$2000 for an iPhone?
Apple and AT&T today announced phone/data plan pricing for the iPhone, due out this Friday, June 29. Even the cheapest plan, with a 2-year commitment, will run you $60 a month. Add that up over 24 months, plus the cost of the phone, and it’ll cost you nearly $2000 (that price is for the 8 GB model; count $100 less for the 4 GB model). If you’re a serial-gabber, you could get 6,000 minutes a month for $220, which would bring the total up to $5280 for the AT&T plan alone!
I’m not a mobile phone user, so this all strikes me as nearly laughable, but I know plenty of people won’t hesitate to dump two grand over two years to make phone calls. Think of what else you could get with your $2000: well, quite a lot. You could make a long list. Is it really worth paying that much?
I’ve got to admit, I just don’t get it. If my business depended on it, I would see the value, but at these prices, are people really going to go gaga over the iPhone? (My answer: yes. People waste money all the time.)
Note: I forgot to add the $36 activation fee (ha!, another swindle…), so you can increase the totals above by another three dozen dollars. And if you ever want to cancel, that’ll cost you $175! (And if you do, the device won’t even work as an iPod.) You can also pay $10-20 per month to increase the number of text messages you get. In short, you can pay as much as $6395 over two years for the privilege of having a phone. You gotta wonder why there are so many suckers in the world…
Posted: 6/26/2007 by kirk | Filed under: Apple & Mac OS X | 5 Comments »
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So,
What you do is take the MOST expensive plan and use that as an example of
how much the iphone costs. With most plans in the system considering the
things you get it actually works out cheaper for me!! Go figure.
Um, if you read the article, you’ll see I took the _cheapest_ plan, at $60 a month,
for my headline. The expensive plan was to show the other extreme.
No, the cost of the iPhone is $500 or $600. But that also gives you a video
iPod, a "smartphone", and "full internet". Plus elegance and ease-of-use not
found on any other phone. It’s a freaking bargin, there are many
"smartphones" that cost much more. It’s the features, baby!
The plan is a wash for smartphone users, they are *already* paying that $60,
likely much more.
For ATT users all you do is add the data plan, $20. For me that’s $480
dollars.
So even in the worse case if you think the iPhone is "just a phone", that’s $1K
over two years.
Have you read that it won’t work as an iPod after your contract runs out?
I have to say I agree with you, Kirk. The iPod analog to this iPhone would be an iPod that could only reproduce iTMS protected AAC files once you activated with iTMS.
I’m hoping the iPhone will be something more and something less in the future. More in the sense of a pocket computing platform like the Newton (i miss it dearly), where I can type on a decent text editor with a Bluetooth keyboard like the Stowaway and use 3rd party software. Less in the sense of using the phone with any carrier you wish and, if it came down to it, without a carrier.
To the point of what happens after your contract runs out, I don’t know. I haven’t read anything that says the device becomes disabled again.
In it’s current incarnation it’s for people who have cash and device lust. I think it’s a very, very cool device and I would love one but I can’t justify it.