Optus have revealed their pricing plans for the much-anticipated iPhone. Two options are available - post-paid (or normal contract plans) and pre-paid.

Data charges are about what you'd expect - not great. A $79 / month plan, which sits smack in the middle of the monthly contract options, includes 700mb of data. Excess data charges look like $0.35/MB.

Make sure you read the fine print, which takes up more than half the page.

$0.35c/MB? In other words, "High enough that it's not viable to use Skype instead to make voice calls".

I heard $279 and $30/month from Optus, no idea on data though.

just got the email, w00t~!

when is availability?

HOLLLLYYYY CRAP!, 78c per minute voice rate!?

site is gettnig thrashed. hasnt gone to it even after a minute

8GB iPhone 3G (Black)= $729
16GB iPhone 3G (Black or White)= $849

Prepaid pricing. Add $80 to have it unlocked within the first 6 months of owning the device (or put $80 worth of credit on the service to have it unlocked for 'free').

Not too bad though - About what I think was expected?

Reasonably priced.. now to decide between it and the N95.

Edit: to be fair Telstra had their pricing out a few days ago.

iPhone 3G will be available from Telstra on July 11 with a range of specially designed Next G™ iPhone 3G plans that meet the needs of any customer. The Next G™ iPhone 3G™ plans start at $30 per month with an upfront cost of $279 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. Customers will receive the 8GB iPhone 3G™ model at no cost with the $80 plan and either the 8GB or the 16GB model at no cost with plans starting at $100 per month. All plans include free Wi-Fi access at Telstra hotspots and require a 24-month contract.

No outright purchase though.

last edited by TicMan at 14:40:54 03/Jul/08

Reasonably priced.. now to decide between it and the N95.

How do Nokia phones go syncing to Outlook etc?

I would have thought the competition is now between Windows Mobile and iPhone. Symbian seems to just plain suck for development, at least from what I've been reading, plus its just lame to use.

My E65 (work supplied) has no problems with Mail for Exchange. Symbian is a bit stagnant with their development but maybe Nokia purchasing them recently will shuffle it along.

You're right that the competition is now Windows Mobile & iPhone but unfortunately the wifey dictates that my competition is now between an iPhone and the N95 as the WM devices I was looking at (HTC Touch, SE X1 Xperia) are too expensive :(

Optus have revealed their pricing plans for the much-anticipated iPhone.

Holy crap @ the call rates, flag fall, voicemail charge, data excess charge, phone price.

I'll pass, this is incredibly unappealing.

yeh, fair enough. I think I read recently that there's rumours nokia might open source symbian, which (IMO) is their only chance before they get crushed between Apple, Windows Mobile, and Android.

Nokia phones can use Mail for Exchange to achieve something similar to what you get with Exchange Activesync on WinMo devices. It's freely available from the Nokia website, although from memory there's only a certain number of handsets supported by it.

yer i have to decide between it and the n95 too ticman

i have the same $79 plan with Optus and it's $550 worth of credit per month so you will find it hard to use up.

I saw a telstra advert for the diamond today, it does look good (diamond, not telstra) but it listed it as exclusive to telstra, no wonder the entire HTC Australia marketing team quit the other week.

yeh, fair enough. I think I read recently that there's rumours nokia might open source symbian, which (IMO) is their only chance before they get crushed between Apple, Windows Mobile, and Android.

Woah... Woah... Woah...


Thats he biggest mobile phone company in the world you're talking about there. I think they're doing okay for themselves.

Google currently have 0% market share. Apple have about 1% and WMM has about 10%. I'd hardly be worried about any of them if I were Nokia...

i work for a symbian dev company, look for an app called roadsync, does the job well enough ... unfortunately nothing inbuilt into symbian phones that i know of


edit: oh yeah I was talking abnout exchange synching, somehow missed to point that out

last edited by Le Infidel at 16:37:56 03/Jul/08

I'd hardly be worried about any of them if I were Nokia...

Yeh you're right, they should probably just sit back and rest on their laurels, all these other companies entering the mobile arena prolly won't last very long

Well, I'd certainly be more concerned about my real competitors... LG, Samsung, SonyEricsson etc.

Admitedly, I believe LG and Samsung are in the OHA, but still... What percentage of mobile phone users do you think really care about the operating system of their mobile phone?

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Gartner_mobiles_07Q3.jpg

last edited by mongie at 16:41:45 03/Jul/08

the massive percentage who want to install custom apps and sync to their exchange servers silly.

Mongie, sony erricson uses UIQ which is a derivative of the S60. The idea between nokia buying out symbian is to basically get rid of Symbian, UIQ, S60 and that other one I cant remember to bring out a royalty free Symbian OS to strengthen its position against other OS's.

