AT&T's iPhone 3G Data Plan and No Longer Revenue Sharing

[D4F]

I'm pointing out something pretty simple which you seem unable to discuss without a tirade. That's pretty weak that you call upon insults to try and get your opinion across.

Remember, just as much as you're claiming "it's life" it's also "life" for people to voice their opinion on situations, especially when they see something the do not agree with, or in this case were flat out lied to.

If you choose to come at me again, take a deep breath and form a coherent opinion that's void of juvenile drivel and tantrums. That something you claim others are doing when voicing their opinions. Ironic isn't it?

Flad lied to? I guess you're juvenile for even coming to a conclusion like that.

iPhone is $199 which means it is cheaper no matter how you look at it. Create theories or whatever you want and nothing will change the fact that the iPhone itself is cheaper.
So nobody lied to you. You just fail to see how real world works and A + B will never be A.

 

[Intarweb]

Flad lied to? I guess you're juvenile for even coming to a conclusion like that.

Jobs flat out lied about the iPhone 3g being thinner. It isn't. FACT. He lied. And he also slimely said it was cheaper when in actuality it isn't when you look at it in a real life context WITH the * that's placed at the end of the price. Also, the package is void of the dock.

 

[trashy]

iPhone prices $200* cheaper!
(*not including $360 in new service fees)

Don't you mean $240 in fees?

 

[Intarweb]

Don't you mean $240 in fees?

No dock + $30
No messages in the $30 data fee so add $5 more for 200 messages.

 

[D4F]

Jobs flat out lied about the iPhone 3g being thinner. It isn't. FACT. He lied. And he also slimely said it was cheaper when in actuality it isn't when you look at it in a real life context WITH the * that's placed at the end of the price. Also, the package is void of the dock.

I don't know about the thinner thingy but he didn't lie about the iPhone proce. It is cheaper lol. Can't you see it?
The PACKAGE might not be cheaper BUT the iPhone ITSELF IS cheaper.
Dude what they did it's basics of marketing and AT&T decided to take advantage here.

 

[fox57]

Price reduction

Don't you think that the discussion on price reduction and AT&T overlooks the fact that the Iphone will be sold in 70 over countries by year end.
Potentially a much larger market than the US.
The 199 USD price level is what is need to penetrate markets in the Far East were competition is strong.

 

[Vanarak19]

8gb 2g iphone- $399
8gb 3g iphone- $199

2yrs of service on the 450min plan, with data:
24 x (39.99+20) = roughly $1440

2yrs of service on the 450min plan (3g) with data:
24 x (39.99+30) = $1679

thats a $239 difference. Lower the price my ass, they just raised the price by $40 over 2 years. Not to mention 0 free text messages now, so add $5/month more for that.

1679$ + 24 x (5$) = 1799$ 2yrs

amazing what apple/att try to sell as a "better deal" these days. This is a worse deal. You do get 3g, and i never said it wasnt worth it, but...

One of Stevo's key points was "more affordable" they havent achieved that in the least, they just dont take as much at first, while taking more in the end. Get bent.

whos with me? $350 more over 2 years, thats almost 15$/month which is about 25% increase over original price.

what a ploy

 

[D4F]

No dock + $30
No messages in the $30 data fee so add $5 more for 200 messages.

?????????????????

 

[Intarweb]

I don't know about the thinner thingy but he didn't lie about the iPhone proce. It is cheaper lol. Can't you see it?
The PACKAGE might not be cheaper BUT the iPhone ITSELF IS cheaper.
Dude what they did it's basics of marketing and AT&T decided to take advantage here.

He didn't lie about the price, I said that he was slimey in the way that it was presented "*". He flat out lied about the size. Apple has gone from a darling of mine to an untrustworthy company in the matter of a very few years. This takes the cake.

It's far from "more affordable." It's more expensive, PERIOD.

 

[Intarweb]

?????????????????

You don't get the dock that you got with the first iPhone. You want a dock, $30.

 

[cWeems]

I've very curious to see what this new pricing policy does to the family talk plans. As it sits now I have 4 iPhones that will be upgraded to 3G versions when available. Under the current "special" iPhone data plans, texting is included. There was no was no way to separate the two.

But if they're treating the 3G iPhone like any other 3G handset, then I will be able to add unlimited messaging to my entire family plan for $30 / month (cheaper than the currently $20 / iPhone / month). Even with the $10 increase, if this scenario holds true I'll actually be saving $10 / month on the bottom line of the plan.

