This morning I awoke to some incredible (and I mean this in the true sense of the word; I can scarcely believe it) news:
Rogers Issues Statement on the Apple iPhone
TORONTO, April 29 /CNW/ — Ted Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers Communications Inc. today issued the following statement:
We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.About Rogers Communications Inc.
Rogers Communications is a diversified Canadian communications and media
company. We are engaged in wireless voice and data communications services
through Wireless, Canada’s largest wireless provider and the operator of the
country’s only Global System for Mobile Communications (“GSM”) based network.
Through Cable and Telecom we are one of Canada’s largest providers of cable
television, cable telephony and high-speed Internet access, and are also a
full-service, facilities-based telecommunications alternative to the
traditional telephone companies. Through Media, we are engaged in radio and
television broadcasting, televised shopping, magazines and trade publications,
and sports entertainment. We are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange
(TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B), and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). For
further information about the Rogers group of companies, please visit
www.rogers.com.
Yes folks, Hell has officially frozen over.
But wait… let’s see: “later this year” could mean anything between April 30th to December 31st. So the longest I’ll have to wait will be 8 months. I guess that’s good news. I have to admit, this did look like an April Fool’s posting that is 28 days too late.
At the very least, we’ll see an end to the hand-wringing and cries of Why does Apple hate Canada? on so many of the web sites here.
Glad you’ll soon be getting a new toy, David.
Watch out for the flying pigs ! ! ! !
At first I thought your post was about some kind of bird watching thing you did this weekend.
Should be interesting to see how this plays out.…somehow I don’t think it’s going to be as good as what US residents have with respect to pricing and plans.…but we’ll see.
John -
Yeah, I know what you mean. I can’t imagine that data rates in Canada will suddenly plummet to US levels. That would require more than flying pigs and hell freezing over. In fact, it would probably signal the end of times…
Hi Bob -
Actually, I (like many, many other Canadians) already have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone. Nevertheless, it would be nice to have one that was officially sanctioned (and if I had trouble with it, I’d have some recourse).
David, there was a rumour a couple weeks back (that came from about as good of a source as you can hope for) that the Rogers iPhone would show up in September — I believe it even more in light of the news today.
I’m guessing it’s also going to be the 3G model?
David, your Canadian data plan whining is behind the times. Even Rogers has finally anted up, though if you read some of the sillier commentary out there, you may assume this is not completely, totally aimed at the impending arrival of a certain slab-faced wireless handset.
It is, and it means that the month-to-month charges for consumers with Rogers-sold iPhones will be pretty reasonable.
I’ll be veeeeery curious to see what the price for the iPhone is in Canada. They’ll be coming out just as I’m thinking of upgrading my current cell phone. Then again, I suppose the real question is — since I don’t text message people from phones and I happily lug my laptop wherever I’m going these days anyway — do I even really need one? I may simply be too lazy to take advantage of all its features.
Jonathon — I’ll be curious as well, but I know what you mean about the ‘do I need one’ question. I’d have to say that this isn’t one of those things one needs, but it sure is a blast to use:
The web browser is very good — it makes most web sites quite viewable, and ones that are designed for it look beautiful and are easy to read and use. Facebook, Twitter, Google and a couple of other iPhone-optimized web apps are now permanent icons on my home screen.
Having a good digital video player is great to catch up on a TV program so on a ride on the bus or skytrain, I have something fun to help kill the time. The iPod music/podcast/audiobook storage (only 8 GB) is a little small for my taste, but I’m expecting future models will address this as the cost of memory goes down.
The phone part of it is just plain spiffy and a pleasure to use. I love seeing the face of whoever is calling (if I have a photo of them in my address book on the computer). The UI for creating conference calls is easier than I’ve ever had before (easier than most desktop phones).
Being able to make my own ringtones from any sound or music I have is fun, having my photos available all the time can come in handy (someone the other day asked what the train to Whistler was like and I was able to pull out a few photos of the trip in a couple of seconds).
A bunch of other software (and there’ll be far more after June when the software store goes live) holds the promise of a whole bunch of new possibilities. I’m looking forward to a good chat client, an RSS Reader, and perhaps a Skype client. If that goes through, then whenever I’m in a wifi network I can call anywhere for either free (or cheap, if it’s skypeout) with a real phone, rather than a laptop. Ya gotta love that.