A closer look at the iPhone video

So, a lot of the folks over at ehMac are looking at the fact that the iPhone demoed in this video has French Canadian built in as a language preference as not having much weight. They don't see it as an imminent release of the iPhone.

So I went and watched the video all the way though (rather than stopping at the point where French Canadian pops up), and noticed that not the guy who does the video goes thumbing through the Region Format Menu, which has date and time options for different countries.

Here are the countries listed, followed by whether they have the iPhone:

Zimbabwe No

UK Yes 

US Yes 

Us Virgin Islands No

South Africa No

Singapore No

Philippines No

Pakistan No

New Zealand No

Malta No

Ireland Yes

India No

Hong Kong SAR China No

Canada No

Botswana No

Belgium No

Australia No

A couple things to note:

Germany and France, both of which have the iPhone, are not on the list.

A whole whack of countries that don't have the iPhone are. 

Is this setting up for a planned roll out? Is this just a standard list of countries that the Mac supports, or is this just someone pulling our leg, yet again, with a fake video?

Well, if you open up the International Pane and select formats, you'll note that the short list of Regions is as listed above. However, if you look next to it, there is a check button that say "show all regions" that allows you to see about a billion other countries and regions. Is it in the video? Survey says, no. So, what does that mean? One option is that this is a fake, a video or a website designed to look like what it might look like. Of course, the video doesn't show the top of the screen, so there is a chance that the "show all regions" is at the top, and this really is 2.0 software.

But, again, it is the standard list from the International Preference Panel. Does the fact that Zimbabwe is listed mean that the iPhone is heading for the streets of Harare? Or is this just a standard format menu for all mac devices? Either one is acceptable, but neither one really sells me on the fact that the iPhone is coming to Canada. 

Rogers may decide to negotiate with Apple, knowing that there may be competition coming down the pipes, but I suspect they'll wait and see what happens with the spectrum auction before caving under.

Still, that would be a coup for a new cell phone provider: We're new, and we've got the iPhone, with data plans starting at a really low price. Now that's the way to enter the market with a bang....