AT&T extends iPhone exclusivity until 2010
AT&T has just quietly let slip plans to extend their period of exclusivity on the iPhone for an extra year. Original scheduled to expire in 2009, the company will now spend an extra year as the exclusive distributor of the Apple iPhone in the United States. AT&T’s head honcho Randall Stephenson noted that the iPhone is “everything we hoped it would be,” and stated their plans to continue selling the device through the 2010 calendar year. While this is certainly music to Apple’s ears, we can’t help but wonder if AT&T might benefit from playing their cards a bit closer to the vest and keeping some bargaining chips in their corner. Ah well…strategy is for chumps, right?
Notice that USA Today silently changed their original (stated last year) “5 years AT&T iPhone exclusive”, the outrageous-length exclusivity for the non-3G iPhone that everyone and their neighbor has cited on blogs, forums, and articles Internet-wide, to “2 years exclusive”.
No retraction, no update, not a peep of “uh…sorry about that, folks”.
Poop.
wow they must think the hpe machine will last forever they still don’t have cpy,paste, an mms suport, thereas even a tethering app was selling then got pulled put back on an pulled agian. i doin’t thing carrier exclusivality is music to apples ears at all quite the oposite. if you recal when ther firs version cam aout alot of people gorge holzed it or jailbroke the first iphone ato unlock it an run it on tmo USA as well as the deathstar
Explains why they gave blackberry the shaft on the bold. 10 other cell phone companies find the quality good enough to release but suddenly AT&T delays it for another month +…
Even though 3g iphones are the same $ as blackberries the executives are now finding them hip and with the remote wipe available eventually we will get rid of our BES.
good job AT&T, really…good job……
let just have it as the only phone of att forever all the other phones can go to ever other carrier we got the iphone this is making me wanna join verizon asap where i can get any other phone but an iphone
That makes perfect sense Laura.. Because at&t doesn’t already do well w/ the Blackberry line up including upcoming Bold release. Join Verizon & enjoy having a carrier paying the same rates for less.
People don’t understand just how HUGE it is having this phone for at&t. While it can be tiresome & aggravating focusing so much on one phone no one can argue just how much demand this phone creates. Name another phone that causes WEEKS of people fighting to wait in line for one. Willing to pay data charges w/out argument & many willing to wait 7-21 days to just own one. Not even the super hyped Samsung Instinct caused a stir.
its just too bad atts coverage area stinks. Verizon missed out big time with the iphone. And with verizons aquisition of alltel…let the wireless wars begin…
Yeah, I thought the original deal was a 5-year exclusive…. and since this isn’t really a true quote, it sounds like a non-story to me.
They have let steve jobs take over the company. at&t should be ashamed. every phone manufacture that has been loyal to cingular-at&t is getting screwed by them now because the only thing they promote now is apple. never thought id see the day when apple controlled ma bell, but they do. guess thats how they thank samsung moto nokia and all the rest for there years of service to them. The winner of the corperate greed award goes to(AT&T)
god forbid they ever make a windows version of an iphone then jobs will have a run for his money
“god forbid they ever make a windows version of an iphone then jobs will have a run for his money” – borg
now thats funny.
they already do it’s called the HTC advantage
wasnt at&t supposed to have the iphone until 2012? correct me if im wrong but i could have sworn the iphone was stuck on at&t until 2012 but anyway this sucks
Where’s the picture message when you need em’
ok i have an idea. i was reading early today that an O2 insider has confirmed that an iPhone nano is coming in christmas so if this is true this may be the reason why the iphone will stay on at&t because they need to see if the iPhone nano will be success or not
Still waiting for the iPhone 2 or maybe the iPhone 3 or 4.
Whenever they get it right
the iphone will get boring by tht time
and nobody is gonna wanna buy it anymore
so wuts the point of extending it
when their not gonna make any money?
um borg, then it would be a POS
Does it even matter? I think any sheep who jumped ship from their carrier for an iPhone have already done so.
Considering we were all under the impression that the iPhone was an AT&T exclusive for five years, this is good news to anyone who doesn’t want to jump ship.
Apparently Apple likes to limit its sales by only selling through one carrier in the U.S. It’s been long enough. Steve Jobs needs to get over himself and focus on shareholder interest and increasing the top and bottomline.
Holy crap… You guys are funny. The biggest bunch of whiners I’ve seen since I used to work with 5th graders!
Sorry, but the iPhone IS revolutionary in the world of cellphones. No buttons or keys to press outside of on/off and volume. Full web browsing without having to download a third party software or sign up for betas. Fuller screen browsing than you’ll find on other phones. 8gb+ of on-board storage. And now offers full exchange and GPS, and relasing more with the next firmware update.
In one year, this phone has surpassed what so many other phones did in their first year. It has created a demand far beyond the demand of any other phone. Numerous phone have now tried to emulate it or come out and said “hey we can do that too – if you download this, add this, download that, now do this, then that…. and voila – it’s ‘almost’ like you have an iPhone!”
Yet no one has matched it yet.
It’s not perfect – but the iphone is indeed revolutionary and people DO want it.
LMAO if you say so mr fand baoy the bigger the eago the harder it bruises an the more bitter the realiy check is
I dunno about you but i don’t Like asking uncle Stevees permission
Googl top 10 reason why the iphone is no black berry
evn better take the blackberry out of the equation you STIL find tha iphone has several basic features acking an the dound quality is horrible
oh. Galvatron isnt making sense anymore.DAMN!
except, nothing on the phone is revolutionary. It doesn’t do anything exclusively and lacks very basic features that other phones have. Get down off the hobby horse. It’s gross.