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Apple Announces iPhone Service Plans

But for the majority of phones you are going to have to pay something and then get a rebate which will take HOW long?
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True. I think I will just keep my current BB as a backup and go "Commando" into ATT on Friday..

:D


Or an Apple Store now that I saw in the video it is as easy as pie to transfer from a different carrier...

I'll still call Tmobile on sat. to make sure they are going to stop billing me though.
 
kcroy said:
Does the iPhone have iChat built in? Is it free? Can you explain. Thanks! Sorry if this is a ridiculous question. Just trying to learn more about this awesome phone.
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The SMS is done through what appears to be a crippled iChat application. I would imagine each send is one of your 200 SMS messages. It would be nice if when paying for the $20 unlimited SMS plan they uncrippled it and gave us the full iChat. This way one could use it with other AIM and Jabber servers as well as over Bon Jour.
 
capran said:
Jesus....this is a deal??? What do you guys do for money? How much time do you spend on the phone??

I'm just fine with my T-mobile prepaid phone...$100 every 6 months or so. iPhone is iHype and iMoney. And of course the 'i' is question in Jobs. And I like Apple and Jobs. But enough is enough! Just give my my xMac, Steve.
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PREPAID?? Are you serious?? It is EASY to go through thousands of minutes for some people in half a year. You are definitely in the minority. Many people use their phones for personal and business (you've seen them -- they're the people walking around with the a Blue Tooth thingy clipped to their ear even when they're not a call.)

And yes -- this is a deal. If you were a 2-year contract-type cell phone user, you'd know that.
 
Nice! I can save $10 a month here, and it's good to know I won't be deal with the hassle of in store activation.

Great idea.
 
What if you don't want voice, and only need unlimited data and a little texting? I don't see why I should be forced to pay $60 a month of which a significant part goes to pay for something I won't use?
 
shecky said:
i pay $60 for tmobile with 600 minutes + unlimited data for my blackberry. these are reasonably close - good job, apple + att.
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i have at&t and this is cheaper then what i currently pay for the same thing. i wonder if they are going to offer plans like this to the rest of their customers. i say the rest cos i'm getting an iphone. For unlimited data, text, and 450 i pay close to $85.
 
seamuskrat said:
If I have done 20 of 24 months and cancel - is my fee pro-rated? Or I pay the full amount month 1 and month 23?

It may prove cheaper to just pay my monthly for 2 months and not cancel early.
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The $175 is not pro-rated at all. If your two months bills don't add up to 175 total, then it's cheaper to wait.
 
So do existing AT&T customers make out the best?

I'm not an AT&T/Cingular customer so I don't know how things work but I'm curious....

If a current AT&T customer picks up an iPhone, do they get involved with any of that 2 year nonsense or are their only costs that of the iPhone + data plan upgrade (if desired)? Or do they still have to do a 2 year extension? It doesn't seem to say this anywhere.

If all you have to do is add the iPhone data plan, then it seems like a good move (for people planning to start new service) would be to go to AT&T sometime before Friday, start new service and get another cool new phone for free, then on Friday, pick-up the iPhone and just add the data plan to it.

I'm not sure how AT&T could have missed that though, but maybe they did?? Am I missing some fine print here?
 
rob@robburns.co said:
The SMS is done through what appears to be a crippled iChat application. I would imagine each send is one of your 200 SMS messages. It would be nice if when paying for the $20 unlimited SMS plan they uncrippled it and gave us the full iChat. This way one could use it with other AIM and Jabber servers as well as over Bon Jour.
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If done like AIM on other carriers, a single send could be any where from 1 to many SMS messages, depending on how much data is sent. I forget what the limit is, but a single SMS message can only contain a fairly small amount of data.
 
ncbill said:
A steal for existing customers who don't text much.

The big question is can the iPhone be used as a cellular modem, tethered to your Mac via USB or Bluetooth?

AT&T is upgrading their cell towers - some have claimed 25-30KB on the newest version of EDGE.

That would work fine on a laptop for web access.
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Exactly. Having both a landline with dsl and a mobile phone account doubles the cost. I will not sign on to iPhone unless there is a way to eliminate the land line, cause I have to have a computer at home and I can live without a cell phone.

I wonder if future Macs will come with the iPhone innards. Maybe they will just be giant iPhones.

