It’s Official: Rogers Bringing iPhone to Canada

by Eric March on April 29, 2008 at 10:08 am

It’s about damn time! Good lord ‘n butter, but it’s been frustrating watching Apple try and bring Rogers Communications into the fold only to have ol’ Teddy Boy try and bargain his way to greater wealth at the expense of Canadian pocketbooks. And this is entirely aside from the trademark issues with small-time VoIP peddlers Comwave.

Nevertheless, the Toronto Star is reporting today that Apple and Rogers have reached an agreement at long, overdue last. Details are just about nil, with no release date, pricing or plan information revealed, but more recent reports have indicated that they are hoping for an iPhone release between May and July to be parceled in with a larger promotion surrounding touchscreen devices.

The big question now, other than a more solid release date, will be what Rogers has in store plan-wise for official iPhone hopefuls. I have little doubt that it will still hit you where it counts; it is more a question of how deeply Ted will stick it in.

We all knew the iPhone was coming to Canada, and we all hoped for a summer debut, but with Rogers trying to beat Apple at its own negotiation tactics and Comwave roaring like a mouse about its precious trademark, it was really hard to say what was truly going to happen. Truth be known, we still don’t know what’s going on with the Comwave thing, but knowing that it’s really (really!) on its way in a very official capacity slides the most significant piece of that puzzle into place.

Ultimately, I’m sure the trademark dispute with Comwave will work itself out (so whatcha gonna rename your “iPhone” service to?), so the only questions now are when and how much?

(Source: The Toronto Star, via TUAW)

One Response to “It’s Official: Rogers Bringing iPhone to Canada”

My First-Gen / Second-Gen iPhone Opinion Piece | Touch Podium said:

May 15th, 2008 at 1:54 am

[...] been announced by Rogers Wireless (see here) that the iPhone will not be available in Canada until later within the 2008 year. Rogers Wireless [...]