Tag: Apple

Telkomsel and XL Axiata begin selling iPhone 4S in Indonesia today

Today Indonesia’s Telkomsel and XL Axiata will begin selling the iPhone 4S. In a departure from past pricing plans, this time each telco has markedly distinct packages and even different pre-paid costs. Additionally, there is approximately a 10% increase over the cost of past iPhones while in the US it has remain the same since 2008 for every iPhone model.

Previously outright cost of iPhone 4 used to be Rp 7 million and Rp 8.2 million for the 16 GB and 32 GB respectively. The iPhone 4S now start from Rp 7.7 million for the 16 GB all the way to Rp 10.3 million for the 64 GB.

The 4S being released in January may seem a little late compared to the December release of the iPhone 4 in 2010 but one needs to remember that it wasn’t until mid October last year that Apple began selling the 4S in the US, so now Indonesia is only four months behind instead of six or more. The 3G was released in March 2009 and the 3GS in February 2010.

As for the pricing plans, here are the packages from Telkomsel. The lack of contract plans in Indonesia means buyers are given the choice of 12 month credit card installments or full price purchase.

The included free calls and SMS are intra-network only, meaning they apply only within the same network, not to numbers from other mobile network providers as per local regulations.

It’s very likely that as it had been in the past, post-paid packages are valid for pre-approved customers only as new Telkomsel iPhone customers are generally directed towards pre-paid options.

Pre-paid customers have a new daily plan to choose from which limits them to 60 MB data consumption per day. Previously all packages had been monthly.

XL Axiata’s iPhone plans are different as well this year. In addition to the three 12-month credit card installment plans and the option for outright purchase, the blue network now offers six-month credit card installment plans for pre-paid customers. The total costs of the pre-paid installment plans differ very slightly from the full up-front purchase price which makes it quite an attractive option.

At the conclusion of the installment period, customers are enrolled automatically to a 1.2 GB monthly data package with the standard call and text rates. Excess call/text/data are charged at prevailing rates.

[update] 

Forgot to include pre-paid costs for iPhone 4S on XL Axiata. They are 16GB Rp 7,999,000; 32GB Rp 9,199,000; 64GB Rp 10,399,000

Personal hotspot use is included in the data packages of both Telkomsel and XL Axiata.

Telkomsel does not bundle voice/text/data packages for its pre-paid plans while XL Axiata does.

How the US lost out on iPhone work

This incredible investigative report by the New York Times takes a look behind the scenes on why Apple outsources its manufacturing work to Chinese companies and workers.

The company held out for as long as it could to maintain manufacturing within US borders but eventually caved in and in 2004 shut down its last US plant in Elk Grove, California, which was making Macs. The former plant now serves as a call center for Apple.

As to whether the US can reclaim manufacturing jobs from China, this part is damning:

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

The Atlantic last year calculated how much an iPad would cost if it was manufactured in the US, it was $1,140. That point was rebutted but then the rebuttal itself was claimed to have been taken through a misunderstanding. If this is all too confusing to follow, let’s take this discussion back to the point in the NY Times article.

“What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

China’s Foxconn can and has done this.

How the US lost out on iPhone work

Thoughts on Siri

Tim Bajarin for Time:

Indeed, it’s pretty clear to me that Apple has just scratched the surface of the role Siri will play for them in driving future revenue. At the moment, we are enamored with its ability to enhance the man-machine interface. But that’s just the start. Siri is actually on track to become the first point of entrance to “search” engines of all types tied to major databases throughout the world. It will become the gatekeeper to all types of searches, and in the end control which search engine it goes to for its answers.

Apple may not have to compete directly with Google and Microsoft on the search engine front to be a force in search. With Siri, Apple gets to be the gatekeeper to the hundreds of specialist search engines if it manages to pull off deals with databases such as Craigslist, OpenTable, Apartment Finder, AirBnB, Edmunds, IMDB, and the like.

The key to this is being able to pull off the deals. Right now, Siri works with Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. Many (but not all) of those database or search sites make money off display advertising, which will be completely bypassed by Siri users. To have Siri scour their databases and deliver the results directly to users would undermine the very lifeline of their existence.

Not all of those sites will agree to what Apple may propose but Apple could do two things; buy out enough range of specialist search sites to further legitimize Siri, or convince them that Siri will eventually be the preferred way for millions and millions of people around the world to look for information that they will bypass websites and search apps anyway, thereby depriving the sites of visitors. Apple could say that turning down Siri would mean turning away customers.

If Apple were any other company, it might tack on iAds on Siri but at the moment, it doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps one could think of Siri as iTunes, a unified place to seek out relevant bits of information from many different sources. Of course, the business model would be different. People wouldn’t pay for premium search options, or would they?

Ever thought of Siri operating in a similar way to a cable TV service offering a multitude of subscription packages of search databases with a free basic set? Might have crossed the minds of people in Cupertino but given how iTunes is there to disrupt that very business model, it might seem unlikely for Apple to adopt it, not to mention putting people off.

Siri might not be fully working around the world at the moment and whether Apple will earn revenue out of it remains to be seen, after all, Siri is still in public beta and it might take Apple a while before it’s ready for a proper roll out.

