it doesn't matter if they gave the iphone away for free- how the heck can people in this economy afford 100+ a month for at&t service for their iphones?
that's 1200 for a year and with the two year minimum service contract with at&t, it's 2400. i know of no one who is doing well financially right now. am i missing something here?
We've been through recessions before. No one suddenly lowers the prices on their premium services because of it. Everyone will ride it out until it gets better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freethinker
it doesn't matter if they gave the iphone away for free- how the heck can people in this economy afford 100+ a month for at&t service for their iphones?
that's 1200 for a year and with the two year minimum service contract with at&t, it's 2400. i know of no one who is doing well financially right now. am i missing something here?
We've been through recessions before. No one suddenly lowers the prices on their premium services because of it. Everyone will ride it out until it gets better.
I work for the United States Treasury and I can say that this is very near to being disastrous. I am talking about Iceland disastrous.
if there is an iphone nano, i don't believe it will replicate the same features as a regular iphone. It will have limited features. No internet/GPS and no installing 3rd party programs.
I'm going to assume that these renderings are real because previously the leaked renderings for the 3G cases came out to be real.
The case indicates that the new iPhone nano will have a camera, there are two proximity sensors one to the left and one to the right of the speaker, the headset jack replaces the loudspeaker at the bottom? and the screen is either higher in resolution or the OS's resolution independent GUI will compensate for the smaller screen size on the fly.
If you can subsidize the current phone to $200 -- and it obviates a $100-200 iPod purchase -- is the unit price any sort of -real- barrier? The 'nano' keyboard would suck, most of the apps wouldn't work nearly as well, the app store would fracture, the battery would suffer disproportionally and what's the upside?
They need a 'lite' data plan more than they need to cut $100 off the price or shave size.
(E.g. a plan that only uses cell data for things like A-GPS and makes everything else use wifi)
If you can subsidize the current phone to $200 -- and it obviates a $100-200 iPod purchase -- is the unit price any sort of -real- barrier? The 'nano' keyboard would suck, most of the apps wouldn't work nearly as well, the app store would fracture, the battery would suffer disproportionally and what's the upside?
They need a 'lite' data plan more than they need to cut $100 off the price or shave size.
(E.g. a plan that only uses cell data for things like A-GPS and makes everything else use wifi)
The keyboard may only view in landscape mode or it would have multiple letters per button and the phone will automatically guess your entry, Blackberry already uses such a feature in their smaller keyboards.
From the iPhone SDK documentation, it makes it clear (I believe) that the device will scale the app window appropriately so that differing screen sizes and resolutions should not matter.
From the iPhone SDK documentation, it makes it clear (I believe) that the device will scale the app window appropriately so that differing screen sizes and resolutions should not matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by probably
That is an interesting note.
I think that increasing the screen resolution is an obvious future upgrade for the iPhone. That's just future-proofing.
As I said in the other thread, I don't believe that this is true.
1) I don't see a legitimate argument about needing a lower price device. The regular iPhone is already going to be sold for $99 at Walmart for god sakes. The *real* cost issue is the requirement of a 2-year contract with a mandatory $30/month unlimited (aka 5GB) data package just to own an iPhone. This should never have been required, not only do many people not live in a 3G area, many others are blanketed by WiFi all day.
I think a decent compromise to spur sales would be to create a second data plan, something like 1GB for $10/month in addition to the 5GB for $30/month. Another idea would be for AT&T to offer the iPhone without a mandatory data plan (while still keeping the 2-year contract) for a higher price, say $349. Regardless, they are going to need to do something to keep sales momentum going. I myself could not get by without mobile email and web, but I'm sure there is an enormous number of potential iPhone customers out there who refuse to pay a minimum of $75 a month for one.
2) the current iPhone is already so small that I don't think it's possible to shrink it any further without having a significant impact on functionality. I have averaged sized hands, and I don't see how you could comfortably fit a qwerty keyboard on a 2.5-2.8" screen. I know many middle-aged people who have trouble with the iphone's small text and buttons on the touchscreen as it is now.
additionally, to not have a major impact on the GUI, they would need to keep the resolution the same at 480x320. However, the higher pixel density will mean that the interface elements will shrink, making it even harder to press buttons and controls accurately. And you can't just scale up the text and inteface controls or they will overlap and cause all sorts of display problems. I'm fairly confident a smaller iphone would require a modification of the GUI and just make it more difficult for app developers to maintain their programs.
