Is AT&T Caving in to iPhone 3G Owners?
When the first iPhone became available two years ago, I wanted one worse than anything. Unfortunately, I was locked into a contract with Verizon that wouldn’t expire for ten months. Of course, by the time that contract was done we knew the 3G version of the phone was eminent, so I waited a tad more. The lines (and frenzy) subsided a few days after the 3G launch, so I went and got my 16 GB phone at my local Apple store for $299 and said goodbye to Verizon. I was completely thrilled.
The first couple of months were rocky. I had to restore the thing no less than four times before Apple fixed enough bugs in the 2.0 software to keep the phone from crashing into an un-bootable state. Since then, life with my device has been grand. It has become so much a part of my daily existence, I don’t know how I got along without it.
Last Monday at the WWDC keynote we got the official word that the 3GS model would be available this month with a beefed-up processor, a compass and voice commands that my 3G wouldn’t have. My techno-lust immediately went into overdrive. As soon as the day’s sessions were over I went to Apple’s website to see just how much this new bangle would set me back. To my chagrin, the 16 gig model was $399 and the 32 gig was $100 more and I wouldn’t be eligible for an AT&T upgrade until 12/15/2009. Crap! At that point I’m thinking I’ll get my “S” model for Christmas. I’m an admitted fanboy, but I’m no idiot (my opinion only, think what you like). There’s no way I’m going to pay double what a new AT&T customer pays, no matter how much I want the phone. Its not the $200, its the principle. I immediately sent a “nasty-gram” to AT&T Wireless expressing my dissatisfaction with their pricing model. From what I hear, I was not alone.
As I prepared to write this, I visited Apple’s site again to make sure I had my facts straight and a curious thing happened. The $399 – $499 pricing was the same, but my upgrade eligibility date changed from 12/15/09 to 7/15/09! I thought this was a fluke, so I went to the AT&T site and the results were the same. Something has changed (in my favor) in the last week. Did AT&T cave to the mass protest from 3G owners? I’ll be curious to see what happens on July 15th.
Update: AT&T has made it official. On their site:
“we are changing the date when some iPhone 3G customers are eligible for our best upgrade pricing on the new iPhone 3G S. Beginning June 19, iPhone 3G customers eligible for an upgrade in July, August, or September will get our best upgrade price of $199 (16 GB) and $299 (32 GB).”
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