German news sites tell us that the Apple iPhone is exclusively distributed by T-mobile across variuos European markets where T-Mobile is active. But as AT&T in the US, T-Mobile has to give a percentage of the sales to Apple (I think it’s 10%).

T-Movile invited the press to a press conference on this wednesday to Berlin, rumors say that this will be the presentation of the iPhone in Europe/Germany.

Tho iPhone will be sold at €399, so the previous price drop was really to make sure that USD prices equal the EUR prices.

Apple has setup a special page for all those early iPhone buyers that complained about the $200 price drop. You will have to enter your serial number and phone number and they will SMS you an access code to redeem your $100 coupon.

It’s good that Apple comes up with this sollution that quick, but I would have rather not seen image of Apple kicking their true fans and early adopters in the nuts by the big price drop. Or give a $200 rebate to make everybody happy.

We are all used to custom ring tones on our phones. Although they are sometimes very annoying it is a feature that every modern phone has today.
With the first release of the iPhone and the corresponding iTunes version there was no way to grab your favorite piece of music from iTunes and set it as a ring tone.

Now there is a new version of iTunes on the market where you can select a song you have bought through the iTunes music store and cut 30 seconds out of the song to use it as a ring tone? Sounds good! Well, we have forgotten to mention that you will have to pay an extra 99 Cents to do this! What? It’s only a software thing, select 30 seconds, crop the rest of the song and save it as an extra file. Why does Apple charge for this service? It can be done with any mp3 file within 1 minute!

The iPhone is a smart-phone. Like other smart-phone devices it does calendar, email and other PIM applications. It has Wi-Fi and other network connection options. Apart from the features its price tag is close to other smart-phones from Nokia, Sony Ericcsson or a Blackberry. With these features and the expensive price one could expect that the target audience of the iPhone is not only the casual iPod user but also the business user that needs the PIM stuff to work on the go.

There is one major issue regarding the business user and their iPhone complaints. Most business users are connected to a corporate network. They use combinations of hard and software to run their services like Microsoft Exchange servers or Lotus Notes. These networks have standardized interface for mobile devices so you are able to connect to your corporate network while on the go. Access files, your personal calendar, your contacts and so on. Just like you were at your desk in the office.

Unfortunately the iPhone is not able to do that. We can all understand how business user will complain about the iPhone when they are getting addicted by the nice phone but are not able to use all its data connection features because Apple is crippling its functionality and not opening the operating system (Link to other post) to other manufacturer to program software or plug ins.

To come up with this iPhone complaint we have to look left and right. Ask all the existing phone manufacturers: Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericcsson and all the other it is easier to build up a good framework/system and then settle your applications on top of this.
We have the Nokia has the Symbian Operating System, Motorola has their own and SE as well. They all first established an Operating System and then gradually applied software to it. Symbian even goes one step further, they encourage 3rd party developers to produce software that can be installed on the system. A good way to establish an Operating System in a highly competitive market.

Apple thinks different.
They punch out a phone with all kinds of features and software pre-installed with no real intention to open themselves for 3rd party application developers. The phone features them self are really going to the background on the iPhone, its more the gadget features that promote the phone, that might be one of the reasons there are so many iPhone complaints.

What do you think: should the phone be the focus or the features around it?

How could Apple drop the price for the top 8GB model of the iPhone by $200?
What about the true fans? Apple had always the myth to it that it was a step ahead of the competition, which is in some respect true. That means that there must and will be always people that are willing to pay for this as most of the times being faster than the competition also means you are more expensive.

These early adopters get a kick in the ass by the price drop of the iPhone and they will complain, which is fine.
Ok, there is this offer that you will get a $100 coupon that you can use in the Apple stores, but is that a compensation? No! $100 will never compensate the frustration and disregard these early adopters will feel by getting kicked in the ass by a company they truly love.

Do you agree Are you one of those early adopter? Let me know and share your thoughts!

It’s “iPhone” - that means the device is primarily a phone. Why can’t we remoce the battery on this mobile phone? we all have mobiles and we know that on most we MUST remove the battery to change the SIM card for example. But not on this one. Imagine you are on vacation and don’t have a charger with you all the time. I was hiking last month and have not charged my Nokia for a whole week. Because I had an extra battery! Can I do that with the iPhone, probabably not…
I mean Apple is promiting the iPhone as a true internet device, having Google maps, YouTube, email and all this. But Wi-Fi and the other network connection really draw big on the power consumption. So why cannot I not buy an extra battery ?!?

Just a quick side note. I turned off the nofollow tag on all outgoing links, comments and trackbacks.
I don’t believe in the nofollow tag, it is not fair for those who wants to comment there are better and fairer ways to prevent comment spam. If you leave quality feedback aou should be given credit by a backlink!

When the iPhone was first rumored last year we all thought, wow Apple is introducing a phone? That must be THE gadget to have for 2007!
Now as it is available in the US and will be available in the fall in Europe as well more doubts and concerns are coming up regarding the iPhone.
Major reviewers like Jack Gold from Computerworld have their doubts regarding the iPhone.

Will this expensive little peice of joy live up to its expectations? How does the price drop on the 8 GB model and the total dropping of the 4 GB influence the sales and marketing of the iPhone?
We will adress all these issues and the iPhone complaints in this blog, if you have anything to add submit your iPhone complaint.

I will try to gather as much complaints regarding the Apple iPhone as possible. Please leave comments whenever you want.