Better, faster, cheaper
Apple's latest iPhone delivers faster downloads and a dramatically slashed price tag. Kai Ryssdal talks to CNET's Tom Kravitz from the floor of Apple's developers conference
Apple CEO Steve Jobs announces the lower price of the new iPhone 3G at the Apple Worldwide Web Developers Conference. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: Shares of Apple struggled today. They hit the closing bell off a little more than two percent and that was actually better than they'd been most of the day. You'd have never known CEO Steve Jobs was in the process of rolling out the latest version of the iPhone.
CNET writer Tom Krazit was in the audience in San Francisco.
Tom, good to talk to you.
Tom Krazit: Thank you.
Ryssdal: So Steve Jobs takes the stage, the seas part as they always do when he gets to one of these big expos and unveils a new product and presto, we have a new iPhone, right?
Krazit: Pretty much, yeah... in a couple of weeks at least: July 11, it'll be out.
Ryssdal: What's the big deal about this phone that everybody's been waiting for?
Krazit: Well, the main thing that everybody will instantly understand is its support for faster networks. It's going to run on what's called a third generation mobile network or 3G and this is kind of like when you went from dial-up to broadband. It's maybe not quite as fast as your home PC, but you can definitely notice a difference when you are doing something like downloading a web page or an attachment from your e-mail.
Ryssdal: Is this the thing that's going to let people finally get rid of having to carry an iPhone and a BlackBerry as well? Are you going to be able to do business applications on this?
Krazit: It'll be able to do that. Whether your company will support it is another thing entirely, but this will have a lot of the features that IT people need in order to deploy a phone within a company's area, things like support for Microsoft's ActiveSync technology, which basically regulates how e-mail goes back and forth between your e-mail servers at your company and your phone.
Ryssdal: Talk to me about price point. I'd love to have one of these things, but I don't have 400 bucks to play around with.
Krazit: Well, you don't need 400 bucks anymore...
Ryssdal: Excellent!
Krazit: The price was cut today; that was one big thing that was announced. The 8GB version will now cost $200 -- $199 to be specific -- and the 16GB version will cost $299. This is for the new model that will be available on July 11.
Ryssdal: You keep saying July 11. This thing's not ready to go yet?
Krazit: Yeah, definitely the biggest surprise, I think, of today is the fact that it will not be available until July. There's any number of reasons for that. We're going to have to look a little bit more into that, but that is a bit surprising. I don't know how much of an impact it will have. Apple has set themselves a goal of 10 million iPhone shipments in 2008 and it's kind of odd now because there will have been about a 6-8 week period where there were no iPhones available at all. So they're going to have to overcome that period where they didn't ship any.
Ryssdal: What was the scene on the floor when Jobs came out and did this? Were there hosannas and all that?
Krazit: It's just a fan fest, is really the way to put it. There were about 5,200 developers in attendance at this conference, which is actually a record; they said they sold out their allotment of developer slots, and these are people who run businesses on the Mac and now the iPhone and they were pretty enthusiastic about new introductions that the company has to offer.
Ryssdal: All that for a cell phone. Tom Krazit, staff writer with CNET News.com. We reached him up in San Francisco at the Moscone Center where the Mac Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place. Tom, thanks a lot.
Krazit: You're welcome.
Comments
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From San Jose, CA, 06/11/2008
Dow Jones article which mentions the non-activation penalty:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200806091750DOWJONESDJONLINE000576_FORTUNE5.htm
From San Jose, CA, 06/11/2008
I too was disappointed that the usually astute Marketplace missed the hidden price increase because of the rate hike. Additionally, it has been reported that Apple will not allow you to leave the store with the new iPhones without first activating your device. This means 1) slower check-outs on release day and 2) no more "jailbreak" hacks to use unauthorized providers, or at least not without being signed up for an AT&T 2-year contract.
http://gizmodo.com/5014764/iphone-3g-pricing-and-activation-details-30-unlimited-data-activated-in-store-only-no-online-ordering
Update at same link: Now there's talk about allowing in-home activations again, but charging a penalty if iPhones are not activated within 30 days of purchase:
From Los Angeles, CA, 06/10/2008
What this interview fails to mention, and the rest of the media has also failed to notice, is that the cost of ownership of the new iPhone has actually increased. It's not cheaper as Apple's PR machine would like you to believe. While Steve Jobs was conducting his dog and pony show, AT&T released a statement with new pricing which increases the base monthly plan by $10. Project that out over a two year contract and consumers now pay $240 more than they used to, a $40 increase in the cost of ownership. Oh, and if you want to use that ActiveSync technology Tom Krazit mentions, you'll have to pay an additional $15/month.
So much for "cheaper."
AT&T's release: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25791
From Austin, TX, 06/09/2008
"All that for a cell phone"? Oh, Kai. The iPhone is so much more than a simple cell phone. I use iPhone to check my e-mail, read my news (RSS) feeds, get directions, listen to music, check the weather in my hometown, play games I've downloaded, change the way the icons and background look, read Sherlock Holmes, iChat with my friends, watch movies, and, oh yeah, I almost forgot! Sometimes, I even use it as a phone! P.S. Yes, my iPhone is "jailbroken."
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