Kevin Rose says $200 iPhone this week?

I heard the same thing from "someone"... Lower priced iPhone coming at $199.00 with contract.

I agree with Mickey too, I can't believe how off this dude was Dave.

Good catch on the Fortune article Blue, they do make some interesting business model points. The question may be though, how much influence does Apple have on whether or not AT&T subsidizes the phone? If Apple wanted to blow out the amount of units they sold originally, they would not have been so conservative and setup exclusivity with AT&T as well as not allow subsidizing. I believe that is because their profit model was not based solely on units sold but rather on data plan kickbacks from the operators they made exclusive arrangements with. This model did not pan out so well, though, as there have been many reports that almost 1/3 of the units sold are unlocked units which significantly cuts into their scheme. With the release of an iPhone that supports 3rd party software on Apple's terms they stand to have a new model that will get them the revenues over their losses due to the unlocked unit amounts. This in turn could forseeably allow them to loosen the noose with AT&T letting AT&T subsidize the phones to blow out the units sold without worrying about losses due to increased unlocking.

Of course this is all speculation, but an interesting scenario nonetheless.

As I recall, Fortune Magazine first broke the $200 iPhone story last month. An online version of the original article can be found here:

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/23/att-shows-thinking-on-new-iphone-subsidy/

If Kevin Rose is wrong, he's going to have a lot of company! What ever happens on the 9th, it's very clear that AT&T is shooting for market share. Also, note that the article states that the new iPhone won't be available until the end of June. I don't think the phone has even been certified by the FCC yet...

Mickey .. DITTO!!! Kevin Rose did this with the first iPhone 1.0 announcement remember this!!

# January launch on "all" providers, both CDMA and GSM
# Extremely small form factor
# Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions
# Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
# "Slide-out keyboard"
# Possibly touchscreen

I'm going to make a very bold statement.

Kevin Rose is wrong.

Remember this: http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/06/leaked-atandt-memo-points-to-3g-iphone-release-in-late-june/

What the heck else would they be releasing in late June? I believe nothing will be available on shelves until at least June 13th (Friday) if not later.

As far as the $200 price point. Could be, but don't look for it this week.

Steve,

Gonna stand in line to get one?

Lets hope it is tomorrow so I can go buy one

I hope the 3G releases early. This month is going to be awesome.