How to justify buying an iPhone in Canada

Last week I finally gave in to temptation. I drove to Buffalo and bought an iPhone. It’s now unlocked and working just fine over wifi and the Rogers network.

Since picking it up I’ve had a ton of friends tell me they really want an iPhone, but can’t decide if they should wait until Rogers release it here. I felt the same way until last week. So, here is how I justified buying an iPhone for use in Canada right now. I hope this helps…

1. The iPhone isn’t (officially) coming to Canada anytime soon
Being the only GSM company in Canada, Rogers are guaranteed the iPhone. Back in June they announced they were in talks with Apple but said they were progressing very slowly, and today a friend of mine with contacts at Rogers told me talks are still progressing very slowly. Rogers have had 6 months to negotiate with Apple and they still don’t have a deal. Makes me think it is very unlikely the iPhone will be out in Canada before the holidays, and it could be a much longer wait.

Why the big delay? The iPhone is so out of whack with Rogers product strategy that I think they will have real trouble striking a deal with Apple. For example, my wife bought a new phone from Rogers in the weekend. It came pre-loaded with a Rogers theme (some horrible red thing) and it was full of embedded links to things like the Rogers music store. Apple are most likely saying Rogers can’t put anything on the phone, plus as I understand it Apple are asking for a rev share deal. The iPhone also promotes massive data usage, something that Rogers with their current pricing plans just aren’t set up to accommodate. Finally, Rogers know that hacked iPhones from the US can only work on their network so they’ll be getting all of the business coming from cross border sales anyway.

I’m guessing manages at Rogers Wireless are in no hurry to finalize a deal with Apple. As long as the competition aren’t going to release the iPhone (which they can’t, because everyone but Rogers is on CDMA) it’s in their best interest to stick to selling blackberries and other handsets from manufactures who play nice.

2. Even without mobile data, the iPhone is a great device
I’ve been surprised at how the iPhone has fit into my life. I expected to be constantly checking email when I was out and about, but instead I’m using it on my wifi network at home more often. I’m finding it a great way to quickly check a facebook message, look up movie times, check the weather, do a wikipedia search, check my google calendar for the next day… all without opening my laptop. The iPhone is also just a lovely interface for text messaging, and has a pretty solid phone and camera. So, even without the mobile data, I think it’s worth the $399.

3. If you’re only checking email, Rogers sells 10MBs of data for $5
In Canada, your first 10MBs of data are cheap. It’s the next 100 that’ll bankrupt you! If you live in or around Toronto you can sign up to a Rogers Vision deal that gives you 10MBs for $5. This means if you’re desperate to check email on your iPhone, you can – and it’s cheap.

4. $399 US = $399 CND, and that’s not going to last forever
Cross boarder shopping is as good as it’s going to get with the 1:1 exchange rate. And Buffalo is only a 2 hour drive from Toronto.

5. And finally, if you don’t get on the iPhone product release bandwagon now, you might never
Yes, Apple will release a 16GB iPhone after the holidays. Yes, they will probably have a model with video and all of the other features people are demanding not long after that. But in my experience with all things Apple, if you wait for the perfect product you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life. Get an iPhone now – enjoy it – and you won’t feel so bad about upgrading in a year ;).

Note: Having written this post I feel like a cross between a raving Apple fan boy and a sleazy PR exec. Disclosure: I did not get paid to write this ;).

DesignMyGoogleDoc.com

Today Google finally announced the rounding out of their Docs product range with the launch of an online PowerPoint tool. You can check it out at the docs homepage.

One quick thought: If I’m now creating presentations online, it’s even more tempting to hire a junior designer to design my slides for me. I’d just add the designer as a collaborator and come back the next day to a fully designed presentation. Nice! I wonder if anyone has registered designmygoogledoc.com?

These outsourced presentation services have been around for a long time. It just strikes me that it’s now even easier and more tempting for me to hire someone instead of doing it myself. Ah, laziness.

Using iPod Touch to play music over AirTunes

Along with everyone else, I’m pretty excited about the new iPod Touch.

