EDIT: Thanks to liamk on the O2 Forums, it seems that this trick could work for every single person who has a contract on O2. Check the link for full details.

EDIT 2: It worked! Hurrah! I can confirm that for me, at least, they were happy to let me go, without even trying to dissuade me.

So, let’s pretend that about a week ago, you signed up for an iPhone on O2, on their €100 plan. You are now tied in to 18 months of O2, but managed to get an iPhone for free. That’s a total of €1800 over 18 months, for a service that is miles below par against other European networks (for more on this, check out my other blog post, “The Irish iPhone 3GS ruined my hopes and dreams“).

Well, O2 just made a change to their terms and conditions. This counts as breaking the contract you had set up with them. Naughty, eh? And they were kind enough to notify customers on a totally out of the way page on their site, mentioned nowhere. And, you may notice, they have done this twice before. So no feeling sorry for them for what I am about to suggest.

Basically, since they have broken your contract, you have until July 12 to phone them up (on 1909), and tell them that under regulation 17 of the European Communities regulations 2003, you would like to cancel your contract. So you are off your contract now. Here comes the fun bit.

As part of the same regulation, you have the right to cancel without penalty. It is YOUR RIGHT to cancel your contract, but stay on as a monthly customer, on the exact same plan, just not tied for 18 months. Of course, from reports, it seems that different people are being told different things. Some are being told that they must leave the network (false), some are being told that they are simply not allowed do this (false). Just keep pushing, and you should get it all worked out.

An interesting factor in this is if you are allowed keep any upgrades that you may have in your account. For instance, if I wanted to take this opportunity to get out of my contract, would I then be able to resign a contract in September when my upgrade will come into fruition, and get a cheap iPhone 4? I don’t know. Some people are being told they can and some people are being told they can’t.

So, why would you want to do this? It is almost guaranteed that with Vodafone and 3 having iPhone 4 on their network, there is about to be a lot of competition in the market. This legal loophole allows you get out of your contract, and move to another provider, getting whatever deal they have going on the new iPhone. Or, if O2 steps up to the mark and provides the best option for iPhone 4 contracts (doubtful) you will be let resign and (hopefully) get a cheap ass iPhone. This, of course, all hinges on if they let you keep your upgrades or not.

Has anybody had any experience with this? I’m going to look into it some more and try it out tomorrow, recording the entire conversation. I will only go through with it if I can get spoken confirmation that I can keep my upgrade.

Tags: iPhone, O2

You may remember, a couple of months ago I blogged twice about the iPhone. First came “Am I impressed with the new iPhone?“, which resulted in the fact that Yes, I did in fact want an iPhone. 8 days later came “The Irish iPhone Ruined My Hopes and Dreams“, in which I explained how the Irish iPhone was a total waste of money, claiming that it “might make your face fall off”. No idea why.

So I acquired one anyway, being the active consumer that I am, and have had it for about a month and a half now. I stick by my statement that the lack of Visual Voicemail is an extreme pity, and reduces the value of the iPhone as a whole, and the fact that the price plans are defiantly a bit high for what they include (€45 for 100 minutes, 100 texts and 1gb of data?) are still a sore point. However, I need to show some SERIOUS respect for the people behind the Talk2O2 Twitter page and Support Forum.

I have had the odd problem and question with the iPhone so far. One with Billing cycles (there was something odd showing up with the Bill.), one with people not getting MMS that I send them and another with Text Bundles and how they work when you cancel them.

I spoke to them in the private area about the Billing Cycle question, and Daryll and Paddy made short work of explaining that which I didn’t understand, fully communicating at each stage of trying to work out what was going on, offering to send me both hard and email copies of the bill in question, and generally being very very helpful.

As for the MMS problem, I at first tried emailing O2 with the problem, and despite O2 continuously reassuring me that their support center was “O2 ‘CCMA Contact Centre of the Year 2008′”, the person at the other end of the email just seemed to be copy-pasting out of a script that had next to nothing to do with my Problem. On complaining about this on Twitter, the @Talk2O2 people came to ME and asked what the problem was! We did a bit of DM-troubleshooting, and worked out that it wasn’t my phone, but the other people’s. So not something that I can change, really.

The third problem was dealt with in about half an hour, over Twitter. I had asked if, when a Text Bundle was cancelled, I would loose any remaining texts from the bundle. Whoever was on the other end of the account got back to me within half an hour to tell me that I would loose them all, but then went beyond the field of wonderful and offered to cancel the bundle for me automatically the second that it was due to renew, which would let me finish using the messages, but wouldn’t keep me subscribed for the next billing cycle!

So what have we learnt today then? I still think that the O2 price plans are a little bit mad, all things considered, and the O2 Email support was pretty dire in my experience. However, the Talk2O2 people are top class friendly fellows who know what they are doing and how to get it done professionally and well. Hats off to you two, Dayrll and Paddy! You win this week’s “Scodio Phone Network Support Crew Of The Week!”.

Tags: iPhone, O2

As you may have noticed in my last post, I want an iPhone. A fair bit, actually.

Now, Today, O2, the Irish carrier of the iPhone released their price plans. The general consensus is that while the unit price of the iPhone on Pay As You Go is fair enough, I did a bit of hunting around two other European iPhone carriers, and am about to show you something that might make your face fall off.

