“France Telecom chief executive Didier Lombard said he expects the situation regarding its Orange unit’s exclusive deal to market Apple Inc’s new iPhone mobile phone to be resolved by the end of November,” Thomson Financial reports.
“Lombard announced on Sept 20 that Orange had been selected as the operator to distribute the iPhone in France, but Apple has not yet confirmed this and press reports have suggested he may have irritated the US group by announcing a deal too early,” Thomson Financial reports.
Full article here.
don’t mix Apples and Oranges. Totally different fruits!
Apple to come to Orange.
And Windows to become one day a serious OS….
Nahh, scratch that out: not even close.
That whole Apple and Orange thing is actually pretty funny. They should play that up. Too bad Orange’s logo isn’t actually an orange.
I’m looking forward to the phone finally reaching France (where I currently live)!
question… so if you purchase an iphone in u.s. will it work with orange sim card in paris?
Enfin! Il était temps… Ho, la, la… C’était long tout d’même, un?
@ProtoDAda
No, not with the orange ones… just the aubergine ones.
Thank you.
to ProtoDAda (seriously):
No. An iPhone bought in the US is locked to AT&T;SIMM cards. Same with those bought in the UK (locked to the O2), Germany (locked to T-Mobile) and, eventually (hopefully), France (locked to Orange). Just like a RAZR you bought with T-Mobile in the US won’t work with Vodafone’s SIMM card, even though they have distribution agreements with Motorola to sell them with subsidy.
You’ll have to wait for them to appear unlocked, or for your carrier to begin providing unlocking codes (which eventually will come, I’m sure).
1. France has radically different laws regarding cell phones – if it is locked, you have to unlock it for the customer after 90 days, for free. And there are restrictions on subsidizing phones.
Frankly, this sounds like a great, consumer friendly idea, and I wish everybody was like this – locking phones is such crap.
Apple, understandably, likes to have consistent deals with each of its countries. This presents a challenge for Apple’s demand for revenue sharing (part of their standard deal), since there is nothing stopping a customer from getting an iPhone and unlocking it after 90 days, with Orange getting less revenue from that iPhone, along with Apple.
It also means that unlocking needs to be easily done by others – more consumer friendly goodness.
Now Orange and Apple can raise the price of the iPhone, or eat the reduced profit – I suspect the price will be increased…
2. Apple saves massively on marketing by creating extreme customer interest in its products, while keeping details extremely secret.
Accordingly, nothing enrages Apple more than a current/future Apple partner shooting their mouth off on something that Apple hasn’t announced yet.
You want to blow a deal with Apple you’re working on? Shoot your mouth off to the press. Remember ATI?
I would say the chances of a deal here just dropped big time. In fact, odds are Apple is, sadly, going to skip selling the iPhone in France. And we’ll miss out on how to officially unlock the iPhone…
After the last leak, you think Orange would have learned. Apparently not…
MDN:
Your link is in German.
Here’s the English one:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-20125363.htm
“Your link is in German.”
Isn’t German the official language of France?
“Your link is in German.”
Isn’t Spanish the non official (most important) language of United States?
Isn’t Asshole the official language of CESM? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it, ‘cos only an asshole would make a comment like that.
Err… strike that. CESM isn’t an asshole… he’s a dumb as a post asshole.
There that feels better now.
Huey – chill dude – he was making a funny. Hey did you hear the one about the englishman, irishman, welsh guy, german, frenchman, canadian….
Will they change the law?
“Isn’t Spanish the non official (most important) language of United States?”
If you live in an illegal immigrant ghetto and perform menial tasks for a living, Yes it is.