I hope that what ATT is saying is actually true, that they are treating the iPhone like any other handset.

well all four of your current phones are on the $20 data plan plus u have UNL family texting for all lines which is $30?? so your total data costs is $110, the UNL text will stay the same at $30, but if u upgrade all four iphones to the 3G iphone then the four data plans will be at $30 each. so now $150 for all data.

 

[jlbrown23]

I was all set to buy one before the data plan prices went up, but now I realize that I'm pretty happy with my 1G iPhone. Could I pay for the extra $15/month (3G + 200 texts)? Probably. But, for some reason $35/month crossed the threshold of more than I'm willing to pay.

Besides, what real new functionality are we getting with the new iPhone? Sure this one has faster internet and better location hardware (GPS), but the 1G does both of those things (albeit not as well as the new one).

I probably should be thanking AT&T for raising the prices--they saved me quite a bit of money by helping me realize that what I have is more than sufficient.

I might be with you on this one. With the original, the plan price was more than I wanted to pay, but I would have probably done it with decent net speeds. So I figured I would wait for the 3G device. Now that they have that, they move the bar on me. More for data, no free texts. So now that they have what I want for $70, it becomes $85.

So I will join you in thanking AT&T for saving me some money. I'm really on the net more than I should be anyway, so do I really need it in my pocket all of the time? At minimum I think I'll wait for a few months until my Verizon contract expires, and I see how I like MobileMe and new Apps on my Touch. If I am underwhelmed, I might just stick with my nice $30 Verizon voice plan out of contract.

 

[computermilk]

wtf?

Ok.. seriously now poeple? wtf?

I'm not trying to be offensive towards anyone, but what's all this whining and complaining for?

I'm digging through all these posts trying to read all this crap, and sitting here watching you people add up dollars and cents?

Ok 30$ more a month for data, adds up to More money in the longrun, so it's not cheaper, yeah they tricked you. BOO HOO?

So you pay the extra money to have an amazing device like this. Stop your whining, i'm sick of poeple out there critizing these tiddly winks things like they are movie critics or something.

If it's 10$ more a month for data, SIGN ME UP!

Heck i'm even going to pay for MobileME, and guess what! that's 99$ a year!

WOW it's sooooo expensive....
But did you see what Mobile Me does? do you even care?

seems to me like everyone is just sitting everyone looking for a REASON to stab Jobs or apple, but who is sitting around looking at what an amazing device they made? ME, I am.

I can't wait to be able to take pics with my Phone, upload them to my Mobile Me Album so my friends can Look at my album on their Photos button on thieir Iphones. that's AMAZING what other phone does that? the answer is None.
30$ a month data, 40$ a month data, 50$ sign me up!

I'll just adjust my budget and Drink One less Starbucks coffee a week, or buy one less CD, or something. To have an AMAZING device? yeah i'll do it.

Stop your whining and over critizing, it's sickening.

if your not happy with it, then go to your crappy T-Mobile and verizon devices, surf the web on crappy mobile webpages, have fun.

 

[mekkon]

The PACKAGE might not be cheaper BUT the iPhone ITSELF IS cheaper.

Problem is, you can't buy the iPhone without the service plan. So the initial cost of entry into the contract may be cheaper, but the overall cost is much higher, which I believe everyone agrees upon.

As for marketing, sure that's exactly what it is, and there's nothing stopping them from doing it. I believe the problems most people here are voicing are ethical - they would expect this sort of practice from AT&T, but not from APPLE. Especially since Steve went out of his way to talk about how he was challenging and solving the traditional expensive phone-data-plan cost problem when he introduced the first iPhone.

They're allowed to do this for sure, it's just a sad way to go about business and we had hoped Apple was above it. As a matter of fact, they could give out the iPhones for free and jack the monthly fees to $500 if they want to, but that would still make the iPhone MORE EXPENSIVE, not cheaper.

 

[cWeems]

Just figured it out

2 lines before with with 700 unlimited data and 200 sms - $109.99
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach...+iphone+family+plans&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
(click family)
Now $139.99 and only one phone gets the sms.

$30 difference, sucks. So much for my Iphone family. Wife is going to get a non-pda phone now.

700min plan example w/ 2 lines
1st line primary - $60
1st line data - $30
2nd addaline- $10
2nd line data- $30
--------------
= $129.99, a $20 difference due to the $10 increase in each data plan for the 3G iphone.. no SMS is included in either plan. u can add(per line) $5-200txt, $15-1500txt, $20-UNLtxt, or $30 is UNL txt for the whole family(up to 5 lines)

 

[cWeems]

still only one carrier huh? how longs their contract with at&T.

