The new 3G iPhone announced

[Twilight]

The reason iPhone 3G is dramatically "cheaper" (for the phone itself, not necessarily the accompanying plan):

The biggest news from Apple is what Steve Jobs didn’t say: It has completely changed the basis of its deals with AT&T and other wireless carriers.


According to a press release from AT&T, the carrier will no longer give a portion of monthly usage fees to Apple. Instead carriers will pay Apple a subsidy for each phone sold, in order to bring the price from $399 down to $199 for the 8 Gigabyte model. The company did not specify the amount of the subsidy. Subsidies of $200 to $300 are common in the industry.


What is more, consumers will now pay $30 a month for unlimited data service from AT&T, compared to $20 under the plan introduced last year. So even though the phone will now cost $200, consumers will be out more cash at the end of a two-year contract compared to the previous deal.
Of course, that includes faster 3G data service, so the price increase may be worth it. But we should call it an iPhone price increase, not a cut.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/...9-iphone-10-more-per-month-for-data/#comments

 

[Roshi]

So I guess the subscription will go up, in order to compensate the low price...

 

[Twilight]

Yeah, ostensibly you're paying a few more dollars per month for 3G ...

 

[Jim Steele]

This morning I listened to a room full of apple fans cheering when Jobs said the headphone jack was now flush with the chassis.

Cheering. Because they tweaked the headphone jack.

Cheering.

Kinda tells me all I need to know about the Cult of Apple.

 

[zenophite]

^ that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Steve Jobs could crap on a saucer, paint it white and call it the iPoo and the macheads would just climb all over each other to get the chance to be the first person on their block to have one.

Jobs really is a marketing genius, though.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I still don't see what all the fuss is about. There are phones out there that do everything this does, and more, usually free with a contract. It might look sleeker, but that's about all.
I might have one, if it were free, but I couldn't see myself paying $199 for one.

What other phones have built in GPS?

Would you like a list?

What he said.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I still don't see what all the fuss is about. There are phones out there that do everything this does, and more, usually free with a contract. It might look sleeker, but that's about all.
I might have one, if it were free, but I couldn't see myself paying $199 for one.

What other phones have built in GPS?

Would you like a list?

Seriously. Just about any midrange or better phone has GPS. It might be called something different ("Location Services"), but it's all the same. The feature set can differ vastly, but the GPS itself is pretty common.

 

[David cgc]

This morning I listened to a room full of apple fans cheering when Jobs said the headphone jack was now flush with the chassis.

Cheering. Because they tweaked the headphone jack.

Cheering.

Kinda tells me all I need to know about the Cult of Apple.

You know, I've been keeping up with the kids these days, and I know it's not "cool" to "know things" about "stuff," so at the risk of looking like a "square," I'll let you in on the fact that that was probably because the fucking headphone jack was shit-backwards and was the most commonly complained about design feature of the iPhone. Because the jack was recessed, it wouldn't work with headphones that weren't specifically made for it without a special adaptor.

You hear that? They were cheering because Apple changed something that had been screwing them over. Yeah, those Machead retards, they really are just a brainwashed cult, what with knowing about bad design decisions that affect them and having the audacity to be pleased when they're fixed. Morons.

Maybe your post would've actually supported your point if they were reacting to a change that didn't make any difference to anything, like the restyled button on the iPhone. I haven't had the chance to watch the video of the keynote, myself, but I trust that those crazy bastards went wild about that, too. Go on. Tell us all how they cheered for the new button. Show us how they have no independent thought or judgement.

 

[mswood]

What I don't understand is all the people bitching about Apple. Its not like the entire market of products available for almost every object for purchase isn't similar.

Look at house hold supplies. I can by a shampoo for 69 cents, but I can also by shampoo for 30 dollars, that last for the same amount of time.

I can by window cleaner for 49 cents to 5 dollars.

You can find examples for everything you buy for household supplies.

Look at clothes. You can find vast differences for clothes for all types from Socks to shirts, to slacks, ties, blouses, bras, and shoes. With huge multiples in price differences.

Go to the grocery store. Look at the price point difference between the same quantity of product between different manufactures.

Go to major appliances, look at the price differences between manufactures.

Look at cars where you can find many models that are design to do basically the same thing and serve the same purpose and look at the vast difference in price points.

The posts about mac fans drinking the kool-aid is extremely offensive. And unless you are also posting about every other thing sold on the planet that has the same price point difference and making fun of the people that purchase them, then it really paints you as as someone who deliberately goes out of their way to marginalize one company and its fans.

