Katie MarsalUnder the proposed terms of the deal, Orange customers who commit to a two-year contract for the over-the-air service will have the option to purchase one of the 13-inch Apple notebooks at substantial discount to the suggested manufacturers retail price.
Orange has reportedly been testing its USB dongle modems with the current line of MacBooks in anticipation of launching the promotion sometime this summer.
Mobile Today, which broke the story, said its understood that Orange has made a volume commitment, meaning it's agreed to purchase a predetermined number of systems for Apple, which it will then turn around and sell to subscribers at a subsidized cost.
The report adds that Orange officials "are hoping the laptop deal will be a stepping stone to the operator securing a distribution deal for future Apple laptops, which include built-in mobile broadband from an embedded Sim card."
A recent survey by YouGov declared Orange mobile broadband the most reliable mobile broadband service in the UK. Reasons cited for the top honor where relatively low charges for exceeding the 3GB per month bandwidth allowance, best regional coverage, and competitive pricing.
Orange currently bundles low end notebooks and netbooks with 3GB per month of its mobile broadband service in two year contract bundles that cost between $850 and $1,100 over the term of the contract, or roughly $35 to $50 per month.
Purchased by itself, Orange's 3GB tier of data service costs $21.26 per month, or $510 over the two year contract. That makes the hardware-included bundles Orange currently offers more of a financing arrangement rather than a deep hardware discount, as the Eee PC and Toshiba L300 laptops it bundles only cost $250 and $500 at retail.
However, by offering a MacBook together with a mobile broadband service bundle, Orange could sell Apple's $1299 MacBook for around $75 per month (50 pounds), a much more approachable way for many people to buy a new notebook.
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15 Comments
Interesting given that Apple already has an exclusive relationship for the iPhone with O2, a rival to Orange.
I've been considering mobile broadband for a while but have read mixed reviews about the speed and reliability of the connection.
You know, I've never really considered my data usage when online.
Assuming just average surfing, email, the occasional song download, maybe the odd Netflix stream (assuming that's even possible with 3G data speeds), how constraining would 3GB/month be?
Perfect. I can't believe, though, that Apple is going to go forward with this USB dongle setup rather than getting an internal modem done.
Perfect. I can't believe, though, that Apple is going to go forward with this USB dongle setup rather than getting an internal modem done.
I can't imagine that Apple would consider redesigning the recently refreshed Macbook for one carrier in one market.
If the service takes off, and other carriers follow suit, then sure, it would make sense to start putting cell radios in a subsequent revision.
Don't forget, for all their design mojo and "whole widget" integration chops, Apple is quite conservative when it comes to integrating new tech (well, new to them; I realize 3G on laptops is pretty old hat, at this point).
You know, I've never really considered my data usage when online.
Assuming just average surfing, email, the occasional song download, maybe the odd Netflix stream (assuming that's even possible with 3G data speeds), how constraining would 3GB/month be?
3 GB per month is 100 MB a day. As long as you're just browsing the web, that would be fine. Downloading a song is of course 4-5 MB. Viewing an online photo gallery will sap it pretty quickly. I'd never be able to survive on that amount, and I'm not a heavy user. You'd NEVER be able to download a Divx movie, and you'd have to seriously limit your Youtube browsing.