Real price of iPhone we should see in Europe. In EU they have obligation to sell phones without lock-in.

Agree, NITs aren't iPhone competitor, N95 is.

Can iPhone replace NIT? For me no. I much more prefer cheap, disposable phone + NIT than expensive all-in-one device.

I think such price was the only way to save SJ's face. He promised 10 mln sold iPhones in 2008, for now he sold 2 mln. Apple will have to sell 8 mln phones in 5 months, two times more than last year on quite saturated market.

Wouldn't put much faith in Apple custom service outside of USA. In Poland this is abysmal, in connection with chosen carrier - Orange I don't see people going in droves to buy iPhones here.

In fact, since you can't get it online, only in-store with activation, that is making the 3G iPhone quite more than $199. Whats worse - you can't buy one to use it jailbroken with another carrier or for that matter - in another country. So, the new iPhone is a worse deal for me than the previous.

As far as I can see you CAN buy the iPhone for 199$ (8Gb) in the US w/o activating a 2-year contract.
In the EU this seems not possible.
In the Italian apple pages they say you can only buy it at TIM and Vodafone retail stores.
That means you can ONLY buy it with a 2-year contract or w/o, but paying a lot more.

I would rather buy it in the US and unlock it

Show me where it says that you can buy it without contract (and why it will be in-store then?).

Well, doesn't seem like that will be an option. See Update 2...

http://gizmodo.com/5014764/iphone-3g...-in-store-only

I think it's kinda naive to expect AT&T to be stupid enough to subsidize a device without having a guaranteed return of that investment. Especially after they've seen what happened to all those v1 iPhones - the big discrepancy between sold phones and activated contracts...

I'm not quite there... because the NIT can't fully control the phone, which means I can't use the N810's keyboard to send SMS messages. And I hate T9 for general messaging, so standard phone keypads aren't something I generally want to use for messaging. And the N810 doesn't run all of the PIM stuff a good phone has, nor does it sync with your desktop, the way a good phone does.

What I _should_ be able to do is:

Have a decent Nokia 3G handset, use it as a network interface for my N810 (without interrupting voice calls nor SMS). Use the handset, or a bluetooth headset, OR the N810 (via SIP or bluetooth, I don't care which), to make calls via the handset's voice interface. Use the handset or the N810 to send/receive SMS and MMS messages via the handset's SMS/MMS interfaces. And have all of the software that's on the handset be mirrored by equivalent software on the N810 (including sync'ing software, PIM software, etc.), that integrates with all of the N810's infrastructure.

In essence, touching the handset, for any purpose other than plugging it in to recharge it, should be optional. The N810 should be capable of being my user interface for everything in my personal-area-network. Including my phone.


I'd settle, though, for having a version of the Cradlepoint router firmware (or a device just like it) that runs an internal SIP server to connect SIP phones to the attached device's voice interface. And, it should run an internal Jabber server for similarly interacting with the device's SMS interface. Then I can just use the SIP, Jabber, and Wifi capabilities of the N810 as the user interface for the Cradlepoint that is shoved in my bag/backpack.


Of course, if someone ports an openssh client and a vnc client to the HTC Dream and otherwise moves it in step with other mobile linux phone offerings (motorola's linux phone platform, openmoko, maemo, etc.), and maybe hacks it to open up the linux layers (which I'm sure will happen), then I don't see why I wouldn't just use that one device alone. Especially if I can use it with T-Mobile-USA 3G.

someone should check out phonelink

Personally i am quite impressed with the latest iPhone offering. It seems that Apple have rectified a lot of the important issues from the first generation. e.g. No 3G, no GPS, no 3rd party apps, and an expensive price tag.

Still, one cannot fairly compare it to an Internet Tablet, which is not a phone. A better comparison would be with the iPod touch. Sadly though, the touch hasn't had any hardware or price point changes this time round. So there is not as much of a "wow" factor there.

All things considered though, the key thing for me is software. I think Apple have pretty much cornered this. The built-in software on the both the iPhone and Touch runs circles around the equivalents for the N phones and the tablets, at least in terms of usability.

Will be interesting to see what Nokia will pull out of their sleeves next.

Yup, just read several news around the globe stating the very same fact. One can buy the iPhone either with a contract (2 years, 18 months whatever) at a cheap price (even free as O2 stated) OR with a pre-paid (Pay&Go formula) SIM card, but I bet it'll be expensive as usual.
Rumors state that in Italy vodafone will sell the 8Gb version at 499€.
Not cheap at all.. in line with other smartphones, but not cheap at all.

iPhone 3G 16GB = $299
Premium over usual data plan price over 2 years contract = $240 ($10 x 24)
Total iPhone 3G 16GB 'cost' = $539

So it's pretty similar with apple's previous pricing of $499, if you consider some sort of interest for the $200 portion that gets spread out over 2 years.

As for the carrier lock in... yes, in one hand they rob you of a choice, but the carrier can calculate a certain income for a certain period where they can justify an amount of investment on their infrastructure. If they're not being an ******* about it, this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. I think the 90% satisfaction rate from the 1st gen iPhone user speaks volume about it.