iPhone data plan dubbed the iPlan?
No, we’re not kidding. Although iPlan might simply be used internally to refer to the Apple iPhone data plan, this streak of info came from a pretty high up source of ours, and it looks to be accurate. The iPhone data plan will be around $34.99-$44.99 and feature unlimited data, and either 2000 text messages, or unlimited text messages (we still have not confirmed which, but unlimited text messages would be awesome). For anyone trying to snuff the FedEx driver on his way in to deliver the iPhones, be prepared, because all FedEx drivers are said to be assigned, and delivering to stores in teams. Well, what if we raid the stockroom the night before, we’ll end up with a bunch of iPhones right? Wrong. Apple’s cleverness was revealed when they announced the 6:00PM release time to make sure stores would have just got shipments, and couldn’t sell them earlier. Are we putting all our faith in FedEx? Everything appears so as FedEx will be shipped the iPhones on Tuesday, or Wednesday, and the iPhones will sit in FedEx local sort facilities and hubs until Friday, where they will then be delivered.
The data plan disappoints me. I stopped paying for data service on my Cingular 8125 because the price was too high for the speed of EDGE and my usage pattern. Although I think the iPhone’s internet features would get more use than my Cingular 8125’s there is no way I am going to consider a data plan at those prices. Maybe if it was 3G, but certainly not for EDGE. $20 would be a more reasonable price point for me, but what do I know I spend $50 a month for 6Mbps DSL service at home and even 3G ain’t touching that kind of speed, cellular data plans are overpriced.
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By the way my last comment was for Jasper.
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I think it is going to be a sucess, but $34 to $44 is a little expensive, plus $40 for a plan the bill will be around $74 to $84. I love the $20 for the sidekick internet, etc. plan. They should make that price for an iPhone, but the internet on my sidekick is slow and so is the aim so I guess higher the price better quality? Lucky for me when I get my iPhone I won’t pay tax, I live in Delaware!
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The subsidized/lower prices suggestion is crazy talk. When has Apple every lowered the prices on any of their devices? They generally seem to stay at the same price and Apple just adds add’l features to the device to justify the lofty prices they charge.
Case in point: Could Apple sell a $699 laptop with a Core Duo, 512MB of RAM and a 30GB HDD? Absolutely! Do they? No way - the lowest price model they have is $999 and it’s been that way for years. They just keep adding features.
I expect the same for the iPhone as well. The pricepoints are going to be $499 and $599 and AT&T won’t be able to subsidize those costs and offer the device to the public for anything less than $499 or $599.
Of course, I could be wrong (I often am!).
John
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This is an unusual discussion that reveals something unexpected. Current Blackberry enterprise users are interested in switching to iphones. I had assumed that Apple was marketing to consumers/ipod people. I was thinking that a gouge of a data plan–which I fully expected from the wireless corporate crowd (some of the worst consumer relations people in business)–would deal a serious setback to the iphone. I imagined a hobbled wifi on the iphone and a data plan to compensate. However, here are enterprise users planning on spending company money on the very expensive phone and possibly very expensive plan. The gouge could very well be in place–draining company funds for all early enterprise adopters and skimming the profit cream from the enthusiasts willing to buy at any cost. When demand sinks, Apple and ATT can always reduce the cost or improve the service/device to milk the next lowest market segment. Depressing but likely. I’d love an iphone with fully active wifi and a reasonable plan and some autonomous use–having control of whether the phone goes to wifi or charged minutes, for example, and being able to unlock and buy chips when I travel. I don’t foresee it, though, given ATT and Apple’s handling of this so far. Great device and I’d love to have one. But I’m much more likely to wait for the freedom and more reasonable cost a competitor is likely to offer very soon. Of course, if the hackers get busy and give us some on the iphone, I might just cave…
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Who knows, this is all speculation and no definite answers will be given till the 29th. Only apple and higher up at AT&T know (no sales reps or cust care reps know) so I will continue to wait for accurate info on the iphone. Most of the “leaked” info is not accurate and is actually causing people to not want the iphone. Yea it might be high on price but it will open the doors for new technology that will change the cell phone market as we know. Once internet on the phones become more widespread the prices will continue to lower. I remember when I paid $80 per mo for cable modem and now I pay $30. PDA data was more than $50 per mo just a year ago and prices have continued to drop. This is just my opinion and nobody needs to become upset over it.
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haha well im 16 and i make my own money and pay for everything myself including all my 6 cell phones i currently own.I pay for all my monthly data/service. Right now im with the family plan but i pay 45.00 a month for my telephone line and then 30.00 for unlimited data and 1500 text. Adding the iPhone is no problem, I’m planning to get the 8GB and ive been known to get new phones every 2 months so, depending on how i like the iPhone i could keep it a long time or a short time.
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I believe it the phone had GPS capability, the price point is perfect. This phone is no doubt going to be a great product (because its apple), but as mentioned by many viewers over and over, the price is a stretch.
I also agree that after the initial launch occurs, ATT will have to subsidize somewhere. Whether it happen on the plans or the phone, if apple wants 5% of the US, they need to give in a n bit more that $500 -$600 dollars for a phone with no 3G speeds and no GPS.
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Are you serious? If that’s the real price it’s REALLY cheap.
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@ john
You give one example in the laptop. However, what about the ipod. Prices have certainly dropped on many of those. Since they are looking at a similar market as the ipod, I would expect similar pricing strategies. More expensive at first with prices dropping off after selling to everyone willing to pay the higher price.
The question is, do you want to be the guy who bought the iphone when if first came out for $600, or do you want to be the guy who bought the same phone a few months later for less.
I’m still trying to see if I can contain myself and not get swept away in the first wave of iphone craze (I really want it). Hopefully I can hold off a couple of months to get a better feel for what the future holds (lower prices, better devices, etc.)
