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That is exactly what I think. I am not going to change carriers and I am not going to upgrade to a second rate new iPhone.

Apple is rich enough that they don't have to punish their loyal customers for 20B. Shame on them if they do.

I think they want to punish AT&T for the carrier satisfaction disaster the first 4 gens have been, it have created Android.

Nonsense. The U.S. smartphone market is only a tiny slice of the world market. It created nothing.

The news concern US market, not global market.

iPhone was exclusive to one carrier in very few places. In all the rest where it wasn't, this usually didn't influence much its adoption, or of Android; it demonstrably turned out to be not a particularly important factor.

Google reaps more than enough benefits from their vast presence in the global market to justify entirety of their push for Android - so that nobody would be able to lock them out (even "just" in the global market) from the future mobile versions of the ways in which Google makes profit.

If they offer cheapest prices with iPhone, then they are in deep trouble.

That is the way that Apple sells iPhone in the rest of the world. They just tell the operators/carriers how many they have to sell to have iPhone. It's happening in, at least, 4 countries in Europe. And the operators pay up and sell them at a discount later on. That's how a lot of businesses in my country got free* iPhone3Gs upgrades, the operator just was about to loose iPhone so they pushed out the devices onto their most profitable customers - businesses. Expect to see a surge of iPhone "sales".

* - When I say free, I mean free. No contract extension, no nothing...

I think you misunderstood my description. When I said that sprint was the cheapest, I was referring to the monthly charges for unlimited text, phone and data usage. The prices they charge for phones on or off contract are about the same as other carriers.

My point is that they can't stick to those low prices, because that will not result in profits to them.
Apple takes their $500-$700 no matter how much the carrier charges the customer. In addition Apple does not reduce the prices with time.

k, I'm not much of an accountant and am unfamiliar with Sprint's actual costs as they pertain to their main mobile revenue stream. I couldn't begin to to tell you if that was true or not.

Well, the high price wouldn't be just for the phones, but for exclusivity (if this is true at all).

Well that's the normal price for an iPhone to start with, of which they (AT&T, Verizon, etc) discount to $199 already.

Now consider how much it costs for a data plan to go along with it. At $30/month for 24 months that's $720, or nearly the cost of the phone right there alone. Now add all the data overage charges that will likely be incurred (since they don't have an unlimited plan!), the voice service charges, etc, and don't forget that initial $199 payment from the customer.

Yeah, it's still at a profit over the life of the contract.

Don't know if you can get an iPhone with the $15 data plan or not but it looks like it would provide almost everything that the $30 plan does. Some folks would like it and use it. It wouldn't make sense for me. So if it were available I'd be knocking their take on data down to $360 over the two year contract life. Not enough to cover the $655.and-change. So the difference would have to come from somewhere else. $300 in accessories? Increased early termination fees? $20/mo. paper-billing charge? Other creative income strategies?

However the $30 data plan isn't pure profit either because it creates more of a load on the Sprint system compared to non-data consuming customers with feature phones. And that load isn't just on the airwaves, it's on the equipment itself, the employees, both technical and customer support (my text got lost -, I couldn't have used that much data -, I'm paying $30 a month for [insert complaint here]!?!#%*$&), increased costs in network expansion rollout, the accelerated rate of maintenance on infrastructure, increased power consumption, etc.

You may recall that the problems that AT&T had when their network started crashing caused them quite a bit of churn, from which you may see that infrastructure and personnel issues need to be addressed before the problems start to crush you. (;

Now AT&T didn't get crushed by any means but it did hurt their reputation [some more] and their bottom line. They recovered from it just fine and are now seeking to establish an effective duopoly with Verizon. Sprint simply can't afford the churn, the loss of rep., nor the possible relegation to near non-entity status. Given their cost structure to consumers their margins must be pretty thin already.

Besides it is essentially a discount on data usage, at least for some folks. It would be vastly more profitable, and no doubt drive away all the customers too, to not offer a data plan and simply charge $0.03/kb which is their non-plan rate now.

Then in a reversal of the often repeated accounting joke they could say, "Sure we lost most of our customer volume, but by eliminating the discount on service we more than make it up in profit!" (o;)

All very true. However, my main point was that when you add up all the charges that you are incurring, they are still making a profit.



This pretty much ignores the fact that AT&T was the first to really offer a true SmartPhone with a full data plan. I don't care who did it - whether Sprint, Verizon, etc - they all would have had the same problems as it was an entirely new market that no one really knew how it was going to function. Everyone learned, and thereby avoided most all the mistakes.

So that won't really be a problem with the Sprint now - the infrastructure is pretty much already in place to support it.



Or if you're like me, you just turn those off to start with.

That's correct - my phones don't have the Data network enabled, and I have TXT/SMS disabled on the accounts. Now if they were smart, then they'd let people receive TXT/SMS for free, and up the charge a little on sending to make up for it. Then I would have kept it enabled, and who knows - might have ended up using it in the long run. However, I refuse to pay for something I neither wanted myself or use - and I don't appreciate being forced to pay for something someone else makes me use (which is why I disabled it so I can't even receive them).