And if you have ever purchased anything that you could have found similar for cheaper then it absolutely shows you to be a hypocrite.

If you don't care for a product, don't purchase it. If you find fault of that product (ie poorly designed, poorly manufactured) talk about that. YOu don't care for a company (because of personal experience or business practice) then talk about that. But making fun of the people who do like the product (or company) is frankly pathetic.

I might have problems with many companies and many products (and at times Apple is one of them, thanks for my flamming lap top), but I never go out and insult the people who actually purchase them. Nor do I try and demonize the company.

Take the X-Box (in roughly 2 years I have gone through 11 units). Which is a staggering turn over rate (I have never had any product fail so often in my 40 plus years), yet I have never once posted insults to the posters who have purchased one. In fact in my posts stating my negatives, I almost always list some of the positives (it has a really great game library and when it works its damn cool).

I mean seriously grow the hell up.

 

[Twilight]

Take the X-Box (in roughly 2 years I have gone through 11 units).

Unbelievable. I own a 360 with the 3rd generation of motherboards (the next-newest one, behind Falcon, I think). I haven't had it fail yet - but damn - 11 units?!?!

 

[Scout101]

^Yeah. At what point do you decide that maybe you've been taken advantage of and bought an inferior product, and just asked for your money back instead? 3 units? 5? At 11, it almost seems like you LIKE getting bent over by Microsoft on that one.

 

[mswood]

Well the 11 times in for repairs are for 2 units. I bought my first one and got the red ring of death in the fist month. It took about 3 weeks to get the first unit back, and by that time on gaming boards I was already hearing about higher then expected failure rates (something the company denied). And since where I purchased it only had a 30 day return for refund policy I couldn't get a refund for the product. I was stuck with simply getting it repaired (or replaced). And it was used a lot (about 8 hours a day minimum between my friends and neighbors and boyfriend. So I purchased another unit (with the original intent of returning it in time for a refund), but I decided to keep it as a back up if I had any other failures (I figured I could always resale it to friends to get most of the cost back). But unfortuantely my first year was one failure after another. At times both units were being repaired at the same time.

And at least (better late then never) Microsoft admitted its high failure rates and changed its warranty to allow for more repairs.

But as mad as I have gotten by this, and with my failure seeming to come further and further apart, my last experience was the worst.

I sent in one of the units in mid December. It wasn't until April 10th that got it back. Nearly 4 months. I called over a hundred times (after the first month I started a journal with call times, names and call centers to keep track of when, who and where I talked to not to mention what all they said). And what I couldn't believe (they lost it three times), is that they never just sent me a new unit, but insisted on trying to get me the one they fixed. Four frigging months.

 

[Jim Steele]

This morning I listened to a room full of apple fans cheering when Jobs said the headphone jack was now flush with the chassis.

Cheering. Because they tweaked the headphone jack.

Cheering.

Kinda tells me all I need to know about the Cult of Apple.

You know, I've been keeping up with the kids these days, and I know it's not "cool" to "know things" about "stuff," so at the risk of looking like a "square," I'll let you in on the fact that that was probably because the fucking headphone jack was shit-backwards and was the most commonly complained about design feature of the iPhone. Because the jack was recessed, it wouldn't work with headphones that weren't specifically made for it without a special adaptor.

You hear that? They were cheering because Apple changed something that had been screwing them over. Yeah, those Machead retards, they really are just a brainwashed cult, what with knowing about bad design decisions that affect them and having the audacity to be pleased when they're fixed. Morons.

Maybe your post would've actually supported your point if they were reacting to a change that didn't make any difference to anything, like the restyled button on the iPhone. I haven't had the chance to watch the video of the keynote, myself, but I trust that those crazy bastards went wild about that, too. Go on. Tell us all how they cheered for the new button. Show us how they have no independent thought or judgement.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay they're screwing us over slightly less wooooooooooooooooooooo.

Get a clue.

 

[Twilight]

"Screwing you over"?

You're not forced to purchase in iPhone, you know.

If you don't want one, don't buy one.

 

[Baldus885]

I still don't see what all the fuss is about. There are phones out there that do everything this does, and more, usually free with a contract. It might look sleeker, but that's about all.
I might have one, if it were free, but I couldn't see myself paying $199 for one.

It IS free on a contract. See O2's website for details. And wait till the third-party apps take off, that's what will make the iPhone.

