Gouging Canadians – Mobile Data Roaming
So the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has confirmed what every Canadian cell phone and mobile data user has suspected for years, and more so. Canadians are being gouged when it comes to mobile data roaming charges.
According to their May 30th study, Canadians that download and upload whilst roaming are charged some of the highest fees in the world, at up to US$24.61 per 1 MB transfer on a laptop.
These rates are of course prohibitive when it comes to the viewing and uploading of digital photographs and videos. But the use of cloud services whilst roaming are also subject to these enormous fees, as are music downloads.
I personally believe that though somewhat inconvenient at times, WI-FI is the preferable option for any traveler that wishes to transfer files to and from their devices.
Free WI-FI is available in many hotels, motels, campgrounds, airports and chains like Starbucks and McDonalds though-out Canada and the United States. And some hotels also offer faster wired connections, in select rooms of course.
Personally i’ve saved quite alot of money using Skype in hotel rooms and campgrounds in the past, using these free connections. And there is an option to limit transfers to wi-fi on the new iCloud service, so there are ways to avoid these fees altogether.
iCloud Beta Available
An iCloud beta is available in a new version of iTunes.
Version 10.3 will include access to the service, which will enable Apple product users to automatically download their iTunes music purchases to their devices via wi-fi or 3G, free.
When activated the service will automatically send past and future purchases to every device or computer registered to the service. And in the Fall a service called “iTunes Match” will enable iTunes users to add up to 20,000 non-iTunes recordings to the iCloud service, without uploading these recordings to a server.
As previously mentioned, the basic iCloud service will be free to iTunes users whilst the Match service will cost $24.99 per year.
Note that this beta is not available through normal program updates. The most recent version available through the program is 10.2.2.
Apple Cloud Service To Be Unveiled In June
According to an official press release, Apple will be unveiling their new iCloud service on June 6th, at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
Durring the key note address Apple CEO Steve Jobs and several executives will discuss this new sevice as well as the new Mac operating system, Lion, and a new mobile operating system for the company’s devices, iOS 5.
I believe this key note address is scheduled for 10am, PST. Details in regards to the cloud service accessibility in Canada will probably be discussed at that time.