iPhone: Slim and sleek

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 14 January 2007

Virgin Mobile's, Nicholas Maweni, described the mobile phone Apple recently introduced as “slim and sleek”. Overall South Africa’s cellular providers seem to be cautiously optimistic about Apple’s iPhone with responses ranging from cold but calculated to outright upbeated.

Apple's iPhone

While Apple’s iPhone is not yet available in South Africa, or the rest of Africa for that matter, almost everyone is already talking about it. It seems by the sound of it that Apple and iPod fans in South Africa will especially find it hard to not get one when these babies land on our shore…

The responses:

Cell C – Cell C’s Executive Head for Corporate Communications, Vanashree Pillay, was relatively cold but calculated in her response: “As with all new products that are introduced to the market, Cell C would discuss with the manufacturer and determine if the product fitted into our business strategy as well as catering for our client profile and then a decision would be taken on whether we would make it available” (Cellular providers upbeat about iPhone, MyADSL, 12 January 2007).

MTN  – Failed to comment.

Virgin Mobile – Nicholas Maweni from Virgin Mobile is really upbeated about iPhone’s prospects: “This is definitely the kind of mobile phone that fits our market. As a leading lifestyle mobile brand, Virgin Mobile is quite excited about Apple iPhone. Like its iPod Nano and iPod video cousins, the iPhone is slim and sleek.” Also, “When it becomes available, Virgin Mobile iPhone users will be able to scroll through songs, artists, albums, and play lists with just a flick of a finger. One cool new feature of this function is the display of album artwork – Our users will soon be able to use Cover Flow to browse music library by album artwork for the first time on an iPod” (Cellular providers upbeat about iPhone, MyADSL, 12 January 2007).

Vodacom  – Dot Field of Vodacom’s response was more on the mild side: “Vodacom will continue to offer our subscribers the very latest in technology and looks forward to trialing the new iPhone when it launches with a view to introducing it to our subscribers. It is great to see additional competition in the handset arena and an easy to use handset will be welcomed” (Cellular providers upbeat about iPhone, MyADSL, 12 January 2007).

Competition will be tough for Apple especially with giants like Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson doing the rounds. Despite such obstacles, as well as the dustup with Cisco over the iPhone name, Apple might just have what’s needed to make a breakthrough into this market.

ADSL South Africa(Broadband South Africa) welcomes gadgets like iPhone, which will by the looks of it, bring more competition into the handset market possibly helping to decrease prices or at least lead to an increase in handset specials.