Editorial

Posted on 10 Jul 2008 at 15:48

 

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It's make or break time for the iPhone, and it shows: Apple has never before sold its hardware so cheaply. But is it time to give into temptation?

By the time you read this, the iPhone 3G will be upon us. And about time, too. Don't get me wrong: the first iPhone was great, but this is what it should have been from day one. Perhaps Apple rushed out the first version so that it could be the first to the market - maybe it was frightened that another company might steal its thunder. But it really shouldn't have bothered; when you look at what its rivals have come up with in the months since then, you can see how far behind they languish right now.

So the question is, are the new features enough to see you part with some cash? And more to the point, if you already have an iPhone 2.5G (or iPhone Edge as it ought to be properly called), will they tempt you into an upgrade?

The iPhone 3G is make or break for Apple, and you can tell that from the way the company has been promoting it. If the iPhone 3G doesn't capture a sizeable chunk of the market this time around (and I think it will) then Apple may as well walk away. The iPhone is streets ahead of the competition, which time and again promises us an iPhone killer without realising that it takes more than a 3.5in screen to have us signing up for an 18month deal.

Which begs the question: why Apple is being so generous with the iPhone time around, throwing in every incentive imaginable other than dinner with Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive in an effort to get us signing on the bottom line.

There are so many saleable new features in the iPhone that it would easily have you reaching for your credit card without a subsidy, yet the networks are picking up some of the handset cost to tempt you into buying one. And it's good enough to have us splashing the cash even if we had to give back our old ones in return. Yet we don't: we can keep them running for the price of a pay-as-you-go Sim.

And then Apple plays its ace: keep your old iPhone - we don't want it - and if you don't want to pay-as-you-go, just use it as a free, if slightly chunky iPod touch. That's like throwing us a £199 gift: more than the cost of even the best new iPhone on the cheapest tariff.

So if you were an early adopter, Apple is actually paying you to move on. What do you mean it's not payment if it isn't cold hard cash? Sell it second-hand and your upgrade has paid for itself. That's the kind of 'thank you' I like.

Author: Nik Rawlinson