Buying the iPhone 3GS: Existing customers, buying from either Apple or AT&T doesn't matter, and woe to the non-upgrade eligible!

Figured I would blog this to put an actual experience buying an iPhone 3GS, with details on upgrades and non-upgrade purchases. Not to mention that...I mean, c'mon. I gotta have a blog post about the new iPhone, and at this point, aside from what everybody already knows from the WWDC, this is all I've got to add.

I'll start with the bad news: if you're not eligible, this article from Boing Boing is the reality:

IPHONE 3G S: WORLD'S BEST PHONE SADDLED TO WORLD'S WORST CARRIER

The article states:

For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB). Visit www.wireless.att.com for eligibility information.

Lucky for me, this doesn't apply. I didn't see the upgrade to 3G to be worth it. True I was a little jealous of the network speed now and then and the maps feature on 3g worked better, but the overall ROI just didn't seem to be there. Funny the things people said; the CEO of a startup I did some work for said, "you must not be a power user". Erm...no. I'm just an adult that made a decision based on value.

Anyway, let's talk about upgrade purchase. I have an OG iPhone, have had it since day one. Yesterday I bought a 32gb 3GS iPhone from the Apple Store, right after I got the email following the WWDC, so it was about 6:30 p.m. EST. It cost $299, and the ordering process appeared aware of my current AT&T plan and upgrade eligibility, actually asking me if I wanted to upgrade any portion of it. I also paid for one-day shipping, which was $16 dollars. The total was $337.05 with tax, and the shipping date is June 19th. All this was sent to me in an order confirmation as well, so as far as I can tell, I'm good.

So, to clarify, because people have told me otherwise...THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BUYING FROM THE APPLE STORE OR AT&T. NONE. The Apple store is aware of your upgrade options and so on, and AT&T customer service told me point blank that it doesn't matter.

Why didn't I buy from AT&T directly? Only because I got the offer email from the Apple Store first, and wanted to place me order ASAP.

Anyway, to nail in the facts, I went to the AT&T site, and checked out both "Add an new Line", and "Upgrade".

This picture was identical for both "add a new line" and "upgrade". Note it's $299.



A visit to the website, a call to customer service, and my email confirmations, confirmed it all. If you're reading this, you have the facts: eligible for an upgrade, the phone will cost you $299, not eligible, it'll cost you $699 for the high end. And there is no difference if you buy it from the Apple store or from AT&T.

I'll tell you this, for that money, I would just upgrade the 3G to the 3.0 OS and forget the new phone; wait for the next one. I just don't see it being worth the money, exactly as I didn't see the 3g being worth the money compared to the original, and, if you're already a 3g owner, you're on the faster network. I have a feeling that, aside from the better camera (which really still isn't all that great) and the bigger capacity for the high end one, there isn't much of a difference to the typical user.

What would NOT surprise me though, is if all of us upgraders get ROOKED six months from now, exactly as we did when the iPhone first released, the price plummeted later on, and they gave us a $100 rebate usable for in-Apple-store purchases (thanks Steve J. for the $87 power cord for my $3,200 first-day Macbook 17). Six months later they'll put out a faster network and another phone on it or some BS like that. Apple has a history of this and it sucks.

But then I'll just resign myself to another two years, and enjoy my new iPhone, exactly as I do my current one. I never lost a contract because I broke out a pre-3G.

There you have it. As always, thanks for visiting.

Hey OG iPhone Owners: First-Run Contracts end in June, Will You Consider Another Phone?

I just realized today, while reading the news about the no Steve Jobs at WWDC announcement that my AT&T shackles will end soon; my contract is coming up. I'm free to switch to another phone without penalty (unlike the nearly $200 penalty I paid to leave T-Mobile and go AT&T/iPhone).

Will I? I can't say right off the bat "no". It's also possible that I might double up; I'm an iPhone developer (well, emerging one anyway), and might go with another phone purely for techno must-have. I really don't know for sure.

There's some pretty interesting options out there. Things that attract my attention:

- Everybody says Verizon is better than AT&T. I bought my girlfriend an iPhone, and she loves it, but she says this all the time. AT&T does seem to drop a lot of calls and have peculiar dead spots, and the iPhone does occasionally just seem to drop signal, compelling me to shut it down and restart it. That's annoying.

More robust video media. Lots of phones have WAY better cameras, can capture video, and so on. It's be nice to actually be able to use my phone as a full-time camera; I pretty much consider the iPhone camera semi-useless. For example, the Samsung Omnia, which is very iPhone like, has a 5.0 megapixel camera, and a nice touchscreen on Windows Mobile 6.1, which is supposed to be really nice. This phone would actually be a contender.

Innovation. People are learning things from the iPhone, and creating some pretty slick devices like, the Samsung Alias 2, with "morphing keys" (the correct keys appear based on the context of your use, like dialing a call vs. texting). (Verizon). This keypad is powered by e-ink technology...very interesting. 

Also, along innovation, the Palm Treo Pro. Sprint is working hard on their network, I've heard from people it's solid now. I loved my Palm, and definitely am interested in what they're up to. It runs MS Office Mobile (hmm...full Office app on the phone? I miss that...), Windows Mobile 6.1 (again people say great things), a revamped IE Mobile, a touch screen with stylus (I used to use this a lot on the Palm), Bluetooth 2.0 (iPhone really sorta fell down in the bluetooth world)..another contender. 

Storage options, like the T-Mobile G1, with a really nice touchscreen, running Android, which means Google muscle and thinking, which is a significant consideration. This phone has a microSD card slot. The phone has some flaws though; I'd probably only buy this to get involved with Android. A second run on this phone though will likely be a significant improvement. Multiple home screens might also be very useful.

In the end though, what the choice really seems all about is the OS, and your techno-religious beliefs, i.e. Microsoft is evil...no, corporations are, so Apple is too...I hate MSFT stooges...I hate Apple hipsters...only Open Source for me...I really loved my Palm...and so on. 

Do you like Windows 6.1 (which really does seem nice, but again I don't know from direct exposure), Android (probably for the techno geek...but I am one), Palm for the old loyalist or because it's easy to use, Mac/iPhone? They all support developer platforms, all have touchscreens, music services, GPS, etc. etc. etc...

Hard to say, and I'll probably stick with the iPhone. But will I look? Damn right...why not? When my contract times out, it won't cost me anything to do so anymore.