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Analyst Claims Apple May Release $349 iPhone for Prepaid Markets This Year
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+1. Apple entering the prepaid market would change peoples' perceptions in the U.S. that prepaid = poor, with low quality phones to choose from. The iPhone would be the first truly desirable smartphone offered by smaller carriers in the U.S.
This would be a market changer, no question. If there were enough defections away from the big carriers' contracts, AT&T and Verizon might get off their arses and have to work for a living. It's called good old - fashioned competition. Then maybe we'd see rate plans that didn't equal monthly cable bills.
It may take a few years, but Apple could once again show another industry how a different approach could net even more profits, whilst giving us lowly consumers better products.
$299 is the sweet spot, if you remember the iPod generation, they did a research work on the price and and figure it out $249 is the magic price point.
iPod Touch prices goes cheaper
iPod touch 8GB - $149
No contract required - NO Mandatory data plan required
iPhone 5 Nano - 8GB - $299 - $0 with two year voice plan - data plan pay as you use
iPhone 5 Nano - 16GB - $399 - $99 with two year voice plan - data plan pay as you use
Usual two year contract phones with Mandatory data plans
iPhone 5 - 16GB - $499 - $199 with two year voice and data plan
iPhone 5 - 32GB - $599 - $299 with two year voice and data plan
Both iPhone 5 and iPhone nano pick your specs or Apple picks the specs to differentiate the product.
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Hate to tell you but that is in fact, according to my sources, what it is. Starting in 2010 they went to a flat number system. iphone 4, iphone 5, iphone 6. No more of the #s stuff. So this year is the iphone 5 and it is a basically minor spec bump over the iphone 4. Next year when LTE should be mature enough to warrant support they will have the big update.
AS for this $349 rumor, it's not a new phone. It's the 8GB iphone 4 that would be in line with the whole 3g+3gs, 3gs+4 that they did the last couple of times. Because component prices have come down they are going to be able to reduce the price, though my sources tell me that it's only down to $399, not $349. And yes because it is unlocked if you go full price if the carriers choose to support pay as you go you will be able to use that option. There is also talk that, if the carriers do support a PAYG microsim for voice, they might allow for 'no contract' 3g like the ipads have.
The parts you mention cost next to nothing, so it wouldn't make sense to castrate the device this way.
Another way could make cheap iphone is to include no internal storage and add a micro SD card slot. not very apple though.
Big microSD cards don't cost that much - I got a 32GB class 4 for $60 to put in my Android phone.
If doing this somehow shaved a huge amount of money off the cost of an iPhone... there'd be a revolt from the legions who've paid way too much for a relatively small amount of flash memory.
Big microSD cards don't cost that much - I got a 32GB class 4 for $60 to put in my Android phone.
If doing this somehow shaved a huge amount of money off the cost of an iPhone... there'd be a revolt from the legions who've paid way too much for a relatively small amount of flash memory.
Just curious.... if you could rate the speed of Apple's Flash memory... how does it compare to the fastest MicroSD card?
I wonder if you could tell the difference.
currently it cost around 188 dollars to make an iPhone 4. (minus vender markups, shipping etc.)
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2010/tc20100627_763714.htm
Step by Step guide to a cheaper iphone:
1 - Ditch the Retna Display
2 - 128mb ram
3 - 256mb of storage standard and add a micro sd slot
4 - go with a slower processor
5 - Ditch all the unnecessary glass
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2010/tc20100627_763714.htm
Step by Step guide to a cheaper iphone:
1 - Ditch the Retna Display
2 - 128mb ram
3 - 256mb of storage standard and add a micro sd slot
4 - go with a slower processor
5 - Ditch all the unnecessary glass
Everybody is an analyst.
I predicted that Apple will come out with a new iphone already last year
Most likely because we are more amenable to corporate power and control of our fiscal lives. In America, corporate power supersedes individual rights until proven otherwise through long, expensive legal battles.
