Upgrading to 16gb iPhone / AT&T Contract

[Rene Ritchie]

Ars covers iLounge getting to the bottom of switching up:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/02/06/iphone-upgraders-do-the-att-contract-shuffle

 

[jay_man2]

Can someone translate that into something we can understand? I read the article twice, and am more confused with each reading.

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Siegel confirms that upgrading to a new iPhone does indeed require signing what is technically a new two-year contract. However, the new contract is backdated to the signing day of the original contract, i.e., you won't be doubling your AT&T servitude to four years. Seigel also confirms that users should activate new iPhones with the new SIM provided with the phone.

Sounds straight forward enough: sign up a new 16gb iPhone, AT&T back-dates the new contract to the date of your original iPhone contract, so no extension or doubling, and your old SIM card gets out of contract.

Sounds straight forward, but who wants to guess the amount of time people will spend on the phone with AT&T tech fixing up blunders?

 

[whmurray]

Sounds straight forward enough: sign up a new 16gb iPhone, AT&T back-dates the new contract to the date of your original iPhone contract, so no extension or doubling, and your old SIM card gets out of contract.

Sounds straight forward, but who wants to guess the amount of time people will spend on the phone with AT&T tech fixing up blunders?

Eh. I can wait for 3G.

 

[cmaier]

Ditto. Until they get to 64GB (so that I can fit all my music on it), memory alone isn't a compelling upgrade for me. Though I guess we'll see how much space I can fill with software when the SDK comes out.

 

[whmurray]

Ditto. Until they get to 64GB (so that I can fit all my music on it), memory alone isn't a compelling upgrade for me. Though I guess we'll see how much space I can fill with software when the SDK comes out.

I am now carrying, charging, and syncing a Treo 650, iPod 5G, and an iPhone. No single new offering will remedy this crazy situation. However, to the extent that anyone carries more than one device, there is a lot of opportunity for someone.

 

[cmaier]

i ditched my treo 650 a long time ago. once i jailbroke the iphone, there was no compelling reason to hold on to the treo. When the official sdk comes out, that should end up solving the problem for most other people holding on to palms.

I also do carry around an ipod photo and an iphone, but i mostly keep the ipod in my car. I would love an iphone with much more memory, but the sweet spot, judging by relative sales of the various capacity ipod models, is probably not as high as I'd like it to be.

 

[whmurray]

i ditched my treo 650 a long time ago. once i jailbroke the iphone, there was no compelling reason to hold on to the treo. When the official sdk comes out, that should end up solving the problem for most other people holding on to palms.

I also do carry around an ipod photo and an iphone, but i mostly keep the ipod in my car. I would love an iphone with much more memory, but the sweet spot, judging by relative sales of the various capacity ipod models, is probably not as high as I'd like it to be.

I keep my Treo for e-books, GPS (TomTom 6), and Splashshopper. Have turned off network access with AT&T so I cannot use DA.