Finally. On July 11, the iPhone becomes available in Belgium via Orange’s partner here, Mobistar.
Apple combatted their reputation for being a provider of expensive hardware by halving the (dollar) price as part of the iPhone’s official expansion into most of Europe and beyond.
Apple really is set to keep growing because of one very important factor. Generally, their products don’t. Apple are a miniturisation company and they are very good at it.
No other company pays so much attention to the form factor of their products and keep changing and refining that form factor. When people come round to my place, they look at my iMac, say “Nice screen.” and ask where the computer is. I can hold the music that previously took up the space of a wall in a room in the palm of my hand. I reckon I’ll succumb to the iPhone as well, so soon I’ll have an entire OS in my hand as well.
If you take miniaturisation to it’s logical conclusion you have nothing and that is exactly what they have built in iTunes. Movies, TV shows, music, books, it’s all their in a virtual format, part of our dematerialised economy.
They didn’t invent any of this stuff, but they are good at implementing it and bringing it together.
Roll on July 11 and vive la pomme!
[Update, looks like Mobistar are rolling back on the July 11 date and saying some time in the summer instead] [Further update, it is not back to July 11. see here]
yes, they are :-D