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Apple Now Selling Contract-Free iPhone in Retail Stores?

macswitcha2 said:
Yeah, but do the math, how much are you really spending with the contract? Somewhere in the thousands right?
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Yes, but contract or no, how else are you going to use the phone but on AT&T's network at AT&T's service plan prices? Where is the savings in paying a big up-front price for the phone, if they aren't going to discount the monthly service charges by at least that much?
 
twobluebullets said:
If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure that metro PCS is CDMA... As in NOT GSM... ;)
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They have both technologies.

bedifferent said:
Right now that is the case, but based on a lot of speculation (rumor mill of course), if Apple is selling a non-contract based iPhone then what is stopping Apple from producing a CMDA/TDMA version for sale on other carriers? If the door to a non-contractually bound iPhone is opened before June, perhaps Apple is testing the waters for new iPhones that may be sold through non-GSM carriers.
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AT&T had a TDMA network and that has been turned off. The companies that provided roaming most likely have also turned their network off. So why would they make a TDMA version?

As for CDMA, why invest in a technology that is headed to the grave. W-CDMA is that nail in the coffin. Sprint is headed to WiMax and Verizon is headed to LTE; which is an evolution of W-CDMA.
 
The question is, are these provider-locked or not? If they're still provider-locked, then it's extremely stupid to pay full price for a provider-locked phone. If they're unlocked, then it's fair (unlocked Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is $800). Anybody wants to confirm? AT&T have been selling no-contract phones for a long time, but they're still provider locked.
 
Originally Posted by MacRumors
The 8 GB model is priced at $599 and the $16 GB model is priced at $699.
4d87b0ae3154402270e6c6b057a252ca.png
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i3iz said:
No one else see this?
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So? Big deal - the original iPhone was $599 with a two year contract and a ton of people bought it with no app store and no 3G.
 
Makes sense for me

This makes a lot of sense for me. I live outside of the US in a non-iPhone country. I have an unlocked/jailbroken first gen and have been wanting to upgrade (though I'll probably wait until June/July and see what comes out). The big thing stopping me upgrading so far is having to sign a contract with AT&T that I'll never use!

This way I can buy a phone, take it back overseas and unlock and use as I like.
 
Beric said:
And what's amazing is that the iPhone 3G 8GB only costs $173 to make.
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Does this represent the cost of materials only? Or also Apple's development, staffing, marketing, legal, building lease costs, etc?

I know. How about you become my personal chef. You buy all the groceries you require and make me nice meals. I'll pay you for the groceries.
 
Jimmy James said:
Does this represent the cost of materials only? Or also Apple's development, staffing, marketing, legal, building lease costs, etc?

I know. How about you become my personal chef. You buy all the groceries you require and make me nice meals. I'll pay you for the groceries.
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No, the estimate is of the parts only. Regardless, even if additional costs added up to an astronomical extra $200 (WAY generous), that's still a huge 33% Apple profit.
 
iCantwait said:
old news to us unlocked aussies
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Incorrect. It depends on when you got one, I've been contacting many different Telstra, Vodafone and Optus dealers around Australia (yes, ones not even in my state), in regards to obtaining a legally unlocked iPhone that I pay the outright cost for, and the answer has pretty much been the same every time; that they used to offer one that could be unlocked, but stopped doing so in the months after it's launch. At the moment it's only available on a 24 month plan.
 
skellener said:
So? Big deal - the original iPhone was $599 with a two year contract and a ton of people bought it with no app store and no 3G.
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I think i3iz was referring to the fact that the article says a $16 GB iPhone instead of 16 GB (ie: additional $ sign).
 
Jimmy James said:
Does this represent the cost of materials only? Or also Apple's development, staffing, marketing, legal, building lease costs, etc?

I know. How about you become my personal chef. You buy all the groceries you require and make me nice meals. I'll pay you for the groceries.
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Seriously! What kind of moron thinks that all of the charges are parts-related? There are thousands of Apple employees in various positions, and they obviously do work that gets them a paycheck.

Kinda reminds me of an anecdote. A guy has a big, expensive machine that breaks down. He calls a repairman in. The repairman finds that the problem is a $1 handle. "That'll be $500," he tells the owner. "But that part only costs $1." "I know. It's $1 for the part and $499 for knowing where to put it."
 
Look, there is no point in buying this phone since it's locked to AT&T. If you unlock it, it'll void your warranty as well as AppleCare (if you chose to purchase it).

For the same amount of money, you can buy an officially unlocked (i.e. factory unlocked by Apple) iPhone from Hong Kong or a few other countries.
 