I use my phone to listen to music when I’m wondering around town, but I’m excited about the Touch as a kind of mini, ultra portable PC. I figure I could use it for all the little things I do on the web around home without having to open up my laptop. Things like checking the weather, looking up a google map before running out the door, reading a facebook message…

The other big use I can see for the Touch is playing music over my AirTunes network. We have some bookshelf speakers plugged into an AirTunes router in the living room and that is the main way we listen to music at home. I love the flexibility we have to play whatever we like, but I hate having to open up my laptop to do it – I always get unintentionally lost in email for hours. Wouldn’t it be great if I could dial up iTunes on the Touch and play something over AirTunes?

Now, my research thus far has not turned up any conclusive prof this is actually possible, I’m just jumping to conclusions based on the fact the Touch has iTunes and a wifi connection. I’ll do some more digging and update this post as soon as I can get to the bottom of this.

Skype’s goodwill gesture not likely to generate much goodwill

Last week Skype, the massively popular VOIP company, stopped working for a couple of days.

This morning I got my first email from Skype about the outage:

You may or may not know but last week Skype wasn’t available for a couple of days. There were a number of reasons for this and I am delighted to say that the problem is now well and truly sorted and everything is back to normal…As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we’re adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge.

7 days of free service!?

A product that millions of people pay for and use everyday stops working for 2 days. Do they really think 7 days of free service will generate any goodwill? Keep in mind some of Skype’s customers use a Skype-in number as their main phone line.

My cynical conclusion (based on no facts at all!) is that eBay, Skype’s owners, might have applied the pressure. I can imagine a tense boardroom scene with a Skype exec wanting to do something for their customers and someone from eBay pointing to the revenue targets and frowning.

Photo: iloveacomputer

“Ted Rogers… Hello… Are you out there?”

The iPhone ads are annoying enough when I’m reading the New York Times (iPhone coming to Canada anytime soon Ted?) but this week it was even worse… T-Mobile had a full page promotion for their new HotSpot @ Home product.

Here’s the gist: Buy a HotSpot phone ($49) and a wireless router and, while you’re at home, T-Mobile will route all of your calls through the internet without you doing a thing. This means unlimited nationwide calling while you’re at home (or any of the T-Mobile HotSpot locations) for only $10 per month. Now that sounds pretty darn good to me.

So Ted, when do you think we can expect to see this in Canada?… Ted?

T-Mobile announce Wi-Fi calling in Europe

This sounds like a very big idea to me… (from the New York Times)

If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you’re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it’s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves.

This functionality has been possible for a while and I have a few friends who are doing it using a combination of Skype and home Wi-Fi. Of course they need to have an (expensive) Wi-Fi enabled cell phone and have the technical know-how to load the Skype mobile client. By offering this as a default feature T-Mobile make Wi-Fi calling child’s play.

In Canada, where many of us pay the same company for our internet service and our cell phone bill, this would be extremely appealing. Sadly, I think it will be a number of years before this service graces our fair shores.

The firestorm will begin in 3… 2… 1…

Get ready to hear from some rather unhappy WordPress.com users over the next couple of days. The hosted blog site decided to remove feed statistics this afternoon, and we all know how much bloggers like to obsess over their stats. WordPress is an incredible tool (hell, I’m using it right now), but I think they might have some very unhappy customers on their hands.

Here is the quote from Matt:

As important to us to be constantly adding new features and functionality for you guys, sometimes we have to retire or prune things that just didn’t work out or that we don’t have time to focus on right now.

So today we bid farewell to our good fried Feed Stats, which tried to tell you how many subscribers you had to your blog and what software they used.

UPDATE: Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought. I guess WordPress users are a mild mannered bunch. Personally, I got around the loss of feed stats by switching to FeedBurner for my RSS feed.

“Eee slaughters the OLPC with ease” – ZDNet

Let me start by saying that I think One Laptop Per Child is a great initiative. Sure, it has its critics, but this is an incredibly ambitious project aimed at making the world a better place – and I would never stand in the way of that.

Selfishly, from the very outset of this project I’ve always liked the idea of owning one of these little green machines. They’re (going to be) cheap, small, fast and rugged – all things that make them an appealing second laptop for the times I don’t want to lug my PowerBook around. Also, the idea of a fairly low powered (dumb) little machine to access all of the web applications (smart) I use to run my life is perfectly in tune with my idea of technology.

So, while we wait for Nicholas Negroponte and his team to get these little PC’s into production, ASUS and Intel have come out with an alternative, and it looks pretty cool.

