Category — i-phone

The iphone 4G finally arrived in Canada this week and I found myself in line to buy one outright from the Apple store.

Why buy one outright?

That was the question the Rogers sales person asked me as I tried to get my new phone activated today since their entire system was down yesterday. There are two main reasons why consumers should consider this

1) You don’t have to extend your current contract by three years. I don’t want to be trapped in a contract for another three years – especially one that may limit my ability to buy a new phone next year

2) Buying your iphone directly from Apple outright means it’s unlocked – so you can take your iphone to another network if you wish, or you can buy a pay as you go SIM card when you’re travelling in other countries to save big $$$ on roaming fees.  This is exactly my plan as I travel to China and Thailand in a few weeks.

According to an Apple employee at Yorkdale, of the 500 or so people in line yesterday morning by 6:30am, around 50% were buying the iphones outright.

You would think that that on the third try (and three years later) Rogers would figure out how to handle the volume of activation requests, but once again they could not.  Bell and Telus had no such problems yesterday, but unfortunately due to the issues with Rogers the average customer was waiting 45 minutes to an hour to activate which had a brutal impact on the lineup to buy one.

I spent five hours in line waiting before I gave up. Lucky for me, my good friend Dave Shen stayed in line and two hours after I left he picked one up for me.

First impressions

I love the new industrial design and i’ve had no issues with reception or discoloration of the screen. The updated camera is outstanding and the display is crisp. I haven’t tried the video talking feature yet – but I will next week as the balance of my geeky friends finally pick one up.

I love the glass on the front and back – but the downside is that now you’re cleaning both sides of the phone instead of just the screen.

With more Android phones coming to the market as well this Fall + a new lineup of blackberries, it’s going to be a great year for mobile in Canada.

47% of new phone purchases in Canada in Q3 of last year were for smartphones – which was nearly double what it was in Q2. With 55% of Canadians looking to upgrade in the next 6 months, I’m predicting that with all the great choices on the market we’ll see 2/3 of new purchases being smartphones.

Brands who are now in planning for 2011 are missing out on a huge opportunity if mobile is still not part of the mix.

Much like the introduction of the iphone in 2007 defined the smartphone, the introduction of the iAd platform from Apple will likely re-define mobile advertising as we’ve known it.

In short, Steve Jobs explained that iAd’s app ads will achieve the right balance between being interactive and emotional. He used the analogy that advertisements from the TV are emotional while flash ads on websites are interactive.

Here are three reasons why I believe iAds could really work for brands:

1. Users choose the site not the Ad – so by keeping the Ad experience self-contained within the existing page, Apple ensure a better user experience over most other types of mobile Ads.  This means brands and advertisers who are putting more and more of a premium on engagement vs. impressions will be satisfied
2. Speaking of experience, the level of interactivity possible through this platform looks impressive. It’s like building a full microsite flash experience – but without the flash or the need to build a stand-alone site.
3. Brands who do not yet want to commit to building a full mobile website or application to support a campaign no longer need to – you can do data collection (like for a contest) right within the iAd.  Having said that, engaging consumers through an iAd is only going to increase demand & expectations that there will be a mobile friendly experience accessible too.

One thing holding me back from fully embracing this platform is the reach potential of iAds in Canada. Although we will almost certainly run a test budget against the platform when it launches this summer, it cannot replace the established mobile networks overnight – especially as iphone’s market share is still only about 20% in Canada.

With that said, since iAd is built entirely on HTML 5, this platform can be extended to the mobile web which will instantly make your interactive iAd’s accessible to a much broader audience – even those on other smartphones!

Want to see more? Check out the demo below:

According to this leaked commercial, there really is an app for everything – including stalking your ex-girlfriend!

Thanks to Sasha for finding the original post on mashable here.

It seems that there really is an an iphone app for everything.

Marketers can download (for free) a new application by the Ad-ology Research called the marketing forecast app.

It’s essentially a news aggregator that pulls in content from newspapers, blogs and twitter around advertising, brand marketing, consumer spending, and digital marketing. With both Canadian and American content, this app may just replace my need to log into netvibes everyday.

Two things missing is an integrated way of sharing content through twitter, facebook, or through email and the ability to personalize the feeds. If they can address those points, this could turn out to be a great social networking tool for marketers by marketers.

So here it is – my official first video from my new iphone 3G S.

Quality if pretty good – and in typical Apple fashion, it was incredibly easy to capture and edit.