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@Pat torney:
Well it depends, you pay for to get it first right? Its like waiting for the PS2 it was initially released and then waiting 6months later to get a 50.00 price drop? In my opinion you pay to get it first.
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I just dont understand why the cost would be $80+. Apple is notorious for having simple plans when it comes to marketing and pricing. Look at the Leopard pricing…$129 for the Home, Premium and Ulimate edition (basically one software package one price). Why would the iphone be different? It would seem that Apple would force the hand of ATT and say one price (talk time + Data) $29.99-$39.99. Not unlimited data…maybe 15mb then a cost per mb after? I just dont see the iPhone being the success it could/should be at the price of $80 per month. Keep in mind that the iphone does not NEED the data plan…one can just as easily use their in home wifi connection or a free hotspot to get voice, email or web data. I also think that if the plan was going to be a run of the mill data and wireless plan then it would have been announced already. I really think (and hope) that the plan will be consumer friendly. How else will Att win over all those people who are currently under contract with other providers and want to switch to The New AT&T?
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forgot to add…I dont see pricing on iphone dropping anytime soon. Its just like any other Apple product. I think I waited 6-12 months for the ipod video price to drop. It never did. Apple keeps tight prices on their products. I ended up getting a refurb ipod vid for $239 when the regular price was $299.
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actually, the Sidekick data plan was recently increased to 29.99/mo. I’m a current T-mobile customer and started looking into other types of internet devices once I heard that the iPhone plan would be around $40, but actually this is right in line with every other data plan. Especially considering the fact that you have a full html browser and a much larger display on the iPhone. Even T-mobile’s cheapest internet plan is 29.99 for personal blackberry service (no enterprise email, etc) and that doesn’t include any texts. As much as I don’t want to switch to AT&T for other reasons (such as customer service), it looks like this pricing is pretty reasonable to me.
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I hope they figured out a way to make a display that doesnt get all scratched up! bet they dont use that technology on their Ipods.
I spend 200 per mo.( mostly rembursed by my company) for my phones, but I wont consider an additional $500 per year for the iplan service.
Enough already!!!!
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@Pat: “Since they are looking at a similar market as the ipod, I would expect similar pricing strategies.”
Why do you assume that Apple is targeting the iPod market? And how exactly do you define the “iPod market” anyway? I see construction workers, B-Boys, soccer moms, Trust fund kids and CEOs on the subway, all with those tell-tale white earbuds. My mother, my sister, my uncles, my wife, and many of my nieces/nephews have iPods, but not a single one of them is thinking of buying an iPhone.
I think the market for the iPhone is more along the lines of the market for a MacBook Pro or Mac Pro. Designers, musicians, sole proprietors, mid-to-upper managers, and high-speed low-drag salespeople.
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As was posted before, if you look how Apple Inc. prices their products it’s not likely the price of the iphone will change, ever. It will really have to be a piece of **** for them to even consider lowering the unsubsidized retail cost for all customers, it the market will bear it, why not pile it on. If Steve said it was 600 bucks, then the price is $600. Don’t expect it to change unless you see him on stage at some point saying so once again. I don’t mind being Job’s trick they make good stuff! They will however continue to expand the iphone spec sheet with more memory, more apps, gps, 3G, open SDK….more stuff to buy on itunes.
But the price won’t budge. Ever, Ever-Ever. There is wide speculation about iphone 2.0, and that it might debut late 4th quarter or early next year. I think this will be the debut of the iphone “mini” with a smaller feature set and price tag($250). Apple has already stated early on that it was committed to bringing frequent feature updates to the iphone, so that’s what they’ll probably do, continue to upgrade this current iteration with software and os tweaks and a 12 month hardware cycle.
Apple will place the iphone at the top of their AT&T product line and charge a premium for it($499-$599) but will soon add a smaller, less featured, cheaper model that probably won’t even have data, just phone and ipod (probably no multi-touch either) and be appealing to everyone. How many people will be lining up for an iphone “mini” @ $250-300 for Christmas? All this hype for the iphone is only the beginning. And yes, AT&T is laughing all the way to the bank. Get your credit cards out, they aren’t done yet!
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BG you are right on the spot again! Just heard soemthing about these pricing plans from a good friend of mine who works in Marketing at AT&T. Good job!
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look like another Playstation 3, all the hypes! after all the hypes is done, it will be just like PS3, every stores will have piles of iphone in stock, just like ps3!
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What a bunch of pikers you guys are. $80 per month and whining? Didn’t you pick up a few thousand shares of AAPL at 88 just after the iAnnouncement…? I had 5 years of data paid by that afternoon.
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I have an N95 and my UNLIMITED data plan add-on is 5.99 with T-Mobile. It’s called TZones. It runs over EDGE and it really is WAY faster than non-edge GPRS. 45.00 for the same exact service from ATT is absolutely insane.
I’m waiting for an unlocked iPhone and putting it on T-Mobile.
(I suppose that could be a while though)
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at $80 for unlimited data on Verizon, this looks great. I wish my 2-yr contract was over and I’d switch in a minute,.
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I was told that the $39.99 data plan that u are speaking of would not apply to the iphone, and that nothing currently listed on their web site or offered for other types of AT&T PDAz & smart phones will be able to be applied to the iphone.
It will have its own iplans, due to the type of new age internet surfing & true email that cannot be done on other smart & PDAz using what is now refered to as “the something like the internet” phone plans of the past.
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I may have heard wrong but I was told that the iPhone will not have a SIM card slot. Is this true? If so then theivery shouldn’t be a major issue.
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Haha Looks like John is a little unhappy about my regards with my iphone. WOW I”m sorry John that your parents are poor and you have to work boo hoo.
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