iPhone 3G Officially Announced by Steve Jobs

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timbosan

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Topic # 22835 10-Jun-2008 06:55

It is on many sites, best I found is:

http://www.macrumorslive.com/

Live blogging as I post this topic! Highlights:

The iPhone 3G will be available July 11th in 22 countries. The maximum price around the world is $199 USD. $299 for the 16GB -- a white version of this size will be available too.

GPS support now integrated into the iPhone.

How does the iPhone 3G tackle the challenges? 3G = faster data downloads, perfect for Safari and Mail. Comparing download speeds between 3G and EDGE. 3G finished in 21 seconds. EDGE finished in 59 seconds.

With GPS, the iPhone can do tracking. A pulsating dot is moving across the Google map as a car drives down Lombard street.

mruane

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Reply # 137097 10-Jun-2008 18:33

So that US price works out at $NZ263 for the 8GB or $NZ395 for the 16GB model!!!

What's the bet they are $999 by the time they arrive in VF shops here. At $NZ395 for the 16GB model - I would be in.

Cheers Mike

ahmad

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Reply # 137100 10-Jun-2008 18:36

mruane: So that US price works out at $NZ263 for the 8GB or $NZ395 for the 16GB model!!!

What's the bet they are $999 by the time they arrive in VF shops here. At $NZ395 for the 16GB model - I would be in.

Cheers Mike

And since when was *anything* in NZ = US Price converted in NZ by www.xe.com?

sbiddle

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Reply # 137104 10-Jun-2008 18:44

Remember the US$199 is with a 2 year contract. This is something lots of people seem to be forgetting!

sproyd

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Reply # 137106 10-Jun-2008 18:47

It is true that we always pay more in converted dollars than Yanks but you have to bare in mind we are a much smaller market so the shipping costs are more. The per unit cost to sell a unit in NZ isn't as low but be thankful we are finally getting the iPhone. Fingers crossed that Vodafone releases some tasty 3G packages for it. I'm not too chuffed about signing up on a 24month contract though! At this stage I'm tentative on the upgrade.

The camera is still 2MP with no flash which was one of the shortfalls of the 1st gen, also no copy paste limits use as a PDA. However, 3G and GPS are welcome additions.

Anyway refer my Ultra-Mobile computing Blog Electric Vagabond below for my take - and any future news on the iPhone and UMPCs/Mini-Notes.

ahmad

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Reply # 137111 10-Jun-2008 18:54

The camera is still 2MP with no flash which was one of the shortfalls of the 1st gen, also no copy paste limits use as a PDA. However, 3G and GPS are welcome additions.

And no facing camera for video calls!

3G....

It makes me wonder if this has been the long term strategy of Apple all along:

Stage I: Produce a gimped 2.5G iPhone. No matter how gimped, it's still going to sell sh1tloads. Triple the price to ensure maximum milking of early adopter.

Stage II: Once market is saturated at the price level, introduce the "real" iPhone, but ensure that some essential features are still missing. "Slash" the price to 1/3 of the original launch price to stun the public with such a massive price cut.

Stage III: Once sales slow, add features that should have been in the 3G iPhone in the first place, announce a further price drop, and maximise profits

sproyd

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Reply # 137214 11-Jun-2008 01:33

The technique of charging a massive premium for 'early adopters' is what marketers call 'Price Skimming'. In technology it is rampant largely to recoup huge R&D capital fixed costs early on to hopefully offset development and begin profitability.Think of back when the PS1 first came out it was like $700-$1k and people were paying that way back then!

Anyway I like your theory but just don't think that is the case there because the iPhone is already years ahead of its time in terms of technology and design. I am so grateful for mine and I got it in September last year. At this stage I don't think I'll be upgrading to the new one but we'll see. Next on my list is the MSI Wind. Keep eyes peeled on my blog below for updates.

gehenna

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Reply # 137224 11-Jun-2008 08:08

My view with the benefit of hindsight, and not taking any conjecture about Apples pricing motives or means into account, is that the 1st gen iPhone release was hugely successful because it was hacked quite early in the piece. I don't mean this because it then left its official countries and made it to the rest of the world. What I mean is that it made it into the hands of a lot of developers worldwide that otherwise wouldn't have had access to it.