For corporate stuff Europe is mostly Symbian, Japan mostly Symbian, US windows mobile, china that un-editable embeded linux stuff and Australia just has too much of a mix of different products for such a small market so doesnt count.

Roadsync is a good app, but the last few revisions of Mail for Exchange are also really good and they're free, which Roadsync isn't.

Mail for Exchange is available from here, but it's only supported on Symbian Series 60 (possibly even Series 60 3rd Ed - haven't been in the mobile space for over a year now).

Apparently, in the smartphone space, Symbian has 65% market, Windows Mobile 12%, Blackberry 10% and Apple 7%.

doesnt look bad gesthemene but its not able to use WLAN when available

That's odd, because it used to :( That was one of the tests I had to perform on it when I was testing it.

oh my bad, you have to add the WLAN access point manually, doesnt search for it like in roadsync so you were right

haha apple fags getting ripped a new one, whats new?

What percentage of mobile phone users do you think really care about the operating system of their mobile phone?

Probably only a few percent.. But according to the marketing dept in 'Apple Wonderland'... The only way to make full use out of your phone is to have an easy way to get the apps you want onto it.. that way is fast becoming the App store, its beginning to look more and more like itunes in its infancy.. (that is to say by the time its got a huge slice of the market other offerings finally wake up and 'give it a go')

The iphone isn't much about 'oh wow its a just a phone' its more about the sales people and steve jobs and the general hype bandwagon telling the world that this is how a phone should work, wether its right or wrong.. they're in the business of telling the world that its the right direction and people/competitors are following in that direction...

i think the plans are pretty good, considering .au track record with s*** like this. i think 500mb on a phone is pretty reasonable... its not like you'd use it for downloading ur torrents :P

that being said i hope someone writes an app that lets you connect your laptop via bluetooth to the iphone to harness it's 3g net for when traveling :)

Funny thing is, all the phones pimped out in Korea & Japan absolutely s*** over anything we have available in Australia. DVB-M, GPS, 3G or higher, etc.. those crazy azns have it all figured out.

I was with a colleague in Seoul when he whipped out his old phone and start showing me all these TV channels that are broadcast for DVB-M - one was even 24x7 Starcraft goodness.

and it's $550 worth of credit per month

This kind of thing really annoys me; I think all "$X worth of phone calls" advertisements should be banned. As others have commented in this thread, the call costs are high, which unsurprisingly matches up to a high value of "free" calls.

I say it should be banned because it is just a scam to deceive customers. A 30 second block of talk time has no intrinsic value; the mobile providers can (and do) just pick a value almost at random.

Its only a matter of time until we see "$1000 worth of calls" and the underlying rate being multiple dollars per minute.

What percentage of mobile phone users do you think really care about the operating system of their mobile phone?

Well, why are people going to by the iPhone? Sure, because its shiny - but also because it does a bunch of cool things they want to do

I say it should be banned because it is just a scam to deceive customers.

Couldn't agree more. All the plan variations and complexities only serve to confuse the customer and make it harder to see the actual value.

Its only a matter of time until we see "$1000 worth of calls" and the underlying rate being multiple dollars per minute.

Can't we just make $1m of calls per month?

I say it should be banned because it is just a scam to deceive customers. A 30 second block of talk time has no intrinsic value; the mobile providers can (and do) just pick a value almost at random.

I think its somewhere in between Nate. My Vodafone contract has "550 of included calls" for 80 dorras. I was very skeptical about it as the call rates were 20-30% more than my old Telstra plan.

In practice though the difference is pretty big. Using the phone sparingly on my Telstra 50 dollar plan I often racked up 100+ dollar accounts. On my ew Voda plan I haven't managed to get over 300 of the included call value, and I've gotten really lassiere-faire about the thing, making calls at random on a whim.

Actually my telstra plan was the worst kind of deceptive account keeping I could imagine. I could never work out the bill! So many inclusions, exclusions, bonus time etc - all I knew was that my "$50 plan" was costing me over a hundred a month regularly.

In contrast my Voda plan is very clear - stuff is included in the cap or not, and I can easily check my billing status online.

Well, why are people going to by the iPhone? Sure, because its shiny - but also because it does a bunch of cool things they want to do

I would argue the reasons for people buying an iPhone are as follows... (in preferential order)

1) They need a new phone and they've heard how awesome the iPhone is from newspapers and apple fanboys. (Hype)
2) It looks awesome and does "all these cool things" (Novelty)
3) Its an iPod + Phone in one, which I will admit is actually very convenient.

