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More iPhone Details - $599 4GB and $649 8GB? [Updated]

Whats all the fuss about?

I can't even figure out why anyone would want a phone from Apple?

Who knows if they will even make a good phone. It is a completely different product than either a computer or an mp3 player. It is also a highly competitive market that is completely saturated with already established strong players.

I love Apple computers and ipods but frankly I haven't much been impressed by their durability or quality control. I have owned 15 different Apple computers and 8 different ipods. All lof them are as dead as a doornail except for two ipods and 2 computers. Both of which are new (less than 2 years old.) I treated each Apple like gold and yet they all failed for different reasons. Primarily display problems, logic board failure, and flimsey hinges and latches.

On the other hand I have two early 90's toshiba laptops, 1 gateway late 90's laptop, 1 dell late 90's laptop, 1 commodore 64, and 1 amiga 2000. All of which run like new and have been used heavily under all conditions.

Apple is notorious for problems on generation 1 hardware. Personally I am not convinced that Apple could make a good, durable, well-designed, gen. 1 phone worth the $500+.

Sorry but I'll have to pass and let some other poor "sucker" er - um person buy a new iphone.
 
I guess people are just making stuff up now about the iPhone? None of these rumors make sense. No one in their right mind would buy a phone at this price, I would imagine. Apple has made enough money on the iPod to allow themselves to take a risk. No need to overprice this because of uncertainty. But what the heck to I know.
 
digitalbiker said:
I can't even figure out why anyone would want a phone from Apple?

Who knows if they will even make a good phone. It is a completely different product than either a computer or an mp3 player. It is also a highly competitive market that is completely saturated with already established strong players.

I love Apple computers and ipods but frankly I haven't much been impressed by their durability or quality control. I have owned 15 different Apple computers and 8 different ipods. All lof them are as dead as a doornail except for two ipods and 2 computers. Both of which are new (less than 2 years old.) I treated each Apple like gold and yet they all failed for different reasons. Primarily display problems, logic board failure, and flimsey hinges and latches.

On the other hand I have two early 90's toshiba laptops, 1 gateway late 90's laptop, 1 dell late 90's laptop, 1 commodore 64, and 1 amiga 2000. All of which run like new and have been used heavily under all conditions.

Apple is notorious for problems on generation 1 hardware. Personally I am not convinced that Apple could make a good, durable, well-designed, gen. 1 phone worth the $500+.

Sorry but I'll have to pass and let some other poor "sucker" er - um person buy a new iphone.
Click to expand...

wow, I have a completely different experience than yours. I had 6 Macs and each one NEVER gave me any major issue in the last 15 years as Mac user. I still have my original 1rst generation iPod and works just fine and recently I purchased the new shuffle and so far so good. Knock on wood!;)
For me every Apple product I purchased are synonymous of great quality and durability products. I still have an old G4 titanium laptop and is going strong.
Sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience.

I look forward to buy the iPhone but if the price is over $600 and Cingular is the carrier, sorry, I'll pass. I rather buy a possible widescreen iPod and keep my current phone with Verizon.
 
mahonmeister said:
I guess people are just making stuff up now about the iPhone? None of these rumors make sense. No one in their right mind would buy a phone at this price, I would imagine. Apple has made enough money on the iPod to allow themselves to take a risk. No need to overprice this because of uncertainty. But what the heck to I know.
Click to expand...

most phones by most phone companies are really $300+ they just give it to you for anywhere from free to $100 because they get you to sign up for a service plan, which puts you under a contract for so many years. Hence you have to pay them more money after you buy the phone, which helps them make up for their initial loss.

an example is the Samsung Blackjack through Cingular Online Store. The price of the phone itself was $449.99 before discounts. The price it said I'd have to pay was $299.99 - $100.00 (Cingular Mail-In Rebate) = $199.99 as the final price.

In truth i would guess the iPhone would sell for something like $100-200 for the 4gb or $200-300 for the 8gb from Cingular w/ service plan (just in comparison to this and other current phone prices, maybe lower because of popularity)

Unfortunately, however, i have verizon :(

Just my thoughts, hope this helps anyone troubled by this :)
 
Prices don't seem right.

Something is not right. $599 for 4GB and $649 for 8GB???
Why would they sell the 8GB for only $50 more than the 4GB??
Morgan Stanley analyst Rebecca F Runkle must not have the right sources.
So basically Apple is giving away 4 extra GB for $50. Just doesn't look right to me. Anybody else feel this way??
 
Its the same as the crappy Razr was...

The price isnt that high - the Razr cost me $800 when it first came out - next thing I know my phone co. offered me one for free if I signed a contract extension. Hello!

