[PCWorld]

Post your comments for IPhone 3G: Great for New Buyers, But Upgraders Beware here

[piggedy]

Here's my experience of purchasing the white 3G iphone this morning..
Business customers with corporate discounts BEWARE!
you will not be able to purchase the iphone at an Apple store.
here's my recap:
http://offtopics.com...-3g-iphone.html

[edjent]

BUYER BEWARE for sure.... I saved up $500 dollars for the phone, cash. I watched and watch for a month or so about the release (since I didn't adopt the first gen model, I was a bit excited about the new 3G model). I've been down to the AT&T store about the plans and phone, called once or twice, no one seems to have answers about the phone.. after the KeyNote and the 1/2 the price slogan I got even a bit more excited, more cash in my pocket. Then I find out it only if you sign a two year contract with AT&T, ok so i'm already a subscriber no problem, right! WRONG! As a AT&T customer for 6 years (through the whole ATT & Cingular merger/buyout) i'm not eligible at that price, i'm only 19 months through my old contract and until 24 months has passed (dec) i'm can't get the quoted prices...
ya know how deceptive is that crap... way to piss off a loyal custom AT&T, makes me want to forget about the iphone and AT&T for that matter... I love Apple but this subsidy bs is a load of crap!

[BigToke]

This was a very frustrating day. I am in the same boat as the Upgrader above. we are unable to purchase an iPhone for the advertised price of 199, we have to pay a fee of $200 additional in order to buy it. I have been with Cingular/ATT since 1994, i have 6 months left on the 4 lines that i have with them and i am seriously considering changing to another provider. I am very dissapointed, seems like a bait and switch to me. you cant even call the offices as they have had a problem activating the iPhone and have a recording and then dissconnect the phone line.

[edjent]

simply put...
"According to AT&T: “Non-iPhone AT&T customers who are not currently eligible for an upgrade discount and who want to buy the iPhone 3G right away can do so for $399 (8 gigabytes) or $499 (16 gigabytes). These early upgrade prices, which require a two-year service agreement, are the same as the recent prices for the original
iPhone.”

In other words, AT&T is essentially saying to current customers who don’t want to wait to be eligible for an upgrade discount: “Thank you for being a loyal AT&T customer, Joe. We’ll give you a steal of a deal for the new iPhone 3G: twice the price.”"

simply unexcusable! do you wnat me as a customer or not?

[BigToke]

so again they get to stick to the customers who have paid there fees for many years. Well i can understand it this is the way they plan to compensate for those lucky people that are eligible for an upgrade and make up the money back that they have to pay to Apple for the reduced cost. makes sense although ill bet the customer churn for ATT will be huge. ATT might want to consider this marketing failure.

[Jordi]

From your test seems that, even this new iPhone has 3G, if you wanna do some serious browsing or Internet Video you end up needing WiFi. Community generated WiFi networks, like the FON.com we are building up, will help many iPhone users getting more out of this se xy phone.

[pritchard12]

I think it looks like a lot of people were confused about the price of the phone. It's not any cheaper than the previous one. They simply subsidized the cost of the phone for new customers, and raised the monthly fees so they will actually cost users MORE for the phone. It's not a matter of new or "loyal" customers, that price is based on the contract that the user had signed up for, when someone bought a phone 1.5 years prior, they were given a phone at a subsidized cost. For ATT to make that money back on the phone the customer must carry out that contract of 2 years as agreed upon. It's not all that difficult to understand.

[BigToke]

I more than understand subsidised phones. been working in the telecom area for 30 years. I dont recal the announcement by Apple to have any reference to subsity. just that the cost would be $199.00 or $299.00, there was no reference to the fact that you had to be able to upgrade. And the logical assumption would be that they would do it the same way that they did the first iphone without any relation to the ability to upgrade.

[JohnGraner]

I was listening to Steve Dahl's radio show yesterday, and he mentioned that Apple is similar to a cult. He himself had someone waiting outside the AT&T store to get him one. He said he could not help himself- he had to get it.
I was a member of that cult UNTIL I got the first generation iphone. My experience with the people at AT&T here in my town destroyed my loyalty to Apple. I can't "automatically" support a company that associates with such a cellular provider. I paid $600 for my iphone, later got the $200 rebate. I have had it a year and now some of the touch screen does not work. So the product is not that reliable. I have read all of the above notes and it appears that service now is no better than it was a year ago at AT&T.
I also own Apple stock, and I am worried. Apple products are starting to become unreliable, and the company does not seem to support its users the way it used to. I do not plan to go near the AT&T store again. (We don't have an Apple store in my little town.)
Only people with the blank "cult" stare on their faces would stand in line for hours, get hit with a bate and switch price issue, and put up with the coldness of AT&T employees. Just wait until they try to activate the thing! It took me all weekend with the first one! Thankfully, I have outgrown this particular addiction.

[JohnGraner]

A followup to my own note above: Steve Dahl himself had a lot of problems activating his new iphone! "Now I want a free something," he says on his show. Good luck, Steve. You should have just hung on to your old iphone, my man.