June 10th, 2008
AT&T is the big winner with the iPhone 3G announcement
I know readers are probably a bit tired of all the iPhone news so I will try to make this my last post about it for at least the rest of this week. If we take the Apple announcement price at face value, US$199 and US$299, the iPhone looks like a great deal and if you could buy it at an Apple store for that price and use it however you wanted then that would be an awesome deal. However, the real winner in the iPhone 3G announcement is AT&T (other non-US carriers may also have huge benefits) for several reasons.
First, AT&T now gets to increase the monthly iPhone data plan from US$20/month the US$30/month, which is more along the lines of what they charge for other smartphone devices. The AT&T data rates for mobile devices still seem a bit unclear since some people tell me they pay US$15/month and it really isn’t that clear on their site since the data pricing seems to be device specific for some reason.
Secondly, there are no longer any text messages included with the US$30/month data or US$39.99/month minimum monthly voice plan so you will have to pay an additional monthly fee to use the cool threaded SMS feature on your iPhone. According to the AT&T Wireless site text messaging starts at US$5/month for 200 messages and goes up from there, but there may be a new iPhone pricing plan available so we will have to see what happens.
Third, people will no longer be able to walk into an Apple store and buy an iPhone and then SIM unlock it to use with another carrier or sell online to an overseas buyer since each iPhone will now be activated in the store to lock you into your minimum contract, just like all the other subsidized phones you purchase today.
I rarely buy a subsidized phone and prefer to spend the extra money to buy unlocked devices that I can use with any carrier without obligating myself to any service contract. In the long run, this usually works out to be a cheaper solution and gives me the flexibility I want.
I’ll be skipping this version of the iPhone and will wait to see what, if anything, is announced in January at MacWorld. I will be upgrading my current iPhone with the new 2.0 software so I can finally sync with my hosted Exchange service and am very pleased about this new feature.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 06/10/08
