October 26, 2007
Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever You Say.
So, Molson Canada decided to do a "Twist and Score" promotion and offer the winner an iPhone. Cool, right? There's only one little problem. They said the phone would be available in January on the Rogers Wireless network, which Rogers is denying—they claim there was never a deal with Molson and they refuse to comment on whether Rogers will be the official carrier whenever the iPhone finally comes to Canada. Rogers spokeswoman Odette Coleman basically says that Molson is full of it; her actual words were, "We heard the news this morning and said 'What?'" Molson Canada spokeswoman Marie-Helene Lagace explains the fumble: "There seems to have been a misunderstanding with our agency."
Now, it could just be an innocent misunderstanding, but we're wondering: does this remind anyone else of the time Paris Hilton accidentally publicly congratulated Christina Aguilera on her pregnancy before she had announced it, and then everyone freaked out, and then Christina just sort of sat there like "Uh..." and now we're all watching her stomach, like, quadruple in size, while she goes shopping for baby clothes, and she still doesn't say anything, and... and...
I mean, we vaguely recall hearing something about it. We weren't really paying attention. Obviously. Please.
Image by everyplace from Flickr.
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A friend of mine won a Van halen radio contest in which the prizes were tickets and limo to the show AND an autographed Eddie Van Halen guitar...
Which he thought would be cool to give to his son. Let's just say, there was no guitar.
But glittering prizes
Endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity
pardon my grammar (guitar...Which)..bad panda...eats shoots and leaves.
I'm not sure this is that surprising news. The iPhone only works on GSM networks as of now, which by technology alone would eliminate the possibility of either Bell or Telus carrying it here. Rogers seems to be the default choice regardless of whether they are willing to admit it or not.
Quite frankly you'd think they get off their asses and bring this product to market already. A January launch of a phone that was released in the US in late June seems to be par for the course in Canada as far as the wireless industry is concerned. Especially considering people here are already using unlocked iPhones on their network.
Can't wait to see what kind of overpriced contract they try to lock customers into here. I'm guessing minimum 3 years, $75 a month.
If they were smart, they would've released it in November in time for Christmas. Tsk tsk... I guess there's way too much wrangling with network costs etc to make that a reality.
iPhone is so never coming to Canada.
Or, it's going to be a mighty long time before it does. If the phone was being launched in Canada in January they'd be knee deep in planning it right now. But they're not. It'll be summer '08 or later before we see it, and probably also iPhone rev2 or 3 when it comes...
There's just too many crappy complications that no one seems keen to work out, plus Rogers' overinflated "we don't want to agree to let Apple have these rights blah blah..." ego keeping it in hiatus.
iPhone can't come to Canada because the trademark is owned by a company called Comwave. Until Apple buys the trademark or Comwave agrees to share - which they won't - you're stuck with your Motorola.
See http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/10/11/tech-iphone-trademark.html