The $99 8GB iPhone is for suckers...

[slapppy]

Silly

The ones that were suckers are the ones that bought the Pre. They can redeem themselves by getting the 99 dollar 3G and enjoy 3.0 and all that iTunes goodness.

 

[zap2]

I'm pretty sure Apple has a lot of iPhone 3Gs still in their warehouses that they want to get rid of.

So they don't announce the 3G S's hardware specs during the conference to mislead people into thinking the only major differences between the 3G and 3G S was 8GB of space and a better camera.

My friend almost bought an iPhone 3G thinking that the only difference was the 8GB of space and a slightly better camera, and not realizing all the hardware improvements.

For any extra $100 (the cost of one month of service from ATT on your 2 year contract), you get twice the space, a much newer processor twice as fast, double the ram, a much more powerful GPU, a far better camera and videocamera and lots of extra features.

So I posit that anyone who opts for the $99 8GB iPhone was suckered by apple. You spend that much on the phone plan with ATT in just one month!

And I'm actually kind of pissed at apple for offering it as an option and not releasing all the info on the 3G S's hardware during the conference itself just to take advantage of people who aren't as techinically knowledgable as we are. My friend almost made the mistake of going for the 8 Gig thinking that the only major difference between the two phones was the camera.

If apple just wanted to have a $99 iPhone, they could've just released a 4gb iPhone 3G S for $99, instead of repackaging a much slower last gen device for that price.

Its really the the iPhone 3GS is a better phone and well worth the upgrade, but at the end of the day, some people just don't care. I'm not one of those people, I'm a big nerd and love the latest and greatest. Someone like my mother would rather save the 100 dollar. She just doesn't need the extra features of the 3GS.


I'm not sure why'd you be mad at Apple offering options...its not like its hard to understand..some would rather save the 100 dollar, but you and I, the 3GS is the best bang for the buck.(It like how the 120GB iPod is the best value per GB, but the Nano works for many people because they won't ever need that extra storage)

 

[TheCheapGeek]

The 3G is a good selling phone and with the new software is still the best phone on the market besides the 3G s. They are selling it at 99 dollars because 199$ became the most you could charge for a smart phone after the 3G came out. And now Apple is going to further dominate the market because most other hardware manufactures cant compete with the iPhone at any price, but now at 99 bucks everyone else is screwed. Additionally, the monthly plan is almost not a factor because everyone already has a monthly cell phone plan and data plans are similarly priced across all carriers. Therefore the initial cost of the phone is a big factor on purchase.

Apple is not just clearing stock they are going to make more regular 3G iPhones.

 

[DigitalRhino]

This sucker just got a $99 16GB iPhone.

 

[iranintoavan]

The ones that were suckers are the ones that bought the Pre. They can redeem themselves by getting the 99 dollar 3G and enjoy 3.0 and all that iTunes goodness.

Not really, the Pre is a great phone. In the end, most people that have a cell phone carrier, aren't that willing to quickly jump ship and change carriers. For people already on sprint the Pre is a great option.

 

[dacreativeguy]

I'm pretty sure Apple has a lot of iPhone 3Gs still in their warehouses that they want to get rid of.

So they don't announce the 3G S's hardware specs during the conference to mislead people into thinking the only major differences between the 3G and 3G S was 8GB of space and a better camera.

My friend almost bought an iPhone 3G thinking that the only difference was the 8GB of space and a slightly better camera, and not realizing all the hardware improvements.

For any extra $100 (the cost of one month of service from ATT on your 2 year contract), you get twice the space, a much newer processor twice as fast, double the ram, a much more powerful GPU, a far better camera and videocamera and lots of extra features.

So I posit that anyone who opts for the $99 8GB iPhone was suckered by apple. You spend that much on the phone plan with ATT in just one month!

And I'm actually kind of pissed at apple for offering it as an option and not releasing all the info on the 3G S's hardware during the conference itself just to take advantage of people who aren't as techinically knowledgable as we are. My friend almost made the mistake of going for the 8 Gig thinking that the only major difference between the two phones was the camera.

If apple just wanted to have a $99 iPhone, they could've just released a 4gb iPhone 3G S for $99, instead of repackaging a much slower last gen device for that price.

