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Apple Now Selling Contract-Free iPhone in Retail Stores?

sixtus42 said:
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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she has an Aldi cookbook as well, which from what I gather, was quite trendy at one point.
 
Considering the original iPhone 8GB was $599, this isn't too surprising. I guess it just further solidifies the subsidy that some thought didn't exist. I do wonder if Apple plans on dropping the price in two months like they did, or if they figure people would just sign up with AT&T for the cheaper price.
 
Nice of Apple to do something they should be required by law to do in the first place (which should apply to other phones too). AT&T should also be required to provide in writing the cost of the device in with the cost of the services when signing a contract.
 
sixtus42 said:
The iPhone 3G even ships with the tool necessary. Very stylish, but a paper clip does the same trick.

If you image-google for "iphone sim" you will find plenty of pictures like this:
http://origin.arstechnica.com/journals/apple.media/iphone_sim1.jpg

And the kicker: You can replace the SIM while the iPhone is running. No need to shut it down :D
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Yeh, it's great. I know, I own the iPhone. I said "what? you can remove the SIM" in reference to someone implying that it cant be done.
 
pmjoe said:
Nice of Apple to do something they should be required by law to do in the first place (which should apply to other phones too). AT&T should also be required to provide in writing the cost of the device in with the cost of the services when signing a contract.
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Ironically most Americans don't like to see numbers like that. That is why the whole monthly payment thing is so popular (you know on the infomercials how they say 5 easy payments of $14.95). I wish places that charge you monthly would show you your total yearly outlay. It would make subsidies probably not seem so great.
 
diamond.g said:
Considering the original iPhone 8GB was $599, this isn't too surprising. I guess it just further solidifies the subsidy that some thought didn't exist. I do wonder if Apple plans on dropping the price in two months like they did, or if they figure people would just sign up with AT&T for the cheaper price.
Click to expand...

there does not exist any subsidies. there exists a contract that bundles a cell phone + cell phone service in exchange for monthly payments. ie, the monthly payments cover cell phone payment installments and the service.

subsidy is something you get without agreeing to pay it back later, e.g., if you're a farmer. if you get some money (or something worth money) and agree to pay it back later, it's a loan, not a subsidy.
 
sjo said:
there does not exist any subsidies. there exists a contract that bundles a cell phone + cell phone service in exchange for monthly payments. ie, the monthly payments cover cell phone payment installments and the service.

subsidy is something you get without agreeing to pay it back later, e.g., if you're a farmer. if you get some money (or something worth money) and agree to pay it back later, it's a loan, not a subsidy.
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I think that would be true if people were agreeing to pay back the cost of the phone. Most do not realize that is included in the price. Plus you have to take into consideration that when your two year contract is up your bill doesn't lower by the amount used to pay back your phone. So to me that would be a subsidy...
 
sjo said:
there does not exist any subsidies. there exists a contract that bundles a cell phone + cell phone service in exchange for monthly payments. ie, the monthly payments cover cell phone payment installments and the service.

subsidy is something you get without agreeing to pay it back later, e.g., if you're a farmer. if you get some money (or something worth money) and agree to pay it back later, it's a loan, not a subsidy.
Click to expand...

it is subsidized. If I went in to at&t right now with an iPhone, they would not give me a cheaper contract because they are not “loaning” me money to buy a phone. They subsidize the cost of the iphone for customers who sign a contract because there is financial incentive to do so. It is not a loan. Its an investment.


...sry, I don't even own an iPhone. I just couldn't let something like that go
 
cswiger1 said:
it is subsidized. If I went in to at&t right now with an iPhone, they would not give me a cheaper contract because they are not “loaning” me money to buy a phone. They subsidize the cost of the iphone for customers who sign a contract because there is financial incentive to do so. It is not a loan. Its an investment.


...sry, I don't even own an iPhone. I just couldn't let something like that go
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I think it still isn't a subsidy; the cost of the contract includes the cost of an iPhone, if you already have one then score one for AT&T, they've just suckered you into paying a premium for something you won't get.
 
