AT&T’s Stephenson spills the beans on 3G iPhone (sort of)
At a recent meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, California, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson (apparently fed up with the constant questions about the iPhone’s 3G plans) allegedly blurted out “You’ll have it next year”.
Stephenson could not provide specific details on what the new iPhone would cost, saying only Steve Jobs “will dictate what the price of the phone is”.
Engadget is for some reason guessing a 3G version would debut at the former $599 of the original iPhone, but we doubt it. Unless there are a boatload of new features, no one is going to be rushing to drop $200 more for a (relatively cheap) 3G chip slapped inside the same iPhone that has been out for over a year. On the other hand, we wouldn’t be surprised to see AT&T hike up the cost of their data plans once the move to 3G is made, hoping to finally make some money off the iPhone.
Obviously, Stephenson didn’t really tell anyone anything we didn’t already know. We all knew a 3G iPhone was coming eventually, and “next year” could technically still mean 13 months from now. But that of course doesn’t mean Apple will be happy about this little slip of the lip either. Hopefully for Steve’s sake, he planed to announce the 3G iPhone at Macworld in January, because that is likely all the press will care about in interviews now.
Unless he drives on stage on the iCar, that is.
I honestly have no real problem with edge speeds. Or at least, not enough that I would want to pay more for a monthly data plan upgrade, or buy a new iPhone. Sure, it can take 30 seconds to load a page, but I usually use it only to get a phone number when out, and it is faster than calling information.