Orange this morning announced that they are planning to bring the iPhone to Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.
Now, obviously this further confirms that the iPhone is going to be offered to multiple carriers in certain parts of the world, but the bigger issue, I think, is how the iPhone is going to work in some of these countries.
For example, Poland doesn’t have an iTunes store at all. Without that, how are they going to get updates and activate their phones? Perhaps this issue has already been addressed in another country without iTunes and the answer is simply that they use a version of the iTunes store that doesn’t have access to download…um…anything. If you’ve already delt with this in your country, let us know in the comments below.
I’m very interested to see how they’re going to handle this.
Thanks to Matt, for sending in the Orange tip!
well, it shouldn’t be much of an issue to enable just the iphone activation procedure and probably even the app store without giving the country a full-fledged itunes store, if for some reason that is not an option. or even just send them to, say, the us store for activation.
or maybe you won’t have to activate the next gen iphone at all! maybe you’re free to use it with any sim card you want! or maybe i’m fantasizing. who knows!
Hey there!
I’ve been following the podcast for some months now and love it! Thank you for that!
Reading this I found a conflicting information that I’d apreciate if you could give me an answer:
In this article it is mentioned that the orange is bringing the iPhone to Portugal (where I live), but I’ve heard/read somewhere that Vodafone just signed a contract to deliver the iPhone to a bunch of countries, including Portugal.
Now, the rumour of Orange bringing it to Portugal, through it’s local partner – Optimus – has been heard for some time. That’s why I’m confused!
Can you help me?
About the iTunes store thing you were mentioning, well, at least we have the iTunes store here… it’s a crappy one, but we have it!!!!!
Cheers and keep up the good work here!
In Belgium one cannot sell a mobiel phone with a carrier contract, nor may the phone be locked to one carrier. So I guess that we will have to pay the full price (600 – 700 Euros ???).
This also mean that more then one carrier can sell the iPhone.
(Mobistar = Orange)
(Proximus is partner with Vodafane)
hugo, there appear to be several countries where the iphone will be distributed by at least two carriers at the same time. another example besides portugal is switzerland, where swisscom has made the deal as well as orange. no more carrier exclusivity, it seems – at least in some places.
Thanks Phill!
I’ve investigated and came to that same conclusion.
Now we need to wait to get it officially distributed, I honestly don’t care which company does it!!! I just want one!
In Romania too we do not have the iTunes store. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’re going to address this problem.
Okay, the most likely scenario for Slovakia is that Orange will sell the phone SIM-unlocked, as the carrier does not sell any SIM-locked phones at the moment. Even when you buy a cell with a contract, or get it for free, it’s unlocked. So in that case, they might sell the iPhone already ‘activated’. That is assuming that it will be introduced ‘later this year’ as stated. Another alternative is that Apple will provide a single-purpose utility to activate the device. Or, Orange might be given a utility to activate it for their customers, but I don’t see this one coming.
I also don’t see Apple introducing the iTunes Store in Slovakia before 1st January 2009 when we are supposed to switch to euro currency. Our own currency is currently probably the biggest hold up when it comes to introduction of the iTunes Store, simply just because of the unstable exchange rate.
About the updates.. If Apple really releases the iPhone in Slovakia before they introduce the iTunes Store, my best guess is that the updates will work just like they do with iPods. You just sync the phone with iTunes Library and it will automatically check for any new iPhone software available.
It seem that Orange (Mobistar) will have the exclusive in Belgium.