Australian phone companies Telstra, Optus and Vodafone-Hutchison all announced yesterday that they would offer dedicated data plans for Apple's iPad, from the end of May.Certainly perhaps whipped by Apple's PR machine, none of the three telcos would offer
Australian phone companies Telstra, Optus and Vodafone-Hutchison all announced yesterday that they would offer dedicated data plans for Apple’s iPad, from the end of May.
Certainly perhaps whipped by Apple’s PR machine, none of the three telcos would offer further details.
But we do know that Apple’s launch partner in the US, AT&T, offers two iPad data plans: 250MB of data for $US15 ($NZ20) a month, or all-you-can-eat data for $US30 ($NZ40) a month.
Either plan can be terminated on a month's notice.
Apple controls all retail sales through its own retail outlets and website - as it's expected to do in other countries.
Yesterday, Apple delayed the international launch of the iPad by a month to late May.
At that time, the tablet will be released in 16 countries - but not New Zealand, for which Apple would only say no release date had been set.
Beyond Australia, Vodafone announced it would have data plans for the iPad in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
Will the iPad land in Godzone some time after May?
Hopefully.
But don't bet on it.
Vodafone New Zealand chased Amazon's Kindle before Christmas. Today, it's available in Australia (and Fiji and Zimbabwe), but still not here.
