP3 player that shares a lot of features with your new mobile phone. If your subsidised handset is, say, £150, and your new 32GB Flash RAM iPod video with rotating display (that’s the world on the web) is £220 , it could confuse people at retail.
The UK has, unfortunately, quietly shifted toward 18-month contracts, so we’d be surprised if the iPhone tie-in wasn’t that kind of duration.
As for the visual voicemail… we’d better damn well had get it… it’s a great, great feature!
i want the i phone but i wont be able to get it if it does not come out on vodafone.
apple might go with vodafone because they have somthing like 250 mill subscribers
BUT!! t.mobile has all the smartphones.
i so want an iPhone - i hope vodafone does release it and my parents wont let me switch to O2 just for the iPhone….so please vodafone realese it!