“I found myself scratching my head last week as Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced carrier partnerships for the newly unveiled iPad,” Clayton Morris reports for FOXNews.com. “‘AT&T is providing the service,’ Jobs announced, as murmurs ran around the room. ‘AT&T is throwing in free use of their Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S. with this. No contract. And you can cancel anytime.'”
“But where was Verizon? I thought it would be both carriers,” Morris reports. “As I reported before the event, Verizon appeared to be on board and was even working out the final details of the partnership.”
“According to sources at Verizon, the company is more interested in the lucrative iPhone contracts,” Morris reports. “But the two companies are still ‘very much talking and plan to bring an iPhone and an iPad’ to the CDMA network this year, following the expiration of AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple,” Morris reports.
Morris reports, “Of course ‘still talking’ doesn’t mean anything. It would be ridiculous to think these companies aren’t still talking: that’s what big companies do. To be fair, these talks are very much in keeping with reports from Wall Street analysts who expect some Apple/Verizon partnership announcement this year. But I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“According to my sources, AT&T was able to outbid every other GSM carrier with a $14.99 or $29.99 plan that gives customers 250MB or unlimited data, respectively,” Morris reports. “I must say I am impressed with AT&T’s iPad data pricing structure — and I wasn’t alone given the amount of applause during the Apple event. ‘I think the pricing speaks for itself,’ said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. ‘Apple sets the price for these plans and the $29.99 unlimited plan is comparable to our data plans for other devices.'”
Morris reports, “Comparable? Actually AT&T brought its A game, offering much cheaper options for consumers than currently exist for netbooks.”
Read more in the full article here.
I wonder if the tables turned a bit. The word is that adding the cell radio is around $10.
Might ATT be getting a piece of the $130 additional for a cell iPad?
Somewhat reverses the normal phone play plus it would get ATT some revenue to just offer the pre-paid option.
Rupert Murdoch believes that were it not for content from companies like News Corp., the iPad and Kindle devices would be “unloved and unsold,” according to a report Wednesday in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Wait a minute… Rupert Murdoch is now commenting on tech news? Rupert Murdoch? WTF? The guy’s a fscking reptile that’d sell his mother for a profit. He’s a salesman. And now he’s a delusional salesman… that hasn’t grasped the iPad isn’t out yet, and yet he feels qualified to comment about its success or failure depending on NewsCorp.
Fscks sake. I’ve heard it all now!
AT&T;: I think $45/250MB, $55/Unlimited sounds fair for 3g iPad service.
APPLE: You know your iPhone exclusivity is about to end.
AT&T;: $40/$45?
APPLE: You know I was just talking to verizon the other day…
AT&T;: Name your price.
“Comparable? Actually AT&T;brought its A game, offering much cheaper options for consumers than currently exist for netbooks.”
Yep. Do the math: iPad = netbook killer
Feel free to quote me.
To address all of the comments about Verizon using a “different technology” that is incompatible with the iPad – that just isn’t true. It is really simple to drop either an EVDO-Rev A (verizon/sprint) or an HSDPA (AT&T;) chip into a laptop or tablet. There is a monetary cost to the chip (thus the higher price) and a cost to performance (battery drain) but that is about it. As long as you design a device the right way, it is quite simple to swtich between “competing technologies”. Thus the reason why you can buy a 3G card or USB from any carrier and attach it to your laptop. It is a little trickier to build phones based on different standards, but its not horribly difficult. In truth, the two primary standards today – CDMA2000/EVDO and WCDMA/HSDPA are based on very similar technologies (both CDMA based). Next generation (4G) standards (primarily WiMax and LTE) are also relatively similar to each other from a technological standpoint. In the 2G world, the technology difference between GSM (TDMA-based) and CDMA was much greater.
@Bob
think about it… “There is a monetary cost to the chip (thus the higher price) and a cost to performance (battery drain) but that is about it.”
how much do you think Apple put into pricing these machines where they did? How important is battery life to Apple?
The near universal reaction I’ve heard from others is that there weren’t a lot of surprises with the iPad announcement…except for the price, which immediately caught the attention of all who were paying any attention.
And battery life? Apple is engineering, designing and manufacturing batteries that will run a 17″ high resolution screen for 8 hours. And last for 5 years. Completely blowing away anything that looks like premium performance in a portable device.
Why would they want to throw all that advanced technology away on a machine that would waste
it? And compromise the user experience to boot?
My bet is on the Apple design team when is comes to designing something “the right way.”
@mike g: “WTF? ATT was “capable” of such low data rates because the consumer is subsidizing the cost. this is why the 3G iPads are $130 more than the wifi iPads. you can’t tell me the 3G chip costs $130.”
It’s actually 3G and GPS, both of which add more value to the device than just the cost of the parts alone. They also had to keep the cost inline with the iPhone.
I’d also wager that AT&T;was willing to offer such rates because Apple is dropping the price of the iPhone. Lowering the cost of the AT&T;subsidy.
Eventually, unlocked iPhones will be priced similarly to the iPad (WiFi+3G).
Good point, where IS iPhone tethering?? Once they give us our tethering capability, shouldn’t we be able to use iPad sharing that connection?? If so, I see why AT&T;won’t allow it.
Cmon MDN. We know which way you lean but spare us the Fox crap for crying out load. We want real news not fake news. There I said it.
Hooray for Fox News! Keep up the good work, MDN!
@Michael, “It’s actually 3G and GPS, both of which add more value to the device than just the cost of the parts alone.”
According to Apple’s specifications, the 3G unit has assisted GPS while it seems that the wi-fi unit has regular GPS. It is vague on their spec page: they have a heading Location under which they have one entry Wi-Fi and another entry Assisted GPS (Wi-Fi + 3G model).