Be warned.

According to siliconrepublic.com, the prices for the new iPhone (Bill pay) are as follows.

• On the lowest (€45 per month) plan (I am taking the lowest plan for this blog post) the iPhones cost €199 and €299 for the 16gb and 32gb phones respectively
• On the middle (€65 per month) plan, the iPhones cost €129 and €229
• On the top (€100 per month) plan, the iPhones cost €79 and €169

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Well, that’s pretty much in line with Europe prices”. WRONG!

I looked at France and Germany’s iPhone Prices. Again, I tried to find the plan closest to the lowest price O2 plan, being €45 per month. If I screwed something up, let me know in the comments. Also, I am only looking at the unit price for the phone here, as that is what us Irish are being ripped off with, mostly. But don’t talk to the UK about being ripped off. They get it worse then us.

Here is the iPhone 3Gs, 16gb on a €40ish per month price plan with Orange in France. If this were O2, we would be paying €199 instead of €149 for the iPhone, and we wouldn’t be getting Visual Voicemail.

Here we have both the 16 and 32 GB iPhones, as they cost in Germany, on T-Mobile, again on €45 per month ish plans. Note the prices. On the 16gb iPhone, we get a saving of €70, and a saving of €50 on the 23gb iPhone.

So, this peaked my interest. Why would O2 have to charge more in order to sell us the iPhone 3GS? Here are my closest ideas.

1. In costs more to ship each iPhone to Ireland.
2. O2 have to pay for the server meltdown they suffered when they announced the iPhone prices.
3. O2 think that they can gouge more money out of the Irish market then Orange or T-mobile think they can gouge out of their markets.

I’m not sure which it is, but I will let you do the deciding.

Tags: iPhone, O2

I have long stated that this may well be the year that I get an iPhone. This is for a few reasons.

1. I want an iPhone.
2. I want an iPhone.
3. I think that the whole electronic mail thing will catch on soon.
4. I want an iPhone.

So, I sat down to the WWDC Keynote expecting a few simple features from the new Jesus phone that Apple would surely introduce.

1. I wanted a better camera
2. I wanted MMS
3. I wanted Video
4. I wanted background apps
5. I wanted it to be cheaper. A lot cheaper.
6. I wanted the One More Thing (as I mentioned on Twitter) to be Steve Jobs doing a dancing duet with John Mayer, while juggling tablet Macbooks

Apple managed to both disappoint me at the keynote and thrill me. Lets look at why they thrilled me first, shall we?

This, my friends, is a picture of somebody doing science. With an iPhone. You see, the developer of an app called Spark decided it would be a good idea to show it’s data logging app off in front of what is basically the entire Mac Developer community. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for a start, the balloon refused to inflate, resulting in no data being logged.

Tell me, Sir, how you plan on showing off your data logging app (which I am sure is quite awesome) without any data to log?

Anyway, Spark managed to finish their demonstration, by asking the audience to imagine that there was data being logged. Fun fun fun!

Now. On to the not so much fun stuff.

Firstly, it’s not cheaper if I want to get the new unit. Knowing O2, AKA Evil Network Operators from Hell, if I am going to be getting a Pay As You Go iPhone, I will likely be paying in the realm of €500, or $700. That’s pricey. Along with that, we will likely not be aloud use tethering as part of our (expensive) data usage.

Apple have teased us with their new 3 mp (ZOMFG) camera. We were long clambering for a better camera, and technically, they gave us one. Only technically, mind. I suspect that any photos not taken in perfect lighting conditions will still look a bit like arse. My pal, Charley, has a 5 year old Nokia phone, which has both a 5mp camera AND flash. What’s going on here, Apple? Why the optical arse?

Sticking on the topic of the camera, we got another long yearned for feature. Video. Again, however, I feel ever so slightly cheated by the big A. It records in VGA, at 30 frames per second. That’s right, VGA. Lets take an educational break and check out wikipedia for a second.

The term Video Graphics Array (VGA) refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987

That’s right. First introduced in 1987. This is the same year that Typhoon Nina smashed the Philippines with 165 miles per hour (266 km/h) winds, The King’s Cross fire on the London Underground killed 31 poor commuters and the year Henry Ford died. So in all seriousness, 1987 really doesn’t have much going for it.  It will be like a history lesson every time I want to record a newborn baby or something.

From here on out, I don’t want to sound like I am picking the new iOffering apart, but I am. So ha.

• No 802.11n. Whut?
• The compass just seems like a silly waste of money to me. But anyway.
• I’m marking the ability to Cut and Paste down as something AGAINST the iPhone. Not because I don’t want it. I really really do. But it should be there already, m’kay?
• FM transmitter. We were promised in many rumours ages ago that Apple might possibly include an FM transmitter. Oh well.
• Downloading Movies. So apparently we can download movies through the iTunes store now. Oh wait. We can’t. Because Ireland is not important enough to attract that kind of thing. Booh you, Apple!
• Hundreds of other things like lack of HD camera, HD playback, Flux Capacitor, you know. The things every 2009 smartphone should have.

So that is what I think of the new iPhone. What about you? Is there a single feature that you wish was on the iPhone that didn’t make it? Mine is that flux capacitor. Oh, and a video of Steve Jobs and John Mayer dancing a duet…

Tags: Apple, iPhone, O2