So thats what will happen - if the phone is any good, all the phone companies will pick it up and I will get one for about $100 - the RAZR is now falling apart and its no longer even remotely 'cool'.

The big thing is being able to listen to my music while I drive and not miss any business calls. Thats why this iPhone is going to be a BIG seller.

Right now I have my iPod and my RAZR - hey thats about $900 worth of electronic redundancy - put 'em together, sell 'em to the phone co.'s and Apple are off to $120 a share.
 
digitalbiker said:
I can't even figure out why anyone would want a phone from Apple?

Who knows if they will even make a good phone. It is a completely different product than either a computer or an mp3 player. It is also a highly competitive market that is completely saturated with already established strong players.

I love Apple computers and ipods but frankly I haven't much been impressed by their durability or quality control. I have owned 15 different Apple computers and 8 different ipods. All lof them are as dead as a doornail except for two ipods and 2 computers. Both of which are new (less than 2 years old.) I treated each Apple like gold and yet they all failed for different reasons. Primarily display problems, logic board failure, and flimsey hinges and latches.

On the other hand I have two early 90's toshiba laptops, 1 gateway late 90's laptop, 1 dell late 90's laptop, 1 commodore 64, and 1 amiga 2000. All of which run like new and have been used heavily under all conditions.

Apple is notorious for problems on generation 1 hardware. Personally I am not convinced that Apple could make a good, durable, well-designed, gen. 1 phone worth the $500+.

Sorry but I'll have to pass and let some other poor "sucker" er - um person buy a new iphone.
Click to expand...

I'm confused - why the hell are you on macrumors? All your Apple stuff breaks, they are cheap and crappy and you like your bloody Toshiba's - sorry, what is the point of your post?

I have NEVER had a major breakdown of a Mac product and I have owned them all. Right now we have four MACs in the house - from new to much older and they all just hum away.

If Apple products are the way you say, then they are out of business years ago.

Apple is a MAJOR tech co., one of the biggest on the planet - if they cant make a seriously good phone - nobody can.

Are you becoming a Troll?
 
WantIphone said:
Something is not right. $599 for 4GB and $649 for 8GB???
Why would they sell the 8GB for only $50 more than the 4GB??
Morgan Stanley analyst Rebecca F Runkle must not have the right sources.
So basically Apple is giving away 4 extra GB for $50. Just doesn't look right to me. Anybody else feel this way??
Click to expand...

A recent article suggested a larger price gap because the higher model would offer smart phone capabilities as well. I agree, there's no reason to throw in another 4GB for $50. These estimates are terrible.
 
WantIphone said:
So basically Apple is giving away 4 extra GB for $50. Just doesn't look right to me. Anybody else feel this way??
Click to expand...

4GB iPod nano = $US199
8GB iPod nano = $US249

Hmmm.... looks perfectly right to me.

I just think this whole rumour's a load of old bollocks. Analysts know sweet FA about the internal workings of Apple. I'd believe an anonymous tip over an analyst's prediction any day of the week.

Unless it were on Thinksecret. Or Macosrumours.
 
Those prices are totally legitimate for this kind of phone. It's a smartphone, they're all in this price range. The 50 bucks for twice storage are funny tho... you would be crazy not to opt for the higher end one if you had the choice. Phone companies are likely to only offer the 4 GB one. The average costumer won't know the difference anyway.

This thing sounds more like a PDA (3.5" screen, hello!?) than a smartphone tho. As long as I can fit one entire text message onto the screen of the phone I am happy (and my nokia 6610 does that). No one needs such a big screen for just a phone, I suppose this thing will have at least 640x480 video (or 480p thus widescreen). That gives us the full screen iPod video with not enough storage for anything on it. You can compress a movie to about 1 GB so you could have a couple to take with you on a plane. Why not plug a usb drive in for longer trips? They do 200 GB in 2.5" HDDs now, that's enough for some high def movies and a decent music collection.

For now it looks like Apple will release the big high-end phone first to build up a reputation and then follow with an affordable one for the masses later. Just like the iPod. First you had the big ones that had too much storage for the average person and were too expensive, then the mini came out, opening the world of cool mp3-players to the rest of us. I say, the PDA-phone will come out first, then get an update with drastically more storage at the same time the small version comes out.
 
Draelius said:
[for $650 it better have]...Jessica Alba's phone number on speed dial.
Click to expand...

I'd buy it. :eek: Still, I hate my phone, and its the best one I've found for a long time. If apple can mix my ipod with a better than current phone, it will be hard for me to not buy it right away.

As for the Apple electronics, I doubt it. SJ always says Apple is a computer company first.
 
These prices seem to be for a SIM free - unlocked - handset.