Welcome to marketing 101!

 

[bjquach]

3G is for people that want to try the iphone first but don't want the more expensive 3G S

 

[JBaker122586]

I can point you to a ton of threads on this board, and articles on google news of people saying the 3GS was barely an upgrade. This almost all stopped once the actual specs leaked out. Coincidence. No, lots of people were given that impression by WWDC.

Then those people are all idiots.

The FIRST thing that was talking about, and spent about 3 to 5 minutes discussing when the 3G S was announced was how it's 2 to 3 times faster than the current iPhone.

The slogan for the marketing is "The fastest, most powerful iPhone yet." If you visit the iPhone 3G S page on the Apple website, the VERY first thing listed under features is "2x faster."

 

[slapppy]

Not really, the Pre is a great phone. In the end, most people that have a cell phone carrier, aren't that willing to quickly jump ship and change carriers. For people already on sprint the Pre is a great option.

Fine and too bad for them that are already on Sprint.

 

[darngooddesign]

If you don't think there is any value to 100 then send some cash my way.

The 3G phone is still fine for light iPhone users.

 

[DHarrisDBS34]

$100 is a lot of money...that's something to consider. I don't have an extra $100 to just spend on a phone that is very similar to the 3G. The 3GS is great and I'd love to get it, but if I were put in the position, right now I might get a 3G.

 

[DaGreat01]

Those who can't afford the $100 difference should be signing into a contract that has them paying $100 every single month for 2 years.

If Apple wanted to offer a real budget option rather than just empty their old stock, they could have and should have offered a 4 GB 3GS for $99, instead of a phone with vastly inferior hardware under the hood, that makes it run twice as slow.

I can point you to a ton of threads on this board, and articles on google news of people saying the 3GS was barely an upgrade. This almost all stopped once the actual specs leaked out. Coincidence. No, lots of people were given that impression by WWDC.

Why do you keep saying a 4GB iPhone 3GS for $99? Do you mean an 8GB?

 

[Gathomblipoob]

Then those people are all idiots.

The FIRST thing that was talking about, and spent about 3 to 5 minutes discussing when the 3G S was announced was how it's 2 to 3 times faster than the current iPhone.

The slogan for the marketing is "The fastest, most powerful iPhone yet." If you visit the iPhone 3G S page on the Apple website, the VERY first thing listed under features is "2x faster."

Not only that, but it was stated clearly that the speed comparisons were run on a 3G and a 3G S both running firmware v3.0.

 

[megadon]

I'm pretty sure Apple has a lot of iPhone 3Gs still in their warehouses that they want to get rid of.

So they don't announce the 3G S's hardware specs during the conference to mislead people into thinking the only major differences between the 3G and 3G S was 8GB of space and a better camera.

My friend almost bought an iPhone 3G thinking that the only difference was the 8GB of space and a slightly better camera, and not realizing all the hardware improvements.

For any extra $100 (the cost of one month of service from ATT on your 2 year contract), you get twice the space, a much newer processor twice as fast, double the ram, a much more powerful GPU, a far better camera and videocamera and lots of extra features.

So I posit that anyone who opts for the $99 8GB iPhone was suckered by apple. You spend that much on the phone plan with ATT in just one month!

And I'm actually kind of pissed at apple for offering it as an option and not releasing all the info on the 3G S's hardware during the conference itself just to take advantage of people who aren't as techinically knowledgable as we are. My friend almost made the mistake of going for the 8 Gig thinking that the only major difference between the two phones was the camera.

If apple just wanted to have a $99 iPhone, they could've just released a 4gb iPhone 3G S for $99, instead of repackaging a much slower last gen device for that price.

my boss showed me his 3G S, (financial analysts for investment banks get access to new products before the public so we can asses for ourselves how much value it will add to the company as a whole and their revenue stream)

anyways.. it's not as fast as you think, and truthfully, I can't remember anyone prior to the 3G S release complain that the 3G was "too slow"

anyways..we came up with the conclusion that the only reason apple released the 3G S was because they had to drop the price of the 3G so the Pre would not steal market share... and also, last time they dropped the price by a $100 their sales increased by 100%...

so apple wanted to increase sales, but they also wanted to have an expensive phone like the 3G S in the line up so they would not decrease sales of their "expensive" phone..

that is also why the stock actually dropped on the day of the release, because we knew a new phone was coming on June 8th, (I actually posted a thread about it a week before the 8th which I discussed the price drop and the new iphone..) but analysts expected a "new" iphone, not just the same 3G with a couple easy to install apps..and a better camera..

it's just a marketing scheme, and that is what apple is known for...

so if you currently own a 3G, you're better off waiting for one year till you buy the real new iphone.. instead of paying extra for the same phone just with a few minor differences and extra space..

