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Apple Announces iPhone Service Plans

poppe said:
What confuses me is how ATT has only one unlimited text messaging plan and that requires that you must have unlimited picture and video. This is such an overpriced plan if you are getting the iPhone. Sure it is great if you have some crap phone, but if you have the iPhone there is no need for Picture sending as you can just use the email feature. And Video's well I really don't know anyone who actually sends video's via MMS. Why not just load it to your computer and send it that way.

Man this is a huge blow. I was going to get this but now I am at only 40% chance of getting one; I even had a line buddy waiting and ready...
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you know that you can upgrade to 1500 texts for an extra $10 or unlimited for $20, independent of the rate plan you choose.

in case of the 1500, that is an average of 50 a day!!!!
 
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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Ahh, the iPhone without the phone. That's one I haven't heard before.
 
Is it me or are those prices stupidly high? I have never seen a contract that is so expensive, well, not here in the UK.

iPhone better be free if it will cost that much, if only it was. :rolleyes:
 
rob@robburns.co said:
I think the major danger (aside from going over the alloted minutes) is going over the alloted text messages. On iPhone you'll be using an ichat like application and every send (and possibly every receive) will be one of your 200 alloted SMS messages. As someone else has suggested, if you type a lot or send a file, that could count as many (dozens perhaps) of SMS messages in a single send. Its not hard to imagine many or most of the chats I've conducted using ichat
have gone over the 200 message allotment. I could see this gotcha hitting many new unsuspecting iPhone users (perhaps it's part of AT&Ts plan).
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I see what you are saying. Thx. I don't really use that many sms messages though.
 
alywa said:
I have a cingular (AT&T now) family plan. 4 lines, unlimited nights / weekends / cell-to-cell. 750 shared minutes with rollover (we have over 5700 rollover minutes accumulated :p )

After taxes and fees, my bill is $120. To add another line would be $9.99 more, so $130.

As it stands now, if I get an iPhone, and the rest of my family doesn't, it will come to $140.

/Hope that helps
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You just helped me too. I am also on a family plan w/ 4 lines. I was wondering about the final price. So it just adds $20 to the line that has the iPhone correct?
 
Originally Posted by rob@robburns.co
I think the major danger (aside from going over the alloted minutes) is going over the alloted text messages. On iPhone you'll be using an ichat like application and every send (and possibly every receive) will be one of your 200 alloted SMS messages. As someone else has suggested, if you type a lot or send a file, that could count as many (dozens perhaps) of SMS messages in a single send. Its not hard to imagine many or most of the chats I've conducted using ichat
have gone over the 200 message allotment. I could see this gotcha hitting many new unsuspecting iPhone users (perhaps it's part of AT&Ts plan).
Click to expand...

kbrain2929 said:
I see what you are saying. Thx. I don't really use that many sms messages though.
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I don't use sms messages at all from my phone. However, I do use iChat. And what I was trying to say is that if you use iChat (or what looks like iChat) from your iPhone, you could easily use 200 messages in a single iChat session.


From AT&T's website (http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/m...g/faq-text-messaging.jsp#receiving_messages):

"Q. What messages am I billed for?

A. AT&T bills for all messages whether sent or received, read or unread, solicited or unsolicited. Also, any message sent or received that is longer than 160 characters will be delivered as multiple segments of up to 160 characters each. Each segment is billed as a separate message."

Again, imagine any iChat session you've ever had. How many of your 200 SMS messages would that use up?
 
Upgrading an existing Family Plan?

I'm trying to make sense of the rate plans in terms upgrading our existing plan.

We currently have the FamilyTalk Nation 450 plan, with 2 lines (voice only), for which we pay $59.99 per month.

Now suppose that we want to buy two iPhones and upgrade our plan accordingly. If I look at the "Existing Customers" tab on the iPhone Rates Plan page, it sorta sounds like I could just tack on another $20 total and we're in business, for both lines. And that would be pretty swell. That would make our monthly bill $79.99.

But when I look at the "Family" plans (for new subscribers), it looks like the cheapest option is the $80 basic plan plus $29.99 for the additional line, for a total of $109.99 per month. Which is not quite as swell as the other interpretation.

How do you guys read this?
 
Why use sms at all...

rob@robburns.co said:
Again, imagine any iChat session you've ever had. How many of your 200 SMS messages would that use up?
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*Unlimited Daaaataaaaa*...

Use Meebo or AIM Express over the web...sheesh. Are we inventing nightmare scenarios out of boredom now? :)

-K
 
One more thing on the SMS thing. The danger of going over the 200 allotment would lead me to either pay for the $20.00 unlimited SMS messaging option or just never touch the SMS icon. AIM I believe offers a website interface for messaging (perhaps other do as well). That shouldn't really be much more difficult than using the SMS application.
 
