WWDC '08 Sees Slimmer, Improved, 3G iPhone 804
Many of us have been watching Apple's WWDC 2008 keynote unfold live. There are many exciting tidbits, but most of all is the announcement of the 3G iPhone. Featuring an even thinner profile, black plastic back, metal buttons, flush headphone jack, improved audio, GPS support, and improved battery life, this is bound to make quite a few people stand up and take notice. Update 18:54 GMT by SM: Best of all it looks like they really took the price point to heart, 8GB iPhones are now $199 and a 16GB model will be available for $299, coming to an Apple store riot near you on July 11,2008.
Already? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Finally, I want one (Score:4, Insightful)
damn glad I did too. with built in GPS, better battery life, real apps.
I just feel sorry for the 6 million original iPhones that are about to hit ebay. Then again if Apple sold 6 million regular iPhones with version 2 coming out in a month in 70 countries just how many more will they sell? the 10 million iphones sold is going to be a drop in the bucket. i would almost expect 12 million units shipped by the end of the year.
Not upset about iPhone 1.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew from day 1 that that price would come down on future versions. The Apple Lisa was $9,995 in 1983 which is around $21,000 today in 2008. That was the baseline model. As technology grows, things get cheaper. If you haven't picked up this, then perhaps you shouldn't buy technology products. You didn't "have" to buy an iPhone, and you should have seen this coming. You shouldn't also buy such a phone if you can't afford it.
At the same time, they are upgrading the firmware on the older phones still. My current one still gives me all the battery life I need for reasonable use. I am in a major city (Boston) with wifi almost everywhere. I don't drive, and thus the GPS is a non-feature.
Anyone that acts "upset" over the new features, and price drop, needs to grow up.
They didn't add any killer features for me. If they had added even something like the (much rumored, but obviously a lie) video chat functionality or something insane then maybe I'd have thought otherwise. Funny how those rumors/lies got around.
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:2, Insightful)
I ask this only because most of the people I've met with iPhones didn't switch, they were already on AT&T's network.
Re:This is also likely to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe Apple has something here that will turn the smartphone market on its ear.
Re:Can hardly beat the prices (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quick! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Verizon (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:5, Insightful)
8GB iPhone $199 + $59.99 * 24 = $1638.76
I think the touch is the better deal.
Re:Where's the meat? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't feel bitter at all about this. I knew when I bought the first iPhone that there would be another version a year or so down the line. It was just common sense. But I didn't want to wait, so I paid a premium. Thats not a big deal for me.
If I can get one for $200 with my current plan, though, I'd be really tempted to get the 3G.
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech gets cheaper over time. I'm more pissed that I once spent $50 for a 30-pack of CD-R blanks and only had eight or so work after waiting half an hour to find out the burn failed, only to now be able to buy discs that burn in a minute for fifteen cents apiece with 99% reliability. At least my 1.0 iPhone worked properly at launch and continues to do so
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Haha- so as long as I'm gonna have a cell phone, it might as well be an iPhone. I'll pick mine up when I get back from Mozambique in February 2009- maybe MWSF will see another update
Re:Can hardly beat the prices (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I remembered my trusty Garmin:
$5/month for the painfully inaccurate ClearChannel traffic info.
$215 for the traffic receiver (granted, you can find a C550 with it included for less if you shop around).
$160 for the travel guides.
$100-$150 every time you want to go to a new country.
$70/year for the map updates.
Granted, you don't need to buy all of those. But every one of them involves Garmin prying your wallet open for something that's free on the net/Google Maps and thus free once you have paid your $70 monthly net access on your iPhone.
Re:2 hours (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully they'll have a separate "upgrade from Leopard" SKU that they either won't charge for, or that will be a much smaller price than the usual price.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:2, Insightful)
It may not have been explicitly stated, but coupled with the fact that you didn't have to sign a contract to walk out with the phone, it pretty much adds up to it not being subsidized.
Re:Finally, I want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I bought an iPhone last September for 299 and it is my favorite tech purchase in the last 5 years or so. So ~$2 (one for the hardware, one for the $20 my contract is over my old one) a day for something I use and enjoy every day is fine with me. Actually, it paid for itself the first day I didn't feel the mobile phone interface rage my previous LG, Motorolas and Blackberries gave me.
Hahaha (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Verizon (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a symptom of a larger problem.
