True cost of the iPhone
- 📅
- 📝 367 words
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- 📦 Apple
- 🏷️ iPhone
- 💬 3 responses
So you like the iPhone and think you’ll buy one?
In the USA…
If you live in the USA then thanks to Cingular’s exclusive multi-year deal if you want an iPhone and go with their cheapest voice-only plan at $39.99 a month (which you have to pay for 24 months) you can expect your iPhone to cost you (assuming you can get out of your current contract without penalty):
4GB — $499 + $959 = $1,458
8GB — $599 + $959 = $1,558
Being that Cingular normally discount smartphones by around $150 when you take a contract I guess Apple could end up selling them for $599 and $699 once they are out of the Cingular deal. Hopefully this “exclusive deal” leaves the door open for Apple to sell them direct without a plan for a slightly higher price.
This guy believes the text, voicemail and Internet supplements needed push the monthly price up by another $35 a month!
Europe…
When Apple come to Europe signing such an exclusive deal could severely hamper adoption and gaining that elusive 1% worldwide market share. Europe is a massive patchwork of operators and people won’t want to switch and loose their number — especially the sort of heavy-use/business people they’re aiming for.
Perhaps we just have it cheaper in Europe for once?
My current plan costs around $30 a month and includes 50 free minutes, 50 free texts and gives a whopping $350 discount off a HTC TyTN smartphone when you take out an 18 month contract. On that basis the price would be:
$481 + $360 = $841
The user interface can’t touch the iPhone and it has less storage (for now, thanks to the microSD slot) but it is also UTMS/3G, can load third party apps, has instant messaging and also can connect to a Bluetooth GPS device to interact with third-party mapping software. I can also change the battery when things go bad if needed and it runs Skype — the second camera — the one on the front means I can video-call.
Nice try Apple but I’ll wait for the 3G iPhone — why not add some of these fun features in the mean-time ;-)
[)amien
3 responses to True cost of the iPhone
Er, Don’t you mean 3G iPhone ?
Lee
I think number portability in Europe is still quite far off.
You’re right with it making a great non-phone device however and perhaps Apple will replace the 5G iPod with a just that.
The only thing I can see stopping that is that if Apple are making a huge profit on the iPhone (probably a $10 a month kickback from Cingular per device giving them another $240 per unit) then they might not want to go for smaller margins again.
I don’t know about Europe, but number portability works well here in the US. I moved across Seattle and kept my number. I switched from wired to cellular and kept the number. I’m sure that, if I could afford the iPhone, Cingular would be happy to let me keep the same number yet again.
I’m wondering if Apple doesn’t have a cellularless version waiting. As a music and video player, the iPhone seems marvelous. And Internet browsing would still be there even it were WiFi only. It’d let users check their email anyplace they can find a WiFi hotspot. The added space could be used for a higher capacity battery.