Seacom – you cannot come soon enough, and hooray for competition!

With the advent of Seacom taking up our minds in the next 6 months, companies finally have to start competing properly. One major problem that Seacom is creating is that the current broadband offerings in SA is all on at least 24 month contracts, which means that anyone who buys the service now will hear a few months from now how the prices are dropping or the caps are being raised for new customers only.

It is for this very reason I just keep on buying prepaid data bundles on my 3G phone. At least I have the choice to stop paying should something better come along.

Today Vodacom announced that from 1 April 2009 all 3G contracts will be automatically enabled to use 3.6Mbps HSDPA transfer speeds. In the past, users had to pay R49 extra per month just for the speed. This is very good news, especially to people who use newer high end phones like iPhones.

“From 1 April 2009, all Vodacom customers will be able to connect to the Vodacom network to the HSDPA 3.6 service with a HSDPA 3.6 capable device, at no extra charge”

The disadvantage is of course that your data cap can now be reached all the sooner. Seeing as the pipe is bigger, you might be tempted to download more seeing as it is so much faster now. This is where MTN (and the wonderful thing we call “competition”) comes in. Rumour has it that MTN is starting to offer roll over data bundles, so that a user can carry over data he has not used from one month to the next. (Update: This was confirmed at midnight! So all MTN users can now carry over unused data, amongst other great new features)

If all this innovation comes quickly enough (I just need cheaper bundles!) I might actually never switch from 3G. On the other hand – it is only a little more than a 100 days before Seacom is active.

Let the price war begin!

Finally got a iPhone

And I love it. Even though these days I am starting to believe more and more that Apple is becoming the evil company Microsoft once was, I am pretty sure the iPhone is the most innovative product to come from Apple in a long time. Yes the iPod was great, but the iPhone is – groundbreaking. And I got a cool little iPod Shuffle because I was one of the first to buy one

Granted, I only have for about 5 days now, but I have been using it intensively (put me in any meeting long enough, and my phone becomes my plaything).  So far I am loving it – but I have to admit it is not perfect. I still believe Symbian is a better OS, and I will still recommend any Nokia E-series over just about any phone any day.  But the iPhone is not only a phone – it is a whole new computer platform.

The main reason I got it was because I had my eyes on a new iPod touch 2G – but I decided to just make the jump to the full iPhone. Wasnt it Steve Jobs who said that the touch is just a iPhone on training wheels?

So here is what I have found so far:

Pros:

- The interface is amazing. No other phone comes close.

- The build quality is stunning, but I am still treating it like a porcelain doll. It is just so pretty .

- Mail is much better than the messaging on any other phone, incl Symbian.

- iTunes integration works without hitch, and the iPod aspect is without problems.

- The battery is better than I expected. We are all waiting for the elusive all day computing device. This is it.

- The 3G is much, much faster than my E61. And a lot more stable. Could be the HSDPA component?

Cons:

- That big beautiful screen sucks the battery dry very quickly. Especially when you also start hammering the 3G and Wifi.

- The keyboard is terrible if you are typing anything but english.  When I am typing in Afrikaans the predictive text changes the words. Why cant I switch this off? Software update please?

- There is no decent multitasking – coming from a E61, I am used to running a IM app, web browser and email at the same time. But I am sure this will be fixed soon enough.

I am aware the keyboard and multitasking issues can be fixed with jailbreaking, but after spending R7000 on a phone I am a little hessitant on something that may brick my phone. 

Yeah, about the price – R7000 is actually not out of this world pricing, especially if you take into account what top end Nokias and HTCs cost. Never in my life will I ever again use a Windows Mobile phone, and the N series phones are a bit too chunky for my tastes. The only phone I see as a true competitor to the iPhone is the E71. R7000 is the price of a low end laptop, and no I do not want one.  I think I made the right choice…