Haha, you know what, suddenly I'm glad I DIDN'T wait for the 3G iPhone. It's gonna cost a bomb now to get the unlocked version since there's no getting past contract activation now. Our best hope is for one of our 3 carriers to strike a deal and bring it in officially..

And also, phone subsidy in Malaysia is virtually unprecedented. The only one I can think of is the RM300 rebate or something that Maxis did during the 3G promotion a few years back but that didn't last very long. So if iPhone's launching in Malaysia, it's gonna break the mould and hopefully, the carriers will start embracing this business model and we'll get to see subsidies for other phone models in the future!!

.... Or not...

The price would be cheap IF the resellers can bring in phones, which I highly doubt if it's true that you have to activate in-store. There's probably a way around this by paying the termination fee etc etc but then the phone's cost would go up so it defeats the purpose.

There has to be a way, since I've seen T-mobile Sony Ericsson AP sets before in Malaysia, brought in by 3rd party companies, not quite sure how that works but all in all, I think this is the end of casual iPhone sellers who sell the 2-3 units that they/their friends bring back home from overseas. Unless of course, there's something I'm missing!

I think because of this 1st gen iPhone's will still have resell value, not like I'm selling mine anytime soon!

You can unlock/jailbreak/activate it yourself actually. These days, it's really really simple. Just need to download iLiberty..

Steve said that it would be US$199 globally, with a tied-in contract of course, so that price is pretty much confirmed. Read that Australia will be selling pay as you go phones for a higher price so looks like Malaysian users can still get their fix of 3G iPhones for a higher price of course. Then again, if it's AU$399 or whatever, that's still around the same price of the 1st Gen iPhone so we'll see..


Also, I think I read that Zibri already hacked the version 2.0 firmware since it was released on beta not too long ago. Not too sure if the final version will be different..

There are upsides to having a plastic enclosure, the main one being better signal reception. Using the plastic back instead of aluminum means there wouldn't be a faraday cage. So there is a benefit to having a plastic back.

Also, assisted GPS has its advantages over "real" GPS because "real" GPS sometimes have trouble locking in your position when you're in places with high rise buildings etc. Assisted GPS uses triangulation to help lock in your location, hence the term "assisted".

Still not enough to convince me to switch though, but there isn't a better time for new users to adopt one now. The only obstacle is the new policy of having to sign up on the spot. Now that is a real problem...

Actually I think that's very clever of him. If I am a serious seller, I'd set up a thread like this and ask people to put in a deposit. If I can't deliver, I'll just return the deposit but if I can, I'd already have a ready list of buyers. The tricky part is getting people to pay you deposit though. That's where track record comes in...

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Added on June 10, 2008, 3:42 pmHaha, I'm sure the authorized resellers in Malaysia already asked about it. Also, I'm sure the big 3 would want their slice of the iPhone pie as well. All we can do is just pray and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.......... And wait

This post has been edited by blackchides: Jun 10 2008, 03:42 PM

Sorry to rain on your parade but even if you get it from Optus/Vodafone and bring it back here, you still won't have warranty. Also, iPhone on prepaid plans would be more expensive. Of course, it's better than not being to get one at all. Just curious to see what the price is like for prepaid iPhone's..

Haha, if it's anything like the US, you wouldn't be able to claim warranty even if you bring it back there because you need an active account for them to service your phone. So the only way is to keep the prepaid account alive if you want the warranty.

Then again, what are the odds of an iPhone breaking down? If you don't drop it on the floor every 2 days, that is..

Haha, if you really wanna know France's Orange sold the 1st gen unlocked iPhone for 749 euros and Germany had it for 600 euros, I think. In other words, damn 7 expensive!!

Actually, if you wanna sell, now's the right time. There's a new policy now where users MUST sign up for a contract on the spot in the US. That means no more take-home-unlock-instead-of-activate trick. So there's a demand for the 1st gen iPhone. I think there are some going for US$4-500 on ebay.

So if wanna sell, better be quick..

We should see some 3G iPhone's here because Australia are going to release the 3G iPhone on prepaid and there should be unlocked 3G iPhones in Europe because of the EU trade laws but the price would be higher.

Also, there was this guy in garage sales who claims he has connections with ATT in US and can get unlocked 3G iPhone's so we'll see. When it comes to selling 1st Gen iPhone though, I think now is the best time:

a) might be some people on ebay who still dunno about 3G iPhone yet

b) US users who don't wanna be tied down to an ATT contract would want to go for the 1st gen iPhone instead.

Hehe, isn't 3G supposed to be all about high speed data transfers? Video conferencing is just something you can do with 3G

I guess in all their haste to brand the cheaper price as a marketing scam, they forgot that the $20/monthly is for EDGE network whereas $30 is for 3G.. $10 increase for a twice the speed, it makes sense..

Haha, not really relevant to us Malaysian buyers because we don't have an active contract with AT&T..

It depends a lot on what type of package is on offer.

If you notice, a lot of the plans that are available for the iPhone has unlimited DATA included in it. If your friend does not have a 3G phone, he/she'd be paying extra for unlimited data which will not be used. Will he//she be willing to do so? Maybe if you compensate a bit la..

Dude.. you're misinterpreting this big time Non exclusive with a specific carrier doesn't mean that there will be carrier-free iPhones for sale. It just means that there will be more than 1 carrier selling the iPhone in that specific country.

For example, US has an exclusive iPhone carrier which is AT&T, UK has an exclusive iPhone carrier which is O2.

Italy will be one of the countries that have multiple carriers, in this case 2: Vodafone and Telecom Italia....

However, there will be unlocked iPhones for sale by the exclusive carriers in France and Germany because of some court ruling but they will set a very high price for it to encourage users to sign up for a plan. For the 1st Gen iPhone, carrier-free iPhones sold by France's Orange was 649 euro and Germany's T-mobile was 999 Euro.

Yep, the iPhone will be available for pay as you go (prepaid) users but the price is unannounced.

As reference,

1) The N95 8GB pay as you go price is 470 pounds after tax.

2) When the 1st gen iPhone was announced, its price was 269 pounds with contract compared to 50 pounds with contract for N95. Point is, the iPhone may be worth more than the N95?

So, we're looking at a pay as you go price of about 450 pounds give or take. Of course, this is just an estimate so take it with a pinch of salt..

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Added on June 12, 2008, 12:10 am Those plans have unlimited data la. Turn on GPS 24/7 also still the same..

This post has been edited by blackchides: Jun 12 2008, 12:10 AM

That is true but the price was about RM2k2-RM2k5 because the sellers were selling it at a very high margin. The cost of the iPhone then was about RM1k3 so they were making lots of money. As more sellers came in, supply went up, the price war started so the price went down eventually to about RM1k7 but that is because they were still making profits of about RM3-400


In this case however, the cost alone is about RM2k5 so I'm afraid it's not going to be the same case this time. Unless of course, they get people to sign up for contracts and cancel one month later en masse to get the phones at the subsidized price OR they have some connections with the telco people. I highly doubt it's the latter: which company's employee would release the phones at the subsidized price without a contract? The company would be taking a loss! Unless of course they do it illegally. And there are only so many people you can get to sign up and cancel...


Then again, is RM2k5-RM2k8 for such a high end phone really that bad? It's about the same price as the high-end PDA/smart phones, albeit without warranty.

No, don't believe. Back your belief up. Why do you think so?