Overpaying For Mobile

Eric Silvka posted an article today talking about how US carriers are gouging their mobile customers with their upgrade programs, then concludes with the following paragraph:

In all cases, customers would seem to be able to save some money by purchasing a contract-free phone upfront for $650 and then reselling it on their own terms whenever they wish to upgrade, almost certainly saving hundreds of dollars in the process.

You think this is bad? You should see what Canadian wireless carriers have been getting away with for years[1] — the CRTC is finally reigning them in this December, though.

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1. And keep in mind, those prices are on 3-year terms. I bought my iPhone 3G on a 3-year term and still paid $199 for it. I actually called my service provider — Fido and asked why I was paying the same subsidy as Americans who are on 2-year terms. I was told that Apple mandated those contract lengths. So I called Apple, they told me my carrier was a liar. Armed with that information I called Fido back and told them what Apple said to me. Then I was informed that it was, in fact, Fido themselves who set the contract lengths. When I recovered from the shock I asked for the number to the corporate headquarters so I could ask someone about why 3-year terms were necessary — the CSRs have no access to any such number and it’s not on their website, just an email address. I took it upon myself to email them daily for about two months… no reply. I gave up. With 6 months left on my contract I lined up on launch day for a brand new iPhone 4S (that’s right my early upgrade from my iPhone 3G was a 4S). After signing my contract and coming home I got my confirmation email. Turns out I did not extend my contract to 3 years, I extended it by 3 years! Meaning my contract is up in April of 2015. 2015! I signed a 3.5-year contract to get an iPhone 4S 6 months early. Absolutely incredible.  ↩

Market Fundamentals

Dmitry Fadeyev:

If this is the view of the market that Microsoft subscribe[s] to, then Windows 8 is the answer to that...It’s an OS that assumes that most computing will be done on devices that resemble powerful tablets with detachable keyboards, not on the laptops and the desktops of today. It’s an OS that tries to serve everyone at once, to cover all use cases and all markets....

But this only holds if the original premise is correct, that the tablet is the evolution of the laptop, and I just don’t think that’s right. Where the division lies is not a[t] the desktop and the mobile level, or between the laptop and the tablet, but between professional use (i.e. content creation), and light/entertainment use (i.e content consumption). While tablets are not necessarily used purely for content consumption, their limitations (small screen size and lack of a hardware keyboard) mean that this will always be their main use.

This is what Apple has demonstrated an uncanny understanding of since 2007, and it's why they're making money hand over fist.

RIM Might License Blackberry OS

RIM CEO Thornton Heins via the Telegraph:

We don't have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There's different options we could do that we're currently investigating.

I call BS. Apple is leading the charge in Mobile and they only release one handset a year.