So far the US Dollar has been the undisputed king of the currencies. A $100 bill worked like a passport in many countries of the world and dollars were used as the mandatory currency for international transactions in some markets. At the same time, when foreigners had to go the the States they always had to exchange their money because – Canadian and Mexican borders excepted – nobody would accept foreign money in American shops. Read the rest of this entry »
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Apple started to sell iPhone in Europe. In Germany the price is €399 for the handset, that is $586! Either they don’t get currency exchange or they think ripping off Europeans is OK. Moreover, on top of that you need a mandatory 24-month subscription plan at €49 a month (100 min/month voice calls). In total it’s €1575 ($2316!).
By comparison, at the same price I can buy a Blackberry Curve 8310 (more feature rich with GPS receiver, SD memory, MMS) and a subscription plan with flat data and 400 min/month voice included. And there’s no 24-month term: I can stop this contract after one month if I don’t like it, and pay just for that.
No wonder few people cared when Apple stores opened in Germany last night…
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So here I am again, bashing Apple. In the last few days everybody and his brother was talking about how cool the iPhone is and how they can’t wait to buy one because it’s sooo hi-tech and yadda yadda yadda. Actually, you just have to look at the specs to be deluded:
- Cingular only
- no UMTS
- battery life just 5 hours talk
- 135 grams
- no camera zoom
Ok, there are nice sensors, a multi-touch screen and a neat user interface, but at the end of the day who cares? Since I have a phone in my pocket 16hours a day the most important features are small size, light weight, battery life, audio quality. I’m sorry I can’t trade my own comfort for any UI, however cool it is.
This device is going to be sub-optimal both as a phone and as a computer (no QWERTY, 3.5″ screen). It’s like a tablet: that useless mid-size that makes everybody unhappy.
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Today Steve Jobs announced the new amazing features of OSX 10.5 aka Leopard.
- they can run natively on Intel hardware (wow, I stopped using Intel in favor of AMD at least 5 years ago)
- they have the Time Machine, or they can apply versioning to files and directories (wow, I’ve been using Subversion for so long…)
- they have multiple virtual desktops (wow, we have had this feature since KDE 1.0)
- they can index files according to metadata
OK, maybe Spotlight is cool, but why so much fuss for such a simple new feature? When you talk with Mac enthusiasts they seem to imply 10.5 is a revolution and nothing will be ever the same under the sun. I don’t think so.
