AT&T has confirmed to the Associated Press that it will begin contract-free iPhone 3G sales beginning next week at the same $599/$699 pricepoint as the first-generation model.
The above actions follow through on preliminary statements made during the iPhone 3G launch last July that the carrier would offer the 3G at the same contract-free terms as the first-genation model, right down to remaining locked to AT&T.
It is not immediately known whether Apple will offer direct iPhone 3G sales without a contract via its website and storefronts, though the company is expected to debut a new model with a multicore GPU and increased storage space this summer.
why would anyone care about this? It’s not like you can get the 3G on pay as you go…and those who wanna unlock it for tmobile will simply have an original iphone specs….am I missing something?
Actually, as we’ve written about in-depth, you can use an iPhone 3G on both GoPhone plans without any problem.
However, the main reason why this doesn’t make sense, is that it’s cheaper to sign up for AT&T service, pay a month of service, pay the early termination fee… and then you have an iPhone 3G for $100 to $200 less.
And yes, we covered that as well way back when AT&T announced this.
It also doesn’t make sense because the unlimited monthly data plan for gophones is over with (no?). The iPhone uses an enormous amount of data, and their 100mb for $20 is not going to cut it for people looking for just a data plan.
Depends on your use. About 80% of iPhone 3G owners use Wi-Fi as their primary access. If you have Wi-Fi at home and the office, and avoid downloading a bunch of App Store apps, 100 MB can work.
And unused data rolls over (so long as you add another 100 MB every 30 days). So unused data in one month can be used in the next.