Apple to sell iPhones in Wall Wart (When the chips are down)

Mish Shedlock ^ | Dec 23 2008 | Mish and Wall St Journal

[dennisw]

Apple iPhones At Wal-Mart

The Wall Street Journal is reporting Wal-Mart to Start Selling iPhones.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday it will begin selling Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G on Sunday, but the cellphones will not be priced as low as some anticipated.

Wal-Mart will offer the eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G for $197 and the 16 GB model for $297, or $2 less than the regular price. Prices are for phones with a new two-year service agreement with AT&T Inc. or with a qualified upgrade, the retailing giant said in a brief statement on its Web site.

Reports that Wal-Mart would begin selling the phones, previously available only at Apple stores, Best Buy Co. Inc. and AT&T, have been circulating for weeks, but the retailer hadn't commented. Many of those reports indicated the phones might be priced as low as $99, but Wal-Mart made no mention of such discounts on Friday.

It appears to me that Apple is getting a bit desperate to move those iPhones. Striking a deal with Wal-Mart smacks of huge inventory and shrinking demand. So, there's no way in hell those prices stay at $197. $99 here we come.

[newfreep]

It’s funy how liberals slam Wal-Mart yet use them to sell their products. Apple, Springseen, etc - they’re all hypocrites preaching socialism but making millions through free market capitalism.

[dennisw]

It’s funy how liberals slam Wal-Mart yet use them to sell their products. Apple, Springseen, etc - they’re all hypocrites preaching socialism but making millions through free market capitalism.

Liberals love money for the sake of money
They love it more than Republicans do....... Just look at Wall St. It is infested with liberal Democrats

Yeah I know there are plenty of liberals that preach socialism and some even live socialist life styles

[newfreep]

Agree 100% - look at the BIG “O” oprah. She used free market capitalism to earn $500 million yet now preaches socialism ala obomber and wants to destroy capitalism so no one else can do what she did. They’re all hypocrites.

[Vaduz]

It’s funy how liberals slam the south when they have never been to the south however they are experts about the south just ask them they are experts on everything.

[MarkL]

The price of the iPhone is trivial... The problem is that 2 year service contract... I believe that the "minimal" service for the iPhone is in the neighborhood of $70 a month (I pay about $35 a month to Verizon for my personal service), but for full feature use, the AT&T service you need is nearly $120 a month.

I have an iPhone 3G that my work issued me. I'll say this, after having had a number of data phones over the last 3 years. The iPhone 3G is not only the best data phone I've been issued, it's the best cell phone as well. Great reception, and it's clear as a bell, unlike the Verizon and Palm data phones I've had over the years.

Mark

[CE2949BB]

Gold handcuffs are still handcuffs.

I'll take notice when Wal-Mart starts selling the Neo FreeRunner.

[savedbygrace]

Here’s the coverage map, showing that you need to be in specific areas to access 3G service:

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/

In my area, US Cellular has three times the number of towers AT&T has. That’s why I’m still with US Cellular. Every time I start thinking I want an iPhone, I think about those towers.

And here are the plans and rates, showing how pricey it is:

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp

[webschooner]

You might check out the G1 phone, the new open source Android OS phone that came out Oct 22 and runs on the T-Mobile network. I have had the G1 for almost 2 months now and am more and more impressed with it. Actually, I couldn't be happier with it. More and more free applications come out every day for download -- the beauty of open source.

I haven't had one dropped call, clarity is excellent on both ends, has WiFi, GPS, and 3G, and the OS is extremely stable and user friendly. Feature set is very similar to iphone. Monthly is much much cheaper than iphone. And T-Mo service is consistently rated much higher year over year by Consumer Reports surveys (thousands of people participate) than AT&T.

We even dumped our landline and went with T-Mo @ Home (VOIP) to replace it, for only $10 per month with free long distance. Plugged our existing cordless home phones into the router, ported our number over, and good to go.

[Doug TX]

You must live in a rural area to be concerned about coverage maps. I’ve had at&t, verizon, and now sprint. All have done well for me as I travel around the state and surrounding. Trouble occurs in some hilly areas and remote rural. The companies have had years to build up coverage area. Bottom line...coverage should not be an issue.

[dennisw]

Great photo. How big is the screen
You have lots of good ideas there as far as connecting at home and mobile and I might steal some

Roughly how much is G1 with internet per month?