This morning I listened to a room full of apple fans cheering when Jobs said the headphone jack was now flush with the chassis.

Cheering. Because they tweaked the headphone jack.

Cheering.

Kinda tells me all I need to know about the Cult of Apple.

Reading this on a Star Trek BBS is pretty damn funny. What font is the ship's registry supposed to be again?

 

[Scout101]

The more I read about the announcement, the more disappointed I am by it. Was holding out on getting a new phone until after the announcement, and not as excited as before.

-Price is going way down, so that's obviously a good thing. 3G support is nice, and GPS may be useful on occasion when not in the car.

-Sucks they didn't announce a larger size. 32GB would have been good for this batch, 16GB is still a bit small, considering it would be replacing my 80GB video iPod. If it's NOT capable enough to replace all of my devices, I'm better off staying with my current iPod and cell phone, after all, as they are paid for.

-Price of the data plan is going UP by $10 a month. It's now $30 a month for the data plan, in addition to your voice plan. That's kind of a lot of money, and no longer includes the 200 free txt messages that were in the old $20 plan.

-You can keep your old voice plan and just add data, so I was going to be all set to keep my old $30/month voice plan and add the $20 data plan for $50/month, which is perfectly reasonable. At $60/month plus any text messaging fees and taxes, you're starting to look at a lot of money for a phone I don't use THAT much.

-My girlfriend has been making noises about wanting to upgrade to an iPhone as well. Would have worked out fine, just change to a family plan, add the data package, and away we go, right? As it appears right now, the "unlimited" data plan isn't really all that unlimited, as you have to pay $30 PER PHONE (not account) for the mandatory data plan. Sharing it between 2 phones on a family plan would have been perfectly reasonable, but paying $60/month just for the data plan seems highly excessive. And then add in the minimum family voice plan of $59.99, all the taxes, and it's probably $140 or so a month for a pair of cell phones, where I currently pay $30.

My old Razr phone is looking better and better, sadly. A shame, as I was kinda looking forward to the new iPhone. The current AT&T price structure kinda kills it for me, though...

 

[David cgc]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay they're screwing us over slightly less wooooooooooooooooooooo.

Get a clue.

Oh, come now. Your original post made it clear that you were scorning the audience for their enthusiasm over what you thought was a pointless change, but now you're saying that you're scorning them for being happy that something is fixed that shouldn't have been broken in the first place (Windows 95 Syndrome). So either you were being disingenuous in your first post about not knowing why the headphone jack redesign might be relevant to their interests so as to frame it in a specific way, or you're being disingenuous now by acting like you always knew about it even though you really didn't.

It's okay to just admit you didn't know the full story. I imagine the both of us do any number of things every day that would look foolish to an outside observer who didn't understand the context of our actions.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I still don't see what all the fuss is about. There are phones out there that do everything this does, and more, usually free with a contract. It might look sleeker, but that's about all.
I might have one, if it were free, but I couldn't see myself paying $199 for one.

It IS free on a contract. See O2's website for details. And wait till the third-party apps take off, that's what will make the iPhone.

I thought it was only with a £75 a month contract, or am I mistaken?

 

[romulus]

This morning I listened to a room full of apple fans cheering when Jobs said the headphone jack was now flush with the chassis.

Cheering. Because they tweaked the headphone jack.

Cheering.

Kinda tells me all I need to know about the Cult of Apple.

 

[Jim Steele]

You're not forced to purchase in iPhone, you know.

I didn't.

Reading this on a Star Trek BBS is pretty damn funny. What font is the ship's registry supposed to be again?

Find a post of mine where I argue the toss over something so trivial and you'll have a point.

Oh, come now. Your original post made it clear that you were scorning the audience for their enthusiasm over what you thought was a pointless change

I did actually know, but I thought it was funny none the less. The reaction to the announcement was still way over the top, as if he'd just said "the headphone jack now shits a golden egg when you draw a cock on teh screen lulz".

but now you're saying that you're scorning them for being happy that something is fixed that shouldn't have been broken in the first place (Windows 95 Syndrome).

I'd hardly call it "scorn". I find it funny.

So either you were being disingenuous in your first post about not knowing why the headphone jack redesign might be relevant to their interests so as to frame it in a specific way

You got me. It's still funny. Sue me.

or you're being disingenuous now by acting like you always knew about it even though you really didn't.

Bored now.

I imagine the both of us do any number of things every day that would look foolish to an outside observer who didn't understand the context of our actions.

Making a tit of myself on the internets is something of a hobby for me.