I'm not disputing that they are a profitable company. I am disputing your example of how they might make this [rumored] deal with Apple work. Because your example implies that the, presumably required, $30 data plan pays the whole cost of the phone. It doesn't. (; Especially if the $15 plan is an option. Something else has to figure into it.



Do you have something to support that statement? Because as I recall it there were smartphones, true or not, and data plans available on all networks long before AT&T started getting their network knocked down by data-related issues. I certainly didn't find anything in Google to support your claim either. (; And avoiding most all the mistakes doesn't ensure that one or more of the ones not avoided won't give you a bad experience, customer-service, P.R. or otherwise.



Do you have something to support that statement? I saw that:

"Under reported construction plans, LightSquared would place its equipment on Sprint’s towers, and the deal could enable Sprint’s customers to access LightSquared’s proposed 4G LTE network.

LightSquared’s plans to build an LTE network that covers 92% of the population by 2015 has been described as ambitious by many industry experts considering the company’s attempts to integrate mobile technology with satellite-based services. Construction is due to begin in 2012 after a $7 billion deal was signed with Nokia Siemens Networks to design and operate the network."

But if construction starts in 2012 it may not be in place in time to handle the [un]expected volume resulting from Sprint's exclusivity pact with Apple. Did I miss a big announcement somewhere? (;



Absolutely! When I was an AT&T customer I had all that stuff turned off. And data was only $0.01/kb at that time. I had SMS turned on when it became cheaper to get it on my AT&T phone than from a prepaid plan that I used.

Now I have a Virgin Mobile phone for $25/mo. with unlimited web and data. You can't get it for that price any more. The bottom tier for that plan is now $35. But the PayLo plan for $30 gives you 1500 minutes, 1500 messages and 30 MB data.

So, I may need to switch. I'm pretty sure that my data usage is well under 30MB and having 1200 more minutes a month would be like having unlimited talk to me. (;

And still $20/mo cheaper than my half of the AT&T family plan with 200 texts on my phone and 700 minutes split between me and my brother.

Thanks for impelling me to go check out the plans again. I hadn't realized how good a deal PayLo had become.

They're betting that exclusive access to WiMax is the compelling feature that makes them the leading carrier. Still not sure how the financials work out. But, clearly, Sprint isn't going to survive without having a wider range of phones.

The only reason I could see would be that Apple isn't confident about its product's ability to attract more purchases - making the guaranteed sales very desirable.

I, however, do not see Sprint betting the company to this degree unless they are convinces the company will otherwise falter completely.

If neither is the case, then this is bad for BOTH.

Most people have contracts with their carriers and can't just swap carriers at will without paying serious penalties. I would expect those people to become very sour over such a move by Apple.

--The loon

They are just replicating their business practice, they use in other countries, in US.

Not only did they not have trouble selling the things ...

This may be the best of both worlds for Apple. They continue targeting the whole market with the 4s and any other models that they don't choose to discontinue, creating an unheard of low-end niche for Apple, and go exclusive with the 5 while using Sprint to limit the volume of sales.

Why limit he volume of sales? Because they have supply pipeline limitations that creating a demand-side limitation will be an answer to. They won't have to worry about unanticipated, nor anticipated, demand because they know and have fixed the volume of demand in advance. They can also repeat the exclusivity coup that everyone said wouldn't work.

instead of saying -

I should have said potentially creating that low-end niche with the model(s) that they don't theoretically discontinue.

Too soon, man. Too soon.

I think Thom was referring to another part of the same article :
"On Friday, while reporting its quarterly earnings results, Verizon said it activated 2.3 million iPhones during the company’s second quarter. That is a hefty figure, because the device has been available on Verizon for only a few months, but it paled in comparison to AT&T’s iPhone activations for the same quarter. On Thursday, AT&T reported that it had activated 3.6 million iPhones on its network, and that nearly a quarter of them were for new customers to AT&T."

In short : only half of *new* US iPhone customers buy it from Verizon, showing that AT&T was not so much of a problem after all, in sense that the huge customer rush from AT&T to Verizon that some were expecting didn't happen.

I don't know why you're bringing Android on the table, but from the data I have it seems to me that it's doing fine in its corner, since its introduction at the end of 2008. If a major OS manufacturer would have to worry in the US, that would rather be RIM : http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-na-monthly-200812-201110

Edited 2011-10-04 07:37 UTC

I didn't bring Android into anything, those are quotes from the article.

Well, quoting is a part of argumentation, and what you chose to quote (and highlight) is a claim that the Verizon iPhone outsells Android devices (whether combined or not remains unclear) on the Verizon network. In my opinion, this metric is not so good from many points of view, but most noticeably because it is more of an iOS vs Android metric than a Verizon vs AT&T one.

