Riy & Justin say you are not allowed to order from the US store with a non US credit card, this surprised me since for me and several other people it works. As long as you have a US based address. This got me thinking though since Riy said he tried to order the IPhone online but could not due to him not having a US credit card.

Could it be possible that they blocked non us credit cards initially? And once they knew the 3G Iphone was going to be launched soon they allowed international credit cards?

That would explain, the fact for the last 6 months of 2007 you could not get your hands on an IPhone here in Dubai, but since January the market has been practically flooded. Almost every mobile store had large amounts of Iphone stock.

Did Apple make the change, allowing non US credit cards to purchase stock online knowing that this would lead to tons of phones being imported into markets that did not have the phone officially? Put in another way, did they purposely turn a blind eye to this, so they could ‘Dump’ the soon to be obsolete stock to meet sales targets?

It would be interesting to know if anyone else tried to buy the phone online with a non us credit card sometime last year and was unsuccessful, post back on the comments or on twitter with the approximate date that you tried.

You cant wait to get your hands on your iPrecious….

But the launch date is only the 11 July. You have to wait a month more if you are in one of the 21 countries, what if you want to get your hands on the phone and you happen to live in the countries that are not part of the list or you want an iPhone without a 2 Year contract? What if you cant wait?

The price of the 8GB is set to $199 with a 2 year contract, so expect the prices of phones without a contract to be much higher. There have been discussions on twitter that the price may be as high as it was for the first IPhone 4000-5000 AED(R8000/R10000) in places like South Africa and UAE. Well i am going to tell you how to get it at the normal retail price without being ripped off (Just between us ok?) .

Some major shipping companies have a service(often not well advertised) where you pay an initial sign up fee and they allocate you an Address/P.O Box in any country(i.e US/UK). They then monitor that mailbox for you, collect the mail and ship it to your normal mailing address.

So as an example, here in the UAE i could pay 40 AED(+-R80) per year, i get an Address in the US. They charge +- 200 AED(R400) per 500G to ship whatever arrives at that mailbox in the US to me.

Signup for the service with an address for a country which has an existing apple online store(i.e US/UK). Use the address given to you by the shipping company to order your brand new 3G iPhone. The shipping company will handle the rest. Some of the companies even insure your mail as well as giving you a shipment tracking number. (You can also use the same address to sign up for an Itunes store account if your country is not supported)

What about the 2 year contract you ask? Well, when you buy through apples online store, and you are a new customer they send you an AT&T sim card. You are are supposed to use the sim card to Activate and sign-up for the contract once you receive your phone. (Which you don’t necessarily need to do)

So if you are in a country which does not even have a deal yet like the UAE or South Africa where the phone will be reserved for 2 year contracts and do not feel like being tied down with a contract and do not feel like paying high prices, take a look at this option.

P.s This is based on current online ordering process for the iPhone, which may or may not change.
P.P.S This method could also be used to order electronic items that Amazon and online companies do not ship out of the US.

****** Update 7: The following countries sell the 3g iPhone officially unlocked South Africa, Italy & Hong Kong.

****** Update 6: The following countries sell the 3g Iphone without a contract (Prepaid) South Africa, Italy & Hong Kong, UK.

This means, if you purchase the 3G Iphone that is officially unlocked and without a contract from South Africa, Italy or Hong Kong, it can be used in any country.



***** Update 5: It seems O2 UK, will be offering it on prepaid, however no pricing announced. I think this would be a good step however i suspect the way things are in South Africa, Vodacom may try to milk as much as they can out of the hype and keep it ‘exclusive’ so you have to take out a High End/Costly package. If they do, You could still use the method in this post to order it from O2 UK.

**** Update 4: Engadget is also reporting in-store activation



And yes… Another update

*** Update 3:
Reading the comments at Gizmodo, it seems some people state its not required to activate the phone in store you can still activate online and order online. The instore activation for apple stores is a new option offered to customers. Lots of conflicting stories, the best is just wait it out and see what the order process is when it launches.

** Update 2:
According to Gizmodo, Penalties will be applied if not activated within a specified time frame, and it will only be available for activation in store. So it seems they have changde the process, though until the launch we can never know for sure and i will update here once i get more details.

*UPDATE 1:
According to one of my plurk friends, if you dont activate the phone within 30 days they penalize you by charging your credit card.
However:
firstly, this would be illegal unless they informed you in advance and 2nd, this method was used to import the original Iphone with no penalties. Monitor this plurk post to see if there are any updates.

Friend: So how is that phone?
Ismail: The best phone i have ever used
Friend: But you cant MMS / It doesn’t have 3G / You cant forward SMS
Ismail: yes, but it’s still the best phone i ever had

Now, please note i have never been an Apple Fan having said that, it is the best phone i have used thus far. Iphone is impacting on mobile internet usage like how blackberry did on mobile email.

Recently a guy ran the girl friend/wife/significant other usability test on Ubuntu Linux, basically to see how easy it is for a non tech savvy user to complete basic functions. The IPhone passes these with flying colours. All my previous phones (HTC, Nokia) failed dismally with functions other then calls and SMS.

I believe this is important. Lets take a look at how access to communications can stimulate economic growth and raise the quality of living.

In a study (PDF) by Harvard economist Robert Jensen he reported that when mobile phones were launched in kerala in 1997, Fisherman used the phones to call local markets while still at sea. This in turned helped raise profits by 8%, lowering consumer prices by 4% and reduced catch wastage from 6.5% to practically nothing.

This is just with access to voice communications, now imagine what easy access to knowledge and information (The Internet) would do?

Mobile phones have been available for a decade in most parts of Africa and there are more people with mobile phones then computers. Africa only has about 4% Internet penetration compared to 29% mobile penetration. Also remember that a number of people using mobile phones in Africa may never have had access to computers or the internet growing up. The environment in Africa may be best for mobile internet. Though mobile internet has been stifled by high data prices, cost of handsets and complicated interfaces.

So what does this mean?

I do not expect the IPhone to actually make a difference since Apple caters for the higher end of the market. Though Nokia has been been working in Africa and if they can develop something similar just as intuitive with easy access to the internet at a much lower price they would win back a fan. With data prices lowering this would allow masses of people access to the large body of knowledge found on the internet. Good times ahead!

The use of sky-hooks system is a useful addition to the iPhone and makes sense when you consider that the iPod Touch does not have GSM capabilities. Though this is not the best and most reliable solution for the iPhone considering the GSM capabilities.

Location based services(LBS) on GSM have been around for many years with the GSM association, a global trade body for GSM, publishing reference documentation as far back as 2001. A number of operators launched LBS but the services failed to deliver the ROI. With the increase of social networking and social networks based on the location this should soon change.

How does all of this affect Apple and the iPhone? Apple should start taking advantage of currently implemented LBS architecture that has already been rolled out by some operators to offer a more consistent and better experience to customers.

Just recently Symbian has announced “Enhanced Location based services” as part of their leading mobile OS. The new architecture covers A-GPS, network-based and WiFI positioning. Expect a number of LBS enabled devices & applications from the Symbian crowd.

Considering Apple’s current business model with the iPhone being offered by a single operator it would be beneficial for Apple and their customers if they implemented these additional methods. It would be much more reliable and accurate at the same time allowing Apple to offer this feature in countries where Sky-hook do not have a DB of mapped out WiFi spots. If the operator has already invested in LBS infrastructure it would make a deal with Apple much more attractive, the operator gaining a higher ROI.

And then maybe…. just maybe we will finally see a real uptake of location based services.