[savedbygrace]

Here is what AT&T says about their coverage:

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/popup_legand.jsp

If you look at the coverage map of the entire US, you’ll see that the majority of it is either Moderate or Partner. Neither is particularly good coverage.

I am not in a rural area, but I’ve heard about the spotty coverage AT&T has, and so I compare it to my coverage with US Cellular, and AT&T comes in 2nd place. I can’t afford to have a business call drop because of signal loss.

[webschooner]

I just measured and the screen is almost 2 7/8 x 1 15/16”. It’s a touch screen of course, and you can flip around the screen with your finger, zoom in and out, and scroll up and down too. The browser is terrific — any site you can go to on your home computer, you can go to on the G1. You are not limited to mobile only sites like some browsers (my buddy’s Treo is that way sometimes)

I would recommend you plug in G1 phone on youtube search and you will find a bunch of video reviews of it showing the features in action. It is very very fast, whether on WiFi or 3G. PhoneDog.com also has a bunch of in detail video reviews of it (which are also up on youtube).

I don’t know the exact monthly cost for a G1 alone — go to T-Mobile’s site and you can find out easily enuf. My wife and I went with a family plan. We have the G1 for me and she has a regular phone, 700 minutes for $59.99. The data plan for the G1 is $25/month which included up to 400 texts per month, which is plenty for me. If you need unlimited texts, the package with data is $35/mo. So we get one G1 and one regular phone for $85 per month. You can’t get one iphone for that monthly. Then $10 more for the T-Mo at Home VOIP service. Plus we put the account in my wife’s name and will be getting 12% corporate discount off the total due to where she works. Personally, I think it is a very good value for what we get.

And as I mentioned, the functionality of the G1 phone keeps getting better, with many useful new free aps coming out daily, downloadable directly onto the phone. The android system is here to stay and will be coming out on other phones in the coming quarters. It has never crashed or froze up on me, even once — very very stable OS.

If you want to play with one, go in a T-Mobile store — the stores where we live have a couple of them live on display, and you can play around with them.

[dennisw]

I’m going to be looking into that. Apple stuff makes me queasy while google usually gets it right.

Many thanks for the information and your personal experience with the g phone. Supposedly T Mobile doesn’t have 3g coverage all over but are working toward that

[dennisw]

If you want to play with one, go in a T-Mobile store — the stores where we live have a couple of them live on display, and you can play around with them.........

I will go their store and see it.... I like the free apps part. It means the techies like it

[Swordmaker]

Article on iPhones being sold at WalMart with a negative slant... PING!

iPhone Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Uri’el-2012]

This twit thinks that this contract just happen last week.

[webschooner]

Oh yes, the techies like the G1 ... With all the available aps and the continuing number of them coming out, one can keep tweaking and customizing the phone to ones liking, which is what I have been doing.

Check out androidcommunity.com. There are already a number of G1 forums and android forums, but this one seems to be be the most comprehensive and have the most traffic, as near as I can tell. Also, they post regular news stories about android and the G1 on their home page.

Good luck to you.

[webschooner]

You’re welcome. I live in a metro area, and usually am on 3G. Sometimes on lesser streets, it switches to Edge (altho my home is 3G), but the Edge is pretty speedy for Edge. I don’t actually use the 3G at home because it automatically logs onto my WiFi, which makes the phone blazing fast. So much so that I find myself using the phone in the kitchen and living room to look things up on the internet, rather than bring my laptop in there, as I used to do.

When I am driving with my wife, she has taken to surfing on the phone sometimes. She’s not a geek at all, but the phone is so user friendly to use that she took to it right away, LOL. Tho not officially sanctioned, some have figured out how to tether the G1 to laptops. It’s on the forums. I haven’t done it yet, but plan to before my next trip. You also get access to T-Mo Hot Spots with the G1 Data package, something that for some odd reason is not adverstised. I verified it to be a fact with T-Mo customer service after I read it in a forum.

There was a posting on a forum by a T-Mo employee — when the G1 first came out, they gave some to the employees for an hour or so to familiarize themselves with them. He said they locked a G1 on Edge (you can do that) and put it head to head with a Blackberry that was an Edge phone for a speed test, and the G1 blew it away. The G1 browser and the processor both seem to be very efficient.

I agree with you that T-Mo is prolly continually expanding their 3G coverage. It only makes sense. They had to have HTC in Taiwan ramp up the production of the G1 because sales were much heavier than they had projected b4 release — about 40-50% over projections from what I have read. In short, the phone has been a hit.