They released their SDK in March, but again I don't believe that would have been as successful if there hadn't been the huge numbers of people worldwide that had experience with hacking their iPhone. In hacking the thing you get to understand so much more about it than just using an SDK emulator, or just being a regular user like I imagine a lot of Americas market share are. The challenge of hacking, breaking, restoring, hacking again, is what has given people that deeper understanding and allowed (hopefully) some pretty amazing apps to be developed.

There's been development for the iPhone since the first jailbreak was released. And over time those homebrew apps have become better and better, to the point where I'm seeing commercial apps being sold on hacked iPhones, and the quality of those apps deserve the price you pay. I think if it hadn't evolved like this we would have a lot of baby steps to go through with this new version of the iPhone and there would be a visible evolution from the release of the SDK to the release of the iPhone. As it stands we can see that the level of development since release of the SDK has been really good looking.

ahmad

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Reply # 137225 11-Jun-2008 08:25

sproyd: nyway I like your theory but just don't think that is the case there because the iPhone is already years ahead of its time in terms of technology and design.

I'm an Apple fan, but never used/touched an iPhone as I just don't have that kind of money to spend. But from what honest reviews I could find of the iPhone (with official software mind you), the software and features were gimped. Things probably changed with software updates but things that stick in my mind were things like having to delete emails one by one instead of "all" or as a group, and plain vanilla camera software. I certainly wouldn't have excused such things in a $1000 device.

ahmad

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Reply # 137226 11-Jun-2008 08:29

gehenna: My view ... is that the 1st gen iPhone release was hugely successful because it was hacked quite early in the piece.

Interesting points! Conversely, this would not have happened had Apple not used their traditional proprietary strategy

sbiddle

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Reply # 137228 11-Jun-2008 08:32

ahmad:
sproyd: nyway I like your theory but just don't think that is the case there because the iPhone is already years ahead of its time in terms of technology and design.

I'm an Apple fan, but never used/touched an iPhone as I just don't have that kind of money to spend. But from what honest reviews I could find of the iPhone (with official software mind you), the software and features were gimped. Things probably changed with software updates but things that stick in my mind were things like having to delete emails one by one instead of "all" or as a group, and plain vanilla camera software. I certainly wouldn't have excused such things in a $1000 device.

There are aspects of the iPhone that are fantastic. The UI is fantastic and as a media player it did set a new benchmark.

As a cellphone however it can't do many of the things that other devices can. Does this make it a bad phone? No. But it's not worthy of the title of greatest cellphone ever becuase it isn't. Infact I have yet to see the perfect phone and doubt we will ever see it! Remember that the N95 has significantly outsold the iPhone and yet people don't end up with elevated blood pressure when the media talks about the N95..

The iPhone became a success because of the hackers that creacked it and created such a big market. Apple are fully aware of this which is why there have been fundamental changes since the original iPhone. Steve Jobs is smart. Very smart.

gehenna

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Reply # 137234 11-Jun-2008 09:08

sbiddle: Remember that the N95 has significantly outsold the iPhone and yet people don't end up with elevated blood pressure when the media talks about the N95..

Probably because for all it's features it is a very ugly device.

NZtechfreak

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Reply # 137250 11-Jun-2008 10:36

GPS and 3G are welcome additions, if the camera was significantly improved I might have thought about it...

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

gehenna

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Reply # 137278 11-Jun-2008 11:49

NZtechfreak: GPS and 3G are welcome additions, if the camera was significantly improved I might have thought about it...

The only way a phone camera is ever going to be decent is to forget about adding a camera to a phone, and start adding phones to cameras. Clearly that won't be happening :)