 

[cleric]

They said the phone was 2x faster what did your friend think that was black magic or more ram and better processor like everyone predicted?

 

[slapppy]

@megadon

Unless the new iPhone 3G S doesn't really sport a new CPU & Graphics card, then your post is bogus at best.

 

[mactastic]

Why do you keep saying a 4GB iPhone 3GS for $99? Do you mean an 8GB?

I suspect he thinks the way to get the iPhone 3Gs down to the $99 price point is to go with an 4GB memory chip. Which, I suspect, would make the 3Gs nearly useless a few months down the line when you've got it full up with apps and files, and can't upgrade forever. 4GB ain't much these days. Specially with the ability to record video. And I'm guessing the OS ain't gettin' any smaller like Snow Leopard...

 

[megadon]

@megadon

Unless the new iPhone 3G S doesn't really sport a new CPU & Graphics card, then your post is bogus at best.

don't get me wrong, it is faster, but the point I'm trying to say is that did you honestly think your 3G was slow prior to knowing about the 3GS???

so using the "its faster" argument doesn't really cut it, because as far as features, it's nothing revolutionary..

anyways.. just check this out..

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined


what that shows is that everyone (including myself) expected a new iphone, and after the release, it was a huge letdown, thats why the apple stock has actually gone down since the release of the 3GS, and at the same time, since everyone was expecting the iphone to actually have considerable changes, it let everyone down, which is good for the Palm Pre, which has outperformed Apple by about 20% just in this week..

I'm not saying it's not faster, I'm saying that this phone was just made quickly so they can drop the price of the 3G, and have something to replace the 3G price tag, so they can compete with Palm Pre, it has nothing to do with giving the costumers a better product...

 

[vinay427]

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

@megadon

Unless the new iPhone 3G S doesn't really sport a new CPU & Graphics card, then your post is bogus at best.

don't get me wrong, it is faster, but the point I'm trying to say is that did you honestly think your 3G was slow prior to knowing about the 3GS???

so using the "its faster" argument doesn't really cut it, because as far as features, it's nothing revolutionary..

anyways.. just check this out..

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined


what that shows is that everyone (including myself) expected a new iphone, and after the release, it was a huge letdown, thats why the apple stock has actually gone down since the release of the 3GS, and at the same time, since everyone was expecting the iphone to actually have considerable changes, it let everyone down, which is good for the Palm Pre, which has outperformed Apple by about 20% just in this week..

I'm not saying it's not faster, I'm saying that this phone was just made quickly so they can drop the price of the 3G, and have something to replace the 3G price tag, so they can compete with Palm Pre, it has nothing to do with giving the costumers a better product...

I agree completely. There are many more 3G owners than 1st Gen so it would make sense to spend more R&D money next year when there are a lot more contracts expiring.

 

[megadon]

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



I agree completely. There are many more 3G owners than 1st Gen so it would make sense to spend more R&D money next year when there are a lot more contracts expiring.

and I forgot to mention why I even posted in this thread.. IMO, the $99 3G is bang for the buck..

and if you wanna argue that its only a $100 difference, if for the sake of the convo, you keep/purchase a 3G, instead of buying the 3GS, you will actually be getting a $100 discount on next years iphone (which should have many more changes) which doesn't sound like a bad deal to me..
(and by discount, I'm talking about not spending the extra $100 for the 3GS today, and using it towards the next iphone)

 

[rugox]

I'm pretty sure Apple has a lot of iPhone 3Gs still in their warehouses that they want to get rid of.

So they don't announce the 3G S's hardware specs during the conference to mislead people into thinking the only major differences between the 3G and 3G S was 8GB of space and a better camera.