[SunkenCiv]

That figures... “heads I win, tails you lose”... Apple is an elitist product that only appeals to the rich, a niche product, will never find a mass market, then when sold at Walmart, must be Apple is in big trouble and is going to disappear. Where do maroons like that find jobs in media. Oh wait, what am I saying? ;’) Thanks SM.

[SunkenCiv]

$2 less than the regular price... previously available only at Apple stores, Best Buy Co. Inc. and AT&T

[dennisw]

Thanks for all that info. I will go to a T Mobile store and see how it deals with my important websites. Do you know if it is possible set it up to alert you when a certain stock does something? Maybe that would be an app someone created

You might like this article ——>>>

HTC On A Roll With Android
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/htc-on-a-roll-w.html

[webschooner]

There are already at least two stock aps, and one of them I use daily and really like, called Quote Pro. The other is Stock Ap. Quote Pro is tied to Yahoo. I don’t think you can yet get alerts, but I’m not 100% sure of that, as haven’t attempted it yet. But the developer has already had several updates, and keeps adding great features, so wouldn’t be surprised if it is coming, if not already there. This ap is very very popular and is rated very high. I like it a lot. I would think if he doesn’t add that feature, that someone will eventually come up with that feature on a stock ap.

When you play with one at a T-Mo store, flip up the little tab at the bottom of the home page and press on “Market”, and you can browse the many applications for download.

Thanks for the link. I follow that news pretty closely. You will find stories like that posted at androidcommunity.com also.

[Cedar]

After it’s all said and done, the U.S. will have one bank, one newspaper, and Wal-Mart.

Back to the USSA!

[AFreeBird]

I wouldn't mind an iPhone myself. But iTunes doesn't run on Linux. And you need iTunes right?

[dennisw]

Once again I thank you for all the info

You could take your G1 posts and put them on your freeper home page. Then people would have a quick reference to this new hot item and Apple competitor

[Mr. Blonde]

Yeah. My understanding is while normal iPod support is pretty good using the various Linux jukeboxes, iPhone/iPod Touch support is not nearly as good. Probably has to do with the app store and what not.

[Mr. Blonde]

How many iPhones do they need to sell to not be desperate? Haven't they met all of the goals they have set? Were they desperate to sell more iPods when they started selling them in Wal-Mart?

[Uri’el-2012]

AT&T sells $99 refurb iPhones until end of December

[MarkL]

I wouldn't mind an iPhone myself. But iTunes doesn't run on Linux. And you need iTunes right?

Yup. I haven't tried it, but it's possible that iTunes may run on a Windows host under VMware.

Mark

[webschooner]

You’re very welcome. Thanks for the tip about putting the G1 info on my home page. That’s not a bad idea. Perhaps I will consider doing that ... I must sound like a T-Mo employee, but I assure you I am in no way connected to T-Mo, nor am I connected to the cell phone business, LOL. I just like the device alot. I think I could safely say that it is the most day-to-day useful electronic piece I can remember buying, and being a bit on the techie side, I don’t mind sharing info about it, particularly with fellow FReepers. If you get to play with the G1, if you think of it, perhaps drop me a FReepmail sometime. I’d be curious about your reaction to it.

One more tip for you — according to info I extracted from a T-Mo rep, T-Mo or Google required all aps to be free thru Dec 31, but developers are allowed to charge for them after that. The rep said that any aps you already have on your G1 on Dec 31 will remain free for you, even if the developer starts charging for it. Personally, I currently have I think 45 aps installed on my G1, and use not all but most of them. And I check the Market every one to three days to see what interesting new aps have appeared.

The ability of developers to charge for aps next year doesn’t bother me personally though. I suspect that many aps will remain free, as was the case with the Palm system with my old Palm OS PDA. And I don’t know, but I also suspect that many new more sophisticated aps will start to appear which may cost something, but will surely have a 30 day free trial or some such. Myself, I won’t mind paying some reasonable fee for really good aps that I find very useful during a trial period.

[dennisw]

I must sound like a T-Mo employee, but I assure you I am in no way connected to T-Mo, nor am I connected to the cell phone business,

This never entered my mind. You like the device and are happy to tell people such as me what the deal is
What you said is what an enthusiast would say not an employee

And I thank you very much for the real skinny on the G1
You gave me a better run down than a long article or review would have
So thanks!

[dennisw]

Probably what is really going to happen!