It's quite a normal price for a good phone. The Nokia 8800 (different numbers for USA I think) is about £800 (~$1500) unlocked and used still fetches about £400 or $800 as does the SE P990. Seems perfectly priced for an unlocked phone. What are you guys on about? How cheap did you think it would be???

If sold with contracts it might be as cheap as you say but who knows. After all this time I don't think I even want one anymore!
 
Count me in for the camp that doesn't see these prices as ridiculous. Phones are this expensive, so I won't repeat others comments.

But this is shaping up an awful lot like the iPod comments of the past. Just pulled the reciept for my 3G iPod. $722.70 CDN at the education discount price for a 30 GB iPod. That puts this new iPhone at the same price effectively - and I get a whole lot more than a music player. Throw it on a contract with a discount and it seems perfectly reasonable.

New products start out expensive, it's no suprise - that's part of the whole product life cycle. My Titanium PowerBook G4 with the SuperDrive was about $4,700 (again, EDU discount). Look at them now, much cheaper as production ramps up and you benefit from economies of scale (and an improved exchange rate of course). An iTV will be $300 bucks come January, but give it a year and we'll see the price come down.

A phone that interfaces with my computer and acts as an iPod - at this price, sign me up.
 
arn said:
Treo 700p

Retail - $649
with Service plan - $249
Have you all not ever bought a cell phone? This price isn't completely "out there" assuming it's is more than just a basic phone.
arn
Click to expand...
I think most people get their phone on subsidy with their carrier and either change carriers or get an extension when they get a new phone. I've met people who think I've pulled some trick to not be on a contract and not be on prepaid. I think the problem is some carriers used to have "auto-renewing" contracts where you had to know if you wanted to leave at least a month in advance of your rollover date, which most people didn't keep track of.

Evangelion said:
Yeah, but isn't the iMac a bit too big to be used as a cell-phone?
Click to expand...

Yup, but the cell phone...
  • Can't play DVDs, or CDs
  • Can't run Microsoft office
  • Can't do photo or video editing
  • Can't do video chat

splacid said:
Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless in 2004 but is now and always was independent of AT&T.
Click to expand...

They may have run separate of AT&T but that is sure to change. SBC and BellSouth used to have split ownership of Cingular (this was before the AT&T Wireless merger). AT&T Wireless was, prior to its merger with Cingular, a company of its own that had been spun off from AT&T (the old post-80's breakup AT&T) back when they were jettisoning their cable TV services and trying to slimline the number of pies they had their hands in. I always thought that was a super stupid move for AT&T. AT&T was bidding on the old Ma Bell long distance network for revenue, but cell phones and VoIP were the future.

Anyway, AT&T Wireless is bought out by Cingular, which brings everyone in under the Cingular brand (in the process they shut down a few of AT&T's 1900mhz networks and forced AT&T customers to get new phones :eek: ). At this point the company is still joint owned by SBC and BellSouth. Then SBC buys the post 80's breakup AT&T, and takes the company's name. Later ,they buy BellSouth. Which means now the NEW AT&T (SBC) owns 100% of Cingular. They were going to change the name back to AT&T Wireless, too. But they might have backtracked on that idea.

I have trouble believing AT&T is not going to have a heavier hand in the day-to-day operations of the cell phone company they now wholly own *COUGH*NSA wiretaps *COUGH*.
 
I have a Swiss subscription for my RAZR, and it's serving me perfectly well...a fabulous phone by Motorola...besides, I've paid around 100 dollars for it, not more...

I won't shell out 500 for a phone and I have an iPod already...those "smartphones" are, for the most part, gadgets for tech junkies...calling, messaging, camera and address book are more than enough for 99% of the world...NO THANKS!
 
I'm wondering how this is going to work in Europe. I'm not so sure that there's such a heavy emphasis on carrier-subsidies - they do exist, and what it means is that you're paying more per month than you actually should/could be paying. I tend to buy unlocked phones, but 650 for an unlocked phone (albeit a smart-phone)... I don't know, seems difficult to justify. 8 GB is not enough space for me to consider this as an iPod replacement, and for it to cost near twice as much (with taxes, maybe more) as my iPod... I suppose we'll find out sooner or later, assuming there is such a product in the works. I'm not inclined to agree with analysts, so I'll take this with a grain of salt.
 
350€ is the highest price for me, since I dont use my phone that much. Last phone bill was spread across 4 months. :D

If email became pay-per-letter, I would be screwed.

I just want phone that is easy to use, since it's something that others can't deliver. Nokia is really confusing and menus change twice a year and they never get any better.

If that $649 is USD and the phone is communicator-like business phone, count me in.

Those better be GSM. And if they are, you won't get one from Finland.
 
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