Here is the word from George Ou at ZDNet:

The ASUS Eee computer will cost a mere $199 for the 7″ LCD model whereas the so-called $100 OLPC costs $175. Given the fact that Eee can run Linux or Windows XP and it can boot off NAND flash memory in a mere 15 seconds, the Eee slaughters the OLPC with ease.

And some more info from CNET Asia:

Like the Fujitsu LifeBook FMV-U, the ASUS Eee PS runs off an Intel Mobile processor and is fully compatible with Windows and Linux. Named after the ideals of easy to learn, work, play; excellent Internet experience and excellent mobile computing experience, the Eee PC sacrifices raw power to keep its form factor at a handy 225 x 165 x 35mm, while weighing only 890g. The unit is also fully connected, with access to both wired and wireless networks though its modem, Ethernet port, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth radios.

Nice touches include the use of a solid-state harddisk that is resistant to shock and drops. Sitting on the hinge just under the 7-inch display is an integrated Webcam for video conferencing.

Lessons about pricing

Spanning Sync, the calendar syncing tool I mentioned a while back, came out of beta today and announced they were going to start charging for their product. I think they’ve done a fantastic job developing a helpful little app and deserve to make some money. What’s interesting though is where they decided to set their fees and the instant reaction from their 18,000 current users.

Under the new pricing $25 gets you a one year account and $65 a permanent license. There is a 15 day free trial but no basic free option with a chance to upgrade later. The prices seem high to me. A one off payment of $20-25 is closer to what I was expecting, and what I would have paid.

So, first interesting thing is that they choose such high fees (keep in mind Apple iLife, with a whole host of complex applications, is only $79). Second interesting thing is the noise that their upset users have made. Check the comments here and here for the almost universal objection to the fees.

From a comment on the Unofficial Apple Weblog: “$65 once or $25 for a yearly subscription is well North of ridiculous. There’s no way I’ll even consider buying this product. The developer simply hasn’t built that kind of value into it.”

And from the Spanning Sync blog: “I have already uninstalled Spanning Sync. As lots of ppl say, price is outrageous. And I do think Apple will release some kind of Google sync service with Leopard, seeing that the collaboration between the two is becoming increasingly evident. Plus, what are the guarantees that the service won’t stop working next week?”

It will be interesting to see the response from Spanning Sync over the next couple of days. Maybe they will lower the price and try to win back the upset users. Or maybe they will conclude that these users will never pay them and decide to target a different kind of user who sees more value in the product.

As we get closer to launching our web application (still a few months away I’m afraid) we are beginning to think about how much value we will be creating for different users. In our case the value won’t be even. We expect many people will get great value from a free service but some will want to pay for premium features to access even more value.

One thing we will need to be very aware of, no matter what our pricing strategy, is the expectations of our users. If there is a lesson to be learned from the Spanning Sync example it is that you can never under deliver and over price in the eyes of your customers if you want them to stick around.

Google Apps launches today for small business, families, schools and maybe our company.

Google finally announced their Apps bundle last night. Essentially they’ve rolled their calendar, docs, spreadsheet, email, IM and web publishing products into one hosted bundle with 10 gigs of storage and 24 hour phone support. Schools and families get it for free and small businesses pay $50 per account per year – but there is a free trial until the end of April.

We’re looking for a few little tech solutions for our company at the moment: email from our URL, file sharing, shared calendar, a wiki. I’m not sure if Google Apps with match exactly what we’re after but generally it looks like a pretty compelling package for a small business – especially if you can sign up for this in place of Microsoft Office and save the purchase and upgrade costs. A PowerPoint product seems to be all they’re missing really but I’ll bet Google announce a product launch or an acquisition of one of the existing tools before the snow in Toronto melts.

UPDATE: Mathew Ingram has a good post about Google Apps over here. “To me, the missing piece is still some kind of offline app that will cache documents for when Internet access isn’t available, like Zoho is doing. Google’s Office suite (let’s call it what it is) might be fine when you’re at HQ with a T1 line, but what about when you’re in a regional office in Poughkeepsie, or on the road?”

While I’m talking about tech tools for a small office I should mention SpanningSync again – the little iCal:Google Cal syncing product I tried out a few weeks ago. The conclusion: A+. This little tool makes my life a heck of a lot easier. No more logging into Google Cal every time I want to add an event to our shared company calendar – just pop it in iCal and hit ‘sync’. I thoroughly recommend this for anyone using iCal.