Good news, it was launch day today in iPhography’s home country Australia for the iPhone 4 with the usual lines around the block at flagship telco city stores. We weren’t able to go ourselves but we got told from our phone company to call first thing at 8am to upgrade our iPhones
Bad news, it was some time around 1.30 before I could get through to a phone rep at Optus. But the kicker was that despite the good news we heard in the US of cheap exit fees from current plans to upgrade to the iPhone 4, It looks like that wont be happening here.
So we have 2 iPhones on the 1 bill here at iPhography HQ & we were told that the first iPhone would be $320 to upgrade early & finish repaying the handset with $373 a total of $693 but were willing to wave $160 taking the total for that iPhone to $533. The second iPhone was not going to get the $160 reduction (even though we spend twice as much on that iPhone) so it would be $693
So for us to upgrade it would total $1226 or more than it would cost to buy 1 iPhone outright & even if we sold the 3Gs models we have, it wouldn’t cover it.
Now although we are more than disappointed we will note that it’s fair enough for Optus to charge that because we are on a 2 year contract & are only just over a year into it. So we are not whining about something we know to be our own fault, as it’s not Optus’s problem everytime something new & shiny comes along that we want.
But our hearts sank a little when we knew that we were more in need of a new computer here than the iPhone 4’s & that $1226 would go a fair way towards buying a new macbook.
Some of the phone sites are already showing that the iPhone 4 32gb will be on back order, some saying 4 to 6 weeks?. So we may as well ride out the wait and whittle down our upgrade time
FYI, we upgraded last year for free (must have been some special offer, or an apology for the terrible service we received in the past :P ) & we sold the previous 2 iPhone 3G for $450au & $500au because not as many people upgraded to the 3Gs so there wasn’t a glut of second hand unlocked phones available. Having said that we anticipate that with the large number of first time iPhone 4 buyers & upgraders, that there will be a lot more of them coming up for sale & I expect people will get much less this time around. It will be interesting to see.
Rest assured that unless lotto comes along or a wealthy sponsor for iPhography.com, we wont be getting the iPhone 4 anytime soon, but we will definitely being playing with our friends iPhone 4’s & continue to bring you hints, tips & insights into the latest in iPhography