My friend almost bought an iPhone 3G thinking that the only difference was the 8GB of space and a slightly better camera, and not realizing all the hardware improvements.

For any extra $100 (the cost of one month of service from ATT on your 2 year contract), you get twice the space, a much newer processor twice as fast, double the ram, a much more powerful GPU, a far better camera and videocamera and lots of extra features.

So I posit that anyone who opts for the $99 8GB iPhone was suckered by apple. You spend that much on the phone plan with ATT in just one month!

And I'm actually kind of pissed at apple for offering it as an option and not releasing all the info on the 3G S's hardware during the conference itself just to take advantage of people who aren't as techinically knowledgable as we are. My friend almost made the mistake of going for the 8 Gig thinking that the only major difference between the two phones was the camera.

If apple just wanted to have a $99 iPhone, they could've just released a 4gb iPhone 3G S for $99, instead of repackaging a much slower last gen device for that price.

Do you understand the point of having a $99 iPhone buying option? It is $99 so it can reach those customers who thought the previous prices were too expensive for them. It's obvious the $99 won't pay for the latest 3GS but they are still getting an iPhone at a CHEAP price. Apple did this so they can give the option of purchasing an iPhone to those people who won't spend ton of money on a phone.

 

[redman042]

I don't agree with the extreme view by the OP, but I will say this:

If you buy a $99 iPhone, you are still committing to a data+voice plan that is almost that much (or more) every month that you own the phone. The minimum plan is $70 and many need more minutes than that. So if an extra $100 up front to get a much better phone is a problem, how can you afford the data plan?

I'm not criticizing people who've thought this through and still prefer to save the $100 up front, but I think a lot of people don't think this through. They get a smartphone because it's "on sale" or whatever but don't realize just how much they'll be paying every single month.

 

[Brien]

And just think, maybe next year the iPhone will be *free* with 2yr contract. Gasp!

 

[megadon]

I don't agree with the extreme view by the OP, but I will say this:

If you buy a $99 iPhone, you are still committing to a data+voice plan that is almost that much (or more) every month that you own the phone. The minimum plan is $70 and many need more minutes than that. So if an extra $100 up front to get a much better phone is a problem, how can you afford the data plan?

I'm not criticizing people who've thought this through and still prefer to save the $100 up front, but I think a lot of people don't think this through. They get a smartphone because it's "on sale" or whatever but don't realize just how much they'll be paying every single month.

you're right on the money...
thats why the telecom companies subsidize the price of the phone, it's the bait, and the hook is the contract..

sure they lose some money on the phone, but they make that over and over during the contract..

IMO, I think both are good phones, everyone has different needs...
I'm just trying to show people how the main purpose of apple is to increase revenue...
if someone actually believes a company like apple, who've been in the business of making hi-tech comps for years could not incorporate the things in 3.O in the first generations iphones, then there's not much you can say to them.. they purposely leave out essential things, just to get people to want the next one..

you could make the same comparison with benz.. they change each model every 5 years, but during those 5, they're always adding "new features" to entice people to get new ones..

 

[Donz0r]

Were you at this forum during the WWDC.

There were tons of threads complaning that the 3G S was barely an upgrade at all. It wasn't until the actual specs leaked that this stopped somewhat.

Even the people here though the 3G S was barely an upgrade as a result of WWDC. There were tons of news articles saying the same thing. What chance did people who don't that much about tech have.

Thanks the T-Mobile's screw up, now the people who actually pay attention know that the changes are very very signficant. But I don't think apple wanted that info to get out until they emptied their 3G stocks.

They even named it 3G S to make it seem like a small upgrade underneath the hood when it was in reality a huge change.

People on these forums ALWAYS complain by the boatload after EVERY keynote. They Keynote CLEARLY stated that the phone was TWICE as fast, had a 3mp autofocus camera with video, voice recording, and the compass. They are not trying to sucker people AT ALL. Look at the damn website for crying out loud! It CLEARLY states all of the 3G's advantages.

Do the 'non techie' people watch the keynotes? No. They watch the commercials or look at the website. Both the commerical and website stress the 3G's advantage. Your friend is just not a smart consumer at ALL. It's not apple's fault.