Filed under: iPhone
iPhone 3G rolling worldwide, Russia coming soon
Thanks to the magic of time zones, the iPhone 3G is already on its worldwide march across 21 countries.
Tipster Lawrz let us know that the handset is on sale in the Philippines from Globe Telecom, after a sold-out party that started at 10 p.m. local time counting down to midnight August 22. It's already Friday in India, and midnight is just now crossing Europe, as of this writing.
Also, tipster Efthymios tells us that Vodafone Hellas is distributing unlocked iPhone 3Gs, as is the law there. 8GB models are €499 and 16GB models are €569. Contracts plans for the handsets have not been announced, but should be available in the next few hours. (Update: and here they are.) However, Efthymios notes that Greek character input is not yet available for the iPhone, with many people having to resort using "Greeklish" instead: Greek words typed with English characters.
Reuters notes today that Russia will also be getting the iPhone 3G in October. Apple struck a deal with the country's largest mobile provider, MTS, which has nearly 84 million subscribers.
Thanks, Lawrz and Efthymios!
[MTS details via Macworld]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ilias said 6:20PM on 8-21-2008
sorry to disappoint eythymios and other Greek readers but try to write greeklish when iPhone tries to autocorrect every single word with one from the English dictionary. I have given io until angreek keyboard is offered.
Reply
Marco said 6:44PM on 8-21-2008
Well if I were Greek, I'd be really pissed: €569 and I can't even write in my alphabet?
Well, come to think of it, I paid that much to have a phone which corrects my a lot of my correctly-spelt Italian with French (or simply non-existent) words...
Reply
Fernando said 6:35PM on 8-21-2008
latim alphabet, not english letters, please
Reply
Robert Palmer said 6:38PM on 8-21-2008
But they'd likely be using the English keyboard on the iPhone. As much as I appreciate the non-specificity of the term "latin alphabet," I didn't mean it in an ethnocentric or otherwise xenophobic way.
I may be American, but I'm not *that* kind of American.
Efthymios said 7:45PM on 8-21-2008
First of all, I'm sorry. I should have typed "Latin characters" instead of "english characters when I contacted TUAW. But guys give them and me a break. It's a small mistake in a big world ;)
Second, yes the auto-correction of Greeklish to English is frustrating already on my 1st-Gen iPhone. I just tolerate this. And so I will until uncle Steve discovers my country.
Third (and ireelevant), was he even at the Athens 2004 Olympics? Or at the current ones in Beijing? Just kidding.
Peace. A big word on a small world. ;)
Reply
Aaron Davies said 8:39PM on 8-21-2008
Singapore's today too, BTW, with SingTel. It looks like they're only selling on contract (and presumably locked) so I'll probably be waiting a couple months until StarHub gets it.
Reply
Eddy said 10:47PM on 8-21-2008
Phones in Singapore are all unlocked. Telcos cannot sell SIM locked phones due to a specific IDA regulation.
MacSheikh said 10:01PM on 8-21-2008
@ Aaron Davies
So i guess you didn't go to the big launch @ midnite huh? Me neither. And I'm also waiting for Starhub to (hopefully) come out with a much better plan with a better data package.
Reply
Ben in Taipei said 10:05PM on 8-21-2008
Russia coming soon : good for them! :-)
China under negotiations : well, good luck Apple guys...
but what about Taiwan!
The manufacturer of the iPhone / iPhone 3G is a Taiwanese company (Foxconn), and we are still waiting to have it here legally...
Anybody has an hint about a date? or it's the same problem as in China and Apple guys don't know how to negotiate with them?
Thanks!
Ben, getting impatient in Taipei :-D
Reply
willy the impeached said 9:49PM on 8-21-2008
Cool! Lets pass a few thousand out to the Russian Troops. Then they can use the facebook and twitter apps to keep us up to date on their latest european invasions.
Reply
oZ said 10:57PM on 8-21-2008
Nice joke, too bad you have no idea what's going on. The TUAW article is full of crap like this. It's amazing what the media did to America in a week, suddenly, everyone sees Russia as some evil force.
dan said 9:49PM on 8-21-2008
Got the baby here in Romania a couple of hours ago without a plan but locked. Happily updating it worries free. regards
Reply
John.B said 1:03PM on 8-29-2008
I wonder how the iPhone's "worldwide march across 21 countries" compares to Russia's latest "worldwide march"?
Reply
Gabriel said 11:40PM on 8-21-2008
Did you guys learn that Movistar's selling the iPhone here in Argentina for the lovely amount of 590 dollars (give or take) with a contract and, obviously, locked. The monthly fee isnt that bad, when compared to others in dollars, somewhere around 40 dollars. I'm guessin we're getting the most expensive iPhone around the globe, aren't we?
Reply
Mat said 11:45PM on 8-21-2008
In argentina the iPhone 8Gb from Movistar is:
u$s533 with a restricted data plan of u$s48/month.
u$s359 with a full data plan of u$s77/month.
Really really expensive for our country.
Our average income is u$s 570.
Didn't Steve Jobs said the u$s200 price was a worldwide price?
Reply
Sinarin said 2:59AM on 8-22-2008
Given your comment, I have a hunch that the Argentina launch will not be the most successful of all iPhone launches. Especially when it costs you a month of hard work. Here in Belgium it (16GB) will cost us about 615 Euros unlocked that's like almost 900$. Average income here's about 1600 Euros (My humble estimation). I thought that Apple took these things (like income) into account when they set the prices. Apparently not. On the other hand, if they set it at 100$ in Argentina everybody would rush there of course.
Fal-z said 2:16PM on 8-22-2008
In Ecuador is the same story, movistar in the less espencive plan is charging $80 a month and you get the 8gb iphone for $200, $329 for the 16gb, with an "unlimited" data plan for only 3 months, after that is 100mb a month, plus $4.6 for every additional mb.
tigres said 7:54AM on 8-22-2008
Hmmm let me see here... Let's continue to ship bad phones with half baked OS's that are poorly written to as many globally as possible. Then, we can ignore more of the globes handset issues, sounds like a "keep the stock holder happy" issue only.
FTNG. Eh Apple.
Reply
dombi said 12:56AM on 8-22-2008
There are a few plans in Hungary (T-Mobile), here are a few examples:
iPhone 8GB
450 USD: 1 year contract, 400 min., 200 SMS, 2GB
195 USD: 2 year contract, 400 min., 200 SMS, 2GB
320 USD: 1 year contract, 600 min., 400 SMS, 4GB
6 USD: 2 year contract, 600 min., 400 SMS, 4GB
iPhone 16GB
580 USD: 1 year contract, 400 min., 200 SMS, 2GB
310 USD: 2 year contract, 400 min., 200 SMS, 2GB
450 USD: 1 year contract, 600 min., 400 SMS, 4GB
32 USD: 2 year contract, 600 min., 400 SMS, 4GB
Reply
dombi said 12:58AM on 8-22-2008
I forgot to add... the basic (400 min.) plan costs 63 USD/month, while the extended plan (600 min.) costs 110 USD/month.
Reply