Loading ...How much would you be willing to pay for an iPhone? $499? $599? How about $2,383.28?
No, I'm not talkig about Ebay people, this is what it's looking like for those of you that are looking to make the switch from another carrier like T-Mobile, pick up and iPhone and keep your family on a 2 year plan. Here's the breakdown as put together by Matthew Miller over at The Mobile Gadgeteer.
- AT&T 2,100 minute family plan - US$109.99/month
- Cost for each additional phone - US$9.99 (total US$29.97)
- Messaging starter (200 text messages) for each phone - US$4.99 (total US$19.96)
- Why doesn’t AT&T have a family plan text messaging option?
- Unlimited data plan - US$39.99 (final data price still unknown for iPhone)
Estimated monthly taxes and fees - US$20
Total cost of monthly services - US$219.91
One time costs:
- Apple iPhone - US$650 (includes taxes)
- New family phones (est.) - US$100, assuming my wife doesn’t want an iPhone :)
- Activation fees - US$114
- T-Mobile service cancellation fees (US$200/phone) - US$800
Total - US$1664
Once you add in the monthly plan prices over two years, that yields a grand total of $2,383.28. That sounds like a pretty fair breakdown. Luckily I don't have as many phones to worry about. If you're already an AT&T subscriber, you should ex,pct your cost to be significantly less.
The iPhone will cost me at least US$2245, how about you? [via mobilegadgeteer]
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Amazingly enough, that is the worst cost analysis I’ve ever seen to arrive at this exorbitant figure. Especially considering the different options the writer has available to negate most of it and the assumptions he has made regarding additional costs.
First, don’t move your family over. Rather then incur the extra fees, move your wife to the principal line to carry out the contract term. And, just you move over to AT&T right now.
Second, wait until we see the plans that are being offered with the phone. No one knows for sure right now what the actual costs are going to be to have voice/data/txt with the iPhone.
Third, no one ever said it would be necessarily cheap if you needed to buy out on your existing carriers contract. So, why even bring it up as a cost of ownership as though everyone interested in the iPhone was going to have to pay the same thing or even remotely close!
Ciao!
I would be willing to pay 300 with a 1 year contract and 200 with a year contract oh and that has to come with a 50 dollars rebate.
Also he can use a service like celltrade, or leave the family at tmobile where they can get myfaves and save money tmobile only charges for the 3rd additional phone and on ( $10 addtl lines). If you are smart you can get out of your contract without paying if there has been a material change to your contract like how tmobile has raised he text messaging fees is a great excuse. Also why do you want the first generation iphone dont you prefer to wait till it has all over the features its lacking.
“AT&T 2,100 minute family plan” ???
Are there really families who use that many minutes?
I guess getting by on the 550 minute basic family plan ($55.00) should be embarrassing.
How much would/am I going to pay? As much as it costs.
The family plan with 2100 minutes is what we were looking at, assuming the iPhone gets added to it. Who knows, maybe the iPhone will have its own, I don’t know. I’m in the referenced situation. 3 phones with (oops… I mean were with) T-Mobile. Buying one iPhone and bringing the other two phones into the AT&T camp. My own line is past contract. The other two were in contract, and now broken at $200/line. Purchase of two more phones plus the iPhone. That’s what I’m calling the iPhone/AT&T Halo Effect; buying one iPhone, but bringing over the rest of your family’s phones into AT&T just because that’s where the iPhone is.
I’ve already brought the other two phones into AT&T last weekend so that I only have to focus on the iPhone come the 29th. Because, come the 29th, that’s what it’s all about baby. iPhone. And I hope people keep complaining about the price and I hope the price keeps them from buying one. At least until I get mine. Then I couldn’t care less… I’ll have mine. ;-)
Myself, I don’t use that many minutes. Maybe 100-200 per month, assuming that doesn’t include calls between immediate family members. My wife on the other hand, can go through 1700 minutes per month calling her extended family. There was a time I could use 5000 minutes per month, and had to purchase a business plan for personal use just to get that amount of minutes, many years ago.
offtopic, but are those speakers at the bottom of the iPhone?! I’d rather have speakers at the bottom or on top versus on the back of the phone any day. what do you guys think?
The price analysis that was used is exactly what my family will be using if we switch to AT&T. We will miss sprint’s family text message plans, but other than that we’re ready to get out now that our contract is up. Sure data on Sprint’s network is cheaper ($15/month) but the [cdma] network only allows calls or data at one time. Also, whenever something happens to a phone in our family we have to pay a ridiculous activation fee to use a different phone.
That said, I think the iPhone is revolutonary and exciting but I don’t think its going to be as great as its being hyped up to be. The data side of the phone is stuck on the old network which means that website viewing will be pretty slow. Also, what is up with apple not allowing iChat (instant messaging)? I don’t care about the touchscreen ipod. I want to be able to sync all of my contacts with my macbook pro, use iChat to keep an ever-on connection with my kids, and an email program that is completely “push” in nature. Why can’t any single mobile company figure this out. Blackberry’s are almost there but the data costs are outlandish, and they aren’t exactly intuitive.
That is all.
yeah vincent those are speakers, its much easier for speaker phone that way you dont have to be listening to one part of the phone and speaking into another side and those are speakers for your music as well.
This is just stupid. He’s obviously using scare tactics and sticker shock to dissuade people to get the iPhone.
Here’s my breakdown.
* Canceled 3 accounts from Verizon without ETF in January due to contract change. ($0)
* Purchased 2 Cingular phones in January on two-year contract, 3rd line is month-to-month with only a data plan. (activations waived, $0 after $50 mail-in rebate for each phone, monthly service $59.99+$9.99+$39.99)
* Sold 3 Verizon phones on eBay in February. (-$325)
* Purchase 8GB iPhone in June. ($36 activation likely, $599 cost, add another $9.99 to finally add 3rd line into family plan)
After a year, it’s $1114.52 for 3 lines, one with a data plan. $1174.52 if you want to add unlimited SMS to the iPhone.
[quote comment="3526"]I want to be able to sync all of my contacts with my macbook pro, use iChat to keep an ever-on connection with my kids, and an email program that is completely “push” in nature. Why can’t any single mobile company figure this out.[/quote]
Well, you’ll get almost all of that on the iPhone. Especially if you use Address Book and iCal, but also if you’re using Entourage on your Mac. The newest email bomb from Apple confirms this, as well as syncing information for the PC. As for the push email, Yahoo is providing a free account to every iPhone user, Steve announced that in January.
The only thing necessary is iChat… and, while right now the evidence seems to exclude that… we don’t know for sure and won’t until the 29th. But an IM client is inevitable and perhaps even more workable, in a quicker time frame, using the Web 2.0 stuff Steve talked about Monday.
Isn’t there already a browser based version of AIM anyway?
Since Safari is suppose to be a “real” browser and not a watered-down version, wouldn’t meebo work on it?
(meebo, the web messenger that lets you access IM from absolutely anywhere. meebo supports msn, yahoo, aol/aim, google talk (gtalk), jabber and icq.)
dude that meebo thing is cool, thanks
Ohhh yeahh, meebo I totally forgot about that, wow. Don’t let apple see that one they might make a web based app ooo.
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