Want An iPhone 3G S - It Will Cost Ya
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I have been hearing about a number of individuals upset at the prospect of having to pay a pretty penny just to upgrade to the latest iPhone once it is released. As far as I am concerned, it’s not all that difficult to overcome.
Last time I checked, nothing is stopping someone from rolling over to a Family Plan with AT&T with the understanding that they would add a new phone for $10 when the new 3G S rolls out into the market. Seems like a much easier approach to me, assuming you don’t mind the extra line.
So despite needing to adopt the extra line, I think this still beats the idea of having to fork out $300-500 for the 3G S later on. Perfect solution, no. But unless anyone has a better idea short of dumping the iPhone all together, I fail to see any other choice short of paying up for the retail price.
6 Comments
John Federico
June 10th, 2009
at 10:57am
If I saw absolute proof that the battery life is indeed improved on the iPhone 3GS, I would pay the premium.
With the faster processor and other features, I just don’t see how that’s possible.
-jf.
Greg Wilker
June 10th, 2009
at 11:08am
Yes, I’ve been thinking about adding another line. I currently have a family plan where I have 3 iPhones and 1 normal free phone.
So I only have one more space for the iPhone 5th slot in my family plan.
I Think I might add it then put the new number/sim into a go phone and take off the data package etc for this new number and just have it be dumb down to the point where it only costs $9 month.
Ryan Zec
June 10th, 2009
at 11:17am
This to me is bullshit. I got the iPhone 3G about 3-4 months ago and was unaware that there was going to be a new one out this soon (you can blame me for not researching enough but still) but if I did I would have waited. Making existing customers pay 2X the price than new customers really just says that the company does not care about existing customers.
The iPhone 3GS does not have any earth breaking features for me to justify the cost since a lot of stuff is coming to the iPhone 3G with the software upgrade. I am also a iPhone developer and I would rather develop for the iPhone 3G than the iPhone 3GS since i can’t imagine all the people under contract with the iPhone 3G are going to just upgrade and another that runs on the 3G should run on the 3GS.
Mabyn Shingleton
June 10th, 2009
at 1:17pm
I agree. No plans to upgrade the 2 iPhones we have. I’ve also heard that the actual monthly plan is more costly also. Deal breaker.
JoshGines
June 10th, 2009
at 2:01pm
Well, that figures. I usually wait a few months, or even up to a year or more just to see where upg’s and prices go. I once read, “New products are usually the most faulted, with time, comes value.”
Vavatch
June 11th, 2009
at 8:50am
Those who keep whining about the cost of upgrading from an iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3G S are just being ignorant.
Of course Apple does not announce a new model until the last minute. To do so would be foolish of them from a business standpoint as it would clearly impact sales of the existing model and they currently have the benchmark product that all others are judged against.
The only time is is sensible to announce an upcoming product is when you have no product currently available or if you have an existing product, it is inferior to the competition. In some cases, such as software updates, it makes sense to announce the upcoming release early because it is free or of marginal cost to upgrade and thus would have minimal, if any impact on currently shipping product.
Simply put, if Apple were to announce the 3G S, especially if they announced that the price would be the same as the prior model, which would be brought down in price, they would be doing immediate damage to their own bottom line.
As for AT&T’s upgrade pricing, it’s nothing unique or new. All the carriers do pretty much the same thing. If they subsidize the phone with a term contract, it makes no sense at all for them to give the subsidized price on an upgrade before the subsidy on the prior phone/contract paid off since they continue to offer the same 2 year contract, from date of signing the new one.
Perhaps AT&T should offer the subsidized price with a 24 month contract extension, but how many would really go for that? THink about it… If you had an iPhone 3G for 4 months, and thus had 20 months left on the contract, and then got an iPhone 3G S with a 24 month extension, so you had 44 months, would you really do it?
What it comes down to is the $199/$299 prices are just borrowing on time with a contract. Nothing says you have to have the contract, and if you don’t want one, whip out the Visa and pay full price. It’s not like you couldn’t resell the phone later anyhow.