NOTES ON ENTERTAINMENT, CULTURE AND MORE FROM KOREA (OR WHEREVER)

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

iPhone? Aigo!

I really want to complain about the latest stumbling blocks facing Apple's iPhone in Korea. Now that the iPhone appears to be squeaking past the Korea Communications Commission's first hurdle (the WIPI non-standard), the KCC found another bureaucratic roadblock. Which leads KT journalist Kim Tong-hyung to write this great line:
The country claims itself as the mobile capital of the world, and yet it has managed to fall behind nations such as Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea in securing the planet's hottest mobile device.

I want to complain... except I live in Spain and find myself equally unable to procure an iPhone. Very different problem over here, though. Here, Apple has a local operator (Movistar). But Movistar does not appear to have any iPhones in stock anywhere in the country. In fact, according to the comments at blogs like this one, it seems like the iPhone is out of stock around much of Europe.

I assume it has something to do with the Apple's iPhone contracts around Europe about to end in the coming months (as mentioned in the WSJ the other day). But it is still pretty annoying.

4 comments:

Katy said...

The iPhone is overrated anyway. ;)

kushibo said...

I hope you'll keep up the Korea blogging, even from Spain.

kushibo said...

ko0ty, keep telling yourself that.

Sure, it's not the end-all-beat-all life-changer, but it's a very nice and fun convenient package for browsing the 'Net while out somewhere, checking and writing email, blogging on the fly, using apps to do just about anything, etc.

I'd rather have my iPhone than the Blackberry my mom had, and definitely more than the regular phone I used to have.

Katy said...

Just saw kushibo's comment... you should use a comment reply plugin.

I'm a Blackberry user and I love my Blackberry... everyone I keep in touch with regularly (except for one) are Blackberry users. I have an iPod Touch and just CANNOT stand the touch screen or how it freezes so much. In fact, most people I know switched over to Blackberry after owning an iPhone.

I only use it when I work out but I just upgraded to the Blackberry 9700 recently and it's speakers are so much louder (for when I'm alone in the studio and don't want to use headphones) so I sometimes don't even use my Touch anymore.

I am a designer though and am a huge fan of Apple products, especially they're beautiful interfaces so if they come out with phone with a keyboard, I will hop on the bandwagon. =D