On Saturday Apple opened its Carosello Carugate Apple Store, only the company's second retail location in all of Italy. The store can be found near Milan, and should help to serve northern Italy, which has not had easy access to Apple products. Apple's other shop is based in Rome, in the south of the country.
In early-morning launches at carrier and Apple Stores, the iPhone 3G S has gone on sale in different eight countries, including the likes of the United States, Canada, France and Germany. The most prominent launch so far has been the one at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City, where despite less press coverage and lower publicity from Apple, approximately 200 people waited in line to be some of the first in the US to own a 3G S. The Soho and 14th Street stores in New York bore witness to smaller lineups.
Some new and previously-revealed Apple Stores have appeared on an official company map, reports observe. Among these is a site in Paris, France, which is generally expected to appear in the Carrousel du Louvre, but could be beaten by a shop situated near the Garnier operahouse. Also mentioned is a store in Milan, Italy, the potential location of which remains ambiguous.
Apple is now hiring for a retail store in Milan, official listings have revealed. While the company has not officially announced a Milan location, the company is offering a full roster of positions for a future shop, including cashiers, concierges, Genius Bar staff and business sales representatives. The store would be only Apple's second retail outlet in Italy, complementing a flagship store in Rome.
BenQ has launched a new mobile Internet device (MID), according to reports out of Italy. The S6 is based on Intel's mobile Atom processor, and uses a 4.8-inch touchscreen for navigating a PlayStation 3-like menu system. Although music, photos and videos are said to be important functions, the focus is of course on Internet access, which can be delivered through either Wi-Fi or 3G cellular connections. Users can view both e-mail and a web browser.
Apple is opening itself up to the idea of allowing carrier-specific applications on iPhones, claims the global director of terminals for Vodafone. Jens Schulte-Bockum says that Vodafone Italy is collaborating with Apple on a tentative "portal experience," which would be delivered through iTunes' App Store. Apple has traditionally resisted any form of carrier-specific branding in its products, to the extent that carriers are scarcely mentioned on its websites or in phone interfaces.
Competition among multiple iPhone carriers in Italy has not resulted in low prices and happy customers, notebook italia reports. Controversy over service prices has led to a 10,000-signature petition, expressing disappointment with excessive costs.
An Italian venture capital firm is offering $250,000 in US funds to potential iPhone developers, according to reports. The company, H-FARM, says the deal is a part of its new Seed Program, meant to regularly boost a technology company every three months. This quarter's competition revolves around iPhone applications, and is asking companies to submit three-page proposals in PDF form, via e-mail.
Italian interest in the iPhone 3G may be unusually low, early reports suggest. Although some 29 Telecom Italia stores are expected to begin selling the 3G within hours, at midnight local time on July 10th, a key TIM store in downtown Milan is said to have no lineups to speak of. Similarly, two Roman stores, including one on Via del Corso, are also said to be missing any lines. This contrasts with countries like the US, Japan and New Zealand, where long queues began forming days in advance.
Policies for iPhone 3G access to carrier Wi-Fi should vary dramatically around the world, reports say. While carriers such as AT&T and Rogers Wireless have committed to free hotspot access with a subscription, other countries may not hold this policy in common. Vodafone Italy now admits that it will not be offering any free access, and Orange Switzerland says this will be limited to 100 hours per month.
Italian iPhone customers will supposedly enjoy the leisure of activating their iPhone from the comforts of their own home, while a third company 3 Italy announced it would also sell the iPhone, come September. Macity writes that both Telecom Italia and Vodafone will not be able to activate the iPhone 3G at the store, and will instead take both the device and SIM card home to perform the activation through iTunes, similar to how the first iPhone was sold.
Having already announced its pre-paid plans, Telecom Italia has published the official subscription options for the iPhone 3G. The cheapest subscription, Starter, costs 30 per month and provides 1GB of data, but still requires customers to pay per minute or text message. The 250 plan (50) upgrades to 250 minutes and 100 texts, while the 600 plan (80) offers 600 minutes and 200 texts.
