I’ve been lusting after a SmartPhone for a while now, and until the Android phones get some serious real-world use and reviews, the best money is still on the iPhone, even if it means selling your soul to the devil. I was really looking forward to seeing what Orange would do, price-wise, and if that would start a small price war.
Orange, you’re a bunch of stupid, stupid, stupid wankers.
The Guardian ran an article about the tariff comparisons and, in a nutshell, there is less than a quid’s difference between the two. What’s worse is that Orange, in their usual shoot-yourself-in-the-foot mentality, have decided to put a 750MB data download cap on the contracts. They have later mentioned on the Beeb that they’re “re-thinking” this policy after it caused a small bit of uproar in their potential user base… Idiots.
What’s the deal killer for me though, is that Orange’s terms and conditions for its mobile internet ban applications like Spotify, Facebook and YouTube.
In the company’s T&Cs, it says: “Not to be used for other activities (eg using your handset as a modem, non-Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing, non-Orange internet based video). Should such use be detected notice may be given and Network protection controls applied to all services which Orange does not believe constitutes mobile browsing”.
Orange has, however, commented to the BBC – saying: “We do recognise that iPhone customers will use popular streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify etc. As a result we do not intend to apply network protection controls to anyone, as long as they are within their usage allowance. The T&Cs are in place to reserve the right to restrict access should they continue to exceed our Fair Usage policy, and our other Mobile data users suffer a reduced data experience as a result”.
So yeah. That’s my main reason to buy an iPhone gone out the window. And having to rely on the good graces of Orange not to do something terminally stupid? Not going to happen.
*Sigh*
I’ll keep my much-battered LG for now and hope Vodafone have more than two braincells they can spare and/or that Android really takes off.