Germany claims 70,000 iPhones sold

How long will it take for Steve Jobs to realize that the iPhone sales model will never work in Europe? Locking the phone with a single operator who can't even offer rebates is a tremendous mistake. Most phones here are free or very cheap with a two year contract. Some people think that Apple's strategy will be profitable in the long run by getting a percentage of the monthly voice & data revenue, but if hardly any phones are sold this strategy will just backfire. Instead of endless negotiations with phone operators for each country, Apple could already have sold millions more iPhones everywhere by selling it simply like an iPod with GSM. They should make money on the hardware sales and iTunes Store, instead of obscure and greedy deals with the operators. This would also avoid having Apple fight every way it can against Skype coming to the iPhone.

except that features like visual voicemail only work with certain carriers for now. Apple isn't trying to Americanize the European market, the fact that 70,000 of these PREMIUM cost devices sold in 11 weeks is rather good, actually. Most free phones, regardless of origin, don't compare to an iPhone either.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If VV was such a great feature, carriers would implement it even without an exclusive iPhone contract. It isn't a reason to exclusivize the iPhone (otherwise you'd be saying the iPhone was just another me-too device without it).

And I find it interesting that Germany makes this announcement. You'd think it would be a company within the country. But, according to the headline, the country itself is now in charge of reporting cell phone sales results.

Testudo,

I see you are continuing your tradition of jumping to conclusions without reading the article.

The FIRST sentence states, "Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, says that some 70,000 German iPhone subscribers have been added..."

As far as I know, Deutsche Telekom does not own Germany. Thus, the "country itself" is NOT "in charge of reporting cell sales results."

Since you like to pan VV, tell us about your direct, personal and long-term experience with it. I have a month's worth, and it is one of my favorite features of the phone functions on the device. My guess is that your continued expressed hatred and disdain of anything out of Cupertino reflects your complete lack of direct experience with the device.

Go sit in the corner and color.

Do European carriers subsidize their phones like ours do in the states? My understanding (although I could be wrong) is that the phones are sold for full price, but the consumer can swap between carriers by just changing SIM cards.

I'm not sure your criticism of Apple's attempt to "Americanize" Europe's business practices are entirely accurate.

While a lot of us are used to crappy handsets that are pimped to us next to free, if not free (think razor & razor blades scenario), the iPhone calls more expense up front for services that aren't inexplicably tied to the carrier, and decent data rate plans. In fact, it has spurred a significant drop in data rates in US plans for both AT&T customers with iPhones and competing carriers.

The deals with the so-called "greedy providers" are there to insure that Apple gets to determine how their software works on the network. Not all providers are willing to give up this kind of control (as seen by VZW) so at the beginning, Apple will work with a single provider to establish this new model. Once it's obvious that carriers may have to revise their outdated business strategy to be able to compete, we may see the interoperable GSM technology and iPhone support through a vast array of carriers.

Don't forget, Apple only lets its OS work on its own hardware because it wants control over all aspects to be able to insure reliability. This same mantra is applied to the phone business, and the company seems willing to wait for the market to mature to keep this method alive and well.

If you take away the iPhone's stability by having some networks that don't support things like Visual Voicmail and google map integration, then it will loose much of its appeal. Apple is obviously unwilling to sacrifice this, so don't expect any change on the handset side here.

I see you are continuing your tradition of jumping to conclusions without reading the article.

How shocking, but it be you whose jumping to conclusions without reading my post. What a shocker on these forums.

The FIRST sentence states, "Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, says that some 70,000 German iPhone subscribers have been added..."

As far as I know, Deutsche Telekom does not own Germany. Thus, the "country itself" is NOT "in charge of reporting cell sales results."

First, I didn't say the story. I said THE HEADLINE, which still reads "Germany claims 70,000 iphones sold". Sure sounds like a country.

Oh, and while you said you didn't think that Deutsche Telekom owned Germany, you should have said that Germany didn't own Deutsche Telekom (a more likely scenario between the two).

Since you like to pan VV, tell us about your direct, personal and long-term experience with it.

First, I have not panned VV (what exactly in my post is panning it?). I understand that some people would find it helpful. Personally, I could give a flying leap about it, but, then again, as you all would love to say, who in the hell would be calling me anyway?

What I have said is that, if it were such a useful feature as people claim (such as yourself), other wireless carriers would have no problem adding support for VV to their service in order to get iPhone users onto their network. This is true.

Thus I am tired of the fools who keep repeating Apple's party-line about "We need to lock down the phone because we couldn't do VV otherwise".

There's only one reason Apple locks into a carrier. It's to get a piece of the monthly subscription fee. Nothing more.

I have a month's worth, and it is one of my favorite features of the phone functions on the device.

Well, that's nice. But people keep bringing up VV as the big reason of Apple's exclusive deals, which, taken in context, seems to indicate that, without it, the iPhone is just another phone. I would think many of a iPhone lover would disagree with that statement. To me, it's not worth a $400 investment plus a 2 year commitment.

My guess is that your continued expressed hatred and disdain of anything out of Cupertino reflects your complete lack of direct experience with the device.

I don't have disdain of anything that comes out of Cupertino. One of my normal complaints, in fact, is the lack of what comes out of Cupertino. More models of macs. More information from Apple on the hardware/software support front.

Go sit in the corner and color.

No thanks.

the UK model is that you pay something for top of the range handsets - subsidised - and something a month, like 20 - 45 quid, which includes lots of minutes and SMS. So it sounds similar to the US from your description. Apple are far and away the most expensive handset apart from maybe the latest Nokia (for a few weeks) and the odd Treo/Blackberry type device. Most are 50 quid or so with a contract and a lot more without a contract. And virtually all of them are locked, you CANT just put in a different SIM. Though O2 online don't seem to lock theirs. Unlocking old phones is easy: newer ones is usualyl harder but not impossible.

What is most radical is unmetered data. I don't think we had that before - but neither did you, correct?

yall is faggots