Is that French or is the picture just blurry. Either way I can’t read it. This looks like something Duncan would do.

Yes, this is French. The setting page in french.

300 Euros … that’s surprisingly cheap … seems like Apple isn’t applying the usual 1:1 exchange rate anymore

Hum… It’s in French indeed, but I find it weird that in “Fond d’Ecran”, “Mode Avion” et “E-Mail”. In proper French you don’t capitalize every word in a sentence (not even in titles). It should be “Fond d’écran”. “Mode avion” and “E-mail”.

And “Off” is not French…

I just realized that the title of the flickr photo is spelled weirdly too…

“iphone en France premiere image”

Instead of “iPhone en France première image”…

No 3G????

what’s the point of having an iPhone without a unlimited data plan?! Are French willing to pay an extra 100€ or 200€ each month? I don’t think so.

Are you forgetting biggest item to report ? Is it unlocked or not ?

It better be.. And what would that mean to ATT ? Ebay may be the gainer - most of us would be buying from E-bay then ? or Apple Europe ?

It wont be unlocked, Apple has no reason to do that

The unlock software is available on the web now however if you know where to look

Excuse me if I may seem a little ignorant of conglomerate ownerships, but is there a reason why this picture has T-Mobile listed in the top-left corner as the service provider, rather than Orange?

They did mention it was in roaming mode (hence the t-mobile) - its likely that Orange isnt set up yet.

Oh yes…Thank you, Max. My eyes inconveniently flew over that. I appreciate it.

I don’t get it; 3G in France is pretty much expected fare; why are they coming up with the equivalent of a 56.6Kbps modem in a DSL world ? How does that sustain the image of the iPhone as the uber-gadget for sophisticated technology aficionados ?

(On French: Pascal is right, the capitalization is wrong; looks to me like the job was assigned to people who know how to exchange words in a resource file rather than people who are aware of the target culture; they should have hired back Jean-Louis Gassée or something.)

Things like capitalization should be corrected otherwise it will look like a rushed job and I don’t think Apple want it to be seen that way.

Interesting……

btw - how is that Alcatel - Lucent merger going?

hahaha.. didn’t expect that quality of pic (focus on background) to be used here

Why on earth would you buy this brick without 3G? In Europe we have a wealth of Smartphone options that all support 3G, its like buying yesterdays technology today.

Hugely disappointed in Apple if this is true.

Hmm Good News, When in india ?

Cool, the price seems to be good

What connection does France use?

DSL or 56k modem

In response to the connection speed question, my Dad gets 28 Mbit/s for a price that is lower than what I pay here for 5 Mbit/s. There is also a 100 Mbit/s option through fiber optic. This is through free.fr, but I believe Orange offers up to 18 Mbit/s to the consumer. I don’t know of anybody over there who still uses a modem.

France internet users obviously uses DSL or fiber, like any European country. The point of the previous messages is that launching a non-3G phone in a market flooded with 3G phones will make the iPhone a hard to sell good.

Actually, I bet a lot of people will be tempted to buy it anyway because Apple is glamour nowadays, and many will buy it, but GPRS data speed is really a jump in the past. It makes the iPhone look so old… It’s like selling now a phone from 2003. It will be slower than a 56k modem when people are used to phones with at least DSL speed, don’t even take into account the new HDSPA phones and data cards.

I imagine they’ll launch an iPhone3G later on but what’s hard to understand is why with a launch price of 300 Euros Apple didn’t add a 3G radio module. If that increases the price, let’s say, to 350 Euros it would still be better than what they’re paying in the US. Yes, it’s doesn’t include the unlimited data plan, but from a marketing and customer point of view 350 still looks less than 399

Although iphone is such a hype and it does have some nice features, conquering Europe wont be that easy. 3g is a must here, and locked service can be very problematic. Plus, Apple is getting some negative publicity lately with this revenue sharing model with the operators. Not good, not good at all. Stuff like this will bring Apple down to the Microsoft reputation and thats a killer for the brand.

I’ve had a 3G Nokia for the last couple of years and it is SO SLOW. I only bother checking Gmail or doing Yellow Pages lookups when I have long minutes to spare, for watching the proverbial eggtimer. Perhaps it’s Symbian, perhaps the network, I don’t really care: to me 3G has been one serious letdown.

Ref #20 about connection speed in France:

Look at this survey:

http://www.itif.org/files/Case.....Policy.pdf

You will see that France has a better penetration rate, a better price and a better speed for broadband connections than the US do.

7th France: Average speed: 17.6 mbps - 1.64 USD/month for 1 mpbs
…
12th United States: Average speed 4.8 mbps - 3.33 USD/month for 1 mpbs

mighty strange that the pics of the iPhone are blurry and the other photos on this flickr account are perfectly fine (less blur). So what’s wrong with the photographer?

bjurn

the problem is not the photographer, but the camera.

@Rollyo: I have a 3G Nokia (E61) and I find the speeds to be very good (train, stationary, $tarbucks, etc). Maybe its my network (TMobile), but everything has been pretty decent.

Sure its not as fast as a slow DSL line, but I certainly would never go back to GPRS speeds after this.

@ #3) 300€ = $416 USD
How is this “surprisingly cheap” considering they are $399 in the U.S.?

I have a locked iPhone using the AT&T network. I’ve found that the network is fast enough when I’m not connected to WiFi. Everyone complains that the iPhone needs to use the faster 3G network, but they don’t realize that 3G is a battery hog and performance isn’t much better.

That’s interesting. Why don’t they offer an unlimited plan in France? I hope in the other European Countries this will be available as soon as the iPhone is presented.

It is strange, as there are providers in Germany that sell the MB for 24 EUR cents for mobile UMTS data transmission and there are already flatrates for around €25/month. We will see.

I want to add an important detail. The french mobile operators are forced to give all the material needed by the customers to unsimlock their phones six month after the beginning of their contract.

So, Apple will indeed need to included an unsimlock procedure in his phone. The contrary will be an offense with french laws. So no matter protections installed by Apple, they will be forced to offer their own way to unblock the iphone.

This is obviously not Apple’s localization, but some hack.

Wait some months and price would go down. Then 300€ for iPhone would be a good deal. And do not forget that phone is locked for one operator.

Overhyped crippled shite for Mactards and fashion lemmings.

@Steve (#20)
It is not the exchange rate you must use to compare the prices, because of all different contextual data (couple years ago, exchange rate was just the opposite you know).
A good way to compare is to translate the price into Mc Donald’s Cheeseburgers both in US and in France for instance, because Mc
US Iphone = 199 cheeseburgers in the US
French IPhone = 166 cheesburgers in France

So, yes, it’s cheaper.

Ok it might seem strange to do that, but
1 - it is a valid and wise way to compare
2 - Iphone and cheeseburgers are the same kind of shit that keep the US from being a nicer country.

@Arnaud (#32)
This is obviously not a comment by Arnaud, but some hack.

Very Good News, When in Poland ?