I HIGHLY doubt that many people would really look at this phone because they think that its features are the best.

Hell, I bet you most people aren't even aware that phones have "operating systems".

Yeah I bought my n91 because it could be used as an MP3 player or a portable hard drive and had all the regular phone functions you get with a Nokia phone. I had no idea what operating system it used and didn't care until I installed Divx on it. Most people are after a brand name they can trust with a few key features to pique their interest.

Mobile internet is still prohibitively expensive, more so if you end up having to roam on another network. With the way the internet is in this country it is very unlikely that it will change. That added cost coupled with an already expensive mobile plan means most people just don't use the net on their phones very often if at all. Most applications are based around using the net and are great for countries where mobile internet is relatively inexpensive but here only a very small percentage of mobile phone users are going to care if their favourite app is supported by a particular phone.

I HIGHLY doubt that many people would really look at this phone because they think that its features are the best.

Well, these people have too much disposable income then, and if they buy an iPhone then whine they can't meet their mortgage payments or about the price of petrol and demand the government fixes it then they're dicks!

3) Its an iPod + Phone in one, which I will admit is actually very convenient.

If I could get an iPhone for a decent price and just use my current sim with my current prepaid crap I'd do it, but theyre almost 950 after unlocking which doesn't really sound like "Half the price!" as Apple seems to think they are...

last edited by ³dee at 11:40:12 04/Jul/08

3) Its an iPod + Phone in one, which I will admit is actually very convenient.

Well, I'll be upgarding my current 16gig iphone to the 16 gig 3G iphone because it'll have faster net access while I'm not in a wifi area for one thing. I'm also looking forward to checking out the build in GPS stuff becuase I like to take the kids out Geocaching (look it up if you dont know what this is).

As for the device itself, I f***in love it. I was so sick of the Windows Mobile try hard phones. They are so clunkly compared to how slick this thing is to opperate. The fact that it has a 16 gig drive so I can load a s*** load of movies for the kids and have that showing on screens for them in the back of the car without worring about a dvd jumping back to the start every time I hit a bump is f***IN AWESOME.

I had never had an apple device before this thing, but I have to say, damn its good.

Edit, and by the way, its the only phone I think I have ever had that has worked correctly without any drama with blue tooth devices.

last edited by E.T. at 18:03:47 04/Jul/08

I HIGHLY doubt that many people would really look at this phone because they think that its features are the best.

But the apps making use of those features will be... if the apple and developer hype is anything to go by..

Its the polish and ease of use, not the features. All I do on my current phone is make calls and use GPS software, yet Windows Mobile (v5 , admittedly) still manages to make the experience clunky.

Upgrade to WinMo6 - It's a definite improvement, although how much largely depends on what you use the thing for.

For me, it's going to be much easier and cheaper to keep using my 16gig Touch PLUS a cheap mobile phone. Really looking forward to seeing what's going to be in the Apps store.

Upgrade to WinMo6 - It's a definite improvement, although how much largely depends on what you use the thing for.

And get access to taskmgr.exe!

Apple so paid them out for that.

Ouch! If Vodafone NZ's pricing is anything to go by, Voda AU is likely to be damn expensive..

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/iphone/plans.jsp

$NZ599 up front for the 8gb iPhone on a minimum $NZ80 plan for 24 months?

I'll pass!

iPhone only
iPhone 8GB
$979

iPhone 16GB
$1129

And voda's finally got pricing on the AU website. What a suprise, whilst it's cheaper than the NZ pricing, the plans are still seriously uninspiring.

http://store.vodafone.com.au/iphone/

$69 Vodafone Cap Contract for Apple® iPhone™ 3G (Coming Soon)
iPhone 8GB for $189 or iPhone 16GB for $309 includes $310 of talk, TXT & more plus 250MB data per month

$99 MyBusiness Cap for Apple® iPhone™ 3G (Coming Soon)
iPhone 8GB for $99 or iPhone 16GB for $219 includes $600 of talk, TXT & more plus 500MB data per month

$99 Vodafone Cap Contract for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for $99 or iPhone 16GB for $219 includes $600 of talk, TXT & more plus 500MB data per month (Coming Soon)

$119 Vodafone Cap Contract for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for $59 or iPhone 16GB for $179 includes $800 of talk, TXT & more plus 500MB data per month (Coming Soon)

$169 Vodafone Cap Contract for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for FREE or iPhone 16GB for $89 includes $1200 of talk, TXT & more plus 1GB data per month (Coming Soon)

$69 MyBusiness Cap for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for $189 or iPhone 16GB for $309 includes $310 of talk, TXT & more plus 250MB data per month (Coming Soon)