[Spktyr]

Actually, all the iPhone contracts have the same data plan - unlimited data - but the difference is the number of voice minutes. All the rest is the same.

So, if you don’t talk much but do a lot of email and web browsing, the $59.99 plan is for you.

[webschooner]

You’re quite welcome. I learn so much from others here on FR, I am happy to share something myself when opportunity affords.

I am in the process of taking your suggestion and posting this exchange and the original pic of the G1 on my FR profile page for any who might have an interest in the device.

[dennisw]

LOL Your photo of the G1 with Free Republic is great. Very sharp resolution or that’s how the website looks on your G1

[dennisw]

Yaeh I see it on your freeper home page now

[webschooner]

Yeah, the screen always seems sharp to me. I really do quite a lot of reading of articles and websites, and yes of course, Free Republic, on my G1, even oftentimes at home when I could just as well go in my office and use my 24” monitor, or go get my laptop with 15” monitor. It’s really a comfortable screen and UI for reading.

There are a couple of aps with pretty good reviews in the Market for reading e-books with quite a lot of free books available as I recall. I haven’t tried those aps yet, but would be handy for a trip perhaps. There are aps for all a wide range of uses, some I had never thought of for a smart phone, but which make sense — the developers have been getting quite creative, and they are just getting started.

Open source, open source, open source, I just love it. Android is out of the gate and IMHO, it will change the game. It seems to square nicely with the conservative point of view of a free marketplace and opportunities for creativity. I really feel that Apple would not be starting to sell the iphone at Walmart (the original subject of this thread) were it not for new competition from the G1 specifically and the Android platform in general. Of course, this competition is good for us all.

[southland]

bookmark

[MarkL]

Actually, all the iPhone contracts have the same data plan - unlimited data - but the difference is the number of voice minutes. All the rest is the same.

So, if you don’t talk much but do a lot of email and web browsing, the $59.99 plan is for you.

Unfortunately for the email, I need the "enterprise email" plan, which allows access to exchange servers. That adds $45 a month.

Mark

[Straight Vermonter]

Most of Texas is a good deal flatter than here in Vermont. Coverage sucks due to geography and of course the lunatics who fight the building of anything, including cell towers.

[Spktyr]

Where are you seeing that? iPhone supports Exchange ActiveSync out of the box, no additional fees needed.

If there’s a fee, they’re not telling me and they’re not charging me. I’m still connecting to Exchange servers.

[Spktyr]

Oh, I see. It’s for companies, not individuals.

That doesn’t add $45 to the fee, just $15. You either have the $30 personal data plan or the $45 enterprise data plan.

Same service either way, really. The TOS are better and harsher on ATT for failure on the EDP, though.

[MarkL]

Where are you seeing that? iPhone supports Exchange ActiveSync out of the box, no additional fees needed.

I should have been more specific about the other services I need as well for work. I also need access to my company's intranet, as well as some of the other features in the enterprise data plan. It's cool to be able to rdp into servers from my iPhone, or update a router or PIX firewall:

http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/iPhone3G/index.jsp

Mark

[Spktyr]

I’m on the personal data plan and I already do that as well.

[Spktyr]

See this:

http://www.mdoeff.com/blog/2008/07/01/iphone-enterprise-data-plan/

[MarkL]

Well, it's not something that I really worry about. Like I said, my company issued the phone to me, and they're the ones who pay the bills. When I asked how much the service cost every month, the telecom manager told me it was about $120 a month. And that for VPN access to our Intranet, exchange push, and the other features, we needed the Enterprise plan.

But even at a minimum of $60 a month for limited voice access, that's nearly double what I pay on my personal plan with just a regular cell phone.

As I said, the iPhone is cool, has lots of great features for me, and it's a terrific phone, but if I had to pay for it, I wouldn't.

Mark

[cowboyway]

I believe that the "minimal" service for the iPhone is in the neighborhood of $70 a month

Wrong.

My plan is about $40 a month.

[AFreeBird]

Yea, I figured. At the moment I’m not set up to do windows in the VM/Xen environment as I don’t have a processor with the V/VT capabilities. I could still boot into W2K, but that’s such a PITA to run a single app. But I’m thinking about upgrading from my T30 laptop to a T61 version that should do nicely in the VT arena.

[MarkL]

You might also check into Sun’s VirtualBox, which a buddy of mine uses on his MacBook Pro, and he loves it. It’s available for Linux as well, and it’s free.

Mark