[don731]

I fully concur. I would buy an iphone tomorrow if I could get ONLY a data plan. My cellphone voice needs are taken care of by my employer who is with verizon. Or perhaps my ipod touch could have an evdo or 3g data chip in it that I could provision with a data plan. Many of us are in the same boat...looking for a data device separate from a voice plan.

[dfs]

" It's part of the old-think which has kept the Mac mired in low market share for many years." Anybody marketing anything faces a choice: sell your product at a high price with a hefty profit margin, or sell it at a lower one with lower profit margin. Often the second strategy moves so many more units that you wind up making a larger profit than if you had followed the first one. As Dutch Schultz pointed out, nickles and dimes do add up. And I agree that sometimes Apple has had trouble wrapping its mind around this concept.

[orgopete]

I understand what Sacconaghi is saying. I also understand what those who argue Apple's business model. In my area, AT&T is $40 $30/month cell data. I don't travel a lot, and don't use a lot of minutes. For me, it is almost more like $70/month for data. No, I don't think so.
I have an unlocked iPhone with a pre-paid plan from T-Mobile. I expect that I will pay around $100 yr for voice and text. (Why would she call me, I'm in the next room.) For me, I would like the equivalent of dial-up. I wouldn't mind burning through some of my pre-paid minutes when I can't find wifi and want to check the weather. Do I want it badly enough to pay $840/yr? I don't think so, and this has nothing to do with the economy.
I understand Apple is only making money on the initial sale. I like this ultra portable computer better than an a PDA plus a cell phone and I can listen to podcasts that are free. I also understand those that are paying $60/month already. Adding a data plan, no problem. There just isn't much in between.

[Boehme417]

An iPhone without a data plan would be a fantastic idea. But, as stated above, that has to do with the providers. I would get an iPhone if 1) I didn't have to use AT&T and 2) if it came without a data plan. I can get WiFi EVERYWHERE I am except in the car. (It's faster and free!) And, god forbid people use that time to actually drive. The current iPhone situation may work for some, but I think it's absurd what is required of a subscriber (mostly due to AT&T).

[BearsFan34]

I fit the opposite of this article as well. Gave my original iPhone to my wife after work purchased a 3G for me; she used it as an iPod touch for awhile, but tried the unlocking/jailbreaking thing, and it's been great for her. Dropped her active AT&T SIM from an activated RAZR that we pay for in a family plan in the iPhone, it worked with no issues. Everywhere she goes, there's wifi; literally. She ASKED to turn the data off. We had no need to pay to activate the iPhone with data, we didn't need a data plan; so it works great. I use the APN changer to avoid accidental data usage. If AT&T would let us activate the iPhone with no data, we would've. If Apple/AT&T offered an iPhone with no data going forward, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[Jason Snell]

The iPhone is "cheap" because you are agreeing to pay for two years of a data plan. If you wanted to buy an iPhone without a data plan, it would probably cost you $500.
Free iPhones for all! It would be great. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, etc., etc.

[doglesby]

Jwonton said:

First, I don't know why this article is written with such rabid vitriol. Isn't this a published magazine, not just some post in a AppleRsGreatz forum? This article is nothing if not unprofessional.

iPhoneCentral is Macworld's iPhone-focused blog. It has been around as long as the iPhone, how have you not noticed this? Similarly all those MacUser pieces are the MacUser blog--not articles written for a magazine.

[dfs]

Understood. But even $500 is bargain in comparison to the total cost of a two-year data plan.

[crawdad62]

I suppose it's a good idea. I'm sure they'd sell a lot of them. I certainly wouldn't want it though. I had a Touch for the exact reason of not wanting to pay the data bill. I like a lot of people figured I could use Wi Fi pretty much anywhere. Well I found you can't. At least around my area most Wi Fi hotspots are locked. I found that I used the Touch less and less. Then my cellphone died and I just figured I'd go with the iPhone since I had somewhat of a legit excuse to do so.

Couldn't be happier. So much more usable have a data network regardless of where I'm at. Again I'm not saying there wouldn't be a market but for me I couldn't get much use out of it.

[NeonSurge]

Yeah, agreed with dfs

$500 up front iPhone
$720 = $30/mo * 24 mo
Total: $1220

Currently: $200 up front
$2184 = $91/mo (what I pay) * 24 mo
Total: $2384

Reducing the cost to almost HALF. So why does this not make compute? Can't do math?

[doglesby]

Once upon a time, AT&T offered a voice-only plan for the iPhone. Did that go away with the iPhone 3G and never come back? Doesn't it make more sense to ask AT&T to bring that back, rather than ask Apple to build a phone with all the same hardware and software that would be sold without a data plan? The fact that this is not an option (I assume someone bothered to check into that) suggests that it's AT&T, not Apple, that is the sticking point here.

As for the media-playing phone that doesn't run apps, why? Apps are a revenue source for Apple, and the iPod OS is a long way from being a viable cellphone platform.

[Salamar]

I am COMPLETELY in agreement with you. The last time I went to look at phones, the person in the store was telling me all about the internet access and ringtones and accessories and here's how you use the camera and the keyboard?

I asked her "Do you have ones that are good PHONES?"

She looked completely blank.

I'd love an iPhone for the interface but I don't want to pay the amount for either the phone nor the $50 a month I would suddenly have to add to my bill just for features I won't use very much - I don't use my current internet on my phone for anything at all, ever. So I guess it's just not for me.

[doglesby]

EMoeller said:

Did I miss something here? The killer device would be the iTouch with a microphone and Skype.

Apparently what you missed is that the iTouch is a Logitech keyboard. That and everyone who has an iPhone (especially if they have the iPhone 3G) will tell you that they are almost always connected via the cell network, not wifi. To be truly available, VoIP just doesn't compare to a cellphone.

[spinoza2]

Good article and I agree completely. Because of a viciously competitive free market, both cell phones and PCs are throw-away commodities today, and Apple has always positioned itself as offering an alternative business model, as if they are saying: ?Okay, we're going to convince you that our products are worth the extra money, that build-quality and polished software that ?just works? are so important that our products become qualitatively different from the competition. Having come from the world of PCs and ridiculously dysfunctional ?smartphones? (an oxymoron if there ever was one), I'm certainly convinced that the Apple ?surcharge? is worth every penny. As long as enough of us are similarly convinced that Macs and iPhones are qualitatively different kinds of devices from their competitors, then we can keep the Apple business model healthy and robust.

The widget-counting business ?experts? of Fortune, Business Week, WSJ, et al, can continue wasting ink on wishing Apple will give up its business model and jump into the lion's den of cutthroat commodity markets, but what they don't understand is Apple would no longer be Apple if they were to sell out.