“AppleInsider contacted a number of Radio Shack stores on Friday, and all but one, spoken to in Tennessee, indicated they are completely sold out of the iPhone 4,” Hughes reports. “And even that one store only has the 32GB model available in limited quantities.”
Hughes reports, “Another store in North Carolina indicated that the ‘entire region’ of stores was completely out of stock of the iPhone 4. Another store indicated that customers can still buy the handset online and obtain the $50 rebate, and the phone ships in an estimated two days.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Some people can only see the sticker price*. It’s sad, but, hey, at least this time they’ve lucked out and ended up with a quality product!
*The total cost of a mobile phone is largely in the monthly fees paid to the carrier, not the upfront price of the phone. Still, 50 bucks is 50 bucks, we get it; even if it is only $2.08 a month over the course of a 2-year contract. We’re just surprised there’s this much pent up demand for a $50 off iPhone. Imagine if they ran unending Buy One, Get One promos like they do for Android, RIM, etc.
well, if you are going to buy one anyway might as well get it cheaper.
Just curious as to what you mean by some people can only see the sticker price. I bought one of these phones for my girlfriend but I knew what I was getting and what kind of deal it was. Are you saying that people that buy stuff on sale are typically buying just because it’s on sale? That’s kind of a coarse attitude to have towards people who buy things on sale. Just an FYI, not everbody is made of money and not everyone who shops for deals is uneducated about what they are buying. Just saying MDN. I typically like your comments and articles but I know I do my homework before making purchases and many others do too. Just saying. Hope you see my point.
“If it’s free it’s for me!” Got one at Best Buy for nada.
@Macllfx, congrats! Wish I would have waited but I still got a deal and my girlfriend loves it so it was worth every penny.
Hey Derek, lighten up friend. Enjoy your purchase.
My wife called the local Radio Shack and was told that, even though they were out of stock, you could still get one within 3 days of ordering. Hey, why not save $50 if you want to buy an iPhone? It’s not like they are refurbished units.
@Derek
Thanks! Don’t worry, there’ll be other sweet deals.
The MDN take is really strange. Are they insinuating that only trailer trash shop at Radio Shack? I guess saving $50 isn’t worth the trouble if you’ve got more dollars than sense.
Hey, where are the stories about Android handsets selling out at a $50 discount in a couple days?
There’s nothing wrong with refurb’d units.
In the economy we are in some people need a smart phone or a sort of smart phone and if they can’t afford an iPhone and android or bb will get them by then they settle.
It’s sad but really with buy one get one you take what you can afford.
Personally id save to get an iPhone but not everyone will.
There is nothing wrong with stores having “specials” for the iPhone. Everybody does it, and Apple should stop being so pigheaded all the time and loosen up.
And my daughter picked up a free 3GS today at Best Buy.
So your kid puts an iPhone on their Xmas list, you look around and see it’s $50 off at Radio Shack. Who wouldn’t jump at it, especially if you were about to buy one anyway? I don’t really understand the snarky MDN take at all.
Cmon MDN, Give peeps a break. We are in a tough economy. It’s not as easy for most folk to drop $250 on a new smartphone every year or 2. I had an excellent 3Gs but traded that puppy in at Radio Shack for $125 for the last phone in stock at the store. With the $50 discount, I got into a new iPhone 4 for $70! ($25 + tax) That’s a deal. I know I could’ve gotten more value selling it myself but the trade-in made it convenient.
Biggest improvements of the 4 over the 3Gs is the screen is amazing, speakers are much louder and this thing is snappier at everything. I’m sure Radio Shack is bringing in a whole lot more traffic in their stores thanks to the iPhone.
It does mean that many more ATT customers for the long term. Just imagine where we’d be today if Verizon *had* made that deal with Steve at the beginning. Think how many billions of dollars Verizon lost from that one conversation between the then CEO and Steve, from that one really, really numbifyingly dumb decision not to want to work with Apple. It boggles the mind how stupid corporate America can be.
I’m glad for ATT, they were the better partner anyway!
@Derek You expressed my thouhts exactly. This site has a tendency to be a bit elitist on occassion. There are even some of us who on occassion CHOOSE to shop at Walmart. Thank you.
@MDN
As the kids say now days, “REALLY?”
Why is a deal a bad thing? Why would I pay a higher price if I could get a lower one. I’d have be be high. If your advertisers had a choice to pay you a lower price, they would jump at it. I doubt that the words “No thanks, I’d rather pay more for the same thing!” have been said often without a ringing tone of sarcasm smeared all over it.
It isn’t sad. It’s smart. Ever hear the advice to ‘buy low, sell high?’ Got any stock? Sheesh.
@MDN
As the kids say now days, “REALLY?”
