“We’re now a week away from the announcement that will surprise no one. Steve Jobs will step up to deliver the keynote address [and the new iPhone] at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference,” Rick Aristotle Munarriz writes for The Motley Fool.
As for the rumors, “the real clincher here is the persistent rumor that the new iPhones will sell for as little as $200… If it’s true — and everyone has been repeating that price since unnamed sources relayed it to Fortune last month — fence-sitting iPhone watchers are going to jump off for joy. The new devices will sell like, well, Apple pancakes. In fact, they’ll sell like iPhones,” Munarriz writes.
MacDailyNews Note: The source of the iPhone subsidy rumor was Scott Moritz, writing for Fortune, “AT&T’s planned $200 subsidy on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone could increase the sales of the new 3G model by 50%, according to one analyst.” That one analyst was Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Mortiz and Sacconaghi are hardly the dynamic duo of accurate Apple prognosticating/analyzing/reporting. Far from it, in fact. Please see these related articles: TheStreet.com’s Moritz tries to conjure up Apple iPhone ‘disappointments’ – September 10, 2007, FUD Alert: CNET article based on lone analyst’s view tries to gin up iPhone demand issue – January 25, 2008, and So-called ‘analyst’ finds his ‘missing’ iPhones – January 28, 2008.
Munarriz continues, “Consumers will love it. If exclusive domestic wireless provider AT&T takes on the bulk of the subsidized hit, Apple investors may love it… I get the euphoria, but shouldn’t shareholders also begin wondering about the fate of the iPod Touch?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, and not only that, what about the iPod touch? Lower case “t.” Sorry, pet peeve. If, big if, the rumor is true, then we assume that Apple will simply be giving them away to Mac-buying college students. Oh, yeah, and selling them to people who just want an iPod rather than a mobile device that comes with a monthly bill.
Apple will announce 2 new iPhones. Lower end at 200 and high end at 400. The high end will replace the current iPhone.
if apple is willing to just give away touches with the purchase of a new Mac and possibly allowing subsidies on new iPhones, I think its safe to assume that something BIG is planned for the touch platform.
MDN: real. as in REAL BIG.
You’ve got the right idea in your take: Even at $200, the iPhone rapidly costs more than the iPod because of the monthly charges.
@Jeff the Trader
Sounds plausible.. but is this your guess, or are you plugged into Steve-o’s back pocket ?
Nothing will happen to the iPod touch. It doesn’t have a monthly fee like the iPhone does.
The cheapest AT&T;iPhone plan is about $70 per month once you include state and federal taxes. An iPod touch costs $0 per month. As has been said, there’s your big difference.
I love my iPod touch and wouldn’t trade it for an iPhone ever. I’m looking toward the Fall when Apple releases the new iPods a 128GB (I’d settle for a 64GB) touch model. 802.11N WI-FI and GPS would be icing on the cake.
It’s not ‘Sell like pancakes’, for crimeny’s sake, it’s ‘Sell like hotcakes’!
Who’s the editor?!
I’ll say it again, the rumor of a subsidized iPhone first came from Scott Moritz, a well-known fudster working in cahoots with Jim Cramer. Scott was the one who said Apple was trying to sell 1M iPhones on their first weekend. This was of course, wrong, but Moritz set the bar so high, that iPhone sales seemed a disappointment, in order to drive down Apple’s price. This seems to be their goal again, to drive down iPhone sales, as people wait for the lower price. It’s FUD. This rumor has been repeated so often that people forget the original source, and that source is tainted.
Apple should just allow the iPhone to be sold with or without a plan. Without a plan it would function in WiFi only and would basically be a replacement for the Touch. With a plan it would have the phone and cell data capabilities.
Simple and easy to sell to anyone. Kill the iPod Touch!
As the memory of the touch increases, it is the iPod classic that will eventually fade away.
Hmm, I think the $200 price point for an iPhone is pure fantasy.
Maybe $299 for the entry level iPhone and $199 for the entry level iPod touch.