Let's be clear on one thing -- there is NO iChat Application on the iPhone. It's just regular SMS text messages, with a bubble view that looks similar to the iChat application. So, just because you think you're using iChat doesn't mean you aren't using your text messages -- you are.
 
rob@robburns.co said:
I don't use sms messages at all from my phone. However, I do use iChat. And what I was trying to say is that if you use iChat (or what looks like iChat) from your iPhone, you could easily use 200 messages in a single iChat session.


From AT&T's website (http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/m...g/faq-text-messaging.jsp#receiving_messages):

"Q. What messages am I billed for?

A. AT&T bills for all messages whether sent or received, read or unread, solicited or unsolicited. Also, any message sent or received that is longer than 160 characters will be delivered as multiple segments of up to 160 characters each. Each segment is billed as a separate message."

Again, imagine any iChat session you've ever had. How many of your 200 SMS messages would that use up?
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Thing is, no one is going to use it like iChat, so that analogy isn't really sensible.

I have a four-week long SMS text thread going on my Treo that is all of 20 messages long. It's a pretty big conversation (running group).

It's $10.00 extra for 1500 SMS messages ... not a bad deal.
 
MBHockey said:
Let's be clear on one thing -- there is NO iChat Application on the iPhone. It's just regular SMS text messages, with a bubble view that looks similar to the iChat application. So, just because you think you're using iChat doesn't mean you aren't using your text messages -- you are.
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Who knows what the future holds, one report, from Appleinsider says:

iChat may also have received a substantial upgrade, according to the claims. Those contacts with mobile phone numbers can be sent an SMS text message -- spurred in part by a desire to integrate with the iPhone. Google's influence is also allegedly present in the instant messaging app and will let Google Talk accounts mix with today's AIM, Jabber, and .Mac users.
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So we might not even need iChat on the phone - although it would certainly be easier than going to a website to send messages.
 
Peace said:
That's why it has WiFi..
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"From what we've heard the reviewers are going to be generally positive but will not shy away from pointing out the parts of the iPhone experience that were disappointing -- mostly revolving around typing difficulties and sluggish downloads over AT&T's current cellular network."
 
RnSK said:
*Unlimited Daaaataaaaa*...

Use Meebo or AIM Express over the web...sheesh. Are we inventing nightmare scenarios out of boredom now? :)

-K
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Yes, I know that. And you know that. But just imagine how many users are going to click on the SMS application and think: "wow this is just like iChat" and start chatting away. Do this for the month and the watch when the bill arrives. Ouch.
 
That's absolutely true. I wholeheartedly expect iChat to appear at some point in the future on the iPhone -- but i am talking about at launch. It seems some people think that the iPhone contains an iChat.app much like Mac OS X which is just not the case.
 
RnSK said:
Where are you located, if you don't mind?

I mean if i can load fancy pages like apple.com from an empty cache full screen over EDGE in less than 30 seconds, it seems to me that you 1. Ain't on E 2. are suffering from blackberry's f'd up backend
3. are full of it.

:)
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i'm in a really small town that you have probably never heard of called San Diego. we don't get the fancy stuff out here for years after you "big city" folks. hahahahahahahaha.
 
I was just in San Diego -- great place! But let's be serious, it's not really a city by most standards (eg. NY) ;)

But it is certainly not bumble&%*! middle of nowhere.
 
So, I have a couple questions. I have Verizon and am going to pay the cancellation fee. I can transfer my old Verizon number over to my new iphone? And when we all go in and buy the iPhone, there won't be any stopping and talking forever activating it there you just pick it up and take it home and activate it at home? And will we be able to track out minutes/texts, etc online for this? Thanks
 
RnSK said:
*Unlimited Daaaataaaaa*...

Use Meebo or AIM Express over the web...sheesh. Are we inventing nightmare scenarios out of boredom now? :)

-K
Click to expand...

Actually, if there was an iChat/AIM client (not through safari), AT&T does count an IM message as an SMS message. How they do it, I don't know, but they do. I have an HTC TyTN (WM5) with AIM/MSN/etc, and was very close one month on going over my available SMS messages, but I never sent any SMS's, just IM's. This confused me, as I had unlimited data, but there is some wordage on AT&T's site that indicates that IM's count as SMS's. So, when some kind of IM client arrives, make sure you get an unlimited messaging plan if you do any IMing over the EDGE network. (you can IM all you want when you are on WIFI)

Kimo
 
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