Tag Archive for 'mobile'

Wait, that’s $400 WITH a contract?!?

Published on August 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Setting: An average Rogers store. Center stage is the iPhone podium while stage right and back hold displays of various GSM phones. Stage left is a sales counter, behind which stands Sales Dude.

Me: Excuse me, how much for the Blackberry Bold?

Sales Dude: That’ll be four-hundred dollars.

Me: Wow, I can swing that.

Sales Dude: Alright, let me just print out the contact

Me: (cutting him off) Oh no, I want month to month.

Sales Dude: Sir. Four-hundred dollars is the three-year contract price!

Me: (exasperated) What? Well, how much is it without a contract?

Sales Dude: If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

Me: (with a heavy sigh) Give me an iPhone.

Well, no, I’m certainly not about to give up on my Crackberry addiction and get an iPhone, but Crackberry.com has unearthed a Rogers Wireless flyer showing the latest and greatest hopefully soon to finally be released Blackberry as $399 on a three-year contract. Meanwhile, the much in demand iPhone sits at $199.

It looks like I’ll be using my now archaic Blackberry 8700 for a while longer.

Patent laws makes me want to smash my head into a table until I bleed all over the place…

Published on January 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Okay, this being reported as fact on several web sites, but I’m seriously hoping it’s someone’s clever joke and TechDirt and Engadget fell for it.

This is what I hope, anyway.

Apparently, someone has just obtained a patent for a smart phone, that’s a “mobile entertainment and communication device” and is now suing RIM, Nokia, HTC, Sony Erricson, Motorola and um, basically every cell phone and PDA maker you can think of…

Assuming this is true (I’m still clinging to hope that it’s a sick prank) I’m hoping this will be the proverbial straw the breaks the camel’s back and U.S. courts will finally put an end to this twisted practice of “patent trolling.”

If not, I may just have to go out and patent a “system for managing web site content that places posts chronologically on a web page.” That’s right, I’m gonna patent blogging and you’re ALL going to have to pay me! Mawhahahaha….

…sometimes I disgust myself.

Canadian Mobile Data War 2007

Published on November 18, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

For years, Canadians using mobile data devices (Blackberrys and other PDAs) have been getting royally screwed on mobile data fees. Just one year ago, I think most providers base plans included a “generous” 500 kilobytes per month.

That means users could download…five small pictures, per month.

A few months back, it looked like things might be getting better when both Bell Mobility and Telus introduced 1 gigabyte plans for $100. (Previously, $100 got subscribers 250 megabytes per month.)

Following this, Rogers brought in 500 megabytes for Windows Mobile users only priced at $80/month.

But now, things are getting interesting with Bell Mobility firing the first shot.

With their introduction of the HTC Touch (kind of a Windows Mobile version of the iPhone,) they’ll be allowing users to add on their basic $7/month unlimited web browsing plan. On a PDA, not a regular cell phone. Which is, well, insane. Even Americans don’t get their data that cheap – the unlimited iPhone data plan is $20/month.

Telus seems to have countered by offering unlimited e-mail for both the HTC Touch and Blackberry Pearl. Problem is, no web browsing there.

Rogers is also giving unlimited e-mail…for the Blackberry Pearl as well.

While this battle was a long-time coming, it would be nice if it didn’t target only consumer. Users of standard Blackberry devices are still stuck with 4 megabytes per month for $25. And I’ve said many times before, these prices really come off as discrimination against small business owners and the self-employed. Since the better prices are for consumer-oriented devices only, it looks like that’s going to continue.