It’s about the price of data.
The iPhone 3G launch presented an opportunity for vodafone to get behind a phenomenon. To tap a market that sits between the teen-aged texters and the business babblers. An opportunity to recast the present, ridiculous data charges and build excitement back into a network that’s eschewed the cool, edgy, competitive, Telecom bashing provider in favour of a safe-playing, Telecom clone. Their hip advertising replaced by weary campaigns targeting weary householders with services nicely packaged in pricey chunks (so the maths is easy – even when you’ll pay more than you did before).
The plans announced yesterday were paltry, aimed at no-one in particular, looking like they were crafted to hit a price/return point rather than provide a useful service. They reveal a poor level of understanding of the product and for the audience. They see the iPhone as a phone first and an Internet device second. I don’t think iPhone users are migrating Blackberry or Windows Mobile business users (not yet) and they’re not chatterboxes, they’re web-savvy, gadget users who “get it”. People who understand social networking, understand geo-location and proximity, who understand that it’s not about talk and text but about a whole mix of interaction; of Twitter and Jaiku and Brightkite and Loopt and Google maps and YouTube and swathe of potential, interactive play and discovery.
The initial cost of the iPhone isn’t that surprising – despite the misleading leaders thrown out early in the week – but this was the time for vodafone to get real about data rates. We expect high-end phones to have a price premium but we don’t want them sitting on the shelf because we can’t afford to use them.
The current uproar isn’t about the iPhone, it’s about the whole mentality of the mobile market in New Zealand. The devices we’re buying today promise to free us from the shackles of fixed ’net connections but not at these prices. Let’s hope the iPhone, new phones running Google’s Android and the other ’net-enabled phones combined with the new Telecom network, later in the year, will force a major rethink.
[Disclosure: I’ve been a, largely happy, vodafone customer for more than ten years (I signed up in the days of BellSouth) and use a 1st generation iPhone – but only for calls and text when I’m not on Wi-Fi. (Checking my IMAP email breaks the bank!)]