5yrs

 

[dubis07]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Rable rable rable rable!

 

[cWeems]

So what are you saying, that we have to *qualify* to pay att more money and get a new phone? And how many iPhone owners are 1 year into their contract given the fact that the iphone was released in late June 2007? I for one, will not be one year into it on day one having purchased my iPhone in late July 2007.

Take this back to your bosses: If we're willing to pay you more money to use the new iPhone, then you should just sell it to us no questions asked (if we're already customers). You shouldn't have to check to make sure we're "good enough" to pay you more money. That's just *insulting*.

This whole thing stinks. I should be able to just walk in, shell out my money, and walk out with a new iPhone.

To Steve Jobs for essentially lying by omission to us when he said the price of the iPhone was going down.

To ATT for making iPhone users pay so much to use their phones.

yes u have to be qualified like any NORMAL person now lol, but they are allowing 1st gen iphone customers whose accounts are in good standing (payed bills on time, no past due balances, etc.) upgrade early,

SO CURRENT IPHONE CUSTOMERS DONT FREAK OUT! youll get ur shiny new phone

 

[em500]

iPhone is $199 which means it is cheaper no matter how you look at it. Create theories or whatever you want and nothing will change the fact that the iPhone itself is cheaper.
So nobody lied to you. You just fail to see how real world works and A + B will never be A.

No, it's not $199, because you cannot buy an iPhone for $199. They won't let you leave the store with it without a contract. $199 is just the downpayment. Saying the iPhone itself is cheaper is only meaningful if you can actually buy the iPhone itself. But you can't anymore, you can now only buy iPhone+contract.

 

[Vanarak19]

Ok.. seriously now poeple? wtf?

I'm not trying to be offensive towards anyone, but what's all this whining and complaining for?

I'm digging through all these posts trying to read all this crap, and sitting here watching you people add up dollars and cents?

Ok 30$ more a month for data, adds up to More money in the longrun, so it's not cheaper, yeah they tricked you. BOO HOO?

So you pay the extra money to have an amazing device like this. Stop your whining, i'm sick of poeple out there critizing these tiddly winks things like they are movie critics or something.

If it's 10$ more a month for data, SIGN ME UP!

Heck i'm even going to pay for MobileME, and guess what! that's 99$ a year!

WOW it's sooooo expensive....
But did you see what Mobile Me does? do you even care?

seems to me like everyone is just sitting everyone looking for a REASON to stab Jobs or apple, but who is sitting around looking at what an amazing device they made? ME, I am.

I can't wait to be able to take pics with my Phone, upload them to my Mobile Me Album so my friends can Look at my album on their Photos button on thieir Iphones. that's AMAZING what other phone does that? the answer is None.
30$ a month data, 40$ a month data, 50$ sign me up!

I'll just adjust my budget and Drink One less Starbucks coffee a week, or buy one less CD, or something. To have an AMAZING device? yeah i'll do it.

Stop your whining and over critizing, it's sickening.

if your not happy with it, then go to your crappy T-Mobile and verizon devices, surf the web on crappy mobile webpages, have fun.

I agree that people whine a lot, but that is not avoidable after any keynote. if you dont like it, stop reading the thread, i know i have for the most part.

Its the fact that they tell the public they've made it "more affordable" that gets me. Thats ridiculous.


30$/month increase is not pennies to everyone, maybe you should keep that in mind. In fact, thats a very large increase for a monthly plan thats under 100$ already.

 

[filmguy15]

This is hilarious. All of this complaining matters not. Apple will still move this thing like gangbusters. All of you scamps can keep scraping at the bottom of the barrel for a reason to complain, but in the end, YOU DON'T MATTER TO APPLE. Depressing I know, but get over it.

(no doubt, SOMEONE will comment on my grammar. That does not give any validity to your argument I'm afraid, so save your breath.)

 

[cWeems]

Because no other smart phone that AT&T has could bring millions of new customers. Yes, it seems fair that we should pay the same for the same service, but as a collective whole, iPhone users represent a HUGE market for AT&T that no other phone gives them. Assuming no phones will be unlocked, AT&T is poised to get MILLIONS of new customers (and given the least expensive rate plan is around $1k/year, that's at least a billion dollars in extra revenue), likely away from Sprint/VZW/etc, so that's why our concerns should matter more than those of other smart phones...

