Sunday, November 23, 2008

iphone




About 15 days ago, I was at the church office enjoying the aircond when I saw someone "playing" with an ipod touch. Intrigued and curious, I looked over to see how it functioned. It was love at first sight!!! The sleekness of it just took my breath away. I was really impressed with it and all the functions that slim beauty could do.

Naturally I askd if there was a camera function to it and a negative reply almost broke my heart. What???!!!! No camera function?? I asked if there was another version of it with the camera feature. "Get an iphone", came the answer.

"iphone? But I don't need a phone", I exclaimed.

I found out that after the ipod touch, there's the iphone. Nothing in between.

I also found out that it's not available in Malaysia and if I were to get it from else where, I had to unlock it.

"Huh?" I was really blur. What do you mean by unlock??? What code?

I went back to do some research and found that the iphone is normally sold with a 2 year contract with a fixed mobile service provider, depending on the country you're in. All I was thinking was ..... I really want the phone, so why is Apple being so tough on people like me? Don't they want my business?

I made a few calls, talked to other people about it and found out that the unlocked iphone is only available in countries like Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, etc. AND that the price for one is double the price of the locked version. NOW I know why it's so difficult to get the unlocked version. You still can get an iphone, but you'd have to be willing to fork out extra cash.

I guess I can say now that apple does want my business. The very fact that I was willing to part with so much extra cash showed that Apple or someone else is making so much money out of this. Brilliant marketing strategy!!!!

I contacted Hazel in HK to get one for me. Her mum brought it back to Malaysian and I received it on Wednesday (Nov 19th) night. I was really so tired and didn't really fiddle much with it until Friday night.

It took me a long time to get the phone up and running. I thought that just by inserting the SIM card, I could make calls out. To my dismay, it was written that it was only for emergency calls only. Puzzled, I looked for the manual in the almost forgotten box. There were some instruction booklets but none on how to start using the iphone.

Frustrated, I went online to check it out. Then I chatted with my friend, Eric, and told him about the problems I encountered with the phone. After a few tries, he asked me to download and install itunes. .... which I did and it took me so long.

When I connected my laptop with the iphone, it started syncronising BUT there wasn't any indication that it was doing so. My phone still kept saying "For emergency calls only". This was so frustrating. I thought there was something wrong with it and wondered for the umpteenth time if money was wasted on this phone.
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Not knowing what to do, I played free cell on my laptop, read my emails and chatted a little.
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1am was fast approaching and I needed to hit the sack. Feeling really disappointed, I started to switch off my laptop when my iphone suddenly lit up saying "Synchronizing completed". To my delight, I was able to use the phone. I was so excited, I called Eric with my iphone to let him know the good news. :-)
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Thanks, Rajen, for getting this phone for me.



5 comments:

Unknown said...

did i miss reading how much it finally costs you? ... Rajen is such a good, loving, caring, sensitive husband....

Rachel said...

This phone (unlocked version) costs HKD6,200 ... which, after conversion, comes to about RM2,900. The locked version costs about USD399 (which is about less than RM1200)

Yeah, I agree with you where Rajen is concerned :)

@nne said...

SNOB!! LOL...

Rachel said...

Anne, you jealous?? ;)

poreiz said...

I just have time to sit down and read all the blogs and realized oooh u had problems with the phone. I'm sure u were worried moreover I was away that time :P Well so how's the phone so far. It was SOOOO tempting since it was launched, tahan tahan!!!!! Not going to go near that monster. hahaha!