“Free 8GB iPhones for all Apple employees at the end of July!” proclaimed a MacDailyNews source a bit earlier today. (Last November, Steve Jobs gave each Apple employee a shiny new 2G iPod shuffle.)
Scott McNulty confirms via TUAW, “Apple employees who have been employed by the fruit company a year or longer, Steve was in a giving mood. Our sister site Engadget reported that Apple was holding an all hands meeting helmed by Steve Jobs today. It would seem Steve wanted to talk iPhone (and who doesn’t). Imagine the gleeful reaction he was given when he announced that all Apple employees (our source says both part time and full-time employees) that have been with Apple for over a year will receive a free 8 gig iPhone by the end of July.”
that is right.
That is why i am the other Steve Jobs… and the drunk CEO of EA is not. This is also why i am the other Steve Jobs and that sweaty, chair-throwing bald tard is not. This is why i am the other Steve Jobs and that card read…. ing moron in… charge of Cing…. ular, which is the ….. new AT&T is not.
making sure all the very hard working employees of Apple are part of this and finding the best way to do it, fsck the bean-counters is why I am the other Steve Jobs, and everyone else is not. tosj.blogspot.com
Wow! That’s much better than getting an iPod shuffle for free. Unfortunately, there may not be any iPhones left to give away to employees by the end of July.
Does the “free” phone come with a two year contract paid for by the company?
boy..guess the have enough so they don’t run out tomorrow, if they can give them away
BULLSHIT
I work for them part time, and I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’ll be lucky if I get one by september, if ever. They are SOOOO slow to give stuff out.
In other news, Steve Ballmer announced that all Microsoft employees who have been with the company more than one year will receive free Zunes. Employees who have been with Microsoft less than a year will receive two Zunes.
How many phones would that be? Let’s guess and say there are 75 full and part-time employees per 130+ stores with over a year of seniority, or close to 10,000 total. Wow, let’s multiply that by $600, and you get $6 million. Now I know why the shares dropped over $1 on what should have been a good news day.
@ Mac n’ Cheese
AWESOME DUDE
These are very good days. I am sure Microsoft will “cover” this in Redmond. Maybe, if I go to work part time right now, I will get one of those coffie tables with projectors under it when it finally comes out.
If I were an Apple employee I’d be in a quandary. Wait a whole month and get one free, or shell out $600 and get it tomorrow. Tough call.
@ KenC
That’s .006% of Apple’s market value. It has nothing to do with a 1$ drop.
@ BobM
I was thinking the same thing. Especially if all your Non-Apple employee friends already have them and they mercilessly taunt you. I’d buy one and give the other as a gift.
marxmac84
Someone gives you a $600 thank you, which you probably don’t deserve and you bitch about when you will receive it.
U R an Ass.
If you want it so frickin bad, buy one tomorrow then give it to your boyfriend when you get your freebie.
jack-hole
Hmmm… the multiple negative reactions to this have me puzzled. I think Apple has about 18,000 employees; let’s say 15,000 of them are eligible. At a cost to Apple of $300 a phone, that is an employee bonus of $4.5 million for a company that will gross about $25 BILLION in this fiscal year. As a stockholder, that seems like a wonderful way to motivate employees at modest cost. If the employee doesn’t want or can’t use the phone, they can easily sell it on ebay. So what is the problem? Trust me, as production ramps up, channeling 15,000 phones to Apple employees won’t be issue; that is like 1/2 of 1% of all the iPhones that will be sold between now and the end of the calendar year. Again, I gotta ask, why the negativity?
“Wow, let’s multiply that by $600, and you get $6 million.”
Do you honestly think that’s Apple’s cost? That they would pay retail?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA . . . ! ! !
Whew. . . thanks! That was hysterically funny!
The $1 drop is due to profit taking and general market fluctuations, not free iPhones for employees which won’t even be given out for a month or more.
And what did people expect: that Apple was hoarding iPhones so that it would have millions to sell tomorrow, but none planned for after June 29??!
I’m sure Apple has their suppliers working around the clock to make as many iPhones as possible, because Apple will sell as many as can be built. That’s why it’s foolish to waste time standing in line to get one. While the initial shipments will sell out very quickly, there will be plenty of iPhones a week later.
Ralph M
I totally agree. This is a drop in the bucket.
MUCH CHEAPER THEN PROFIT SHARING.
I hear it’s pretty rare that Apple hands out products to employees.
What makes me sick is to hear some cheezball complain after they were given something. Do we live in an entitlement society or what.
There was no mention if this included the retail employees, the rumour was that it was broadcast to other campuses, nothing about retail stores, does that mean that the retail employees wouldn’t be entitled to one even if they did work over a year for apple?
the suffle was cheap compared to this so they could afford to give it to all employees, but this phone?… i dunno, and yeah as someone mentioned would the contract cost also be covered or as empoyees would they be able to use is without contract?
