New Apple Lust Objects

Pre-ordered two of the 32 gig iPhone 3Gs's today. It was a no brainer for me, since I was still on the 1st generation iPhone. I'd probably think twice if I already had the 3G version.

im still on 1st gen and seriously considering this too

trust me this is wrong. it was almost right but then wasnt.

oh i meant for "iPhone and verizon supposedly not to far away."

guess i'm going to wait and see what they're like in the flesh. $200 + an extra $10/month over my 1st gen is basically $20/month after taxes, and i'm not sure there's anything in there that's an immediate jump; i don't feel like i lack storage, don't miss the 3G or GPS, i've got a flip... so it's going to be a question of whether the speed and the accumulation of details is enough.

email/calendar/contacts syncs up perfectly with google on the iphone, for what it's worth, as remarked above.

I love the GPS and I'll be glad to not be tied to my Blackberry that has it now. Well, I still be tied to it, but for entirely different reasons.

I'm getting worried that I screwed myself - I'm on AT&T already, my contract ran out in December, and I got a new cheap-ass phone because my old one's battery died. Sales person at AT&T store assured me that it would be fine with upgrading to an iphone this summer, no problem, it's cool, etc. BUT the AT&T site says I'm not "upgrade eligible" until August 2010 and therefore a new iphone is gonna cost me $200 more.

I wonder what my chances are of getting them to waive this.

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That's what I'm guessing / fearing.

13" MBP looks k-awesome, especially when I realized that my current laptop is 12". It'll be huge!

OK I think I might have changed my mind completely after realising that 3G qualifies for educational discount on monthly charges, so our phone bill would be pretty much the same, I think. Suddenly it's turning into a no-brainer for me too.

Can't see any reason to switch from 3G to 3GS. Is the tom-tom app only gonna work on the new phone or is it linked to the new OS?

still toying with the pre, just because i'm on sprint and the monthly plan is waaaaaaay cheaper. like, save several hundreds of dollars over the course of two years cheaper.

but feature-wise it seems pretty impoverished, compared to 3gs

$80/month is like the cheapest ATT plan, right? Or the cheapest usable one?

O2 aren't letting people break contracts to go from 3G to 3GS, so if you bought a 3G on day one last year like I did, no upgrade until January next year. By which point it'll almost be time for the next batch of new ones anyway.

Twitterverse seemse pretty livid about it (search #o2fail), pretty unimpressed myself. Their advice to pissed off 3G owners? "Just install 3.0, it'll give you most of the new functionality!"

Doesn't seem that unreasonable, you knew about the yearly upgrade cycle when you signed the 18 month contract so tough titties to you.

Sure, except last year they were like "hey V1 owners, s'cool, we'll just stop your contract right there, hook you up with a 3g, and start you over again". Suspect less people would've gone for that if they'd bothered to say "oh, but don't expect the same next year".

just got the 3g last week w/ a new plan, does this mean I get to upgrade to the 3gs gratis y/n? someone told me this but I haven't had the chance to go over the fine print

no 3G S for you jim
http://www.uoregon.edu/~eberkshi/webquest/webquest/introduction_files/image002.jpg

AT&T are doing exactly the same, Jim.

It's not cool, but it's not particularly surprising. O2 are one of the less bad companies with iPhone exclusive deals.

are they really not allowing any way to break contracts? that's pretty shocking - i thought 2 months of line rental was fairly standard, maybe 4 at the outside? AT&T allows it for $125 iirc.

For current iPhone customers, however, the options are a little tricky. "Upgrade eligibility varies with each customer, but in general you will become upgrade-eligible the further you are into your service agreement," AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom told Ars. Typically AT&T will allow for full subsidized pricing after about 18 months. AT&T's website wasn't updated at the publish time, but you can check your "eligibility" online via Apple's online ordering page. (For those of us on staff who bought an iPhone 3G on launch day last year, it looks like we won't qualify for subsidized pricing until this December.) We have already heard expressions of severe dismay from many other iPhone 3G users being told they cannot upgrade before 2010.

If you're not eligible for standard subsidized pricing, you can get an "early upgrade" to the iPhone 3G S for $399 for a 16GB model or $499 for a 32GB model. If you just want an iPhone 3G, you can get an early upgrade for $299. None of those options are much of a deal, but if you want an iPhone 3G S as soon as possible, that's what it will cost you. Either way, upgrading will include a new two-year contract and an $18 upgrade fee.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/06/att-on-tethering-iphone-3g-s-pre-orders-early-upgrades.ars

elmo, how long's the trial period with at&t? You might be able to drop the account completely and re-sign up, or at least talk to a representative about your options.

Sure, except last year they were like "hey V1 owners, s'cool, we'll just stop your contract right there, hook you up with a 3g, and start you over again"

This isn't totally true -- I got warned about it. The difference is the V1 wasn't subsidised: you paid full price. That's why we could get them in Apple stores. The 3G was subsidised, and they said you'd have to pay a penalty to break the contract early or to upgrade to a new phone. Which is why I've been clinging on to this broke-ass V1 all this time, hmph.

I asked about and was told specifically that getting a crappy temp phone in December wouldn't incur any upgrade penalty for an iphone this summer, which seems to not be the case. Not having any subsidized iphone right now makes me hopeful that they can get me out of this. Basically I'm asking if they would please let me sign up to pay them more money every month than I do now.

That's why we could get them in Apple stores

Er ... eh?

Anyway: absolutely none of this makes me want to upgrade from my old but serviceable V1. Hey ho.

We're talking about phones, not missiles!

yeah so this is all moot to me because I'm not eligible to upgrade for 6 months

the bigger issue is why can't you just buy a phone when you want to be a fricken phone

when you want to buy a fricken phone.

you can buy it, you just gotta pay the premium

ON FRICKEN PHONE

you can buy it, they just won't subsidize it

i understand that, but still

yeah, that's the story, but obviously these things cost like 20p to make so it's bullshit market segmentation that will hopefully go away when i) carriers lose iphone exclusivity ii) palm or whoever make a good phone like it

fuck this, i'm giving up and buying a g1 outright and not extending my t-mobile plan.

Er ... eh?

You could buy the V1 in the Apple Store, take it home and activate it through iTunes, yeh? You can't with the 3G -- you have to sign up for a contract there and then with O2. The only ones you can buy from the Store are the pay-as-you-go ones.

I don't think they're 20p either ... I mean, they're certainly not £50, which is what you were getting the 3G for on some plans. You hardly ever pay the cost of the phone, so even when the Pre gets here I expect it to be subsidised as well.

Shouldn't we have 3.0 by now?

I know. It's s'posed to be today. Fuck this shit

Engadget says it should be out around 1pm EST.

So that's about 8-ish European time, right?

anyone know if 3s been hacked yet? I think I'm still just on 2.0 so I guess I'll have some pfaffing to do to get up to 3 : /////

where is three point ohhhhhhhhhhhh?!?!?

it's almost 8am in california and we don't have our new free stuff yet? FUCK THIS.

i threw my iphone away because i dont have 3.0 yet

way to go apple you just created a pre customer