Buying an iPhone

musanman

Ladies and Gentlemen, with the upcoming 3g iphone (almost certainly in a couple weeks) I am finally going to pull the trigger.

Now the problem is, I don't know shit about AT&Ts service plans. I looked it up online, and saw that for about $110 I can get a family plan with like 700 minutes and all the data things I need. This will be good for the female and I, but I don't know exactly what it entails.

-When signing up, will we qualify for any deals on phones for her since I'm already getting an iphone.
-Does AT&T have a bunch of bullshit extra charges like T-Mobile has had lately, or will I really pay $110/month
-Any experience with iphone or At&t service in general?

H/A...do your thing

Elin

You can't get insurance on an iPhone, if you break it you get to buy another one.

ATT is ok, I don't know about data plans though.

Edit for specifics: You can not get cell phone specific insurance through ATT fot the iPhone. I don't know the ease of use for outside insurance.

Shogun

I have an iPhone. I love it but ATT's service has gone down the tubes. It seems to me when it was Cingular I got great service regardless of where I went. Now if I cross into the west side of town I get 1 bar or no service. Certain parts of the nearest metropolitan area to me get no service whatsoever. At my home I usually get 5 bars though. It is quite odd I'm not sure if it is the iPhone or ATT.

The phone itself has been good to me outside of a few hiccups. Shortly after I purchased the phone I got a very weird software problem where the bottom row of the keyboard in apps like txt messaging and safari would not respond. The Apple 'genius' tried incredibly hard to somehow blame this problem on me and refuse service for the phone. Eventually he gave up but I definitely left not liking Apple. For reference I am no fanboy the iPhone is the first apple product I have ever purchased. My battery life has gone down a fair amount as well. Sometimes when charging my phone when it is almost dead it will shoot up to over half a charge in a matter of minutes. The only other thing is on my screen I am starting to develop these tiny little bubbles in the glass. First they were small but they seem to be getting larger. There's a cluster of about 5 of them in the top left corner. I'd like to take it back to apple but by now the case is scratched up and I honestly don't think the 'genius' will be of any help to me.

edit: By the way the above post is not true. ATT may not insure your iPhone but any insurance company will. I paid State Farm $40 for a year of coverage against any mishap to my phone.

musanman

Regarding insurance I consider that a completely separate issue, and am about 100% positive insurance companies will cover anything I want them to, if I give them a certain fee per year.

Wulf

The Data charge is already part of the plan, and is unlimited data.
There is a small charge to move a phone onto your plan, and make sure that your numbers are both in the same Area Code or they will bitch and moan.
The thing I liked most about the service plans is that you could take your iPhone home, and set it up there at your leisure, take as long as you liked looking at the different plans etc.

Quid

ATT is alright. I was with Cingular originally and I have to agree that I got better service with them, but it's still decent. They did try to charge me a couple grand worth of call charges when I lost my phone in Iraq and didn't file a police report but dropped that after a few calls and I think their inability to find any police there.

mastman

Quid wrote: »

ATT is alright. I was with Cingular originally and I have to agree that I got better service with them, but it's still decent. They did try to charge me a couple grand worth of call charges when I lost my phone in Iraq and didn't file a police report but dropped that after a few calls and I think their inability to find any police there.

You should have been like "I was in fucking Iraq. Do you know what is happening in fucking Iraq"

TL DR

mastman wrote: »

Quid wrote: »

ATT is alright. I was with Cingular originally and I have to agree that I got better service with them, but it's still decent. They did try to charge me a couple grand worth of call charges when I lost my phone in Iraq and didn't file a police report but dropped that after a few calls and I think their inability to find any police there.

You should have been like "I was in fucking Iraq. Do you know what is happening in fucking Iraq"

Can't hurt to apply this to any such situation, really. If it fails, escalate to the supervisor and repeat.

Scrublet

Before you pull that trigger, there are rumors going around that iPhone is going to be available on multiple providers soon, and/or AT&T is going to start doing subsidies (the time-old thing where you sign a 2-year contract, you get $200 off your phone). Anyone else been seeing this? May be worth waiting till a few weeks after the conference to see what shakes loose.