I do not live in the US and some of the mobile network choices there are beyond me (two incompatible cell standards ? lolwut ?), but it is my understanding that the Verizon iPhone was supposed to change everything because the Verizon network is supposedly much better than the AT&T one, which would have made AT&T exclusivity cripple iPhone sales. It seems to me that in order to study this, a good metric should somehow compare the attractivity of Verizon and AT&T for the iPhone buyer population. Which is apparently pretty much equal, even in favor of AT&T.

Edited 2011-10-05 06:53 UTC

Well if you just had taken a look outside US, you'd see that Verizon was not "first real test", since there a lot of countries where Android and iPhone were being sold on the same operator.

http://www.catb.org/esr/comscore/
Thats funny, it caused a slight uptick in iPhone sales, Android was not affected.

Don't worry, the iPhone 6 will be out soon I'm sure, and even shinier (well, kinda) .

Your post is bullshit...seek therapy if a phone, a fucking phone takes you through all that.

Or, instead of crying like a baby you could get the iPhone 5 (since you're going back to Sprint anyway), wait for a Jailbreak/Unlock and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Or, you could wake up and realize that Apple will do anything -- no matter how anti-consumer -- to pad their purse, and you could move on to another platform like Android, WP7, or even BlackBerry. Apple is a business, and one of the most profitable in the U.S.,and this is exactly what businesses do to remain so.

Or...well you get the picture.

WTF are you talking about. I said I was THINKING of moving to Sprint not that I would. Unlike others I have had no issues with AT&T's service. I don't use the phone portion of the device all i care about is the data and in that respect AT&T delivers.

I have a right to be pissed. i don't give a shit if you don't like it, I wasn't asking for your fucking opinion. I was just airing out my frustration at loosing my 3GS, which is why I'm really pissed.

I was calling you out for being a whiny little brat over a cellphone. I personally don't give a shit what you do. Myself, I got pissed at AT&T when they refused to honor their warranty and return policy after a phone arrived damaged, and instead of cursing and wailing, I took my money elsewhere.

All I'm saying is, you're taking this stuff way to personally. Yes, the companies involved suck for personally screwing you over and making changes that affect only you and no one else...yeah whatever dude.

When the did I say they were personally screwing me over. WTF are you talking about? I never said they were personally screwing me over. i was airing out my frustration at the situation, that's it. Why do you give a shit what the fuck I think? So you don't whine good for you. I don't really care. I wanted to air out my frustration, so I did. Get fucking over it.

And you're still crying and cursing at someone who doesn't matter (me) instead of being positive and looking at your options.

This is really why I'm starting to hate the cellphone companies. If they can cause this type of turmoil on a personal level between two strangers with their self-serving deals, what the hell are they doing to us on a grand scale?

Unfortunately, the only solution seems to be picking the carrier that sucks the least yet still offers hardware and coverage we can use.

At first you said

That doesn't sound like you haven't had problems with att.

Then you said,




Thats the problem with apple apologists*...

*Typed from my macbook pro. Just bought a samsung galaxy s2 yesterday to replace my first gen iphone that I have been using for four years since the day it was released.

Even "shittier" network. LOLOLOLOLOL. I get almost 8-10mg down and 1.4-1.5mg up on Sprint 4G sitting inside my apartment in a hilly area of Los Angeles. I listen to my friends bitch and moan all the time about AT&Ts crappy network. 10 years with Sprint and no problems with service. Maybe you should give them a try a dude before throwing a fit.

Edited 2011-10-04 19:40 UTC

Eh, the dude goes back and forth contradicting himself over and over. Maybe he should dump AT&T and Apple and go with Sprint to ease his frustrations. I know I'll end up there if the T-Mobile merger goes through.

I'm glad to hear so many people (online and real life friends) who have had good experiences with Sprint. Their coverage is just about as good as T-Mo where I live, and as long as they keep carrying good phones I'll definitely consider switching to them next March.

...because Iphones come out almost every year and the Iphone 6 will probably be LTE. Besides all Iphones have been a little behind the times. Remember when you couldn't even get one that did 3G?

Not disputing your comment on BGR in the title of your post. The linked article is the first thing I've read there and it will discourage me from ever going back.

However: Did I miss an update somewhere? How do we know that the Sprint exclusivity deal isn't going to happen? I see more rumors of it happening than denials, but nothing convincing either way yet.

It was confirmed yesterday that the iPhone 4s will be on Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon. Unless, if by 'iPhone 5', they meant the next iPhone after the 4s ...

Indeed, the iPhone 5 is NOT the same thing as the iPhone 4s.

In fact, even this article on which you're posting comments differentiates between the two:

Does it? What is this "Assistant"? Siri Assistant, the voice-controlled helper of 4S? (NVM how it was available until few days ago freely, and for more than a year after Apple bought Siri; now removed seemingly just so it can be a 4S selling point)
The rest can easily fall just under wishful thinking spec-anticipation.

Edited 2011-10-08 18:09 UTC