25 Dec 2010 02:23:35 AM: One avenue IS the TIO. Don't expect it to be easy or satisfactory. It is better than not doing anything. And ultimately, the customers pay the costs of the fees.They don't learn a lesson. If they had been learning anything, why are contracts and plans still so confusing and why is the never-endingavalanche of phones launched onto the market STILL so full of dogs- dogs that are sold into our market after overseas countries, when they know what is wrong with the phones, and still they turn up here? I would like to meet ONE person who got the phone they thought they paid/are paying for, that is working satisfactorily after 3 months, without going in for repairs.
If you want to hurt the telcos stop "upgrading", and stop spending so much money on the latest wizz bang toy/status symbol, passport to the "In Crowd". Phones are sold prepaid at about ten times the per month price.I have heard too many times that the iPhone 4 costs $6.45 to make, so all the parasites in between that $6.45 and you take their cut. A "fine" here, a broken contract there- a slight dip in profits. BYO mobiles, but them secondhand- I don't know-THINK OUTSIDE THE BLOODY SQUARE!

25 Dec 2010 10:38:41 AM: It costs a lot more then $6.45, do some checking on Gizmodo and you'll find out the real price.

25 Dec 2010 01:50:09 PM: I did some checking, and there was a lot of variation on the numbers- even though the different websites may have all been sourcing their info from the same sources- (and they may not be reliable),but even @ $140, that's still a lot of fat.And I hope the screen is less fragile than on the one before. More than once I have heard different people almost bragging that they were on their 3rd screen (is the subtext "I'm hipper than you because I've had my status symbol longer than you"? or "I'm cool with this year's object of desire being so fragile"?)

25 Dec 2010 02:09:00 PM: $140 would seem closer to the mark, but there are two things to keep in mind with this though. Markup will always occur, in every industry with every product. Companies are in business to make money. Heck, bread at your local Coles costs .20c to make, and sells for $3-4, percent wise a massive mark up. The second thing to remember is that Vodafone don't set the price, Apple do. When it comes to companies holding control over the how's and why's of a product, Apple is the worst. The limited stock is due to them, the way it's sold is due to them etc. Oh and I just noticed the comment about Prepaids being as much as 10 times a monthly cost... It's a single outright payment vs 24 months contract, you'd be crazy to think that $179 (Most expensive of the prepaid range) is more expensive then a contract.

25 Dec 2010 11:35:52 PM: I'm no fan of Apple- (though I almost entered the world of Steve when I almost bought an iPod Classic, because I got a lot more storage for the money than a few 16G memory cards on my phone, and because I thought, on my pc, that Quicktime sounded better than anything else I had.I found a better,much less consumerist way to do what I wanted, and for less money.) What I was really writing about up there was about, in some measure, WE are part of the problem and we make it too easy for the telcos to rip us off.I think they factor in that they're not going to get away with selling dog phones, and bad reception and billing "errors" with everybody.They also know that they will wear most of us down to just accepting sh!t bcause it is too timewasting and debilitating to keep trying to right wrongs. Dumb- really dumb, is to assume it's going to be different when you"upgrade" to the new shiny dog, with a lousy telco, who will not have changed since the last time they failed to provide what they took your money for.I dare not suggest collusion, but I can't help noticing(except for Telstra) how similar, if not identical, the telcos prices are for phones and plans.(I have not researched that thoroughly, because going on a plan hasn't been something I've seriously considered.) I think we have crossed wires about the pre-paid thing. If a basic plan for a phone is,eg, &29 a month, if that phone is available pre-paid (not from Mobicity- that's different), that phone seems to cost about $290 before it drops into the bargain bin.BTW- bread costs more than that to make,and goes stale,which means its not all going to be sold,and complying with health regulations is a cost,etc etc.BUT, since most people eat bread and don't have/make/want to bake bread there is the opportunity to make a high profit. Perhaps the ACCC could take Apple on if they had hard facts about Apple's behavior, unless laws about what you've just described have changed since a few highly publicised court cases a few years back. Something, from where I'm looking,has given most of the telcos a sense of security that they can carry on the way they do. Having said that, I still think Vodafone,by far, is the worst.

25 Dec 2010 11:43:50 PM: The absolute, no one even close, WORST!