Disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be able to write about Apple once I am officially hired to be a Specialist at the Apple Store in Emeryville on Monday, so I thought I’d post this now. Please keep in mind that I am a huge Apple fan and it will take a lot for my opinion of Apple and their products to change, and this does have more to do with AT&T than Apple, but…it’s still something I find irritating.
I want an iPhone. My friend who is an assistant manager at an Apple store was recently very surprised to find out that I don’t already have one. Despite the fact that we really can’t afford the voice + data plans right now for two iPhones (Sarah really wants one as well), I was shocked and irritated to find out that the $199 price that I’d heard from Apple for awhile now is not entirely true. Rather, it is true that you can get an iPhone for $199 if you’re eligible for an upgrade or are becoming a new customer. But for people like me – who needed to get a new phone last year because our old phone was having problems – and aren’t eligible for another upgrade yet, we have to pay $399 for the 8gb model.
I don’t get that. A new AT&T customer can get a 16gb iPhone, while starting a new 2-yr contract, and only pay $299. But, even though I’ve been an AT&T customer for 4 years, and even though I’ll be paying an additional $30/month to get the data plan and AT&T will be getting more money from me, and getting me to extend the contract I already have for another two years – they are going to charge me an additional $200 just because I’m not technically eligible for an upgrade.
What sense does that make for AT&T? All that is going to do is make them deal with a lot of angry people this Friday on June 11th. Not only will AT&T be dealing with people who are upset, the Apple store is going to have a ton of people who have waited in lines for hours find out that they have to pay $399 for the 8gb iPhone.
I heard about the $399 price from someone, and this video on the AT&T site explains how it will cost you $399 if you aren’t eligible for an upgrade. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and I think AT&T and Apple are just going to have a lot of frustrated people very soon. Even though I just got hired by an Apple store, I don’t think that will help me in my pursuit for an iPhone – and I’m not eligible for an upgrade until March 27, 2009.
Does anyone know if there is any way around this for people who aren’t eligible for an upgrade? I’d threaten to leave AT&T, but it’s the only provider that even has the iPhone, so…any ideas out there?
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I’d say your best bet is to start this week and keep calling 611. Try to get someone who will take into account the fact that you’ve already been an Att customer for the last 4 years. It may just take getting to talk to the right person or a manager who has the capability to press the right buttons to make it look like you’ve already been an iPhone customer.
The 2nd option which may be a little trickier is to try and talk someone into switching your phone plan over to an iPhone plan without having an actual iPhone. Then when iPhone 2.0 day comes you can just waltz in and say I’m already an iPhone customer and take advantage of the discount.
3rd option is find someone who has an existing iPhone who you know will be buying a new one and a day before get them to “sell” you theirs (leaving them without a phone for a day), activate it under your name and new plan, since there are no penalities for switching over to an iPhone plan from an existing plan (as far as I know of). It’s a long shot but it might work.
I’ve found ATT to be fairly helpful over the phone for me. I know I’ve heard lots of cases where people find ATT customer service to be a pain in the ass, but for me it really just takes getting the RIGHT person on the phone who is willing and knowledgeable enough to know what buttons to push or what notes to make on your account.
I know for a face that there are 2 note areas on one’s account, one fairly easily accessible one and another one that is a few levels down, getting people to make notes on those places always helps if you have to call back and talk to someone else.
I’d work the angle that you’ve been a loyal customer for quite sometime and that there are two of you in your family that want a new iPhone and that it is in the best interest of ATT to help you out and maybe even help move your contract along with as little (or no) cancellation fee for breaking your contract.
I’m around for the morning (until about 1p) on Sun if you want to try and give me a call to maybe work through some scenarios, but I hope you’re able to pull this one off. 818 800 1890
Early Termination Fees are pro-rated now, I believe. Might be cheaper to buy your way out of your contract and start a new one…but you’d lose your number…which sucks unless you were thinking about getting a new one for Berkeley anyway. So, maybe consider that?
Just speak with them. That is what I do with Verizon and most of the time they allow me to do it and they just extend my contract again. You just need to find someone, I generally perfer in person, and tell them your side of it. Usually the store manager works best.
Is this really that surprising? I mean, *every* phone advertised costs more if you don’t purchase it with a two-year plan. And AT&T has consistently required that you complete around 3/4 of your current contract before being eligible for the discount when you upgrade.
This isn’t exactly news; when I saw the pricing for the iPhone 3g, my immediate thought was, “Ok, how much will this actually cost *me*, since I still have 6 months left before I can upgrade?”
I suppose there will be people who don’t know any better, but is that Apple or AT&T’s fault? The three pricing plans (199/299, 399/499, and 599/699) have been announced some time ago. It’s up to the consumer to learn what he can about the products he is attempting to consume. Especially when the companies actually *tell* us what to expect.
I mean really, did you want them to put big billboards up w/ conflicting numbers w/out much explanation? This is a cellphone; people ought to know better.
If you’re willing to be a little behind the curve (sacrilege I know), there are going to be a lot of 2G iPhones available cheap after this Friday.
All current iPhone owners can get the $199 price and are allowed to pass their old phones on to whoever they want. The new owner can us it as an iPod Touch or activate it with a two year commitment to AT&T.
