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Apple Media Event - Oct 4th, 2011 - iPhone!!! iPhone!!! Party Time!!! Excellent!!!

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H

Husker86

Member
border said:
If you are under contract and not eligible for an upgrade, I imagine they will probably still give you a pretty steep discount if you extend your contract by another 24 months.

Other than that, you can actually get an unlocked 3GS for $375.......which is why I think there's a lot of bullshit in the pricing for "Unlocked" models. There's now way the 2 1/2 year old 3GS costs $375 to produce. They have to price it at that level or else there's no reason for anyone to sign up for the $0 3GS + 2 year contract deal. If it were a more realistic price (maybe $250?) then why would you sign up for any sort of contract?
Click to expand...

Of course it doesn't cost that much to produce. Look at Apple's margins, they don't seem to ever go under 35-40% profit.
 
W

WordAssassin

Member
Husker86 said:
Where is the price of an iPhone, unsubsidized, $350? Unless you were talking about secondhand with her.
Click to expand...
I had actually read that price right in this thread. I assume by your comment it's wrong? Have they announced the new reduced price for the $99 8gig iPhone 4 unsubsidized yet?
 
E

ecurbj

Member
Leona Lewis said:
I do remember that. Hmm, guess I'll be using it naked then. Too beautiful to cover with a full-blown case.
Click to expand...
You can always get a clear case for protection. That's what I got on my iPhone 4. It doesn't take away the beauty of the phone but the same time adds protection and is less bulky than the Otterbox.
 
D

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Paznos said:
Did you get your Droid X at launch? I did and I'm able to upgrade early already but my NE2 discount I can't use til next March.
Click to expand...
Yeah I did, but Verizon said 20 months until I can upgrade with the new contract discount. I can upgrade any time now, but I'd have to pay full phone price, so like $600. Way too much.

I go through best buy through verizon, maybe they'll do something special.
 
Oppo

Oppo

Member
Al-ibn Kermit said:
The only thing I EXPECTED was a bigger screen and but I was also hoping for LTE or Wimax radios. 4G is not a big deal for most people who aren't techies but 99% of what everybody else does on their smartphone is either texting or web browsing, so having more than a 3.5 inch screen would be a huge improvement in usability.

The 1GB RAM and the improved CPU are definitely acceptable, but not having at least a 4 inch screen really makes it hard for them to convince somebody to give up an Android phone with a bigger screen that they've gotten used to.
Click to expand...

I don't think they ever intend to change the screen size much, if any. I'd bet that a huge amount of the thinking that went into the original iPhone was, what is the best size for this? They might tweak the screen to have less of a mullion but I bet it won't go to 4", ever.

As for LTE, if Apple's claims about actual real world download tests vs the current crop of 4G is correct, it's a nonstarter. And I'm in Toronto where I can actually take advantage of LTE, but I reall don't care. Download speed is not a big issue for me; UI responsiveness, and battery are.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Tron 2.0 said:
I'm not sure what else they could do with it, to be honest.

What do you wish they would do?
Click to expand...

Better specs? The touch shown today is the same touch launched last year which was slightly worse in terms of the screen, innards, and camera in compared to the iPhone 4 let alone the 4S.

Lets me clear I know the touch will never been the iPhone. It's just not, but at least a slight bump would have been nice. Maybe the better camera and a bump in RAM to 512 would have been nice.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
WordAssassin said:
I had actually read that price right in this thread. I assume by your comment it's wrong? Have they announced the new reduced price for the $99 8gig iPhone 4 unsubsidized yet?
Click to expand...

yeah, 550. on the canada site.

375 for the 3GS
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
meh. the hype surrounding these keynotes and these phones are of Apple's own doing. it's a double edge sword. incremental hardware upgrades like this shouldn't be keynote making, even for a company like Apple that releases a model once a year.

all this pomp and circumstance to a radical redesign and new features? sure. but for spec upgrades it seems a bit meaningless at this point.
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
scorcho said:
meh. the hype surrounding these keynotes and these phones are of Apple's own doing. it's a double edge sword. incremental hardware upgrades like this shouldn't be keynote making, even for a company like Apple that releases a model once a year.

all this pomp and circumstance to a radical redesign and new features? sure. but for spec upgrades it seems a bit meaningless at this point.
Click to expand...


meaningless? They will dominate the news, blogs, websites, and almost every other form of media for the next few weeks without spending a dime in marketing.
 
A

Al-ibn Kermit

Junior Member
PortTwo said:
I don't think they ever intend to change the screen size much, if any. I'd bet that a huge amount of the thinking that went into the original iPhone was, what is the best size for this? They might tweak the screen to have less of a mullion but I bet it won't go to 4", ever.

As for LTE, if Apple's claims about actual real world download tests vs the current crop of 4G is correct, it's a nonstarter. And I'm in Toronto where I can actually take advantage of LTE, but I reall don't care. Download speed is not a big issue for me; UI responsiveness, and battery are.
Click to expand...

The screen size is good if you mainly want to use it for dialing numbers and listening to music. But web-browsing and typing are much more convenient on 4+ inch phones. Obviously in the last 5 years, smartphones have become much more capable at browsing the web and have in turn gone with larger and larger screens. It makes sense to offer multiple screen sizes for different types of customers.