I’ll be less surprised if they simply remain at the same price points and receive a feature/storage/software bump.
Now maybe a simple iPhone Nano comparable to the iPod Classic or Nano (no touchscreen and no fancy OS).
That would be cool and go for $199.
First off I’ll buy a 16 Gb iPhone for $200 cash… at the first opportunity!
Secondly, I’ll buy the new improved touch… as it will become the touch table at the first opportunity… if it can be shown to be better than or equal too a Mac Book… at half the price!
Better a “table” than a “book”
It’s not that hard to look to the future to see what the product line of the iPod is going to become in the next few years. The classic and Nano’s will eventually merge into one device category(once HDs are totally gone). The iPod touch will become the standard iPod and the iPhone will be the high end. The iPod touch will come in higher storage amounts to make the product a true alternative to the iPhone. They will hit all the price point ranges that they have now.
Shuffle, iPod Nano/Classic, iPod Touch, iPhone.
“sell like pancakes”
hilarious typo
If Apple wants to confidently meet or (as usual) exceed their goal of 10 million units, they will simply have to release a phone into the lower price range. What remains to be seen is how they will do this – by reducing features (like the Nano & Shuffle), adding a killer feature, or by leveraging creative payment plans?
I agree with some who say “Kill the Touch”. It would be much better to sell an iPhone without a contract and allow them not to use the phone part. Do that and they would Vend like Waffles!
The iPod Touch is generally a pretty useless device. It was a way to sell something to people who couldn’t quite pull the trigger on a full-priced iPhone. They should release a low-end iPhone, or just make the single model cheaper, and discontinue the Touch.
The guy is a complete moron. If it’s discounted, it will be as part of a contract lock-in. There’s no contract with the iTouch…
I have a Touch that I bought because the iPhone has not come to Canada Yet and just like the guy who light up so that the bus will come, as soon as I did Rogers announced the iPhone for Canada (My Ploy worked).
That said I love the iPod Touch, and my son will love it once I get my iPhone. It beats the crap out of my old Palm 3 for functionality and usefulness.
Zorpo…
Except it works for kids who can’t spring for the iPhone and, because it tends to ship with twice the memory as iPhone, people who have real music and video collections.
It also works for all those people who are not interested in iPhone, because – in their end-market – Apple have affiliated themselves to a network that either has poor coverage in their area or where they might have experienced poor customer service at some point in the past.
So it’s not really useless, but it is a good idea that you and Phil Schiller never contemplate any kind of job swap.
I wonder if the EDGE iPhone will remain on the market for $200 and the new G3 iPhones (?16 and 32 Gb) will be at the present price points. The current phone is fine for many users and could pick up some of those who can’t afford the present iPhone but don’t download a lot of large files or spend too much time on the internet. That could include enterprise customers who need the iPhone mostly for phone and email (OK on EDGE). Companies might buy a lot of $200 iPhones. But I’ll be very surprised if Apple prices any of the NEW iPhones at $200. Harder to predict whether AT&T;might underwrite the new phone for a 2-3 yr contract.
IMHO, the iPod touch has great potential. Alas, it is currently priced so very high that few people are going to purchase one. A 32G touch is $499! Get that thing close to $200 and they will fly off the shelves. Many people see it as a solution to several problems, including the fact that they won’t switch to ATT just to have an iPhone. But, a compact flip-phone and a touch would do the job very nicely for me.
Well, I’m never going to get an iPhone. I don’t like having to look to dial up a phone number. I like my phone to be just a phone. So it’s touch all the way for me. Just waiting for more memory before I buy it.
If Apple iPhones will soon start at $200, what happens to iPod touch?
It becomes AppleTV’s remote control.
You heard it here first.
The Game
KenC is spot on. Moritz is a subordinate of the merchants.
iPhone is but a stone.
Something slipped under the radar after the iPhone.
I have to give kudos to some guys, unnamed but appreciated by many readers here, they are both good guys and clever. Power to their elbows.
Sorry to be so cryptic but the bad guys read this too, they are not very bright but they are powerful.