But you can already buy iPhones without a contract??? What do you think, they'll sell iPhones with a prepaid?
That's a good question - I haven't run a test.
I do know that writing 17GB of music files takes a long time, whether to my old iPod Touch or to my phone's flash card.
as long as SJ is alive - this will not happen. I don't recall apple (since 2000) ever taking a (full) step backwards on hardware level with a new upgrade. Why do so many people want to see the pricegaps 'dissapear' in apple's product line-up? I mean, al those devices serve different purposes, so why should there pricestags flow over in each other?
mirco sd slot? Iphone? Not going to happening.
And the glass is a design decision. A non glass device would not fit into their product line.
Honestly, I would buy a cheap(er) Iphone, right now I carry an Ipod Touch and a "dumb" prepaid phone with me, witch is exactly one device too much.
But a device like this:
189$ - 289$
Prepaid
Ipad like dataplan
Ipod 4th-gen specs
is just too much to ask for, is it
? 
It's already been said but I'll say it again:
iPod Touch with a Radio.
I'd be interested in a cheaper iPhone but there is no way that I'm paying for a data contract.
iPod Touch with a Radio.
I'd be interested in a cheaper iPhone but there is no way that I'm paying for a data contract.
Currently the 3GS + 4 couple goes by $545 and $649.
Unless Apple is able to cut costs significantly, going to $399 means either lower margins across the board or a greater price difference between the two models.
Who says you need to pay for a data contract, any pre-paid voice SIM from AT&T or T-Mobile will work in any iPhone model.
It'll be interesting to see what the price will be. But, and this is important, it's not so much the US they're targeting, remember only ~5% of Americans go the prepaid route, but the RoW (Rest of the World). The iPhone has proven to be the Trojan Horse so to speak when it comes to increasing market share of its computers and iPads. There are billions of people out there who could greatly benefit if they had a smartphone like the iPhone. Many of those people might eventually upgrade to a tablet or laptop.
Apple would be crazy not to target them and that means the price has to be reasonable. As has been mentioned, the cost of making it has come down, this might well be the time to lower the price.
Very true and the elephant in the room that nobody is mentioning is CHINA. Tim Cook is over there now sealing the deal on a prepaid (likely) type phone that they will sell millions of. Anybody wanna bet that phone is a the cost reduced model that is being talked about? It could be an iPhone 4 but I see more profit at a lower price for them in a 3GS spec'ed phone. E.G. It will still have the A4 cpu but ditch the retina display.
I have a pay-as-you-go, dumb phone and a 32Gb iPod touch that cost me £249, here in Blighty.
I have no need for a contract phone as I rarely ever need to call out. The iPhone 4 is £509 pre-pay though. So I can't justify the expense, it makes no sense to pay that much.
So a pre-pay 8Gb iPhone for £249'ish ($349), well I'd be at the front of the queue. Sounds like a great idea. I really think that would expand their market even more over here.
I have no need for a contract phone as I rarely ever need to call out. The iPhone 4 is £509 pre-pay though. So I can't justify the expense, it makes no sense to pay that much.
So a pre-pay 8Gb iPhone for £249'ish ($349), well I'd be at the front of the queue. Sounds like a great idea. I really think that would expand their market even more over here.
Or just get a used iPhone 3G 8 GB, should be available for about $200 unlocked by now (in most countries carriers unlock the phone for you after the, usually 2-year, contract is up).
Virgin Mobile! Haha
Hey, for $25 a month, you can't really go wrong especially have an iPhone too.
Virgin Mobile Canada offers the iphone. Ive been waiting for it to come to the US for a while now. I have VM and love it but there is a severe lack of phone choice in the upper end of things.
Most likely carriers will pay apple a bit too, so it will be a subsidized thing. You might pay 399 and Virgin or Verizon will pick up 100 of the slack, knowing that people paying 400 for a phone are likely to be using the prepaid service for a while.