$119 MyBusiness Cap for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for $59 or iPhone 16GB for $179 includes $800 of talk, TXT & more plus 500MB data per month (Coming Soon)

$169 MyBusiness Cap for Apple® iPhone™ 3G
iPhone 8GB for FREE or iPhone 16GB for $89 includes $1200 of talk, TXT & more plus 1GB data per month (Coming Soon)
----
$29 Jumbo Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for $339 or iPhone 3G 16GB for $460 plus $130 credit (Coming Soon)

$49 Maxi Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for $242 or iPhone 3G 16GB for $363 plus $310 credit (Coming Soon)

$79 Super Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for $169 or iPhone 3G 16GB for $290 plus $600 credit (Coming Soon)

$49 MyBusiness Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for $242 or iPhone 3G 16GB for $363 plus $310 credit (Coming Soon)

$79 MyBusiness Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for $169 or iPhone 3G 16GB for $290 plus $600 credit (Coming Soon)

$149 MyBusiness Cap Contract
iPhone 3G 8GB for FREE or iPhone 3G 16GB for $121 plus $1200 credit(Coming Soon)

last edited by darkjedi at 09:54:06 09/Jul/08

^- worst iPhone phone plans ever.

Ooh interesting, went to the site and viewed plans, hit refresh and now it's back to the "Pre-register" page.

What the f*** is wrong with Telstra.

They are planning on sending an SMS to everyone registered on Friday morning with plan details. Way to leave it to last minute.

I just rang the 3 city stores to see if i could even find out when they are opening on Friday and the Wintergarden one didn't answer, neither did the Queens Plaza one. The Central Plaza one did and the guy knew nothing. Best i got was him "believing" that all the city stores would open at normal time of 9am on Friday. He could not even say which stores would be stocking it.

I don't get why all 3 providers are doing their best to f*** everyone around. How hard would it have been to anounce plans, opening times and stock levels at least a few days before the launch.

Because they want to capitalize on the people who just want an iphone not matter what.

Why you would want to rush out before all the details are out from all the telcos is beyond me, but I bet heaps of people do.

last edited by ara at 10:20:32 09/Jul/08

Because they want to capitalize on the people who just want an iphone not matter what.

Yeh I'd have to agree; this is the standard f*** the Early Adopter technique that we've come to know and love. I'm actually surprised that they're not trying to screw people even harder; I reckon they could easily spread a couple hundred bucks / year over some of those plans and still get a hell of a lot of people signing up.

Optus sent out an email this morning about store openings and stuff regarding the iphone release. Some stores are opening at Midnights while the rest at 7am

as i found at last night, the reason why is that apple will not allow a shop to sell the Iphones unless they have staff trained, has to to with the whole Apple Certified crap.

People at work(telstra) atm are doing 4day training for it as they basicly have to know the ins and outs of the phone/software.
so yer..

they have also yet to be told the plans, they seem to be keeping it pretty close to the chest atm.

So basically only stores that have done the training packs will sell the iphones from day 1.

Its also very likely stock will not last long. =Z

last edited by 3x0dus at 10:34:23 09/Jul/08

Optus sent out an email this morning about store openings and stuff regarding the iphone release. Some stores are opening at Midnights while the rest at 7am

Are any of the Brisbane stores being listed as midnight? Stuff on news.com.au suggested noone is opening at midnight up here.. Not that it worries me, I've learnt how badly early adopters get screwed over :)

Sydney midnight store opening - Optus mobile customers with holding deposits only
Can't wait to get your hands on your new iPhone 3G? To celebrate the launch of iPhone 3G, we will be opening our Optus World store at 280 George Street Sydney at 12.00am on July 11.


If you're in Melbourne or Brisbane, we'll be rolling out the yellow carpet prior to the 7.00am store opening at our Chadstone store in Melbourne and our Queens St store in Brisbane. So if you can make it, join us for the countdown.

so looks like only that sydney store is midnight with all the rest being 7am

Vodafone pricing revealed...

Telstra Pricing leaked out..

wow, those telstra plans are terrible. looks like optus have the best ones so far

5Mb data on 35 dollar plan WTF ARE THEY THINKING

ho ho ho

Are australian telcos trying to flop the iPhone? I seriously don't get how these plans could possibly be any more s***.

Telstra's 200mb data for 89 a month. liek wtf?!?!

What happened to 3G 5Gb for $39 on a pc? Why are mobiles so much more expensive when it comes to data??????

Half the point of the iphone is to USE data!