Thinking analytically helps sometimes, bro.

well essentially its because when a customer upgrades we take $200 off the retail cost of a phone, so someone could do an upgrade in march of 07 like thousands did that year, then come june get out that contract free of charge and get the iphone w/ a new agreement. so at&t ate money on the phone becuase they didnt make up for it over the 2yr period and, which no one here cares about, thousands of sales reps were backed out of commissions because of the 6 month chargeback period due to people upgrading to the iphone.

and another thing, my store usually sells about 200 iphones a month, if not more... i would say about 80% or so are all to be unlocked, its wasting our time since we dont get paid on the iphone sale unless they activate it and its wasting at&ts future iphone sales when we run out of stuck so the real customers cant buy them.. so im sure they want people to be qualified to buy them and not jus pay and grab out the door to who knows where. iTunes didnt discriminate contract status at all anyone was eligable.

 

[computermilk]

I agree that people whine a lot, but that is not avoidable after any keynote. if you dont like it, stop reading the thread, i know i have for the most part.

Its the fact that they tell the public they've made it "more affordable" that gets me. Thats ridiculous.


30$/month increase is not pennies to everyone, maybe you should keep that in mind. In fact, thats a very large increase for a monthly plan thats under 100$ already.

it's a marketing thing, Apple is not the only company that does stuff like that.

And the other poster is right, Apple will still run with this thing like gangbusters. Poeple will still go out and buy it.

Honestly being an iPhone owner myself, I love it when they come out with new things in hopes that new poeple will buy one and join in on the fun.

I currently have around 20-30 friends who own one, and we all do alot of fun things together with them, When mobileME comes out, it's only going to get better.

I do realize that 10$ a month is not cheaper to some poeple, but that's why i made the starbucks coffee comment.

Just adjust the budget a little bit, you can't tell me out there that people make mindless purchases on other things every month?

Sacrifice a little to get an amazing device like this.

I have been on T mobile, Verizon, Sprint, i've had every phone you can name and think of, treo's Pockt pcs, etc etc. My average of owning a phone before the iphone came out was around 1-2 months then i would just get anothr one because i was not happy with it.

This is the longest phone i've ever owned, i absolutly love it. 10$/20$/30$ more a month whatever... is well worth it.

 

[Intarweb]

well essentially its because when a customer upgrades we take $200 off the retail cost of a phone, so someone could do an upgrade in march of 07 like thousands did that year, then come june get out that contract free of charge and get the iphone w/ a new agreement. so at&t ate money on the phone becuase they didnt make up for it over the 2yr period and, which no one here cares about, thousands of sales reps were backed out of commissions because of the 6 month chargeback period due to people upgrading to the iphone.

and another thing, my store usually sells about 200 iphones a month, if not more... i would say about 80% or so are all to be unlocked, its wasting our time since we dont get paid on the iphone sale unless they activate it and its wasting at&ts future iphone sales when we run out of stuck so the real customers cant buy them.. so im sure they want people to be qualified to buy them and not jus pay and grab out the door to who knows where. iTunes didnt discriminate contract status at all anyone was eligable.

Will I be able to get an iPhone 3g without a data plan?

 

[Vanarak19]

it's a marketing thing, Apple is not the only company that does stuff like that.

And the other poster is right, Apple will still run with this thing like gangbusters. Poeple will still go out and buy it.

Honestly being an iPhone owner myself, I love it when they come out with new things in hopes that new poeple will buy one and join in on the fun.

I currently have around 20-30 friends who own one, and we all do alot of fun things together with them, When mobileME comes out, it's only going to get better.

I do realize that 10$ a month is not cheaper to some poeple, but that's why i made the starbucks coffee comment.

Just adjust the budget a little bit, you can't tell me out there that people make mindless purchases on other things every month?

Sacrifice a little to get an amazing device like this.

I have been on T mobile, Verizon, Sprint, i've had every phone you can name and think of, treo's Pockt pcs, etc etc. My average of owning a phone before the iphone came out was around 1-2 months then i would just get anothr one because i was not happy with it.

This is the longest phone i've ever owned, i absolutly love it. 10$/20$/30$ more a month whatever... is well worth it.

I agree


the only thing thatll stop me is, do i want to wait for 32GB? I was really surprised the size wasnt bumped, but maybe for xmas? who knows.

I guess they cant cannibalize the touch lineup yet, seeing as how the only thing its got is more memory and a higher price (over the iphone)

16GB is enough for me, but its nice to have some more space than you need. I keep about 10-12 gigs of music i listen to all the time on my phone, all my pictures 1gb), that leaves me with very little to have movies via handbrake or other stuff.