[Macworld]

Post your comments for iPhone surcharge protest highlight carriers' loss of control here

[kresh]

Full disclosure would have gone a long way in preventing the whining. Apple and the carriers, in Their zeal to sell products and services, fail to completely communicate to the customer that in exchange for signing a contract for service and are recieving x discount off the cost of the equipment.
Wait, what am I thinking... That would only work for rational people. Unfortunantly Apple has caved several times to the whiners on the iPhone front and has reinforced the idea that if you whine enough you will get money back, or a discount.

[ulfghosh]

Most carriers have stifled innovation by removing features and capabilities from mobile phones. AT&T, by contrast, can fairly be said to have promoted innovation by modifying their technology to accommodate some of the iPhone's features. If we want progress, the Apple/AT&T model has taken us further than the Verizon/Motorola model.

[cheese7007]

I understand the need for a charge when you contract has not yet expired. What I don't understand is why the "surcharge" for the 16GB is $200 and the surcharge for the 32G is $300 over the subsidized price. If there were a difference in subsidy between the two it should be based on what you are coming from not what you are going to.

[jamus]

I think the "dumb pipe" model that was mentioned is about the only way we will ever get good competitive devices to the iPhone. The supposed value carriers add in to the equation only results in artifically inflated user fees. Drop all of that nonsense and focus on faster networks without proprietary funneling so any standardized device can run on it.

[SFrawley]

I would sign the protest petition but won't put one site's (Twitter) password into another.

[chase]

Not one mention of how bad and unreliable the AT&T network is or the inferior technology they use on the back end. This is a disappointment.
The author mentions the high satisfaction of Verizon customers and poor satisfaction of AT&T and completely fails and misses the opportunity to address the reason: dropped calls and unreliable service, too few cell towers and the towers use inferior, outdated technology.
Not to mention, AT&T's SIM card system encourages theft of iPhones because it's so easy to replace the SIM cards. Verizon & Sprint practically have hard, pre-fabbed chips that mean the phones are nearly impossible to steal.
I had my old Sprint phone lost but returned to me because no one else could register it since Sprint had a record of the phone's serial. I lost my first Apple iPhone and it is gone forever.

[leicaman]

Dropped calls are overrated as a problem with AT&T. Since November, I think I've had two or three dropped calls. And I was always in an area where there were fewer towers when it happened. I'm happier with AT&T now than I ever was with any carrier I've had before (Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint.)

The problem here is that some areas have bad service, and those users are screaming real loud. So people get the idea that it's a problem everywhere.

Verizon keeps being held up by such complainers as the Holy Grail of service providers. When they are way more draconian on what features they allow, and they also have the highest prices for plans of any carrier.

So far, I'll be happier to stay with AT&T (formerly AT&T and CIngular) than go with the alternatives.

[yugenro]

Blackberry may brag that their compression saves 90% of the data sent over a network. I used Blackberries for over a year, and it is visually PAINFUL to view a web page image on a Blackberry: they must use 90% JPG compression on those dang images! PAINFULLY UGLY!!!

[Headrush69]

It would be nice to see the actual "real" cost of said iPhones.
We keep hearing how our hardware was subsidized by the carrier in lew of of us signing long term contracts but how much of the real cost is subsidize and not just extra profit.
Really hard to believe the hardware in an iPhone costs $599 yet you can buy laptops in that same range with more and better hardware.
(It don't buy the smaller size makes it that much more)

[schmegs]

{quote:title=Headrush69 wrote:}{quote}It would be nice to see the actual "real" cost of said iPhones.
We keep hearing how our hardware was subsidized by the carrier in lew of of us signing long term contracts but how much of the real cost is subsidize and not just extra profit.
Really hard to believe the hardware in an iPhone costs $599 yet you can buy laptops in that same range with more and better hardware.
(It don't buy the smaller size makes it that much more)

Yeah, $599 is the "retail" price, and not the actual cost of the hardware. I'm not saying that AT&T gets charged the retail price for the phone, but they surely don't get charged the actual hardware price. Apple also likes to keep a pretty decent profit margin on their hardware (and why shouldn't they?).

And the smaller size does make it cost more than a laptop. The processor's specialized, as are a lot of the components. Other than the motherboard itself, a laptop usually uses standard RAM, hard drive, and even processors & graphics cards that are shared with lots of other laptops.

What I'd be more interested in finding out is how much of my $75+/month is actually pure profit to AT&T, and how much my use of their service actually costs them. Of course, none of these hard calculations take into account marketing, customer service, etc., so just having the hard numbers based solely on hardware and/or service usage is pretty useless...

[Luke_Macwalker]

Headrush69 said:

Really hard to believe the hardware in an iPhone costs $599 yet you can buy laptops in that same range with more and better hardware.
(It don't buy the smaller size makes it that much more)

It's not the size (only) that makes their high price, it's Apple! :-)
Come on, why are you surprised? You could get laptops with the same hardware capabilities than the Apple laptops for much less. So what? Apple has superior products (or is able to claim so if you decide to think so), thus it can charge more for them. That's good business I guess.
Nothing new, really. ;-)
For what it's worth, the manufacturing cost of the (last year) iPhone 3G was estimated to be about $175.
Of course, it's not the final cost of the iPhone for Apple, but this and the gross margin of Apple should give you an idea about where does this $599 price is coming from.

[strat68]

leicaman said:

Dropped calls are overrated as a problem with AT&T. Since November, I think I've had two or three dropped calls. And I was always in an area where there were fewer towers when it happened. I'm happier with AT&T now than I ever was with any carrier I've had before (Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint.)

By your own admission, you've never had Verizon. Dropped calls are non-existant with Verizon, that's why everyone loves them so much. I switched to AT&T for the iPhone and i've regretted it ever since. I think you've gotten used to sub-par networks and have been conditioned to accept dropped calls as a reality. I NEVER had a dropped call for the 3 years i was with Verizon. I always had a signal wherever i went, no areas of bad service. I switch to CrapT&T for the iPhone and it drops calls like flies. 3G goes in and out, i have to keep it off now because Edge drops calls less. I love all the stuff the i"Phone" can do but i need a reliable phone more than i need to play games and surf the web. My Verizon service was so reliable i never had to worry about an important call dropping. Now i have to worry every time it rings. I like the new 3G S but i think i might go back to Verizon and wait for the iPhone to come to them. I'll just use my iPhone as a Touch until then. I got the 3.0 upgrade to play with until then.

[KBCraig]

strat68 said:

Dropped calls are non-existant with Verizon, that's why everyone loves them so much.

Dropped calls might be non-existant, until you leave their service area, then it's like you fell off the edge of the earth.

Out here in flyover country, Verizon and Sprint have horrible reputations, because there's simply no service outside city limits, or along major interstates.