After taking a pass this time last year to upgrade my first generation iphone to the new 3G, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to upgrade to the 3G S – especially now that my first gen iphone could only keep a standby charge of about 3 hours.

Friday morning after an outdoor business meeting at the Hunt Club, I swung by a Rogers store in the beaches in Toronto. My theory was that a smaller shop won’t be as busy – and therefore more likely to still have one of the new devices.

I asked the sales rep if he had any left as soon as I walked in and he replied that they only had a few left and had to get one from his manager.  He then asked me a few questions – like was I a new customer or an existing one etc… A few minutes later the manager informed me that he was sold out. Hmmmm

After catching up on 83 emails, I headed to the larger Rogers store at Bloor / Royal York.  Within minutes I was in line to buy the new 3G S. The sale rep indicated that some people had spent hours on hold with Rogers to activate the phones and that she could not guarantee that the process would work.

I asked if I could buy the iphone outright (and not be tied to a contract). The sales rep said of course – it’s only $700!

I decided to go through the activation process. Twenty minutes later we were stuck – but not because of volume on the lines but because mysteriously my account did not include the iphone as an option for me to buy in my account.  The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I was instructed to call tech support to sort it out. After 30 minutes on the phone I was informed that my account would be submitted for a tech ticket and that the back office support team (who comes in twice a week) would look into it sometime this week.

Saturday morning I made my third attempt

As it turns out, my girlfriend was also eligible for an upgrade on Rogers.  We marched back to to the same Rogers location and as luck would have it, they had 2 white 16 gig iphones left.

The sales rep was amazing. Friendly, smart, and resourceful.

According to the rep, one person who was waiting for the store to open Friday morning didn’t leave the store until 2:30pm as Rogers had not scaled up enough to handle the volume of iphone requests.

Instead of making us wait on the phone to validate the contract, he took the phone from another rep (who had waited 45 minutes) and just extended that call. After confirming Sasha qualified for an upgrade, he hung up the phone and processed the new contract manually – to again save us time.

We were in & out of the store (including high fives) within 30 minutes. Arun should get employee of the month for how he handled the many variables thrown at him to get the order processed.

Once we were home I popped my SIM card into Sasha’s iphone & connected it to my laptop. Within 5 minutes the iphone was setup exactly as my old one and I was in business.

It was a great birthday present to myself.

28 hours after first popping my SIM card into the new iphone, I had to recharge it. This is a significant improvement over my first generation phone – especially when you factor in the fact that I’ve been downloading apps & test driving all the new features pretty much non-stop for the last day.

The phone overall is fast and the 100+ new features from the 3.0 software makes what was already a great device truly fantastic.

I’m loving the new video recording feature, improved camera (3 mega-pixels) and overall speed of the device. The global device search is very handy as well. I also just discovered the MMS feature – which is neatly integrated with the SMS application.

I’m really happy with the phone so far – and will post a fuller review in about a week.

This weekend I was in Collingwood for some rest & relaxation – and maybe a little golf.  With thunderstorms pounding the area all morning, we decided to go into town to do some shopping.

We popped into the Rogers wireless store to see if they had any 3G iphones in stock. We were in luck – they had both the 8 gig and 16 gig versions available.  I asked for the 8 gig version… and that’s when the fun began.

Rogers will not sell you an iphone if your existing contract with them is less than one year old.

If your contract is less than three years old, they will sell you one – but will add up to $100 more to the price.

The reason? The sales guy said they don’t make enough money from you to pay for the phone subsidy otherwise. The fact that I bought a SIM card last September and not a phone (I alreaday had a few unlocked GSM phones) had no bearing on the outcome.

Any marketer with any customer relationship management (CRM) experience knows that it’s far more expensive to acquire a new customer than to grow an existing one.

By punishing new and existing customers with policies such as the one outlined above, they are actually decreasing loyalty and increasing the likelihood the consumer will leave Rogers the moment there is a competitive alternative. Instead of being an advocate of Rogers, they are creating badvocates as my friend Craig would say.  

I know what you are thinking – Rogers is the only GSM carrier in Canada and the only one with the iphone… so they can treat customers as poorly as they want because they have no where else to go.

That is currently true – but both those statements are not likely to be true by this time next year… at which point I’ll be switching carriers.

Up next: Upgrading my first generation iphone to 2.0.

For those who have been following my blog for a while will recognize this phrase “user experience will trump superior technology – every time.”

