Will it come with a nasty Orange logo plastered over it and one of the most useful functions from the menu removed and replaced with a pointless shortcut to the orange wap site / music store...?
I've been an orange costumer foryears and always wondered why Orange decided to take a perfectly good menu and futtock the usefulness out of it!!
it took someone time and cost some department money to "design" the hideous 2 colour icons pleas orange just leave things alone!
after signing up to a new 18 month contract my shiney new LG secret has no less than 6 shortcuts to paid websites that are top of the list and totally useless... yet good functionality is removed... you all sods!
and you know the lovingly designed OSX style icons will be replaced with some orange and grey skite!!
<sigh> I've nver understood it either. In fact it wasn't until my son (who used to work in a phone shop) pointed out to me that my Orange Sony Ericsson was sadly lacking in some prime features and the menus and skin forked over royally. He also said it was possible to have 'done' by a shop to revert it to the default Sony factory settings. Anyone know if this is possible as it would then negate that seriously crap and annoying WAP 'feature'
Annoyingly (as you have found out) the big mobile players (Voda, Orange, O2, T-Mob etc) have a nasty habit of effectively creating their own branded firmware full of their own tosh and sometimes lacking some features.
However in many cases it is possible to find a helpful shop (http://www.kingmobilephone.com being my usual port of call) who will put the latest manufacturer (Nokia, S-E etc) firmware on, which is usually newer than the players' firmware. The upside being you get a nice de-branded mobile and hopefully some proper features and a few bug fixes.
After shopping around for a while, I had decided that the HTC Hermes was the best phone to replace my aging Sony P800. The best price to be had was from Telstra (OZ Telco equivalent of BT, with the same effective monopoly drawback and the added inconvenience of having gone "public") as the iMate JasJam (stupid name).
Got the phone home, wasn't bad, but something didn't feel right about it. Got on the net, found *several* sites about the HTC Hermes software and realised that Telstra had f*cked the hell out of the phone (the Wi-Fi LAN functions were almost non-existent, for example). Two downloads (one for the main OS and utilities, one for an upgraded set of radio drivers) and a re-sync later and I had a phone which simply shat over the old iMate version.
"Apparently last night O2 put up a page with iPhone PAYG prices for the UK (299 pounds for the 8GB model), but it seems to have been pulled."
If that's the case, they can go screw themselves.
At the risk of showing my ignorance regarding mobile telephony. can someone answer me this: I currently have a phone with a T-Mobile (UK) SIM card in it - let's say I decided, on a whim, to pop over to Germany and pick up an iPhone, what are the chances (if any) that my existing T-Mobile SIM would work in the German iPhone?
Purely hypothetical (at the moment) but a tempting prospect nonetheless, since I'm quite happy with T-Mobile's service and having ditched O2 a while ago for being utterly crap I'd rather not sign up with them again, PAYG or not.
HTC Touch HD Pocket PC
MWg Zinc II
HTC Touch Pro
HTC Touch Diamond2
Palm Treo Pro Smartphone
Orange prices up iPhone en France
r76
Rotten oranges #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 11:05 GMT
Will it come with a nasty Orange logo plastered over it and one of the most useful functions from the menu removed and replaced with a pointless shortcut to the orange wap site / music store...?
Bastien Laval
Wait a minute... #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 11:42 GMT
Tell me if I'm wrong, but didn't Steve Jobs say that the price wouldn't exceed $200 in ANY country where the iPhone would sell?
Parax
Agent Orange #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 11:43 GMT
@r76: do you really have to ask?
Gauranteed to slowly poison your customers to death!
Richard Tobin
O2 PAYG #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:03 GMT
Apparently last night O2 put up a page with iPhone PAYG prices for the UK (299 pounds for the 8GB model), but it seems to have been pulled.
See: http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/06/25/o2-announces-iphone-3g-pay-and-go-pricing/
Perhaps the Reg could find out what the story is?