Comments
I think we gonna be really surprised at Macworld.
that's 1200 for a year and with the two year minimum service contract with at&t, it's 2400. i know of no one who is doing well financially right now. am i missing something here?
it doesn't matter if they gave the iphone away for free- how the heck can people in this economy afford 100+ a month for at&t service for their iphones?
that's 1200 for a year and with the two year minimum service contract with at&t, it's 2400. i know of no one who is doing well financially right now. am i missing something here?
That won't be good either. Also, without 3G, who would waste their time with that phone?
Don't worry, few people care about 3G around here. Afterall, the original iPhone didn't have 3G and that was still the 'best phone in the world'.
We've been through recessions before. No one suddenly lowers the prices on their premium services because of it. Everyone will ride it out until it gets better.
I work for the United States Treasury and I can say that this is very near to being disastrous. I am talking about Iceland disastrous.
The case indicates that the new iPhone nano will have a camera, there are two proximity sensors one to the left and one to the right of the speaker, the headset jack replaces the loudspeaker at the bottom? and the screen is either higher in resolution or the OS's resolution independent GUI will compensate for the smaller screen size on the fly.
They need a 'lite' data plan more than they need to cut $100 off the price or shave size.
(E.g. a plan that only uses cell data for things like A-GPS and makes everything else use wifi)
If you can subsidize the current phone to $200 -- and it obviates a $100-200 iPod purchase -- is the unit price any sort of -real- barrier? The 'nano' keyboard would suck, most of the apps wouldn't work nearly as well, the app store would fracture, the battery would suffer disproportionally and what's the upside?
They need a 'lite' data plan more than they need to cut $100 off the price or shave size.
(E.g. a plan that only uses cell data for things like A-GPS and makes everything else use wifi)
The keyboard may only view in landscape mode or it would have multiple letters per button and the phone will automatically guess your entry, Blackberry already uses such a feature in their smaller keyboards.
From the iPhone SDK documentation, it makes it clear (I believe) that the device will scale the app window appropriately so that differing screen sizes and resolutions should not matter.
That is an interesting note.
....what's the upside?
Well it might be that you get to keep some of your iPod customers who are, increasingly, moving their media to cell phones.
From the iPhone SDK documentation, it makes it clear (I believe) that the device will scale the app window appropriately so that differing screen sizes and resolutions should not matter.
That is an interesting note.
I think that increasing the screen resolution is an obvious future upgrade for the iPhone. That's just future-proofing.
I work for the United States Treasury and I can say that this is very near to being disastrous. I am talking about Iceland disastrous.
1) I don't see a legitimate argument about needing a lower price device. The regular iPhone is already going to be sold for $99 at Walmart for god sakes. The *real* cost issue is the requirement of a 2-year contract with a mandatory $30/month unlimited (aka 5GB) data package just to own an iPhone. This should never have been required, not only do many people not live in a 3G area, many others are blanketed by WiFi all day.
I think a decent compromise to spur sales would be to create a second data plan, something like 1GB for $10/month in addition to the 5GB for $30/month. Another idea would be for AT&T to offer the iPhone without a mandatory data plan (while still keeping the 2-year contract) for a higher price, say $349. Regardless, they are going to need to do something to keep sales momentum going. I myself could not get by without mobile email and web, but I'm sure there is an enormous number of potential iPhone customers out there who refuse to pay a minimum of $75 a month for one.
2) the current iPhone is already so small that I don't think it's possible to shrink it any further without having a significant impact on functionality. I have averaged sized hands, and I don't see how you could comfortably fit a qwerty keyboard on a 2.5-2.8" screen. I know many middle-aged people who have trouble with the iphone's small text and buttons on the touchscreen as it is now.
additionally, to not have a major impact on the GUI, they would need to keep the resolution the same at 480x320. However, the higher pixel density will mean that the interface elements will shrink, making it even harder to press buttons and controls accurately. And you can't just scale up the text and inteface controls or they will overlap and cause all sorts of display problems. I'm fairly confident a smaller iphone would require a modification of the GUI and just make it more difficult for app developers to maintain their programs.
And how do you go about keeping the keyboard from becoming more frustrating to use?
Use landscape mode.
Mac OS X is device and resolution independent.
If Apple *do* produce a phone of this size, there'd be no point in changing the pixel resolution of the screen.
Instead you could retain the same pixel-count -(half VGA) and just the physical size would be smaller. There are plenty of suitable display parts.
As described above, it would be the tiny virtual keyboard which would require some new thinking.
C.
"The USA is not the whole world".
"AT&T is not a worldwide network"
In other countries things are different, mobile data IS important..