Ismail Dhorat

So, you waited up, sat at your computer and eagerly awaited the news on the 3G IPhone. You have drunk the cool aid:

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.

Tagged as Apple, Iphone, South Africa, UAE + Categorized as Uncategorized