Apple iPhone to be available for prepaid users?
One thing we know about the Apple iPhone launch, is that we don’t really know much. Today we received a few screen shots that shed some light on one of the major questions regarding the sales of the iPhone — who will be eligible to buy this new dream gadget? According to some newly surfaced internal AT&T account codes the answer is everyone! We can infer from the 3 codes received that the iPhone will be available to Go Phone Pay As You Go subscribers, Go Phone Pick Your Plan subscribers (hybrids), and of course postpaid users. You heard it here first – prepaid iPhones baby! What we can also assume is that since the masters of prepaid can purchase these, anyone will be able to snatch one up, whether they are in contract or not. This means that if you’re not up for an "upgrade" you will still be able to enjoy your Apple goodness. Now if we can only get the official no-commitment pricing…Who are we kidding, we’ll have that soon. Check the full screen shots after the jump!
UPDATE: There have been a couple articles stating that feature codes are generated automatically when a handset is entered into AT&T’s system, even phones that are not available prepaid. That is true. What is not true is that these feature codes were not generic codes, these are completely unique and never seen before. This was confirmed by multiple AT&T sources. Does this 100% mean the iPhone will be available prepaid? No. It does at least let us know either that the unique, never seen before feature codes entered one by one were incorrect and a mistake, AT&T is generating false information to get us to bite, or the iPhone will in fact be available prepaid.
Good info as always BG! Curious though, iPhone Prepaid and iPhone Postpaid are obvious enough, but what does anyone suppose the iPhone Hybrid plan is?
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Cingular needs a Stop Snitching movement.
This is outrageous
BGR = DJ Khaled WE THE BEST!!!!
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The Hybrid plan is most likely the Pick your Plan GoPhone option that is offered now. That is considered a Cingular’s Hybrid plan.
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fyi, usually the no commmittment pricing is 150 dollars more than the 2 yr committment pricing. just what i have noticed from working at cingular (att)….
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This makes perfect sense to me. Alot of college students will want iPhones as gifts and now it makes it easy for relatives to spring for the iPhone and allow the lucky recipient to choose which plan they want. It also means that if you want to buy an iPhone you won’t need to be tied to a calling plan so iPhones should sell like hotcakes.
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Not much of a surprise here if they keep the cost at the already ridiculous level they have now. If they start charging more then that really will be a waste. With that same ammount of money you will have an option of buying a better phone and player seperatly. I hope for the sake of everyone the cost goes down and fast.
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Can someone please explain the economics behind the prepaid vs postpaid plans. I understand that drug dealers, tourists, illegal immigrants and transients have the need for the pre pay phones, but at what economic threshold does it become better to pay .25 cents a minute vs the cheapest plan of $30/ month?
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Alex: You have all of figures there, so you can figure this out for yourself. If a phone call costs $0.25 per minute with the prepaid option, and you want to spend less than $30, how many minutes do you have? How many minutes does the $30 plan give you?
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A pre-paid option ensures that Apple will sell a ridiculous number of iPhones. Many consumers, myself included, will buy one because we see it as the latest and greatest iPod.
Alex, it generally isn’t better to spend 25 cents per minute as compared to signing up to a $30 per month plan. Most standard phone plans, however, don’t cap you at $30, but charge you per minute after you reach your allocated monthly minutes and this is where many people get into trouble with standard monthly plans.
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alex, in order to sign up for a post paid plan you have to pass a credit inquiry. some people come back w deposits that can be as high as 850 dollars to put down in order to sign up for that 30 dollar a month plan. if they dont have that kind of money to put down (which they usually dont) then their next best option is to sign up for prepaid. but cingular does offer a PICK YOUR PLAN prepaid which is set up through a credit card and that doesnt require a credit check.
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Or maybe your like me who has been a tmobile customer for years and have no desire to leave but would like to try out the Iphone without commitment.
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I usually talk less than 25-30 minutes a month on my cell phone. Some months not at all. So, your $30 a month is not worth it for me.
Yes, I have a job and a family and all that other normal stuff. I just don’t yak on the phone for hours and hours like a teeny-bopper or drunk hipster looking for a better scene (if you would like to trade broad generalizations).