I could drop six hundy on an iPhone and go to T-Mobile where they have horrible service (customer and coverage) or I could just stay at AT&T and pay the subsidized price and get 3G which T-Mobile doesn't have in my area.

Personally, I'd love to have the iPhone on Sprint's network with a cheaper plan. $90/month for 450 minutes and data and sms is completely unreasonable
 
No unlocked iPhone, no puchase. That simple. Besides being contract-free, of course.
 
bedifferent said:
what is stopping Apple from producing a CMDA/TDMA version for sale on other carriers? If the door to a non-contractually bound iPhone is opened before June, perhaps Apple is testing the waters for new iPhones that may be sold through non-GSM carriers.
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The fact that CDMA phones need to be encoded for the network that they're going to be used on? The fact that GSM replaced TDMA? Apple's not going to go non-GSM. WCDMA replaced GSM while EV-DO replaced CDMA. LTE, for the most part since Sprint likes to be non-conformist, is replacing EV-DO and WCDMA. Why go backwards?
 
Actually, I went into Optus in Sydney several times in the last two months to buy and recharge a prepaid Optus SIM for my unlocked iPhone 2G whilst I was on vacation in Australia. I spoke with the Optus staff a fair bit about the iPhone 3G as recently as two weeks ago. You CAN purchase a prepaid contract-free iPhone 3G with prepaid SIM and the unlock for an extra charge. I decided not to pull the trigger and buy one, and instead wait to see if a new hardware model was available in June/July. You have to specifically ask for a prepaid iPhone 3G. They treat the prepaid iPhones as different stock than the postpaid contract iPhones, and will not sell you one from their postpaid iPhone 3G inventory if they don't have stock of the prepaid iPhone 3G. Optus will email the iPhone's IMEI etc. to Apple, and within 10 days you will receive a SMS message confirming the iPhone has been registered for perpetual unlocking in the iTunes activation servers. You then perform a restore in iTunes and then your prepaid Optus iPhone 3G is unlocked. Optus has a steady business selling the prepaid contract-free unlocked iPhone 3Gs.

Cheers,

ITGuy

Ivan P said:
Incorrect. It depends on when you got one, I've been contacting many different Telstra, Vodafone and Optus dealers around Australia (yes, ones not even in my state), in regards to obtaining a legally unlocked iPhone that I pay the outright cost for, and the answer has pretty much been the same every time; that they used to offer one that could be unlocked, but stopped doing so in the months after it's launch. At the moment it's only available on a 24 month plan.
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HarleyMan said:
I know its late, and I'm tired ......let me see if I have this straight....I can get an Iphone that doesn't have a contract with AT&T :). It can be broken to use other providers. :) But the 2 main ones other than AT&T don't have the G3 speed needed to run the thing.:( Oh and its around $500-$600 :( My Question....What is the up side of this?:eek:
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It's cheaper than spending a Bazillion pounds/dollars on a two-year contract.
 
norm l. said:
A removable sim card would be better news :cool:
I'd love to top up an iPhone at Aldi.
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Are you sure you have ever seen an iPhone? The sim is removable ever since, you are asking for a feature every iPhone ever built already has.

What you probably mean is an sim-unlocked version. That you can buy in the Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium, and Hong Kong. And for the lazy ones in Germany, you can just buy a legal EU-Import at http://www.retailkeyshop.com/ for about 100 euro for the importer. And yes, the iPhone works very well with eplus (which is Aldi's network).
 
is this the point where all of the Americans complain that it's too expensive and that you need the expensive plan (to subsidize the cost and to get the full usage out of the phone) and all non-Americans state that it's about time that the Americans have this option?

;)
 
sixtus42 said:
Are you sure you have ever seen an iPhone? The sim is removable ever since, you are asking for a feature every iPhone ever built already has.

What you probably mean is an sim-unlocked version. That you can buy in the Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium, and Hong Kong. And for the lazy ones in Germany, you can just buy a legal EU-Import at http://www.retailkeyshop.com/ for about 100 euro for the importer. And yes, the iPhone works very well with eplus (which is Aldi's network).
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Aldi, as in the cheap German supermarket chain?

We have Lidl, but no Aldi, and my German gf complains that an Aldi would be nice for the inexpensive lower-quality food.
 
acidfast7 said:
Aldi, as in the cheap German supermarket chain?

We have Lidl, but no Aldi, and my German gf complains that an Aldi would be nice for the inexpensive lower-quality food.
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While this is completely off-topic:
The german supermarket chains are so competitive that even walmart had to pull out. So yes, Aldi is inexpensive, but I would not call them lower-quality. No-thrills is a much better term. There are plenty of competitors in the market, such as Lidl, and yes, all of them do sell prepaid gsm cards with very reasonable prices.
 
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