Week in Review: The Great British iPhone rip off?

Earlier this week, Apple revealed the next version of the iPhone to fanboys and fangirls around the world, with the iPhone 3G S.

More powerful, faster and with a better camera than the previous version, it also features new iPhone 3.0 software.

However, many British Apple lovers aren’t happy. It's not the device itself causing scowls, but rather the pricing that O2 has set up around the upgraded device.

First of all, it won’t let owners of the previous iPhone 3G get out of their contract early, while the iPhone 3G S looks to be more expensive than last year, with a 32GB device costing £275 (including contract).

At IT PRO we have varying viewpoints on this. While Nicole has already let rip at the owners moaning about pricing and not being able to get out of their previous contract, Benny has some sympathy for the owners who want something new and shiny.

As for me? I already blogged about the new iPhone being something that I was looking at as my next smartphone, but I think Apple could have priced me out of it this time.

Is the BBC getting a free ride?

I don’t have a television. I don’t need it anymore because its possible to get all the content you want from streaming services like the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4oD.

The ISPs aren’t happy about this, because video streaming takes up a lot of bandwidth. BT is one of the first to publicly complain, and after news broke that BT was ‘throttling’ the BBC iPlayer’s streams last week, BT accused the BBC and other video sites of getting a ‘free ride’.

BT coming out with this statement could be manoeuvring ahead of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, which will lay out plans over increasing broadband speeds as well as the much publicised 2Mbps Universal Service Commitment. But it appears that Lord Carter won’t be overseeing the government’s tech strategy for that much longer.

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