As for the cell towers, it seems that the coverage is spotty now with many rural areas uncovered. People cannot even call in emergencies south of where I live on the California coast. People have died because of this. If the cell companies don't want to spend the money even to save lives one wonders if they will update all of their existing towers to speed things up.
 
ravenvii said:
What if you don't want voice, and only need unlimited data and a little texting? I don't see why I should be forced to pay $60 a month of which a significant part goes to pay for something I won't use?
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Who buys a phone and doesn't use the voice capabilities?
I may be missing something here.
 
jayb2000 said:
Normally adding a line is 9.99. The iPhone unlimited data plan with 200 messages adds $20 to any existing plan.
Thus, to add a line and the data plan = the 29.99 iPhone add a line.
QUOTE]

I'm still trying to understand the family plan. $80 for 700 minutes with "one line" and $30 for each additional line. So the base rate of $80 is just for the primary line (dad) ? or is it for two lines (dad and mom) ? That extra $30 makes a difference to me: I have Verizon with 3 lines now, $60 family plan for 700 minutes, pay for any texting, $10 for each additional line, and $45 for unlimited data just on my primary line, not for the other lines. So ATT would actually be about $10 cheaper a month for me, IF the base rate included 2 lines.
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I'm amazed how cheap these are!

I'm still worried that UK pricing will be ridiculous for the iPhone. Unlimited data plans aren't that common over here and unlimited mobile to mobile calls are unheard of.
 
yg17 said:
take the damn iPhone out of the equation for a minute. You're getting ripped off by AT&T, who cares what phone you have. It's not right, and it's extortion.

Then again, you all are so willing to hand over more money than you should for the service you're getting, maybe it's not extortion, but consumer stupidity
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OMG....please stop. You said you want to block the iPhone forum, yet your always in iPhone threads.

Honestly its not that hard to ignore these threads. We know you don't like it, and most of us don't care.
 
jayb2000 said:
Normally adding a line is 9.99. The iPhone unlimited data plan with 200 messages adds $20 to any existing plan.
Thus, to add a line and the data plan = the 29.99 iPhone add a line.

As for the plan prices, they are very competitive if you compare voice and data plans.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Default.aspx?plancategory=7
Blackberry plan with 1000 minutes (total, no N&W, no M2M, no rollover), unlimited data/messaging - $59.99. ($69.99 if using BB enterprise server) and no wifi.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/easysetup/rateplans.html
iPhone plan with 900 "peak" minutes, plus unlimted M2M, unlimited N&W, and rollover, unlimited Data/Web, 200 messages and wifi whenever you want - $79.99

900+14400 (N&W)+ oh, how about 5000 (M2M) = over 20000 minutes for $79.00. Or roughly 4/100ths of a cent per minute. Compared to t-mobiles 6 cents/minute. Now which one is a better deal?

Now, if you use your phone at night or on the weekends for half of your minutes, you could go with the $59.99 iPhone plan instead, still have wifi and unlimited M2M, 5000 N&W (which is about 8-10 hours per day for every saturday and sunday), and unlimited wifi.

I call BS on "teh suck" :rolleyes:
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Thanks..now hopeful yg17 can stop.
 
Cheapest Possible Plan?

Wondering if anyone noticed that AT&T has a "Pick Your Plan $29.99" which includes 200 anytime minutes and no contract requirement. If you could add the $20/mo Apple data package (for "existing customers") to this, it would be a pretty sweet deal at $49.99/mo for those who don't need to make a lot of phone calls and are interesting mainly in the data.

I wonder if this is possible.
 
notice in the activation/sync video, when they zoom out of itunes the storage meeter is for the 80GB iPod, not iPhone.
 
Sim

The iPhone comes with a blank SIM?

I sure hope there isn't a shortage of the phones otherwise eBay is gonna be swamped with them (no activation in store).
 
mashinhead said:
i have at&t and this is cheaper then what i currently pay for the same thing. i wonder if they are going to offer plans like this to the rest of their customers. i say the rest cos i'm getting an iphone. For unlimited data, text, and 450 i pay close to $85.
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I think that these plans will probably been iPhone only. Apple got so many concessions out of AT&T that I'm sure special plans and pricing is one of them. They are good deals but they do have similar plans for other smart phones, ex. special blackberry plans.
 
waterskier2007 said:
i was pretty sure stuff was not supposed to come out until wednesday, but this is legit because its on apples site so, sweet. does anyone know how much more texts is for at&t cus it says u can add them
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$20 more for all you can eat SMS text. So a completely unlimited data plan, including text is $40/mo on top of whatever voice plan you choose. The same price as PDAs, like Treo's, are currently.

Ed
 
nice, $20 like i was hoping for! only they added text! and a lot of people saying $45 was good for data, yeah right. Thanks Apple!!! :D
 
Opt Out

With most cell companies, you get a 15 or 30 day opt out period; if you can't stand the service, you can return phone for refund. Will you be able to do that with the iPhone. I'm switching from Verizon and I'm concerned about the ATT network
 
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