Why is a deal a bad thing? Why would I pay a higher price if I could get a lower one. I’d have be be high. If your advertisers had a choice to pay you a lower price, they would jump at it. I doubt that the words “No thanks, I’d rather pay more for the same thing!” have been said often without a ringing tone of sarcasm smeared all over it.
It isn’t sad. It’s smart. Ever hear the advice to ‘buy low, sell high?’ Got any stock? Sheesh.
@MDN
As the kids say now days, “REALLY?”
Why is a deal a bad thing? Why would I pay a higher price if I could get a lower one. I’d have be be high. If your advertisers had a choice to pay you a lower price, they would jump at it. I doubt that the words “No thanks, I’d rather pay more for the same thing!” have been said often without a ringing tone of sarcasm smeared all over it.
It isn’t sad. It’s smart. Ever hear the advice to ‘buy low, sell high?’ Got any stock? Sheesh.
Now Apple can move the Costco inventory to Radio shack. Thank you.
There is better ways to spend that saved 50$ like bying more AAPL
@Derek Simmerman and @pretentious
I doubt the intended reference was RadionShack. My take on MDN’s Take is that for a lousy $50 you didn’t just get an iPhone, you got an ATT iPhone. When with a little patience you coulda gotten a Verizon iPhone. ATT sux. Unless you don’t mind the agravation and REALLY need to talk and surf simultaneously, right?
Like spelling matters here
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> but I meant “aggravation”
And while here again, from all the $50 Off sales, my stock went up 😀
I think people are missing the 2nd half of the deal here. RS was also offering trade-in value on the existing iPhone. My son had an iPhone 3G, and between the $75 trade-in and the extra $50 off, we saved $125 on the cost of a new phone. That gave him a new 32 Gb iPhone 4 for only $175 (we were otherwise eligible for upgrade on our AT&T account). This was a much better deal than just $50 off.
MDN is nothing BUT snarky
I only pay full price for my phones, every year, from AT&T!
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Sale hunters are just too poor, like Kenny.
This makes me a better person.
IHome has an Airplay speaker on it’s website, but not selling this holiday season. Kind of odd. I signed up for notification, but nothing. Can you find out what is happening? Thanks.
Most here missed the meaning of MDN take.
$50 off tends to be perceived by those who look only at sticker as a 50% discount on the iPhone. Since the actual retail price (when subsidy is eliminated) is around $650, this $50 off is actually less than 10% discount. This is the point of MDN’s take.
CJ:
The $75 trade-in that you received for your 3G is abysmal. Well-kept used 3G routinely fetches $200 on eBay or CraigsList. Even with the $50 off that you got at Radio Shack, you got ripped off big time.
…”When with a little patience you coulda gotten a Verizon iPhone.”
I don’t think waiting for over a year requires just a little patience.
The 5-year contract with AT&T won’t expire until 2012. You won’t see Verizon iPhone until then.
@jdfi
Takes one to know one. STFU
@predrag
Agreed. If the current rumor proves to be false, I may have no choice but to go over to the darkside
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Now having an iPad, I have witnesses ATT’s poor network when having to go 3G when out of a WiFi LAN.
But for me… it’s more than a year already. I’ve suffered thru all the previous false rumors. I REALLY like Verison and feel they provide a better network and very importantly, better higher quality tech support.
I just am trying to not become one of those that say: “love the phone, hate the network.”
Even an Apple store manager told me he has an iPhone and Verizon phone for backup when he’s in an area where ATT can’t maintain call connections. That’s scary.
“There are even some of us who on occassion CHOOSE to shop at Walmart. Thank you.”
Yes, there are, me included!
What a load of bull in general about shopping at stores like WalMart. 90% of the people on these forums shop at WalMart quite a bit or at least once in a while.
If not, they have more money than sense. If there is a great deal on something you want, and it’s at WalMart, and you’re too elitist to be seen walking into the store, then good for you. It’s your money. The rest of us aren’t so stuck up as to turn down a good deal no matter what store it is in.
(Usual return policies, exchanges, warranties, etc. apply, with all things being equal aside from the price.)
I’m so tired of hearing “I’d never step into WalMart (insert your favorite non-favorite store here)” bull when 90% of the time it’s not true.
A good deal is wherever you can find it, all things considered.
Or do you elitists sit in the car while your spouse saves you money getting exactly the same item at the Dollar Store as YOU can get at a higher priced store that YOU don’t mind being seen in.
/rant
This is a good indicator of the bloodbath of competitors that will ensue if and when the iPhone comes to Verizon. Android annihilated, yes!
Yea and knowing Apple they had like 6 per store.
I guess I’m alone here;
Let’s see. There’s a great device that would make your daily routines much easier, is super enjoyable to use, and would provide lots of entertainment.