And where I live, which is 2 miles from the Apple campus that this event was held, the Verizon LTE download speeds average around 15 Mbps, Sprint Wimax is around 10 Mbps, and AT&T gets about 3 Mbps on their 3.5G HSPA+ network. That's obviously a significant difference. For most tasks, you may not really notice or care about the speed difference but it still makes it hard to recommend an iPhone if somebody asks you what the most cutting edge phone today is.
 
C

chickdigger802

Banned
Leona Lewis said:
I do remember that. Hmm, guess I'll be using it naked then. Too beautiful to cover with a full-blown case.
Click to expand...

Do remember that the back glass panel is not gorilla glass and will scratch easily if you keep it in your pockets with keys/pens/pencils and what not.

I recommend you to pick up one of the super thin cases if you want to keep the slick form factor and keep the scratches away.

www.coolous.com/store/iphone/cat-ice.html#
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
outunderthestars said:
meaningless? They will dominate the news, blogs, websites, and almost every other form of media for the next few weeks without spending a dime in marketing.
Click to expand...
it's self-gratifying nonsense. they could issue a press release with the same info and still send hearts aflutter on the spec advancement alone. you know, like how every other company handles its product upgrades.
 
A

Axion22

Member
scorcho said:
at least we'll now have the douchey response of 'Oh, is that an iPhone 4?'

'No, it's an iPhone 4 Sss'.

this will set those hipsters in Williamsburg afire.
Click to expand...

Someone asked me if I had the new one only an hour ago. :|
 
C

Cipherr

Member
scorcho said:
You know, like how every other company handles its product upgrades.
Click to expand...


Not sure if serious. See you in the Android ICS thread next week bro :smugsmile:

No but seriously I think you are over reacting.
 
T

Tobor

Member
scorcho said:
it's self-gratifying nonsense. they could issue a press release with the same info and still send hearts aflutter on the spec advancement alone. you know, like how every other company handles its product upgrades.
Click to expand...
Every other company does exactly what Apple just did. Announce a date for a product reveal, get the press together and reveal it. amazon did the same thing last week.

The difference is in the demand from the public, not the actual process.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
scorcho said:
meh. the hype surrounding these keynotes and these phones are of Apple's own doing. it's a double edge sword. incremental hardware upgrades like this shouldn't be keynote making, even for a company like Apple that releases a model once a year.

all this pomp and circumstance to a radical redesign and new features? sure. but for spec upgrades it seems a bit meaningless at this point.
Click to expand...

yeah, I gotta agree. they spent 90 minutes to reveal one new spec product update and two minor little apps.

if they had bothered to update the iPods at all or show something else new, then I think the event would have been worthwhile.

I still think the guts in the 4S will be really awesome but they can’t reveal that after 60 minutes of non-info and expect people to be impressed.

yeah, it’ll sell and, yeah, the iPhone design is still pretty sweet but we typically expect more from Apple events.
 
L

Leona Lewis

Banned
chickdigger802 said:
Do remember that the back glass panel is not gorilla glass and will scratch easily if you keep it in your pockets with keys/pens/pencils and what not.

I recommend you to pick up one of the super thin cases if you want to keep the slick form factor and keep the scratches away.

www.coolous.com/store/iphone/cat-ice.html#
Click to expand...
That's pretty nice. I'll plumb the depths of the iPhone 4 thread and hopefully find some case recommendations.

Thanks ya'll! After watching the keynote I'm feeling a little less bitter. It's just a phone, so easy to get caught into the megahype.

EDIT: The SwitchEasy Nude looks incredible. And no manufacturer logo on the outside
grin.gif
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
scorcho said:
it's self-gratifying nonsense. they could issue a press release with the same info and still send hearts aflutter on the spec advancement alone. you know, like how every other company handles its product upgrades.
Click to expand...


http://www.charlotteobserver.com/

Lead story is the unveiling. The secretive nature of Apple, and the build up to the unveilings are carefully crafted to achieve just what we see right now: mass media saturation without having to spend money. It's really quite brilliant. Tomorrow at work everyone will be talking about Apple.

Samsung unveils a bunch of stuff in a crowded tech conference in Germany, spending a ton of time and money in the process, and the vast majority of the public never finds out about it. Apple send out one email and the world comes to its door to see what is new, ala Willy Wonka.


It is truly brilliant marketing.
 
D

Dreams-Visions

Member
LCfiner said:
yeah, I gotta agree. they spent 90 minutes to reveal one new spec product update and two minor little apps.

if they had bothered to update the iPods at all or show something else new, then I think the event would have been worthwhile.

I still think the guts in the 4S will be really awesome but they can’t reveal that after 60 minutes of non-info and expect people to be impressed.

yeah, it’ll sell and, yeah, the iPhone design is still pretty sweet but we typically expect more from Apple events.
Click to expand...
Event title: "Let's talk about iPhone"

*watches video of event...and they talk about iPhone*

so what's the problem?
 