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would I feel stupid? I've had a great phone/iPod/EDGE web-surfing gadget for a year, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Once the new one is available for sale, I'll have a great phone/iPod/3G web-surfing gadget which I'm sure I'll enjoy just as thoroughly, and my wife will inherit the EDGE version (her old Motorola U6 is long overdue for a replacement anyway).
What makes you think I would expect innovation to come to a grinding halt just because I've spent a bit of cash on a gadget? I bought the iPhone with the understanding that it would be replaced with a newer, more-feature-packed model sooner rather than later (taking into account the almost-annual new-iPod release cycle).
What would you recommend to folks considering the iPhone 3G? That they hold off on buying it, because it's eventually going to be replaced by a cooler model anyway?
early buyers impress girlfirends & got "laid" (Score:3, Insightful)
Quick, big picture analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple listened to developers and enterprise customers in nailing the iPhone feature list. No objections or gripes here.
The 3G iPhone pricing is very un-Apple in being very attractive and without an obvious price premium. In fact, it is priced for mass-market consumption right now. That means there will be millions out there a year from now. And the ecosystem/market will flock to this high-profile platform, in turn creating even more pull.
The stock is down today about 4%. Why Jim Cramer is saying "sell on the news" is beyond me. AAPL is going to be a lot bigger and more profitable a year from now.
There is no technology risk here, so sit back and watch one of the great technology markets of a lifetime unfold.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:5, Insightful)
It also looks like it will be a lot harder to buy one without signing a contract up-front.
Re:And now the small print... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever I see a comment like this, I feel compelled to point out that this is the TOTAL amount. 99% of iPhone purchasers ALREADY have a cell phone with a certain amount of minutes and messages, so the only ADDITIONAL costs are the price of the phone (duh) plus the DIFFERENCE in cost between their current plan and the new one. I had a $39.99 ATT plan so I'm only paying $20/month more for the data (and it's worth every penny, btw) so for me it was $249 (rfb. 4 GB phone right after the first price drop) plus $240/year--that's only $729 over two years. If I would have waited until 7/11/08 to buy, that would be just $679--almost a THOUSAND less than your number.
Also, if I would have bought a 3G iPhone, I would have not spent $130 on a used GPS a few months ago. And for some people this replaces an iPod as well. Hell, I could literally sell a handful of gadgets that I own and pay for the whole thing.
PLUS: Figure there's a whole bunch of people who will buy new phones (who cares if it's a new contract, I've been with ATT/Cingular/ATT for over ten years anyway; if I were to replace my iPhone with a new one (probably won't, not sure yet) I wouldn't even blink at the thought of two more years) so there will be a whole bunch of used iPhones all of a sudden, and they'll all be selling for less than $200, maybe as low as $100. I imagine that if you buy and activate a used iPhone, you are not bound to a two year contract. (Anyone know for sure?) You may not even be required to purchase a data plan.
Re:And now the small print... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not knocking what you're doing, you're buying a product that meets your needs. But you're knocking a product that meets other people's needs. I'm in operations, and the ability to do more things remotely makes my life easier, to the point that I'm willing to pay to get more free time.
Data services may be a total waste for you. But since they're a total waste for you, you don't seem to want anybody else to have them either. What, everyone should have identical pre-paid cellphones? Why? Maybe other people are *gasp* different? They have different personal and professional interests and needs for communication?
Re:"Thank you Steve, may I have another?" (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case, prepare for "much abuse" to be aimed in your direction when a newer, snazzier iPhone is released in 2009.
I think you should hold off on your purchase in anticipation of the next model. In the meantime, maybe you can fashion your own smartphone by duct-taping a Palm V, a Creative Zen and an old Nokia together. Think of what a rebel you'd be then!
Re:Denial aint a river, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
I count the money as "spent". It's not an investment piece and I feel that I've gotten my money worth just in its use. Again I needed a new phone and a new iPod anyway. The iPod was going to be $300 or so and a new phone around a hundred. Well worth it. However I should disclose that I wrote it off as a business expense on my taxes.
No one should have bought a $400 phone in this economy without being able to count it as "gone" without massive financial impact. I did see a lot of people buying this phone that shouldn't have and couldn't afford it- stupid idea.
This is about having proper expectations when you purchase technology. Also a device (should) do the same features that it does on day one and provide similar value. My Commodore 64 still does what it did in 1983, and still provides that value regardless of what else is out there or on the current pricing of them.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And now the small print... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lighten up, Francis. Some of us want to have fun and aren't dead yet.