Apple has proven this again and again… and this past week as the world rushed to get their second generation or 3G iphone (and crashing Apple’s itunes server in the process!) it will again be the user experience not the technology that will give this device staying power.

Don’t get me wrong – a thinner version with better reception and real GPS is super awesome – but it’s what comes with the new software OS that really makes this device a consumer’s (and potentially a marketer’s) dream.

The 2.0 OS software on the iphone is backwards compatible with your first generation iphone – so the 200,000 or so first generation iphones in Canada will be able to upgrade and enjoy many of the benefits of the second generation device.

Specifically as a marketer, I’m most excited about the App store – think of it as itunes for software designed specifically for your iphone. No longer will you have to jailbreak your iphone to customize and personalize it to meet your needs. Like itunes, you’ll be able to select what apps (games, productivity software etc…) you want and let the app store do the rest.

iphone apps are like widgets for your blackberry – but far easier to download

Smart marketers will also leverage the localization capabilities of the device to bring you a mashup of something truly useful.

Marketers who think mobile marketing is all about text to win campaigns are missing out on the r/evolution of interactivity.  If you’ve hired one such company to work with your brand or agency, you need to rethink your strategy before submitting those 2009 budgets which are due shortly…

With yesterday’s report from the Globe and Mail that both Bell and Telus would start charging 15 cents for incoming SMS messages for customers who are not locked into an SMS plan and Roger’s announcement of a data plan for the new iphone that was widely seen as uncompetitive and unfair to consumers, I figured the future of mobile as a mass marketing medium would be still-born until new carriers enter the market next year.

All may not be lost

In reaction to all the negative press received over their original iphone plan, Rogers / Fido this morning announced a new data plan for the new 3G iphone to be released Friday of this week.  Here are some details:

Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate until August 31, 2008 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G
users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.

You can read the full news release here.  Rogers has also indicated that they will not charge for incoming SMS messages either – making them appear far more pro-consumer than they did just a week ago.

Per my earlier post this week, I still wouldn’t rush to buy that new iphone. Rates and plans are bound to only get better from here.

What was cause for celebration a few weeks ago has turned into a national embarrassment and another reminder that the Canadian mobile marketplace is not yet a very competitive one.

The new plans announced by Rogers are not consistent with plans being offered south of the border by AT&T or in other countries where plans include unlimited data for around $30/month.

The Rogers iphone plan starts around $60 before system charges and other fees. It does include talk time… but only 150 minutes.  You also have a data limit of 400 megs of data… which is not a lot considering the iphone is heavily dependant on data for all their widgets and the average iphone user uses 8 of them on a regular basis.  

Americans on AT&T get 3 times more talk time and unlimited data for about the same price 

Even the Rogers heavy usage plan doesn’t offer unlimited data. Since the announcement and subsequent consumer backlash, they have now indicated that customers can use other “smartphone” plans instead of the announced iphone plans. For example, I could transfer my blackberry rates (~$100/month for data alone) to the iphone. Again, no big deal and still substantially more expensive than other iphone plans offered in other countries.

Wait at least a month if you still really want one and here’s why…

Bell just announced that they will be releasing the new Samsung Instinct on August 8th which will include an unlimited data plan. The Instinct is a touch-based phone like the iphone and offers many of the same features. The user experience isn’t quite as great as the iphone… but it’s a great alternative. Thanks to Kate for sending a tweet on that announcement yesterday!

I wouldn’t be surprised if Telus came out with a similar data plan for their HTC or other smartphone products too… which means Rogers will likely update their plans if they don’t reach their targets with the iphone.

There are two more reasons to wait to buy that iphone…

1. The Rogers deal to sell the iphone isn’t exclusive – which means another GSM provider can sell it. With at least one new carrier coming to Canada after the current spectrum auction finishes up in the next few weeks, it’s almost a certainty that they’ll be GSM based. Expect them to be in market later this year or early next
2. The iphone is a great device… but what makes it really super awesome are all the utilities, enhancements, and UI hacks available for those who were brave enough to jailbreak it.  As of today, there is no jailbreaking solution for the new 3G iphone… but it’s only a matter of time

If you haven’t made the dash to Buffalo or some other U.S. border town already to buy a first generation iphone, you can probably stand to wait a month or two for better rates and more flexibility in customizing & personalizing it.

In the meantime, feel free to join the following online petitions against the new Rogers plans:

• 
• Petitiononline.com