Today TheTelegraph blog broke the news that the iPhone will now be available on Vodafone – a quick follow up to yesterday’s news that Orange will also be making the iPhone available to its customers in the run up to Christmas.
BBC had a great analysis of how smart Apple was for opening up the iPhone to Orange customers just as the iPhone’s exclusive shine was beginning to fade, despite O2’s heavy promotion of the phone over the past two years.
What I found particularly interesting was a PDF available in the BBC article, showing the difference between O2 and Orange’s coverage. Many an iPhone user will surely be excited to have options as to what provider they use, and the prospect of being able to have an iPhone through Vodafone must be a pretty cool prospect as well.
However, my main wonder is if Vodafone will soon be announcing that the iPhone, when released on Vodafone, will have their new Vodafone 360 package available on the phone.
It was certainly hinted at their press conference about 360 last week, and I very much got the impression that Apple were happy for 360 to be used on their almighty phone, and that the Vodafone big boys just couldn’t announce anything yet.
If Vodafone 360 was available on the iPhone, I think it would make the iPhone a much, much better device. While I’m usually partial to Blackberrys and have my eye on the new Motorola DEXT with MOTOBLUR phone, 360 seemingly kicks MOTOBLUR’s ass.
While both of these new address book and contact focused technologies grab your social network’s contacts statuses, locations and most recent profile photos, making them available in your address book – Vodafone 360 is much more of a “suite of services” than MOTOBLUR, and gives you the option of using 360 on phones that aren't even on Vodafone's network. (Unlike MOTOBLUR which will only be available on a handful of Motorola devices, through Orange.)
The full 360 experience will be available on a handful of Samsung Vodafone 360 mobiles.
However, if you’re not a fan of Samsung devices, 360 will come “embedded” on other devices (Nokia was mentioned quite often) with almost the same functionality as the full 360 experience.
Not keen on buying a new phone? 360 will be available through download on "hundreds" of other devices and components of Vodafone 360 will be made available so the user can experience the “connected” address.
Not on Vodafone? www.360.com is available to anyone and everyone – and it really does seem like a great way to organize your information and contacts.
So, you can see why the iPhone being equipped with Vodafone 360’s connected address book would be very exciting. I just wonder how much of the 360 experience will be available on Vodafone’s iPhone. Surely the app shop and music store are direct competitors with the iPhone apps and iTunes that are obviously native to the iPhone.
I suppose we’ll have to see.
I’m hoping that Apple embrace as much of 360 as possible, as I think it will truly enhance the iPhone – and I think it will sway a lot of Vodafone users who before were a bit put off by the iPhone to give a whirl.