It’s a bit difficult to imagine Apple allowing the next iPhone to be released while still carrying a beta version of Siri. 

[update] Or Apple could add ability to purchase things online from Siri.

Thoughts on Siri

iPhone 4S coming to Indonesia’s Telkomsel January 27

Today Telkomsel revealed on its website that it will be bringing iPhone 4S to Indonesia on January 27. While the release seems rather late, it’s worth noting that the 4S did not make its world debut in the US until mid October, much later than in previous years in which Apple launched its new iPhone models in the middle of the northern summer.

Indonesia’s release dates of the iPhones had been erratic with the 3G model being released in March 2008, the 3GS in February 2009, and the iPhone 4 in December 2010. There were rumors that Indonesia was supposed to have been part of the mid-December roll out along with Malaysia, Thailand, and the rest of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the 4S is ready to roll now for an end of January launch.

Apple supposedly scheduled for a complete iPhone 4S roll out by the end of 2011 but apparently negotiations with some carriers in parts of the world took longer than expected and we ended up with January releases for a number of countries.

At this moment, there is no word on pricing and there is no indication of pre-orders. In the past, pre-order numbers for Telkomsel had been very misleading as it involved no commitment from the consumers and the actual sales number of the launch weekend never reached pre-order levels.

The other Indonesian carrier for iPhone, XL Axiata, has yet to reveal its plans.

The timing will be very close to the Indonesian launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus on January 21, which is two days from now, and ahead of the still rumored launch date of the Lumia series from Nokia, set for mid February.

PS: What about Siri? Well, it won’t be fully operational. Any location-based queries simply won’t work in Indonesia, or across Asia for that matter. Most of it would be there, but if you ask Siri anything to do with location, such as asking for the nearest sushi bar, you won’t get anything.

Singapore Looking to Sell Camera-less iPhone 4S

Who would want to buy them? Apparently Singapore’s national servicemen. The military has guidelines regarding electronic devices and that includes the restriction on camera-equipped gadgets. Seems that it is often the case that military personnel would use one phone for personal use and another during active duty.

Taking out the camera from the iPhone clearly is an unsanctioned modification and as it happens, will void the warranty although it is likely that the telcos who modify the phone may be required to foot the bill on service requests, depending on how Singapore’s consumer protection laws work.

Since the camera is one of the iPhone’s most significant highlight, it makes no sense why anyone would want to buy a camera-less iPhone regardless of military regulation. If anything, these servicemen who may already have an iPhone since half the country apparently does already, or those looking to buy one, could just buy another phone that has no camera.

There are plenty of camera-less phone in the market and it would be much less costly than having to buy two iPhones or even just one “blind” iPhone. With a two year contract, the 64GB model supposedly will go for S$900 (US$700). A basic phone would fetch for S$50-$70 and switching SIM cards between the phones, if you don’t want to keep two numbers, isn’t that complicated.

This reminds me of the tall tale of the NASA pen, which, although humorous, was mostly false.

Singapore Looking to Sell Camera-less iPhone 4S

The multitasking bar in iOS = browser history

Fraser Speirs:

you do not have to manage background tasks on iOS. The system handles almost every case for you and well written audio, GPS, VOIP, Newsstand and accessory apps will handle the rest.

There is almost absolutely zero need to manually kill the apps listed in iOS’s multitasking bar as it’s not a list of active apps but a list of recently used apps. It’s no different than if you had opened your browser and go to the history list. Apps listed there are not active. A few exceptions to this case of course exists such as when an app hangs but it doesn’t mean you have to clear the bar every time. It’s not like you clear your browser history regularly do you? 

The blog post is not a particularly long one, but for the short-attention span crowd, go straight to the summary section.

Even the Geniuses at Apple’s Genius Bars still get this wrong.

The multitasking bar in iOS = browser history

Analysts can’t figure out iPad sales, pretends it doesn’t exist

Charles Arthur, in Guardian:

Why does NPD ignore the iPad, though? It’s the tablet that is actually selling well. Comparatively well. And as Gruber also points out, the whole “76% of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn’t even consider the iPad” is a meaningless statement until you know how many consumers did buy an iPad. Then you find that it’s 76% of 11%, or 8.3%. Which means that even among the people who bought a TouchPad, at least half considered the iPad first.

Clearly, people in the US who buy tablets tend to consider the iPad in their purchasing decision.

Analysts can’t figure out iPad sales, pretends it doesn’t exist

screen grabs of the siri vs tellme video. the important parts.

Microsoft’s TellMe vs Apple’s Siri

Major iOS security bugs fixed in latest update

Not only did the Levi’s update of iOS (I’m gonna call it that since it’s 5.0.1) bring you better battery life, adds multitasking gestures to the first iPads, resolves bugs with Documents in iCloud and improves voice recognition with Australian accents, it also closed the security bug that was publicly exposed by Charlie Miller a few days ago which cost him his Apple developer account.

Other fixes: iPad 2 passcode security lock bypass and removing DataCert as a trusted certificate provider.

Major iOS security bugs fixed in latest update