And you won’t buy it, for the sake of $50.
…
FIFTY DOLLARS?!!
FIFTY FRIGGIN’ DOLLARS?!!!
People who live cheaply, devalue their entire lives.
It’d be funny to see MDN running a business – they’d be bust in 6 months with an attitude like theirs.
Business is business. You buy at the cheapest price possible.
Hey! I’m trailer trash and want $50 of an iPad! I do look at price, but sometimes I splurge a little bit.
Everyone knows that your IQ drops 20% when you shop at Wal-Mart……….
Your IQ drops 20% when you watch 3 episodes of My Name Is Earl, in a row.
@Jamie
“It’d be funny to see MDN running a business – they’d be bust in 6 months”
You don’t think MDN IS a business?
These guys that make millions $ actually come to think that they are worth it and that they are infallible. It’s amazing how many bad decisions are made by these overpaid goofs.
It wasn’t just $50 for me. They also gave me $75 for my iPhone 3G that I was upgrading, for a total of $125 off the total price of an iPhone 4G.
Again, to clarify MDN’s take, at least how I took it…
Yes, $50 is real money and, yes, it’s not unwise at all to take the $50 savings if offered…BUT, the point is, over $50 you would chain yourself to something that is crap, that lessens your productivity, and decreases your enjoyment of LIFE itself?
It’s the exact same argument with the millions who go through life with a Windows box on their desk when they could have a Mac…because “Macs are so expensive!”
@silverhawk,
“You don’t think MDN IS a business?”
No, they’re a website. BIG difference… Are you 16 years old?
Several comments later, and still nobody figures out what MDN was trying to say.
Once again, for the boys in the back row:
MDN’s point was NOT a comment about being cheap or buying at Radio Shack.
When they say: “Some people can only see the sticker price*” (notice the asterisk and the footnote explaining it), they mean, some people thing $50 off means half off. These people are mistaken.
So, MDN wasn’t implying that those who buy at discount are somehow cheap; what they are saying is, most of those who rushed to buy an iPhone at $50 off did so thinking that they were getting it at half price, which is not correct.
I’ll repeat the math here: iPhone retail price is approximately $650 (when you include the part that AT&T pays through subsidy). $50 off is not even a 10% discount.
I hope this helps posters above climb down from their high horse.
ANdrew Fujita:
The $75 trade-in that you received for your 3G is abysmal. Well-kept used 3G routinely fetches $200 on eBay or CraigsList. Even with the $50 off that you got at Radio Shack, you got ripped off big time. (this is a repeat of my post to CJ above. Apparently, Andrew Fujita didn’t see it).
It’s fun being rude when you are anonymous, isn’t it ‘Jamie’? Those of us who choose not to give our real names have no business being offensive – it’s cowardly.
Judging by his name, ‘silverhawk’ is probably a mature adult – the clue’s in ‘silver’. ‘Jamie’, meanwhile, is what one calls a small child.
And do you really, truly believe that a website, especially one that carries extensive advertising and is updated at weekends, cannot be a business?
@Childermass,
“Judging by his name, ‘silverhawk’ is probably a mature adult – the clue’s in ‘silver’. ‘Jamie’, meanwhile, is what one calls a small child.”
Easily the funniest post here in a long time! Are you for real? The clue is in he word silver? My goodness, ladies and gentlement of the village, we have found your missing idiot!
Everyone is a child at some point, so your weakattempt to mock my name falls flat on its’ face. It’s also a name used for a male or female – next you’ll be calling me a cross-dresser!
Tell me, “Childermass”, what does your name say about you? Using your rationale to decipher names, you are a churchgoing child lover. Hmmmm. Reverend Childermass?
Back on topic – I don’t think you can call a website like MDN a true business, not in the sense of negotiation, finding best price etc. etc. They update their site at wekends – so what? How many businesses do you run Childermass? I’m guessing none.
Crap name by the way Childermass. Really crap.
Grow a pair will ya, and stop your pedantic crying.
Tried to buy it on-line,was told they weren’t selling them on-line
Uh… wasn’t the $50 off only on the iPhone 3GS? If they sold out of iPhone 4 I’d say Radio Shack did a good job of up selling.
When they first announced this a few days ago, one of MDN’s regular readers went to three different Radio Shack stores in his neighbourhood, and every single one of them was out. Also, salesmen in those stores had IDENTICAL scripted pitch: “We currently don’t have the iPhone, but we have something MUCH better; it’s multi-touch just like the iPhone, has apps, but also has all these other features that iPhone doesn’t”. I’m sure they were successfully selling plenty of Androids.
So, for Radio Shack, this $50 off on an iPhone was a well-designed lure to unload a stack of unsold Android phones. They likely did poorly on Black Friday…