A pay as you go iPhone would be very tempting for me. I would love a large screen PDA/WiFi/MP3 player. Pay as you go justifies the high cost for the phone in my book.
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For anyone on T-mobile, I doubt that the device will be unlocked or sold via apple, hence the 5 year deal. So as they said on engadget, better wait til 2012. Yet if they do sell the device unlocked the services might not all work the right way on T-mobile. Good luck to those that will try.
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I’m in the same boat as Garth. I use a cell phone for three things:
Emergencies (”Hello, AAA? My car is broken.”)Unexpected delays on the road (”Hi, Honey. Traffic’s a mess. Don’t wait for me…”)Syncing up with friends (”Hey, Bob! Where are you? I’m here at the bar. You’re over at the fireplace? See ya in a sec.”)So I put down about $10 a month, which is usually enough. I think I went over that once on a business trip, so I stuck in another $20.
I gotta admit, this makes me a bit more interested in the iPhone. Still, I’ll let the explorers take the arrows.
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I personally use on the order of 600-1000 minutes of talk time a month, plus a great deal of data, but my cell is also my main business line, and my portable exchange client. I am willing to give up the exchange connectivity, but finding the right plan will be tough. I would have a hard time justifying paying for one of these through T-Mobil just for the latest iPod goodness.
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Or some people just don’t want to be tied to a contract in the event that something better comes down the line from another wireless provider. And with number portability, this is much easier. In fact, currently with Cingular (that’s what my phone still says), I get a rate of .13¢ a minute and free nights and weekends. I even get rollover minutes. And if you go over your allotted minutes for the month, it’s still .13¢ a minute as opposed to some outrageous amount on my next invoice.
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AT&T’s prepaid plans aren’t all that bad. Considering all the buzz iPhone is generating around AT&T Mobility, many consumers (myself included) may end up choosing the Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk plan, which includes unlimited mobile to mobile to any AT&T Mobility customer. At $1/day (and 10 cents/minute anytime to everyone else), you’re looking at $30/month if the only people you speak to are AT&T Mobility customers. I guess the only question is how data and messaging would be handled with prepaid plans. (Currently, it’s 5 cents per incoming/outgoing message and 1 cent per KB.)
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Why is the Porche so expensive?
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> 25 cents a minute vs the cheapest plan of $30/ month
If you average only 1 or 2 short cell calls per day, prepaid can definitely be cheaper than paying a monthly rate.
In my case, I use landlines when at home or at the office, and only need my cell for occasional calls while driving or shopping.
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I remember seeing something on Engadget Mobile but the iphone is a quad band worldphone correct? So isn’t this also good for tmobile customers? depending how long it takes someone to unlock the first iphone.
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Honestly, I highly doubt the iPhone will be unlockable…It might be naive to think that, but with a 5 year exclusivity on AT&T you best believe this thing will be damn hard, near impossible to unlock.
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Come on people do you live in America or what?
For Gosh sakes if you can afford an Iphone with all of it’s luxuries the least you could do is support a contract. I am shocked at Cingular’s marketing the Iphone this way. It is a phone that should not be cheapened by losers who don’t have enough money to buy the phone in the first place. Pay as you go people, stick with your free Nokia and be happy!
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Well, considering they said its the same price everywhere and there supposedly isn’t to be a subsidy on it, I find it hard to beleive they would be able to justify tacking on another 150.
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How does data work when you sign up for Pay as You GO. Outside of the ipod/phone/camera pieces, isnt Apple pushing email and web browsing?
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I am not an immigrant, drug dealer or transient. In fact, I have made millions of $ on Apple stock over the past ten years and I use a prepaid Tracfone cell phone - no contract or commitment. My cell phone usage is not very high and I use a land line for long conversations at 3.5 cents a minute with no monthly charges. I do not have a burning need to talk endlessly on a cell phone in the supermarket or walking down the street. Sitting at home in a comfortable chair is where I have my long conversations. I would love to have an iPhone but cannot justify it with owning six ipods already. A prepaid iPhone might be perfect though.
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