3G iPhone & MobileMe

[stevekenson]

Apple’s announcement of the release of the 3G iPhone, with a starting price of $199 for the 8 GB model, may be the final push needed to get me to buy an iPhone (since the price-tag is pretty much the only thing that kept me from getting one thus far). Funny thing is, up until now, I’d been seriously looking at the iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone because: 1) I’ve got a cell phone account with Sprint and the iPhone is still exclusive with AT&T Wireless, and; 2) I don’t really care that much about talking on the phone, I want the e-mail, web, and A/V capabilities of the thing and don’t care much about the phone. But now the 8 GB iPhone will be $100 less than the 8 GB iPod Touch, unless iPod prices drop as well.

On the flip side, I’m not too happy to learn that Apple’s MobileMe replacement for their .Mac service will no longer support synching with OS 10.3, which is what I’ve got on my G3 iBook. The iBook won’t run 10.5 (needs G4 or higher) so I need to “upgrade” it to 10.4, which is outdated, get a new laptop (which ain’t gonna happen unless a large chunk of money drops into my lap), or just live with not being able to sync my address book, calendar, and such. Of course, if I get a 3G iPhone, then I can sync all of that information on it and not worry about having it on the laptop... Hmmm...

Comments

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

Do be aware, though, that AT&T just bumped their data plan to thirty freaking dollars a month, which will offset the money you save on the iPhone in the long run.

Mind you, I'm probably going to be getting one myself, truth be told, but that is a bit spendier with all considerations.

Joe

[wordwill.livejournal.com]

I've been eyeballing the iPod touch myself, and have the same questions about its future after this week. Hmmm.

[whisper-jeff.livejournal.com]

I've been _very_ happy with my iPod Touch. Obviously, with the iPhone 3G, I'd wait to see what happens to the price of the Touch before buying one, but if it does drop (as I can only assume it will...), I'd highly recommend snagging one. You won't be disappointed (imho).

[xomec.livejournal.com]

I'll be keeping an eye out for announcements about iPod price drops, too, but I'm not certain it'll happen, since apparently the iPhone price drop has a lot to do with AT&T's willingness to subsidize.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

This is somewhat interesting, since it's a possible indication that iPhone inventory is not really moving through the channel the way that AT&T has hoped. There's an awful lot to like about the new iPhone, I agree, but it also seems to me that some of the original concerns that people had about it are not really addressed.

For example, just because you can push bits faster through the cell network, doesn't mean you're suddenly miraculously pushing less bits. Wider pipe doesn't mean cheaper pipe. And there's a lot about the new infrastructure building up around the iPhone that seems to indicate to me that people will be pushing more bits through the ether not less. (Can you configure mobileMe syncing to occur only when you're in WiFi coverage, frex? I sure hope so...)

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

I think it's more indicative that a substantial minority of users were buying the phone, jailbreaking it, and then using it with other carriers.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That also sounds reasonable.

[whisper-jeff.livejournal.com]

If they don't drop the price, I'd imagine sales of the Touch to completely dry up - why buy a Touch when you can get the same thing, but more, for less?

They have to drop the price or do _something_ to make the touch worth the price (possibly a much larger SSD or something - we'll see).

All in all, however, the iPhone 3G is pretty sexay.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

You can get a touch with 32GB of storage, and you can't get that out of an iPhone. Of course, that doesn't do much for the price of the 8GB model...

Also, presumably, you can't get an iPhone without buying a service plan? So you are paying full price for the phone; you've just hidden the cost in the service contract. (At least, Canada's Apple doesn't directly sell iPhones; you'll have to go to the carriers for it.)

I suspect that they won't measurably drop the price on the iPodTouch; after all, if they did that, it could have nasty pricing ripple down effects on their entire iPod line. If you could get an 8GB Touch for 200 bucks, why the heck would anyone buy a Nano for 150?. Or, more to the point, why would anyone purchase an iPod classic? Only serious folk really need 80GB of media storage, I suspect. Of course, one of the compelling reasons to purchase an iPod classic, if you put your music into heavy rotation, is the absolute write-lifetimes of the flash memory that's used for storage in the nano and touch...

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

Can you write off a new laptop?

[xomec.livejournal.com]

Sure, but that doesn't make the money to buy it in the first place magically appear, unfortunately.

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is painfully true.

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

If the money were to appear, either myself or codrus may be able to help on pricing.

[xomec.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, depending on how the birthday lewt works out.

[xomec.livejournal.com]

Theoretically speaking, how much "help" on pricing could I get? Feel free to message or e-mail me privately.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I would recommend upgrading to 10.4 over 10.3 anyway. The later patch levels of 10.4 are the most stable OS that Apple has ever released imho, and that's saying something. Leopard's stability is laughable by comparison. I'm seriously considering back-revving my laptop to 10.4 while leaving all my desktops at 10.5 (work and home), so that I can continue to have a "word pad" that will support using FrameMaker.

Come on, Apple; hurry up and purchase Adobe, already, and then release a Darwin, or Carbonized, version of Frame! (pipe dream, I know)

I don't really mind switching to Pages for new small projects, or Word for work stuff when I have to use it, or the other "writing tools" at my disposal (Scribus, frex).

But I have legacy content in Frame it would be nice to have access to, and gradually convert over to a more modern and portable format.