Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

[evanovitch]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - <span style="font-weight: bold">Apple Inc halved the price of its entry-level iPhone to $99 on Monday to widen the trendy device's mass-market appeal,</span> as global competition heats up after Palm Inc launched the Pre.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Apple also cut prices on several of its Mac notebooks </span>amid a tooth-and-nail battle among computer makers for buyers during the recession.

And to shore up its hold on the smartphone market, it unveiled a new, faster, high-end iPhone that takes videos and has voice features, matching offerings by rivals Palm and Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Analysts said sales could double for the cheapest iPhone.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs, on medical leave since January, did not put in a much speculated-about appearance.

The next-generation iPhone 3GS -- the &quot;S&quot; stands for speed, double that of the original model -- goes on sale in the United States, Germany and elsewhere on June 19 for $199 to $299.

&quot;They plugged the hole in the offering of the 3G iPhone,&quot; Gartner analyst Van Baker said, referring to the new features.

A rambunctious crowd livened up Apple's annual Worldwide Developers' Conference in downtown San Francisco on Monday, whooping and applauding as executives unveiled everything from a cheaper Mac Air notebook to a new operating system.

Shares in Apple closed 0.6 percent down at $143.85 -- after a 6.5 percent climb in the week leading up to the highly anticipated event -- as Jobs failed to show and investors debated the merits of the sharp iPhone price cut.

Morgan Stanley estimates that an entry-level iPhone, at what Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller calls a &quot;breakthrough price of $99&quot;, could double existing sales. That is for the 8-gigabyte model, previously priced at $199.

Apple said it has sold more than 40 million of its iPhones and music-playing iPod Touches to date, up from the 37 million reported during a quarterly earnings call in April.

The new iPhone models and price cuts announced on Monday came days after Palm launched its Pre smartphone, which some analysts say is the iPhone's closest rival.

Sprint Nextel Corp, which has exclusive U.S. rights to carry the Pre, said it had record sales of the smartphone in its first weekend, and was restocking the phones &quot;as quickly as Palm could make them.

A JAZZED-UP PHONE

<span style="font-weight: bold">The $99 iPhone will cost half as much as the $199 Pre.</span> By slashing the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone and rolling models out this month, Apple's strategy appeared designed to take advantage of the Pre's limited availability, said CL King &amp; Associates' Lawrence Harris. In a note to investors on Monday, he estimated that Palm produced just 50,000 Pre phones in May.

<span style="font-weight: bold">AT&amp;T, the exclusive U.S. service provider for the iPhone, will sell the 16-gigabyte 3G for $149, down from $299, while supplies last.</span>

[halfwaytree]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

Plus FREE new upgrade to the iPhone OS(even for owners of the previous two iPhones). Shake to reset, security enhancements, cut and paste, horizontal keyboard, tethering capabilities, etc... etc... .

[Blackstar*]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

Good news. I'm just waiting for an 12&quot; Intel based laptop and I'll be good to go.

[kia027]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

but how good is the network is it on


We plan to invite people who have iphones over to the house so we can test their signals :dwls:


our contracts on the phones in our home start running out in september this year so we a plan fi gradually switch carriers

[Xavier]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

I recently switched from T-mobile to AT&amp;T because I was getting too many drops and dead zones. It was worse when I used my I-phone with T-mobile. With my regular t-mobile phone the dead zone did not require a reset. The phone would drop the call and that was it. With the I-phone on T-mobile I had to re-insert the sim card every time I experienced a &quot;dead zone&quot;. I also mentioned in an earlier post that I was wondering if my Wifi was affecting my phone as I could not make calls in certain places in my home. With At&amp;t I am making calls everywhere.

[evanovitch]

Angry iPhone owners blast AT&amp;T over upgrade pricing

<span style="font-weight: bold">
Computerworld</span> - iPhone users angry over AT&amp;T's pricing policy for the new iPhone 3G S have taken their campaign to Twitter, where more than 4,400 have added their names to an instant petition.

They're mad as hell about AT&amp;T's plan to charge them an additional $200 to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S if they haven't fulfilled most or all of their two-year contract with the carrier. &quot;AT&amp;T should give existing customers the same rate for the new iPhone 3G S that they do for new customers,&quot; the Twitter petition reads. &quot;New customers or not, another 2-year contract is being made.&quot;

Apple's and AT&amp;T's subsidized prices for the iPhone 3G S, <span style="font-weight: bold">which will launch on Friday, June 19, are $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB device</span>. <span style="font-style: italic">Those prices, however, apply only to new customers to AT&amp;T, or to existing customers who are judged eligible for the lower-priced upgrade.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">Meanwhile,</span> people who already own an iPhone or have an existing AT&amp;T contract, and are judged by AT&amp;T as ineligible for another subsidized phone must fork over $399 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB.

AT&amp;T doesn't reveal the criteria it uses to peg existing customers as eligible or ineligible, but Computerworld staffers who own iPhones have been told that they must run through as few as 12 months, and as many as 20 months, of their 24-month contracts before they'll qualify for the $199 and $299 prices.

<span style="font-weight: bold">That's made AT&amp;T customers mad enough to sign the Twitter petition at a rate of about 250 an hour as of mid-day Wednesday. The petition was first posted yesterday</span>.

They're also venting in other online venues. &quot;This is all a slap to our face!&quot; ranted a user identified as &quot;irishlad1977&quot; on a well-trafficked AT&amp;T support forum thread labeled &quot;No Subsidized Price For Loyal iPhone Users.&quot;

&quot;Cry foul, all disappointed iPhone users!&quot; added &quot;tsfroggy&quot; on the same thread.