International carrier Vodafone has announced the monthly rates for the iPhone 3G in Portugal and Italy. In the former country, most phones will require a two-year contract; the cheapest plan is the "Best iPhone 100" option, which costs approximately 30 per month, and offers 100 minutes, 100 texts and 250MB of data traffic. Best iPhone 230 (45) upgrades to 230 minutes and texts, while the 500 plan (65) graduates to its own corresponding numbers. Data remains fixed. Prices for the actual phones range from 299 (8GB) and 389 (16GB) under the 100 plan to 129 and 219 under the 500 option.
Telecom Italia's planned iPhone contracts have been leaked, an Italian site claims. A new memo, allegedly circulated amongst sales managers at TIM, suggests that there will be four two-year contract options beginning with the Starter, which costs 29 per month but does not have any voice or SMS messages included, and instead charges 15 cents per minute or text. More conventional plans begin with the TIM 250, which incorporates 250 minutes and 100 texts at a price of 49.
Telecom Italia has announced some preliminary details on its two-year subscription prices for the iPhone 3G, reports say. While it has yet not disclosed the monthly cost of each plan, the iPhone itself should cost approximately 199 with an entry-level subscription; in a scheme similar to that of O2 in the UK, subscribers to high-end plans will receive the phone for free. Controversially, TIM will only say that each plan guarantees "at least" 1GB of data each month, despite the prevalence of unlimited transfers in other countries.
Italian iPhone shoppers may be allowed to buy the device through Apple resellers, a local news site reports. Macity cites a source "informed on the facts," who claims that stores with the Apple Premium Reseller designation will be able to sell the device alongside Vodafone and Telecom Italia's locations, and Apple's one official store in the country, situated in Rome. The distribution deal is said to have been arranged between the carriers and the resellers, rather than directly through Apple.
Telecom Italia has announced some of its first pricing options for the iPhone 3G. As opposed to most carriers, TIM subscribers will have the choice of pre-paid plans alongside contracts; the former have been announced to be 499 for an 8GB iPhone, or 569 for a 16GB model. These prices are effectively identical to Vodafone's pre-paid options, and both companies will launch on July 11th.
Apple may be refusing to negotiate with all players in the Italian cellphone market, one telecom executive suggests. Vincenzo Novari, the CEO of phone carrier 3 Italia, says that while his company is "super-interested about the iPhone," he has not heard any response in regard to inquiries at Apple, whether positive or negative. Novari in fact claims to have sent two e-mail messages directly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, without receiving any sort of acknowledgement.
The first iPhones available to Italians will indeed be 3G models, an executive for carrier Telecom Italia is said to have confirmed. Although the company announced that it would carry the iPhone last week, at the time it would only say that it had "signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone in Italy within the year." Executive VP Luigi Licciardi revealed the existence of the 3G phone between sessions at the International Electronics Forum in Dubai.
Italy will be one of the first countries in the world to support the iPhone on multiple carriers, an announcement reveals. Local carrier Telecom Italia, also known as TIM, has declared that it will also sell the device alongside Vodafone, which today uncovered its plans to sell the device in 10 countries around the world. Responding to further inquiries, TIM will only elaborate that it has "signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone in Italy within the year."
An Italian iPhone will be released "in weeks," according to one of the country's newspapers. Repubblica claims that a contract was signed last week in Apple's home city of Cupertino, California, after a visit from the CEO of Telecom Italia. The first version of the phone in Italy should be the highly-anticipated 3G model, rather than the current 2.5G edition; more importantly however, Apple is said to be experimenting with a completely new pricing scheme in the country.
Apple's retail director Ron Johnson yesterday confirmed the opening of two Italian store locations during the shareholder meeting in Cupertino yesterday. According to SetteB.IT, Johnson said there would be two retail locations opening in Milan within the next year. The first location would be behind the Duomo or between Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Montenapoleone, the second in the Corso Buenos Aires.
The Italian parliament may be on the verge of legalizing peer-to-peer music sharing, local paper La Repubblica reports. Already approved by both houses of the legislature, a new law allows open sharing of any images and music on the Internet, so long as the material is degraded and used solely in non-profit scientific or educational contexts. The problem, says Italian lawyer Andrea Monti, is that "degraded" has specific connotations which could include any form of MP3, given that the format is by definition affected by compression, even if listeners cannot tell.