B

badcrumble

Member
At this point I'm curious to see what's left for iOS 6, apart from free turn-by-turn navigation. There's evidence in iOS 5 that it's possible to install additional 'widgets' in the notification pane, but either Apple decided against that and it'll never happen or it'll end up happening during some 5.x update, I feel (much like app rentals).

I wonder when Apple's going to go for the brass ring and implement a free iPhone-to-iPhone VoIP function that works on WiFi.
 
B

border

Member
Husker86 said:
Of course it doesn't cost that much to produce. Look at Apple's margins, they don't seem to ever go under 35-40% profit.
Click to expand...
My point is not that they have high margins on the hardware, but that ON TOP OF THAT they are charging a premium just to get it unlocked, which seems unfair. I want to pay whatever price the carriers pay for an unlocked phone. I don't want to pay a hundred dollars more than that still.
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
border said:
My point is not that they have high margins on the hardware, but that ON TOP OF THAT they are charging a premium just to get it unlocked, which seems unfair. I want to pay whatever price the carriers pay for an unlocked phone. I don't want to pay a hundred dollars more than that still.
Click to expand...


They buy millions of them, you buy one. Why should carriers receive a discount?
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
Event title: "Let's talk about iPhone"

*watches video of event...and they talk about iPhone*

so what's the problem?
Click to expand...

I’m not saying that Apple went out of their way to build up incredible hype.

I’m saying the content of the presentation was thin and the new hardware was uninspiring. capable, yes, but still uninspiring.

there was too much time padding the event. too much time going over things we already knew because they only had a single thing to talk about and they only spent around 20 to 30 minutes doing it.

compare this to other Apple events and this one was not up to the same level of quality.
 
Carton

Carton

Gold Member
outunderthestars said:
They will dominate the news, blogs, websites, and almost every other form of media for the next few weeks without spending a dime in marketing.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily in a positive light, though.

I actually think the phone represents a significant and worthy bump in specs and features (i am very disappointed by the 3.5" screen -- it's a deal breaker for me, personally); however, many mainstream news sites* are echoing the lukewarm/negative responses that some people were forecasting would be exclusive to "nerds". Couple these headlines with images of an outwardly identical phone, and a naming convention which itself might suggest only a minor revision (see 3DS), and you have a recipe for a much more subdued reception (relatively speaking) by the mainstream consumer.

*Spot the Difference: Apple had 16 months to plan new iPhone, but it's not much different from the current one
New Apple iPhone draws muted response
Falling Apple: Shares dive after iPhone launch fail
 
J

JackEtc

Member
ecurbj said:
You won't ever have to worry about your phone breaking if you drop it.

BUT

The screen protector the Otterbox has decreases the advertised retina display greatly, phone is very bulky, and the takes away the beauty of the phone itself.
Click to expand...
You don't have to put the screen protector on though, right?
 
Carton

Carton

Gold Member
irfan said:
Falling Apple: Shares dive after iPhone launch fail?

News.com.au = FAIL!
Click to expand...

I completely agree, man. It's a terrible and juvenile headline, but it's a pretty popular site.
 
E

ecurbj

Member
JackEtc said:
You don't have to put the screen protector on though, right?
Click to expand...
No, the Otterbox and the screen protector is all in one. So once you put the Otterbox on. The screen protector is covering the iPhone screen.
 
K

KtSlime

Member
LCfiner said:
I’m not saying that Apple went out of their way to build up incredible hype.

I’m saying the content of the presentation was thin and the new hardware was uninspiring. capable, yes, but still uninspiring.

there was too much time padding the event. too much time going over things we already knew because they only had a single thing to talk about and they only spent around 20 to 30 minutes doing it.

compare this to other Apple events and this one was not up to the same level of quality.
Click to expand...

As I see it, they have been this way for a while now. I think I have an explanation for what we are experiencing. You and I have known about iOS5 for a while know, we've seen what it can do at WWDC where it was introduced, we've installed it, messed around, seen screenshots of it, etc. What Apple did today was a product announcement. As tech enthusiasts, we watch two distinct messages coming out of Apple, these messages have a certain level of overlap, but one message is directed towards developers, and the other message is directed towards the media - CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, WSJ, etc - it is intended to build up public interest. I've known about iOS5, and the impending iPhone for a while now, however my sister asked me about the new phone today - this is the first time she has heard Siri, iCloud, iOS5. This event was really targeted towards to average customer. They are going to show off iOS5 in the event, and yeah it overlaps what they did at WWDC. Yeah, we are going to be bored with it, we already know all about it, yeah we just wasted an hour watching Apple demo the same exact thing they demoed half a year ago - but that's really our faults for ODing on Apple - IMO.
 
A

artist

Banned
CryptiK said:
well their shares are taking a dive.. and the phone isnt new phone..
Click to expand...
The stock falls after EVERY keynote.

This has been repeated too many times, unfortunately the editors of news.com.au are not even amateurish level to know that.
 
A

Axion22

Member
irfan said:
The stock falls after EVERY keynote.

This has been repeated too many times, unfortunately the editors of news.com.au are not even amateurish level to know that.
Click to expand...

It's been repeated so much that there are enough articles about why it drops in Google search results for AAPL.
KuGsj.gif
 
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