NEWS: O2 slashes price of 8GB iPhone
Dominic Dawes
Tue, 15 Apr 2008, 6:07pm
The price of Apple's 8GB iPhone is to be slashed to just £169, in a special offer that lasts from tomorrow until June 1st.
O2, the mobile network which exclusively provides contracts for the iPhone, has cut the price by £100, from £269.
The deal includes a choice of different contracts starting at £35 per month, and you will need to sign up to an 18-month contract. Those who take up the new deal will also be given free access to all 7,500 of The Cloud's Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK.
The price of the 16GB iPhone will remain the same at £329 inc VAT.
Technorati Tags: Apple, digital music, Downloads, iPhone, iTunes, MP3
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Comments
£169 is better, but its still over priced & still over hyped.
I have one of the 8Gb iPhones. It is the best phone I've ever had and is probably the finest integrated user experience I can imagine. Sure there are 2 things it doesn't do, inserting phone numbers from the phonebook into texts and forwarding texts to other people, but that's it. It is otherwise perfect. I'd like more memory and a faster data connection but I'm happy with it as it is and recommend it without any reservation. What an amazing first phone. Funnily enough it's the iPod that lets it down in some ways. Navigating could be a bit more like iTunes if they made an effort. That is an area that will hopefully be improved in time. How many other mobiles update the software to keep them at the cutting edge? None that I can think of.
@ Will Harris,
Ericsson were one of the first mobile phone manufacturers to offer software updates for their phones before merging with Sony, way back when the very first colour screen mobile phone called the T68m came out.
The Sony Ericsson P800i was one of the first colour touchscreen phones on the market that allowed you to play videos & MP3s etc back in 2002.
So when oyu think about it, Apple aint doing nothing that revolutionary.
I must admit to being tempted by thid deal now. But one has to wonder if a newer version of the must have handset is imminent .
18 mths on £35 would be hard to swallow if Apple announced a new iphone with ,say -a decent camera with a flash and video capabilties.
I for one am sceptical .
Which presumably means it's not selling as well as they'd hoped...
Apple are rumoured to be announcing the new 3G iPhone in June. Also, like Andrew says, it's not been selling as well as Apple and O2 hoped and follows similar price cuts in Europe.
I would actually really like an iPhone. I know it's hip and trendy at the moment to say they're awful, but having the Touch means I know how useful a lot of the functions are. And also being both a PC and a Mac user, I really like the Apple interface. The main problem for me is, having the Touch, I just don't see the point in having the iPhone as well. The only thing it's giving me is phone calls and SMS messaging which my normal Sony Ericsson does very well already...
Apparently this is only an O2 promotion, so Apple will continue to charge the full £269 for the 8Gb iPhone in its stores, which seems odd. Methinks they may lose some customers.
Damn, just signed a deal with Orange for 18 months for an N95....
Also an imac user and the interface and syncing would've been great but at the old price it was just too expensive (double it and you could have a 42" Panasonic plasma).
Anyway squirreling away £10 a month so will get one in 18 months....
I'm also an owner of an iPod touch, and I'm tempted by this deal. It's not just the fact that I would integrate phone, browser and iPod functions, it's also the camera etc.
But I agree with rockmanrock and FuzzyinLondon: this deal is designed to shift unsold units in advance of the launch of the 3G iPod. The question is, how much will the new unit cost when it comes out. If sales of the iPhone have been slower than hoped, maybe they've come to their senses on price. I wouldn't want to go for this £169 deal if on June 1st they announce a 3G version for £199. Tricky...
I hope so Dominic. I'd love one but they don't think they justify their lofty price (cost of phone + tariff over 18 months). I think Apple have misjudged the European mobile phone and how it differs to that of the USA, where they are used to paying for the handset upfront. They need to be more competitive with their pricing if they really want to carve out a decent market share and compete with the likes of Nokia and the upper end of the market.
Dominic but that doesn't make a sense. If the price cut was announced because they're planning to release of 3G IPhone, why would they only drop the price of 8GB unit? Who is going to buy 16GB IPhone Edge if there is going to be IPhone 3G on the market? The next big thing for apple is IPhone 2.0 software release because they really want to get into corporate market and I think they will. Imagine a person that has an option between IPhone and Blackberry as the corporate phone. What are they gonna choose. IPhone of course because it's cool even if you can type email faster on blackberry. Apple doesn't do 2 things at the same time, they want to get as much as they can from the IPhone v1 and only then move to 3G version. I think there is still a lot of money to be made from IPhone v1. Anyway I hope I'm wrong as IPhone 3G would be really cool!