Crashtard

Scrublet wrote: »

Before you pull that trigger, there are rumors going around that iPhone is going to be available on multiple providers soon, and/or AT&T is going to start doing subsidies (the time-old thing where you sign a 2-year contract, you get $200 off your phone). Anyone else been seeing this? May be worth waiting till a few weeks after the conference to see what shakes loose.

I'd probably shit myself if this happened. Then buy one.

Balgair

I can't see AT&T sharing the iPhone without a fight, though I'm sure Apple's the one wearing the pants...

$0.02: Greatest phone I've ever owned (before it was stolen), my previous experience being almost exclusively with Blackberries/windows mobile smartphones and the like...oh, and a Razr.

Gdiguy

Crashtard wrote: »

Scrublet wrote: »

Before you pull that trigger, there are rumors going around that iPhone is going to be available on multiple providers soon, and/or AT&T is going to start doing subsidies (the time-old thing where you sign a 2-year contract, you get $200 off your phone). Anyone else been seeing this? May be worth waiting till a few weeks after the conference to see what shakes loose.

I'd probably shit myself if this happened. Then buy one.

There was an article about this in a fairly reputable journal like a month or two ago (I want to say I saw it in Forbes linked from CNN?), but I didn't see the story catch on anywhere else, so I don't know if it's true... I'm seriously considering getting one if it is though.

Scrublet

In general, necroposting is bad. However, I saved this topic in case this got confirmed, as I feel that it would be important to the OP as well as anyone else thinking about getting a new phone:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Apple-iPhone-AT-T,news-1607.html

Not only is this important in letting down the price of the phone, but I would imagine we may start to see more flexible plans/pricing options for the thing as well. Hope this helps.

Double_Faces

Gdiguy wrote: »

Crashtard wrote: »

Scrublet wrote: »

Before you pull that trigger, there are rumors going around that iPhone is going to be available on multiple providers soon, and/or AT&T is going to start doing subsidies (the time-old thing where you sign a 2-year contract, you get $200 off your phone). Anyone else been seeing this? May be worth waiting till a few weeks after the conference to see what shakes loose.

I'd probably shit myself if this happened. Then buy one.

There was an article about this in a fairly reputable journal like a month or two ago (I want to say I saw it in Forbes linked from CNN?), but I didn't see the story catch on anywhere else, so I don't know if it's true... I'm seriously considering getting one if it is though.

I bring you information....

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/06/07/apple-to-allow-subsides-on-iphone

cloudeagle

The subsidies are true: the price is now $199 for a new 8GB and $299 for a 16 GB. It's not available till July 11, though.

Keep in mind that phone plans for the iPhone are vastly different than the rest of AT&T's lineup. I think there's only two or three different configurations compared to dozens for pretty much every other phone.

Also, I've found out from inside sources that if you're under contract for any phone with AT&T already and you're not eligible for an upgrade, you CAN still buy the new iPhone for $199 or $299, though you'll still deal with a two-month contract.

Oh, the price for unlimited data is going up... it's $30 per month for the 3G iPhones. Worse than the $20 plan for original iPhones, but better than the $40 for pretty much every other smartphone.

Gdiguy

Since trying to find this information online has driven me nuts - do you know offhand what's the cheapest total monthly costs in terms of at&t plans? (for a non-current-at&t-subscriber)

Organichu

Gdiguy wrote: »

Since trying to find this information online has driven me nuts - do you know offhand what's the cheapest total monthly costs in terms of at&t plans? (for a non-current-at&t-subscriber)

The cheapest voice plan is $39.99... the cheapest data plan for EDGE is $20, FOR 3G it is apparently going up to $30.

So I guess that at this stage the cheapest iPhone 3G plan will be $69.99 and will include: 450 anytime minutes, 5,000 N&W, unlimited data (assuming no caveats are announced), and I think includes 200 SMS messages.

Shogun

I have the plan with 450 anytime minutes, 5000 night and weekend, unlimited data, and 1500 txt messages. After taxes and fees my bill comes out each month to about $81. Before that when I just had the 200 txt messages it would come out to about $73. Hope this helps.

Gdiguy

awesome, thanks guys

hm, now i just need to figure out a way to justify going from a $10-addon to my family's plan to that...