Are they kidding.. the included calls don't change from the $35 to $149 plan. Here's hoping my new friend at Optus insurance finds me an iPhone tomorrow.

wow, those plans _really_ suck

no wonder they waited until the night before to release pricing

oh well. Possibly a $29 cap plan + X-series 1G data plan for $30 might be the go?

after reading up some more, it looks like telstra are slicing and dicing up the options as usual, making buying a mobile the most head-ache ridden experience ever.

So apparently that pricing is just for $30 plan with incrementally larger data packs tacked on... so for a $50 it would be different.. and so on.

I did read that you can use for free all of Telstra's Wi-Fi spots however. Are there lots of those around? I think AT&T have the same thing here.

I think it'd be less lame if the bandwidth plans were shaped/forcibly capped when you hit bandwidth limitations. There's no way I'd volutarily be going back to the dark ages of getting massive bills, especially for something as random as a mobile phone when I don't understand what the software is doing behind the scenes.

I did read that you can use for free all of Telstra's Wi-Fi spots however. Are there lots of those around?

A lot of Maccas have them. One in Wintergarden in the city for example.

Possibly a $29 cap plan + X-series 1G data plan for $30 might be the go?

are you talking about a telstra plan with a 3 plan tacked on? how will you ensure you only use 3 for data?

don't you need to run a voice account with 3 to get the x-series addon?

yes, buying the phone outright and then tacking it on a 3 $29 cap plan, with the 3 X-series 1G plan. But now I think about it, 3 roams on Telstra GSM outside 2100 areas, and their coverage isn't rock solid, so I reckon alot of times the phone will be cranking hard to get a decent connect (low batt), or it'll roll back to EDGE on T, which I don't think is covered in the allowance? Sounds a bit shady.

Reading around, it seems many people are happy with just several hundred meg a month over the wire. Maybe Telstra's not such a dud afterall..

wait a couple of months and three will have them too...

I use 3 data a lot, and yeah it does flick back to telstra which is not covered in the plan, though you pay normal 3 excess rates not telstra's our-data-packets-are-solid-gold-and-float-to-you-on-a-stream-of-oil rates.

so maybe it would be a cheap way to use the iphone with telstra's network coverage.

So who is actually getting one of these tomorrow? Please do the right thing and hold out to tell the telcos they are jerks!

yeah, I'm getting my 50bux back and waiting now Billy. I just DL'd the 2.0 firmware but I wont load it up on my old iphone until the pwned tool is available. Maybe this will be in the next day by the looks of their blog

Here are all of the links to the telco's iPhone pages. (Again I am sure)

Optus
Vodafone
Telstra (Some stores open from 6am today, I am heading down there now, NOT!!!!!!!!!. As if you would bother, every one knows that the first people always pay more)

From what I can see unless you are prepared to go on the more expense plans you can forget about getting any real data included.

I think I will just stick with my Nokia E65 which my work pays for, also the big features that iPhone are missing for me are Bluetooh sync with a lappy and series business apps.

My company gets all their phones from Optus so maybe one day they will offer the iPhone as a choice of handsets, I can dream right?

so I rocked up to the optus world shop at indro at about 10 to 7 this morning, none of the priority queueing s*** they were bulls***ting about in their emails for optus customers with a deposit and they sold out of the 16gb ones within the first 20 people with a raincheck option for when they get a new shipment at the start of next month

lol.
ACCC should ream them all for selling a product without suffecient retail quantities

ahah boba that's f***ing lame

Haha wtf boba.

Also:

after reading up some more, it looks like telstra are slicing and dicing up the options as usual, making buying a mobile the most head-ache ridden experience ever.

True that ... my Telstra mobile plan was very f***ed up, heaps of credits and charges and deals that somehow managed to add up to f***ing expensive every month.

Ima just sell my iPod touch and Nokia 6500 and get an unlocked Optus one.

Not worried about data, will look at that down the track. All I want atm is just the one device with both ipod and phone.

Anyone want to buy a GC nokia 6500 classic in bronze???

I got a White 16GB on Optus. Wanted black but they only had like 30 (i was number 55 and they sold out at least 15-20 before me).

Friend will want a white one so in a week or so when he gets a black one we will swap. Or else they said i should be able to swap it myself.

Optus was pretty cool in Queen St Mall. They were entertaining and supplied us with free bacon/egg muffics and coffee and hot chocolate. Then douughnuts and cupcakes.

Did the full show there with heaps of cameras and interviews and all that.

I am just waiting on Telstra to cancel my account and it be swapped to Optus.

Work supplied me with a new black iphone this morning.
I tried to copy & paste but it wouldnt work, so I gave it to the receptionist.

hahaha Strex, your a funny bastard.