N. Courtney

iPhone 3G Fallout: Good for Towers, Bad for Palm

I find it interesting that people actually think people are going to to leave their carrier to get an iPhone, most people are in one, two or three year contracts, and they're not going to pay an early termination fee to go buy 200.00 or 400.00 phone, except trendy yuppie types who want to impress people, and who are some of the same people who live above their means, and live to impress. Until the communication industry adopt an open model for taking a telephone, your phone number, and the applications on it to another carrier they're always going to be trying to come up with ways to get customers, why would someone buy a phone, and buy applications for that phone and carrier and then switch carriers and risk losing the investment they've put into that phone.

You can put all the bells and whistles on the iPhone or any other phone, and it's not going to make people switch AT&T subsidizing Apple was a bad idea, especially for consumers when most manufacturers are trying to get their product out to as many people as possible, Apple goes with this same business model as they did with the iPod exclusivity. Verizon is the number one wireless carrier for a reason, and they don't sale iPhones, but they did have smart business since to buy Alltel. AT&T got an exclusive deal to sale iPhones. Which one of the carriers will sign an retain more customers in the long run, and customer defections usually aren't good for the business or it's investors.