Jul 10

Geekus Interruptus! Vodafone sucks and now I won’t get my iPhone!

Wow! My disappointment over the iPhone release is now complete! I finally got my “special offer” from Vodafone for pre-ordering in the email. I clicked the special offer, “just for you” button to discover that the price plans were exactly the same as everyone else’s – Vodafone you suck!

Apple’s iPhone 3G is released tomorrow and I won’t have one! The repercussions of Vodafone Australia not releasing their price plans until this morning are: a) I have change to Optus because Vodafone’s plans suck, and b) Because I had to wait for Vodafone’s announcement (which I reject), it is too late to pre-order through Optus, so now I will probably have to wait 10 days before I can get a black 16gig model.

I am so fucking furious at Vodafone that I will never ever do business with them again and I will make sure that no one I know ever does business with them again!

How dare Vodafone treat its customers like this and expect any kind of loyalty. I went into the Vodafone shop on Belmore Rd, Randwick today and told the sales woman (I didn’t catch her name) that I was planning to to defect to Optus because of Vodafone’s plans and was there anything that could be done, she rudely said, “no” and began to walk away. I said, “so I should just go to Optus?” She responded, barely turning around, “yeah.”

What kind of fucking customer service is that? When I spoke with Vodafone this morning, the lovely lady at the phone centre said that Vodafone had two Achilles heels, coverage and their retail outlets. Coverage was getting better all the time but she felt that the retail always let them down because it was all franchised.

Well, the long and the short of this is I will not be unboxing my lovely new iPhone tomorrow as planned. I will have to wait until the next round of stock comes in. This I feel is completely unfair as I did everything an Apple geek is suppose to do. I watched the Keynote by Jobs, logged my expression of interest with my phone company the minute I was allowed to and waited like a good geek. Then because I chose to back the wrong horse, I have been fucked over!

I hope Vodafone loses thousands of customers over this and the executives all get fired! Looking across the boards and blogs at the moment seems to show that my first wish will come true! 

Jul 10

Vodafone Australia, You’ve Really Messed Up the iPhone Release

Okay, this is not the official post for today, that will be a little later on. This is just a quick post to explain what has happened so far.

Vodafone released their official plans for iPhone 3G this morning here in Australia and they are very similar to the leaked plans of yesterday, except for the cheaper plans … they do not exist!

So, my mild support of Vodafone has disappeared, I called them this morning and got my early exit payout price and I am ready to head down to an Optus shop tomorrow to defect to Optus.

I am not defecting yet … why?

I spoke to a wonderful person at Vodafone called Nicky who was very supportive and horrified at the prices that Vodafone is offering, she spent a great deal of time talking to me and even tried to speak to the loyalty department for me, she was surprised that she couldn’t get through because there was a long line of people calling them, I wasn’t. I’m sure that there are huge numbers of people that are about to defect. Vodafone has botched this release by, at the very least, not matching the prices of the other carriers.

I gave her my email address, info@geekactually.com, and she had my number and I told her that if Vodafone wanted to contact me about this, and go on record, I would love to hear from them.

I will post again in the afternoon.

Jul 09

This Just In – Vodafone Confirms some of the Leaked Prices on iPhone

Hey there, this just in:

I came across this article and it helps answer some of the questions about this Vodafone leak that I talked about in the previous post.

ZDNet Australia has just posted this article which has official comment from Vodafone over the prices and let me tell you, things just took a little downhill turn. It says that the first set of prices (the ones I don’t like) are pretty accurate but the second set (the ones I do like) is not official and still being developed … ooops, losing me again Vodafone, I was almost coming to your defence in the last post.

Vodafone goes on to say that the prices should be released by Tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I wait with baited breath. Til tomorrow readers.

Jul 09

Vodafone Australia’s iPhone Prices – Not as bad as originally thought – Maybe.

Okay, two days to go until Apple’s mighty iPhone 3G hits Australian shores and we have all waited patiently (or not) to see what Vodafone would do. Optus released their prices a few days ago – you can see the plans at this link. I won’t even bother linking to Telstra, as I hate them and will never pay them again, but they released their plans a few days ago. If you like Telstra, Google it.

So, where was Vodafone? They were the first to announce that they would have iPhone in Australia. Rumour had it that Vodafone would have special discounts that other carriers wouldn’t get. Read this post from May 6th, 2008 by Asher Moses of the Sydney Morning Herald – Interesting. The fact that they held out so long to give prices would indicate that they wanted to see what everyone else was doing and then swoop in to steal the thunder … not quite.

Vodafone finally released their plans today and with a few minutes pulled them down again … pardon?!?!? What the fuck was that all about? Were the plans incorrect or was Vodafone just embarrassed about the prices and decided to hide and cower? I don’t know. But, if these plans are correct – Hello Optus, Yes! I would like my iPhone now. Luckily, as reported here by Gizmodo this morning, some fast acting souls grabbed screen shots of the elusive plans (shown below) for us all to see.

Original Vodafone prices leaked

When I first saw these I thought, okay, I’m off to Optus. But then a second screenshot on Gizmodo showed more plans (pictured below):

Vodafones other price list.

Now, Vodafone may have just retained me as a customer! I have to disagree with Nick Broughall at Gizmodo on this one. Vodafone doesn’t list its data plans for the $49 plan (or any on that second list) on this screen shot, so we can’t assume that the data is worse than Optus (they are offering 250mb on their $49 plan). I already pay $49 per month, so that is the plan I want. This $49 plan is very resonable and that is about the price I wanted to pay for the iPhone itself. Please tell me that this is a final price list and all I want to know now is what is the data plan for this $49 per month? I still wait impatiently. One last question, what about wifi access – Nick Broughall says tat Vodafone isn’t offering wifi access, true. But I can’t see Optus offering it anywhere either. Did I miss something?

BTW – Thank you Gizmodo and Nick Broughall for this information as I was out at an event with my son this morning and missed this first time around. 

Jul 08

Vodafone iPhone prices, say it isn’t so!

CRAP! 3 days til the release of iPhone 3G here in Australia and still no word from Vodafone Australia about plans or prices but I just came upon this little gem about the New Zealand prices which were released today! Read the news here

Okay, I really hope that Australia is a little cheaper than this. If not, the decision is made easy: Pay out my current contract and move to Optus who are still over priced but nothing like this!

I am very disappointed and I can’t believe that with these kinds of prices in NZ (and I assume similar prices here in OZ) plus the ruckus being made in the States with AT&T’s new plans that Apple is going to reach its magical 10 million phones by year’s end.

Jul 07

New “Geek Actually” Forum Opening Soon

Anyone who has been through this site recently might have noticed the forum link in the navbar. Yes, a “Geek Actually” forum will be open soon. I’ll announce when it is opens here, stay tuned.