Matt
@r76 #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:03 GMT
I've been an orange costumer foryears and always wondered why Orange decided to take a perfectly good menu and futtock the usefulness out of it!!
it took someone time and cost some department money to "design" the hideous 2 colour icons pleas orange just leave things alone!
after signing up to a new 18 month contract my shiney new LG secret has no less than 6 shortcuts to paid websites that are top of the list and totally useless... yet good functionality is removed... you all sods!
and you know the lovingly designed OSX style icons will be replaced with some orange and grey skite!!
Anonymous Coward
EXCLUSIVE!!! MUST CREDIT ANONYMOUS!!! #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:03 GMT
Oh, the stories I could tell about the iPhone...
Anybody here got their heart set on a white one?
Anybody here got their heart set on a 16Gb one?
Anybody here think the 8Gb is £299 on prepay?
See icon for a sneak peak at July 11th...
Sooty
The Microsoft currency conversion model #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:03 GMT
has clearly been applied to this to cover the statement that no iPhone would cost more that $199 anywhere in the world. As we all know $199=£199=€199
Ron Eve
@Rotten oranges and @Matt #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:29 GMT
<sigh> I've nver understood it either. In fact it wasn't until my son (who used to work in a phone shop) pointed out to me that my Orange Sony Ericsson was sadly lacking in some prime features and the menus and skin forked over royally. He also said it was possible to have 'done' by a shop to revert it to the default Sony factory settings. Anyone know if this is possible as it would then negate that seriously crap and annoying WAP 'feature'
Bob Gender
@Rotten oranges #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 13:46 GMT
Try www.esato.com - pretty much all SonyEricssons can be "debranded" for free, or at most €6 at home through a software solution.
You need to change the CDA to /1, and then use SE Update Service from memory.
Jay
@Ron Eve #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 14:23 GMT
Annoyingly (as you have found out) the big mobile players (Voda, Orange, O2, T-Mob etc) have a nasty habit of effectively creating their own branded firmware full of their own tosh and sometimes lacking some features.
However in many cases it is possible to find a helpful shop (http://www.kingmobilephone.com being my usual port of call) who will put the latest manufacturer (Nokia, S-E etc) firmware on, which is usually newer than the players' firmware. The upside being you get a nice de-branded mobile and hopefully some proper features and a few bug fixes.
Peter Appleton
@ Ron Eve #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 23:48 GMT
No problem debranding your phone, and for free as long as you have the USB cable that came with the phone.
Pop along to http://forums.se-nse.net/ and either look at the guides posted on how to do it or have a chat in the newbie section.
We'll get your phone back to it's former glory in no time ;)
Neoc
Un-branding phones #
Posted Thursday 26th June 2008 23:48 GMT
After shopping around for a while, I had decided that the HTC Hermes was the best phone to replace my aging Sony P800. The best price to be had was from Telstra (OZ Telco equivalent of BT, with the same effective monopoly drawback and the added inconvenience of having gone "public") as the iMate JasJam (stupid name).
Got the phone home, wasn't bad, but something didn't feel right about it. Got on the net, found *several* sites about the HTC Hermes software and realised that Telstra had f*cked the hell out of the phone (the Wi-Fi LAN functions were almost non-existent, for example). Two downloads (one for the main OS and utilities, one for an upgraded set of radio drivers) and a re-sync later and I had a phone which simply shat over the old iMate version.
Haven't looked back since.
Simon Ward
RE: O2 PAYG #
Posted Saturday 28th June 2008 18:10 GMT
"Apparently last night O2 put up a page with iPhone PAYG prices for the UK (299 pounds for the 8GB model), but it seems to have been pulled."
If that's the case, they can go screw themselves.
At the risk of showing my ignorance regarding mobile telephony. can someone answer me this: I currently have a phone with a T-Mobile (UK) SIM card in it - let's say I decided, on a whim, to pop over to Germany and pick up an iPhone, what are the chances (if any) that my existing T-Mobile SIM would work in the German iPhone?
Purely hypothetical (at the moment) but a tempting prospect nonetheless, since I'm quite happy with T-Mobile's service and having ditched O2 a while ago for being utterly crap I'd rather not sign up with them again, PAYG or not.