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Three iPhone Carriers That Make AT&T Look Like a Deal
Posted by John Mahoney at 4:10 AM on July 16, 2008
When Steve announced the iPhone 3G on stage at WWDC, one of the more interesting tidbits was the mention of a locked-in maximum price of US$199/US$299 in every launch country. But if you listened closely, you would have heard the key qualifier: "almost every country." Some deviation from the U.S. price is unavoidable, which is why Steve hedged his statement, but users in three countries in particular--Canada, Belgium, and Spain--are getting taken out back and walloped, each in their own special way.
Skype's latest US$9.95 international subscription plan seems fantastic if you're calling relatives or friends in other countries really often. Just pay US$9.95 a month and you'll be able to ring up landlines in one of 34 countries (mobile phones are only supported in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the US and Canada), and if you buy three months' worth of credit before June 1, you'll get one month for free. Super useful for when you've got older folks in other countries who don't really know how to use a computer to Skype with. Or if you don't want them to see over video chat that you've gained some weight. [
With Jaxtr, we've got a cheap (free) and easy way to send messages internationally. Before now, whenever we saw a hot lady dressed up in a Stormtrooper outfit we had to send Jesus hundreds of IMs in hopes that the chime would wake him up. No longer! Now all we have to do is log on to Jaxtr—it works from the iPhone too—and type our message in there. Their service only supports a limited number of countries such as the UK, Sweden and Germany, but it leaves out some big ones like Japan and Spain. Wait, Spain? Guess Jesus is going to have to wait a few hours to see Ms. Stormtrooper. [
TiVo has just made a patent licence agreement with Gemstar-TV Guide in order for the latter to deploy TiVo service in international markets. In regular language, that means TiVo service is coming to other countries, but may be either in actual TiVo boxes or as just software in a third-party box. Either way, chances are that it has features like Amazon Unbox are very low. Hit the jump for the full release.