Wow! I can't believe they charge those prices for an iPhone. It's even harder to believe someone, anyone, would buy at that price. I sure as hell would never pay that kind of money for a mobile 'phone - not even a really, really fancy one. Good luck Apple or AT&T or whoever.

Rich :cool:
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I guess that this will make some people happy.
 
haravikk said:
I think it still isn't a subsidy; the cost of the contract includes the cost of an iPhonea smartphone, if you already have one then score one for AT&T, they've just suckered you into paying a premium for something you won't get.
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Cause the price you pay is for a smartphone, not just an iPhone. But the rest of the statement is correct.
 
this is even better for people living outside of the US :cool: now they can buy the phone in dollars (and save a load of money if your country uses Euros) and not have to jailbreak it in order to get to use it.
 
"it is possible (but not supported) to unlock the phones for use with other mobile service providers"

yes, but only if these phones come with the old baseband which yellowSn0w works with...
 
For Canadians, it can make sense - we're required to have 3 year contracts with minimum plans of something like $60 per month plus taxes/access fees/activation. Say (VERY conservatively) $70/month x 36 = $2520 + 8GB phone for $199 = over $2700. If you're a minimal phone user, don't mind finding wifi spots for your internet use, and want the all-in-one convenience of the iphone, you could save some serious coin over three years.

Now consider a user who doesn't intend to stay in the country for all 36 months and the outright purchase option just gets sweeter.
 
cswiger1 said:
it is subsidized. If I went in to at&t right now with an iPhone, they would not give me a cheaper contract because they are not “loaning” me money to buy a phone. They subsidize the cost of the iphone for customers who sign a contract because there is financial incentive to do so. It is not a loan. Its an investment.


...sry, I don't even own an iPhone. I just couldn't let something like that go
Click to expand...

it doesn't really make that much sense to compare to offerings att may of may not offer you... but if you really think that you don't pay the whole price of your whichever phone you might have during the contract period and the company offering you the contract isn't squeezing the "subsidy" out of your wallet, you're quite welcome to keep your faith.

no wonder the us economy is in the state it is... people don't recognize loans even if they are slapped with one.
 
sixtus42 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Still off-topic, but I thought I would put my 2 cents:

The reasons for Walmart to pull out of Germany were much more complex than simple price difference with other "low-cost supermarkets".

The problems came for example from an offer quite unadapted to German markets, but also there were a lot of problems with employees, as Walmart tried to apply the same management style and rules to their structure in Germany. This even led to problem with justice, if I remember well.
 
so AT&T and APPLE STORES are selling iPhones 3G......

NOW.... I really believe that the NEW iPHONE will be launched at WWDC in JUNE!

Do I hear a YEEEEEAAAA!!!!!!!???:D
 
"I can stuff my bag myselft, thank you"

Olivier L. said:
Still off-topic, but I thought I would put my 2 cents:

The reasons for Walmart to pull out of Germany were much more complex than simple price difference with other "low-cost supermarkets".

The problems came for example from an offer quite unadapted to German markets, but also there were a lot of problems with employees, as Walmart tried to apply the same management style and rules to their structure in Germany. This even led to problem with justice, if I remember well.
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And we Germans could not put up with all the forced happiness Walmart made their employees show as well as the fact that getting your groceries packed in at the cashier is almost unknown in other German supermarkets.

Fake happyness and helpfullness just irritates people over here :)
 
I guess, for those consumers that want or need the data plan, this is a good thing.

For me, no big deal. I don't want nor do I need the benefits of a data plan.

I would gladly pay these prices and go with AT&T if the data plan was not required. Oh well, I'm happy for Apple's success and any consumers this may benefit.
 
BTW..... if you live outside of the US, in a country that does not have iPhone 3G's the price of one of these phones is 2k-3k US. Someone somewhere is going to buy them all up and make a ton of $$$. Saw it with the first ones too.
 
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