Basem Boshra
Sun
Succumbing to the hype and buying one of the most buzzed-about consumer products in ages — from a corporate titan like Apple, no less — doesn’t exactly scream “Stick it to the man!” yet I’ve been feeling like a bit of a rebel since buying my iPhone.
“Wait a minute,” you might be saying to yourself, “I thought they weren’t selling the iPhone in Canada yet?”
True enough. But if you simply can’t wait until Rogers (the only wireless carrier in Canada whose network supports the iPhone’s technology) starts selling it here — and it still hasn’t announced when or even if that might be — there’s no reason that, with a little resourcefulness, you can’t get your hands on the most highly coveted high-tech gift of the year.
(I’ve had mine for the last couple of months, and it works great, in addition to being indisputably cool — the iPhone, that is, not me.)
A few caveats, though:
– You do need to be a current Rogers wireless customer, or at least be willing to switch over.
– The iPhone must be “unlocked” so it can work on the Rogers network (more on that later).
– You’re on your own if you encounter problems with the iPhone, since neither Apple nor Rogers will yet service it in Canada, or even provide technical support for it.
– Given Rogers’s exorbitant data-transfer rates — at least compared with the far cheaper plans available in the U.S. and Europe — you should use data-heavy features such as surfing the web or downloading sparingly, or else you’ll rack up an eye-popping wireless bill.
However, regardless of what you might have read or heard, it is definitely not illegal to have or use an iPhone in Canada — even if, for obvious reasons, Apple and Rogers have done little to counter that falsehood.
In fact, Apple recently announced that of the 1.4 million iPhones it has sold in the U.S., some 250,000 are being used outside of AT&T — the only network with which the iPhone functions without having to be unlocked — so there’s obviously plenty of us out there who’ve taken matters into our own hands.
Okay, if all that hasn’t put you off — and, really, the process is a lot less daunting than it might sound — the first thing you need to do is get your hands on an actual iPhone.
Since you can’t buy one from Apple’s Canadian or U.S. online stores if you’re in Canada, this will require either using your mighty Canadian dollare on a cross-border shopping trip (the iPhone retails for $399 US) or an online visit to eBay (where unlocked eight-gigabyte versions of the iPhone are going for as low as $425 US, even less if you can track down the discontinued four-gigabyte model).
Should you choose to do things by the book, you’ll also be on the hook for duty fees — roughly 10 per cent of the declared value of the iPhone. Some eBay sellers have been known to lessen duty fees for buyers by declaring a lower value for the item when shipping it, but this is illegal and could get your iPhone seized by customs.
If you choose to buy a locked version, you’ll then have to pay to have it unlocked, which can run you as little as $25.
Search on the Internet with terms like “iPhone” and “unlock” for some local tech whizzes who can do this for you.
If you’re particularly adept at this kind of thing — or just brave — you can even attempt the unlocking yourself. A quick Google or YouTube search will supply you with incredibly detailed instructions.
Once it’s successfully unlocked, just slip in your current phone’s SIM card and — voila! — you’ve hopped on the iPhone bandwagon.
The unit’s iPod, camera, phone and Wi-Fi features will all work, but not the “visual voice mail” feature that’s available only to iPhone customers on the AT&T network in the U.S.
And prepare to make your friends jealous. I know I have. And, really, can you put a price tag on that kind of thing?
© The Vancouver Sun 2007