iPhone 3G: An AT&T Monopoly

Yeah they sound like democrats don't they? ound: Sorry didn't really mean that. :nono:

The beauty of the Free Market just means that if other companies want to survive they have to be more competitive than AT&T. Thus we will soon get phones capable of doing the same as the iPhone or better with service plans of equal or better features and cost. The only thing we have to do is be patient. :nod:

America what a country! :cheer2::usa2::cheer2:

Wildkow

 

Yes, they control it. Just as on my FreeBSD workstation I can modify and recompile my own source... and even throw a "Mike's OS" label and throw it on FTP sites. I then will have my own branch of FreeBSD. I see OSX as being like a kit car. You take the chasis, the engine, and all the components and you slap a new body on it and it looks and in some cases handles a bit different, but it's not necessarily it's own car. Granted, I'm not a Apple hater. I have my PowerBook G4 up and running right next to me this very instant and I'm looking forward to finding the excuse to my wife to get a new G5. I love Mac hardware... and even though I still hate the Mac UI I can get to a terminal and do "stuff" just like any other unix box.

Anyway, you and I have no beef. Hopefully I won't get too flamed for taking this topic waaaay off topic (sorry). You're obviously aware of the FreeBSD underpinnings. I've read many posts all over the Internet where people bat back and forth the whole mac vs pc debate and the vast majority of mac people don't even know what unix is, let along FreeBSD.

 

What brilliant marketing, make the phone cheaper but charge more for air time & accessories (give um the razor then sell the blades for $)

 

Sprint never raised their price when they introduced their high speed network EV-DO.
I was pleased with their service for the past 3 years.Just tired of the Palm Treo.

 

the new treo is out... with wifi ...

I know iphone raised their prices, but at the same time.. if you had a Palm and wanted internet with ATT .. you had to pay a higher price.

i believe adding internet for iphone was 20 bucks..while on a palm pilot it was 40 bucks a month... so maybe they're just making the same price across the board for all phones...

 

Good luck with that. You'll first need to get you hands on a time machine, to take you back to 2006. Not sure why you'd want a G5 anyway, given that the Intel-based Macs are so much faster, and all of the important apps are available native now (and have been for some time).

 

ok, i will agree that a 2 year contract for a phone AT RETAIL is unheard of...

but requiring special pricing, plans or features such as internet access is not.

 

I have the exact same phone and love it. Considered the Tilt and now I'm looking at the HTC Touch Diamond. I don't remember if you use Mac's at home or work but you do know that you'll have to spend extra to Sync your iPhone to your PC at home right? Unless of course that is all handled through the Exchange service.

Good luck I hope you are happy with the decision you make and let us know what you find out, K?

Wildkow

 

Ok, so who got one?

I drove by an AT&T store last night around midnight and saw about 5-8 people in line. This morning a little before 11AM I drove by the same store and there were about a dozen people waiting in line outside. I didn't feel like standing in the sun for an hour so I didn't stop. I could have probably gotten one as they didn't run out until shortly after noon.

At about 3PM I went to the store and they said I could order one, and pick it up at the store within three to five days, so I did that, rather than wait in line. They were telling people to line up at 6:30AM on Saturday morning if they wanted a good shot at getting one on Saturday.

 

My daughter bought one here in Australia yesterday. She has already synced it to her Mac and Macbook. Got it on a 2 year plan for $56 per month capped (text and voice only) internet extra, but she can link to the internet via her Mac sync, so really does not need full internet access whereever.

The Vodafone outlet below my office in the city (read downtown) had a queue outside all day from 7am to 5:30pm, but my daughter walked into a local Optus outlet and signed up - she was the only one in the store.

The iphone is being offered by all the carriers here in Australia, so the prices are very competitive.

She liked one feature that she found whe she was playing with it. Using Google maps, she was able to see where she was on the map - in Satelite mode, we were able to see right down to the corner of the house where she was. So if you get the internet access, who needs GPS?

 

Early reports are that Exchange server access works fine with a regular data plan. There have been rumors that AT&T will bump you to the $45 plan if they detect you're talking to an Exchange server, but there is no way for AT&T to sniff traffic and determine you're talking to an Exchange server, as it is on a standard port (standard https port 443) and encrypted. Well, no way short of monitoring the timing and size of the packets and applying some heuristics, like ISPs do when they throttle P2P traffic.

 

Giving PC a shout out from my new iPhone.