Lucky bastages!
Some people think Jobs is a fargin icehole!! I think they are corksuckers!!
(I love that movie!!)
This is Farking War!
This is Farking War!
Fargin…
I’ll take a real job and the ability to buy one over having to work for peanuts and dealing with the iDrones every day.
“Now I know why the shares dropped over $1 on what should have been a good news day.”
Um, no you don’t because stuff like this doesn’t affect the share price of a 100 billion dollar company. Secondly you are taking the full retail price, not Apple’s cost and extrapolating that out, which isn’t how it works.
Correction!!! We didn’t get a 2 GB iPod Shuffle, they don’t even make them! We got a 1 GB Shuffle. Makes me curious as to how accurate this report is if they can’t even get well known and released facts correct.
@kenc, do u know that Apple is actually a software and hardware company, not every employe works at the Apple stores.
they have over 17 000 employees.
Free iPhones? So what? Ballmer is passing out free gas over at Microsoft……
@dan
2G iPod shuffle refers to a 2nd generation iPod shuffle, not a 2GB iPod shuffle.
@squirt, you are so right!!!!
Apple gets 10% off on iPhones.
The word is iPhones for “full time employees”.
Full report here:
<http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/28/internal-apple-stevenote-iphone-ipods-with-os-x-and-off-the-charts-macs-in-the-pipeline>
what if you work for Apple full time in Japan?
“Wow, let’s multiply that by $600, and you get $6 million.”
Do you honestly think that’s Apple’s cost? That they would pay retail?
Retail cost should be considered, as each & every freebie iPhone represents a lost retail sale.
That said, IMO it’s very cool that Apple’s doing this. It’s a rare example of class in today’s Wal-Mart-ized corporate world. An outside-the-boardroom handout like this would make most CEO’s go cardiac.
When calculating the cost you have to consider the possibility that AT&T subsidized the move. Not every Apple employee is an AT&T customer, meaning that today AT&T probably got several thousand new two year contracts. I’m sure they’ll get even more tomorrow but this isn’t isignificant. 17,000 employees x 24 months x $60= $25m
AT&T is paying for this. It was part of the deal!
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“Retail cost should be considered, as each & every freebie iPhone represents a lost retail sale.”
LOL, you must not have any idea how little an Apple retail employee actually makes. I doubt that no more than a third of retail employees would be able to buy one outright. I know I used to work there for a LONG time.
Why can’t anybody get this story straight?
EVERY full time U.S. employee gets an iPhone, no matter how long they’ve worked at Apple. Every part-time U.S. employee who has been with the company at least one year gets an iPhone.
How hard is that to remember (and state correctly)?
Cool my dad works at apple a he called me at around 3 or 4. He told me and I tiped off Macdailynews!
“Does the “free” phone come with a two year contract paid for by the company?”
Sure, in some alternate universe. Steve is proably getting a kickback from ATT to pay for the phones as a reward for forcing all Apple employees to sign up for 2 years with ATT.
RalphM
That’s because these fargin’ bastages are a bunch a frigard MS Astroturfers, that’s why!
KenC: “How many phones would that be? Let’s guess and say there are 75 full and part-time employees per 130+ stores with over a year of seniority, or close to 10,000 total. Wow, let’s multiply that by $600, and you get $6 million. Now I know why the shares dropped over $1 on what should have been a good news day.”
Let’s use your figure of $6M, though it’s not the actual cost. What do Apple get? 10,000 employees who’ll brag about and show off their iPhones to others and do mouth-to-mouth advertising. It may also inspire loyalty and hard work from them. Considering that iPod advertising budget reached $100M+, it can easily be counted on as a business expense, hardly a cause of a decrease in the share price.
I fully expected this. It’s the least you can do after these employees gave up their ordinary lives in order to make insanely great products.
@ Mac n’Cheese
You know that for a fact, eh, wise guy? Lemme tell you that you got that totally wrong! Missed by a mile. Employees who have been with Microsoft for less than a year will get on hundred and twenty five zunes, and twenty-four thousand copies of vista, which they will have to peddle in the street until they’ve sold their quota – or else get a chair tatooed on their face.
Microsoft share price to be in the single digits by this time next year. You heard it here first. iCal it.
As an employee of Apple for more than a year, I can’t wait to get my iPhone. Im not going to compain about having to wait a whole month or having to switch to cingular. And if someone is willing to give you a $600 phone, then take it and shut up. I think Apple employees are starting to get spoiled if they are seriously complaining about having to wait to get their free phone when the rest of the world shells out $600. So Thanks Steve Jobs for my free iPhone, and for my free shuffle last year, and for my endless discounts on my mac pro, and iMac and everything else I have bought!
Must be nice getting a free iPhone instead of paying $600 for one.
http://free-new-iphone.blogspot.com/