Macworld: Apple to Announce iPhone in Canada?
08. Jan, 2008 
12 Comments
On January 15th, at the 2008 MacWorld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs will announce the settlement of Apple’s dispute with Comwave over the iPhone trademark in Canada, that Rogers has revamped the pricing on its data plans and the iPhone is available in Canada immediately at Apple Stores across the country.
At least, that’s what I hope will happen.
A few weeks ago, I picked up an 8GB Apple iPhone from an Apple store in the US. Compared to the my 16GB iPod Touch, it’s noticeably thicker, has half the memory capacity and a tedious activation process. On the plus side, the 2 megapixel camera and volume controls on the side of the device are a big plus.
I haven’t been able to even use it as a phone yet.
Canada’s only GSM carrier, Rogers Wireless is well known for outrageous data plan pricing and with mobility lightweights like Bell and Telus to compete with, there is little incentive to compete. Local Number Portability (LNP) was suppose to foster competition further but Rogers, with their GSM network, is a better choice for many mobility customers.
With new wireless spectrum availability in the not too distant future, hopefully there will be a shake-up soon that will give the incumbent carriers a run for their money. Or I could be daydreaming again.
In the meantime, would the person(s) responsible for the damn iPhone hold-up in Canada appease the geeks and just let it out already?
Man, when you dream, you dream in technicolor. :)
Also, boo captcha… although it is for a decent project.
What, like it’s soooo hard to enter an easy to read, although slightly obfuscated 5-7 letter english word? ;)
$65/1GB for the win. Though the plan isn’t supposed to be for phones, I managed to talk a Rogers CSR into setting it up for my iPhone. :-)
LMK if you need some help unlocking that puppy!
Thanks Nate. It’s 1.1.2 out of the box, so until 1.1.3, there’s no way I can sim unlock it. It’s activated though, so I can use it as an iPod if I want (but that’s what my Touch is for)… so I’m content to wait. Personally, I’m one of those people who would prefer to play by the rules and just buy it through Rogers… alas, as you know… this has not been possible. Happy New Year!
stealthsim/TurboSIM .. what’s another $75 :-)
happy new year to you too!
I have a 1.1.2 OOB iPhone as well, but I did get a StealthSIM to unlock it and use it on Rogers. It’s very nice to have the phone capabilities.
Have a question for “nathan a.” though — how did you setup Roger’s EDGE to work?
@Shivan, I haven’t unlocked mine (as you know), but it has something to do with the Internet gateway setting in the iPhone I think. There’s a setting like ‘internet.com’ or something in order to get the data to work. I’ll check with Nate and see just in case he’s not following this thread.
@Ben Lucier
Ok thanks much.
Hi Shivan,
just make sure you have a decent data plan with Rogers before you do too much EDGEing, the rates are crazy.
EDGE settings:
access point: internet.com
user: wapuser1
pass: wap
(remember WAP? LOL :-) )
Hope this helps,
Nathan
Hey Ben,
It’s already January 25 and still no word of the iPhone in Canada yet. Have you had any updates on the situation?
Thanks.
-Carlin
iPhone will be released in Canada on July 11th at the US pricing (starting a 199) it’s going to be the 3G version. Pricing on Data plans it not yet available.
Hope it helps.