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:2, Insightful)
More services cost more money! It's this amazing idea where companies actually want to *gulp* make money so they can pay their employees. Instead of doing it DotCom style and just giving everything away and then going out of business, companies today charge money for services, and then use that money to pay back their investors, pay their employees, and invest in new technology and infrastructure to deliver more services.
Looked like you needed a little lesson in how money works. See, if you want more, sometimes you actually have to pay for it. You should be more suspicious of companies that give you more *without* asking you to pay anything.
Re: NOT Slimmaer (Score:3, Insightful)
Adobe's implementation of Flash is remarkably inefficent, and Adobe notoriously refuse to release the player for any non-x86 platform (apart for legacy support of MacPPC, which is pretty grim even compared to the other, better-supported versions).
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for flash on mobile platforms. You'd probably have more success developing your own standard and convincing the world to switch (I'm not kidding).
The various OSS flash implementations have been progressing at a snail's pace, although I wouldn't put much more hope in those than I would in WINE (ie. it'll never be stable enough to be useful). However, Adobe have recently relaxed their grip on the SWF specification, so we *might* see some progress.
Still, I wouldn't hold my breath. I don't typically count myself among the flash-haters, but the recent problems arising from the lack of cross-platform support and the absurd levels of CPU usage imposed by the player are a huge problem.
Re:Quick! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Already? (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone has an awesome screen and a great UI, but even this fixed version will probably fall again short of the N9x series outside of the US, where ppl don't usually have wide-spread WiFi, or unlimited 3G access, or care about PC syncing. Pity, here's waiting for WWDC 2009 again...
Re:Verizon (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a larger problem than you're implying. The iPhone is wonderful, but why would I want to pay a minimum of $700 per year (minimum) to use it when I have perfectly good service with my current cell phone providor already?
Jobs just got finished talking about how one of their major targets was reducing the cost, but the cost of switching to AT&T is too great for me, and I would imagine I am not alone in that sentiment.
And this is to say nothing of the problems I and others may have with AT&T steming from the illegal wiretapping row, poor previous customer-service experience, or service availability limitations!
Re:EBay is happy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a hint. If you keep holding out for the next-great thing, you'll never have anything to show for your efforts.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the network is subsidising the phone, there's no way you're walking out the store without the contract set up and the phone registered to it.
Re:2 hours (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Already? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's news simply because the audience cares. Genocide in Darfur has a much more profound effect on human lives, political stability, moral substance, but in the end while I might disapprove of it, I don't
Re:Verizon (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's a short list... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're finding yourself breaking a lot of glass iphone displays... well, I can't imagine how you treat your phone, but I'm sure that you'd be breaking plastic ones twice as often.
Re:YEEEEAH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:3, Insightful)
It shouldn't affect the price at all. Apple isn't really cutting the price on these devices, the wireless carriers in those 22 countries are. Before, Apple wanted every carrier to fork over $$$ each month for each subscriber. That meant that the wireless carriers couldn't afford to BOTH pay Apple and discount the phones like they normally would ... so the phones were sold unsubsidized (or subsidized very lightly).
Now Apple isn't asking for revenue sharing ... or maybe they did but the carriers around the world finally had the clout to tell them to cut it out. Either way, you're now seeing the benefits of the carrier subsidies - that service plan you're signing up for allows the lower upfront price. Apple still gets its cash for the hardware, the customers get a cheaper device ... everyone is theoretically happy. But that's also why you won't see a price dip on the other iPods, because there's no service provider to pay down the cost for you.
Re:Biggest news is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Word on the street is that the iPhone Dev Team already have a working 2.0 unlock (based on the beta) - and are holding on to it until the product ships, to avoid having the bug patched pre-ship.
That being said, word on the street also says neither AT&T nor Apple will let you out the store until your contract is signed. This means effectively no unlocking is possible (or at least, meaningful).
Stockholm syndrome? (Score:3, Insightful)
I bought the phone to use it, not to stick on a pedestal behind a velvet rope to admire its beauty. It's a phone. If you use it, you're going to drop it. Fact of life. Plan on it.
This really isn't a logical argument. Plastic, scratch resistant screen protectors are about $2 on the high end and they work beautifully. If you did somehow manage to scratch it, just peel it off and stick another one on in its place. I've had the same one for 14 months. There isn't a scratch on my plastic screen.