I currently use Verizon and decided I didn’t want to jump through all the hoops, so I bought a iPod Touch with 16 GB and I love it. I’m hardly anywhere were I can’t pick up wifi. So in a year and half when my contract is up, I’ll switch, but for now I don’t have to deal with AT&T.
I would think that being an Apple Store employee will help you out with this.
And, the other option is to buy a 2.5G iphone on ebay or somewhere. They really are good, and they should be gotten cheaply for quite a while. We would be selling ours, but my wife will get it as a hand-me-down since she does not qualify for an upgrade right now either, unless of course I can sweet talk an employee into selling me two as I sit there with cash in hand. :-)
I am sure you didnt complain when you got a good price on the phone you got 1 year ago. Understand they have got to subsidize the phones. The one you already have will only be a profit for them if you spend money with them for some time. After that you are free to do it all over again.
People who hate this process should always buy phones with no contracts.
Yeah, all the grief of cellphone upgrades. I live in a “bowl” and I can’t get T-Mobile (and I assume Verizon, since they share towers) in the back half of my house. So, I am limited to ATT. I just did the new contract and got new phones for everybody, so I don’t get to upgrade for another year, or so.
A 3G iPhone would be great for my wife, so I’ll probably get one in 2009.
Meanwhile, I use a Sony 680 which has great features, but has one funny quirk – if I put it in a pants pocket, I wind up dialing the last number, from squirming around. That feature doesn’t lock out. So, on “squirmy days” – like working on cars, or digging in the garden – I pull the sim and put it in an old Razor. I’m on call two days a week, so I have to keep it handy.
I’ve thought of taking all my T-Shirts and stitch in an extra pocket – maybe on the sleeve – so I can listen to AM radio and still have a cell phone handy. Maybe I can make it mesh, so it’s a “poor man’s hands free” as a speakerphone?
I think the worst thing about this whole situation is that apple decided to only offer it through AT&T, which as far as being affordable has the worst plans. However I’ve long been compiling a list of how to save money by owning an iPhone. The most important thing is that I could cut out driving if I owned and iPhone. This is because I can take normally inefficient means of transportation but still maintain a high level of productivity that would normally be lost in transport.
I know a couple apple employees who were given iphones. Not sure how long they were employed but it seems like they get the new nano or the new “something” (never an imac or powerbook though. I asked.) every so often.
Speaking as an apple fan, they got a little lame since entering into the iphone bus. Great product but lame strategies. Like charging for ringtones instead of allowing us to make our own. I know you can with the workarounds but i shouldn’t have to do that when the device itself centers around music. They’re being lame in order to sell 99cent ringtones. That’s what a company like microsoft or sony would do.
Anyway, i think the lesson learned from last year is to hold out a little while longer.
It’s just a phone. Get over it.
“Like charging for ringtones instead of allowing us to make our own. I know you can with the workarounds but i shouldn’t have to do that when the device itself centers around music. They’re being lame in order to sell 99cent ringtones. That’s what a company like microsoft or sony would do.”
You can make free ringtones with Garageband and it imports them right into your itunes folder. Simple.
Grrrr. Pet peeve:
John, your finding something unimportant doesn’t translate into “no one else should find them important”
I’m sure there are a number of things that you find important that I would think are stupid wastes of time (the fact that I have absolutely no use for pets might be a good example). But I would never tell you to just get over them, or suggest that you don’t have a right to find them important.
The guy’s a pastor, a man of the cloth, and he’s going on about a stupid phone like his very soul depended on it. Grow up. My suggestion is he give the I-phone he already owns away to someone who needs a phone– any phone– and then walk away from the Apple brand forever. It’s become an idol, and we all know what the Bible says about idols.
John – “the devil is in the details” ! So are the angels.
Technology can, and does make ministry easier and more pervasive. Having (successfully) gone through the dot com boom, there are lots of technologies and behavior paradigms that would translate beautifully into the church.
In general, the type of person who becomes a (protestant) Christian today is usually someone with a low Dunbar number. Any technology, including a fancy phone, that increases that number is a plus.
The Apple brand? I hear ya, there’s a fine line between being an “early adopter” and an “idol worshipper”. There’s general acceptance that Apple is a leader in design (both functionality and style), thus other phone makers copy them, with similar features. That’s an option to look at, especially if another phone facilitates networking?
I think Brian is on the right track – efficient use of time while traveling. Instead of thinking of the I-Phone dropping from $500 to $200, think of it dropping from 250 gallons to 45 gallons.
The reason that Apple/AT&T charges so much for a phone if you haven’t finished out your previous 2-year contract, of course, is that the phone actually costs something like $600 to make. I understand the frustration, of course :-). And if enough folks vent, Jobs and/or AT&T might relent: that’s happened a number of times so far with the iPhone already. (Apple changed their tune — sort of — on third-party apps, and on several other pricing issues, when people started complaining loud enough.) Certainly Apple and AT&T are making enough money with the iPhone that they’ve got some wiggle room.
Wait.
Mike O: T-Mobile and Verizon do not share towers. They are different types of technology. T-Mobile is GMS and Verizon is CDMA. They are incompatible with each other.
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