&quot;Why are we being punished for buying Apple products?&quot; asked &quot;Darksithscorpius&quot; in a post to an Apple support forum. &quot;I love the product, but the way that they let AT&amp;T dictate how their customers are treated is terrible. Charging us the extra $200 for being loyal customers is flat out wrong!&quot;

The company's policy, however, is standard for the wireless industry in the U.S., which ties subsidized phone prices to the completion of long-term contract commitments. That fact was quickly pointed out by others unsympathetic to the complainers.

&quot;You do have a cheaper option once you live up to your side of the bargain,&quot; said &quot;DWC1&quot; on the AT&amp;T forum. &quot;If you want to upgrade early then you will have to pay full price with no subsidy discount. You can't blame anyone but yourself for your predicament.&quot;

AT&amp;T did not respond to a request for comment about its pricing practices, or what it thought of the Twitter petition and the online postings by iPhone owners.

A similar Twitter-based petition for customers of O2, the U.K.'s exclusive carrier for the iPhone, had nearly 4,100 signatures by mid-day Wednesday.

The hubbub over pricing isn't the only negative press that AT&amp;T's received since Apple unveiled the iPhone 3G S on Monday. The company has also come under fire for its slow moves to support MMS and its lack of a tethering plan to let customers connect laptops to the Internet via the iPhone. Other mobile carriers will offer both MSS and tethering when the iPhone 3G S debuts next week.

[j-kid]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

X, were you using an unlocked iPhone wen yuh was on T-mobile?

[halfwaytree]

Re: Apple halves iPhone to $99, trims Mac prices

I'm loving the free operating system upgrade for my iPhone. Finally we are able to tether (just like you Blackberry people). I'm up at a cottage typing this at the moment.

Not a sound around here except the call of the loons.

[evanovitch]

Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc said it had sold more than 1 million of its newest iPhone in the first three days of launch, beating analysts' expectations for the 3GS smartphone's debut.

The statement from Apple also included a quote from Chief Executive Steve Jobs, leading at least one analyst to speculate that this meant he was back from medical leave.

Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, has been on leave since January for an undisclosed condition, although the company has said he remains deeply involved in decision-making. The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago, but he was expected to be back at work before the end of June.

&quot;This is the first time we've heard from Steve Jobs since he reported he was taking medical leave,&quot; said Oppenheimer &amp; Co analyst Yair Reiner. &quot;It's a sign Apple has its CEO back.&quot;

Apple representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Shares of Apple rose as much as 1.5 percent in early trading before reversing course to trade down 1.1 percent at $137.96.

Analysts said the iPhone sales figures would distract some investors from concerns about Jobs' health to a certain extent.

&quot;I think they'll focus on the 1 million number,&quot; said Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro. &quot;Investors will realize that Apple executed well on the launch in Jobs' absence.&quot;

<span style="font-weight: bold">The 3GS debut was only in eight countries, he said, compared with 21 in last year's 3G launch.</span>

The 1 million 3GS iPhones sold were &quot;an impressive number compared with the 1 million they sold in the first weekend last year across 21 countries,&quot; Fidacaro said. &quot;It shows that the iPhone momentum remains strong.&quot;

The 3GS, which offers faster speeds, longer battery life and the ability to take videos, hit stores last Friday, drawing plenty of fans but not the crowds that had swarmed previous iPhone releases, due in part to preorders.

Exclusively on AT&amp;T Inc's network in the United States, the iPhone competes with BlackBerry phones from Research in Motion and the Pre from Palm Inc

[msgoody2shoes]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

And so far so good! I got to tinker with a Managers iPhone on yesterday at work and that phone is really cool! The built in voice control is superb. We normally offer voice dial for 4.99 a month. With the S, you can just call a name and it dials the number. The zoom on the camera is off the chain and the Landscape is beautiful.

As for the angry customers, it was well rumored that a new iPhone was coming out this year even though Apple/AT&amp;T does not disclose this to workers. Tekkies always find out. I was eligible to upgrade in March but I waited because I knew a new one was bound to come out between June and August. All AT&amp;T phones have the same upgrade policy as the iPhone. Tenure, monthly costs, contracts, lines of service, and good payment history all play a part in whether a person qualifies for an early upgrade or not. If someone has not fulfilled their contractual obligation, it makes sense that they are not offered the same discounted rate as a new customer or one who has fulfilled or nearly fulfilled a 24 month contract.

Also, there is a leeway for people who purchased a new iPhone after May 9th. There is the option to return their iPhone and switch to the S paying the difference. If they want to keep the 3G, they can get a refund on the difference of the new cost of $99.

[evanovitch]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

I love the copy and paste feature

[kia027]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

unno showaff people

mi have the dates eena mi calendar when de contract expire fi each numba and we a tek time rollova to the iphone

[msgoody2shoes]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

Hi kia! Which iPhone will you be getting?

I regretted not getting the 2G which had the best data plan (included text) but I am glad I held out to get the 3G S. I currently have the Black Jack 1 &amp; 2 and wish I could get 2 iPhones on them. The 3G also allows for Employee discounts when the 2G still does not. That helped me decide not to get that one.

A lot of the stores here are sold out so I must wait until they restock. Forgot to preorder last week before I went out of town on vacation.

[msgoody2shoes]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

Yeah that's neat. I also like the map. You can hold the phone and turn in any direction and the map follows where you turn and tells you where you are. Like a walking Nav system.

[halfwaytree]

Re: Apple sells more than 1 million iPhone 3GS

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I love the copy and paste feature </div></div>

I forgot all about that feature. Mi run gawn try it!