Buying The 3G iPhone, What About Our Contracts??

[Santa Rosa]

When the new iPhone is released (most likely 3G) are we going to be stuck with our old iPhones not able to upgrade??

I think when they come out Apple should allow you to dock your new 3G iPhone, give you an option to transfer your existing contract across and then to be fair to Apple to let the process finish, dock your old iPhone and then it becomes deactivated.

We have bought the phone with our own hard cash, I definately think that we should be allowed to upgrade to the new iPhone without being tied down to our contract because AT&T, O2 and so on arent giving you the phone as part of the contract.

What do you think is going to happen, will happen??

 

[AndyClarke]

Surely it will be like getting a replacement phone. Just register the new phone with your account and add 3g to your tariff?

 

[Sedulous]

I think users are stuck with the contract. Much like when you buy a new car, the insurance does not simply carry over. At best you can add it to an existing policy.

 

[Santa Rosa]

I think users are stuck with the contract. Much like when you buy a new car, the insurance does not simply carry over. At best you can add it to an existing policy.

Wouldnt Apple then be loosing money, having many people not able to buy the new iPhone when it comes out.

I would take a guess that its going to be released during the period of everybodys iPhone contract, meaning the huge majority of people who would probably buy the new iPhone wont be able to going by your logic.

In saying that also I realise there are probably another large group of people who are holding out for the 3G iPhone??

 

[westernmass]

Good point, maybe they should wait 2 years in between new phone models So new iphone not coming until July 09. That would save me some money.

 

[Kevin83165]

New phone comes out, old phone goes to daughter just like all my used socks

 

[avaloncourt]

I'm new to GSM so the old-timers may want to comment. There's another thread about swapping SIMs between iPhones. If a new HSDPA version was released wouldn't all that was needed would be to change SIMs from one to the other? The contract would still be ongoing (although the contract is assuming EDGE but I don't think it specifies you only have access to EDGE). Would that be right? Or would you have to "activate" and then swap? Having a floating account SIM is new to me. I'm not sure what you can actually do with a SIM. Granted, you can't change from iPhone to non-iPhone (or the other way around) "easily" but from iPhone to iPhone should be a straight swap shouldn't it since they're both the iPhone SIM?

I was reading last night about the 'loaner' repair iPhones on the Apple site and the information there says to just put your SIM in and use the loaner and remove it when you return it.

 

[Sedulous]

Wouldnt Apple then be loosing money, having many people not able to buy the new iPhone when it comes out.

I would take a guess that its going to be released during the period of everybodys iPhone contract, meaning the huge majority of people who would probably buy the new iPhone wont be able to going by your logic.

In saying that also I realise there are probably another large group of people who are holding out for the 3G iPhone??

Doesn't change the fact that people have contracts to keep, so regardless of whether you want a new phone or not, that contract must be met. As many people have already suggested, it might be possible to simply swap SIMs, but the contract will stand.

 

[Santa Rosa]

Doesn't change the fact that people have contracts to keep, so regardless of whether you want a new phone or not, that contract must be met. As many people have already suggested, it might be possible to simply swap SIMs, but the contract will stand.

My first post said exactly that, we would be keeping our contracts, thats a definite, but the difference is (as I understand it in the UK) people are given a free phone as part of keeping their contract aka the phone is part of the contract, you are paying monthly for that as well.

The iPhone however is altogether different, the phone company doesnt technically own your phone, you do. Hence you are only paying for the service which as you point out you need to keep a contract to that and that is perfectly valid, but we should be able to upgrade to the new iPhone without any contractual obligation considering it isnt part of the contract.

Also the SIM in the iPhone as I believe it will go into any other ordinary unlocked phone but not into another iPhone as an iPhone SIM is locked to the exact iPhone it came with?

 

[hexonxonx]

Also the SIM in the iPhone as I believe it will go into any other ordinary unlocked phone but not into another iPhone as an iPhone SIM is locked to the exact iPhone it came with?

That's true. A friend bought an iPhone last month and I got to try my sim card in his iPhone to see if it would work after his iPhone was activated. When I put my sim in, it asked me to activate the iPhone as a new phone. It didn't give me the option of which account I wanted to choose, it just picked the $79 one and was told there would be a two year agreement. It then aksed me if I wanted to port over my new number. I stopped there.

I called Apple and they said this is because of the IMEI number.

I also have a GoPhone that my iPhone sim card works in perfectly. I can take and make calls on the GoPhone with my Phone sim and even surf the net and send texts. When I try the sim from my GoPhone in my iPhone, the iPhone is activated but nothing works.

 

[cdfink]

This is my first post on this forum, and from what I have seen so far, there is a lot of good info here!

I'm definitely not new to forums, so I hope I'm able to contribute at least a little bit here.

My question is, I have held out this long for an iPhone...would it be wise to wait a while longer for the new iPhone to come out? When is the new version supposed to be released? I was planning on getting one of the current models here in the next week or so but if the 3G model will be released relatively soon than I would be happy to wait a little while.

Any information you can provide would be great.

I will do some searching for more info...sorry if this post is a little redundant.

Thanks again.

-Fink

 

[memesmith]

My question is, I have held out this long for an iPhone...would it be wise to wait a while longer for the new iPhone to come touch? When is the new version supposed to be released? I was planning on getting one of the current models here in the next week or so but if the 3G model will be released relatively soon than I would be happy to wait a little while.

There is no 3G iphone, there is no announcement about a 3G iphone. The is no release date for a 3G iphone. So my advice is if you want one don't wait on the basis of speculation like this.

 

[Phil A.]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

my feeling is that the carrier will let you upgrade to 3g but at the cost of extending your contract for another 18 months on top of what you have left to run. That way they tie you in for as long as possible and also get the phone revenue.

 

[emotion]

There is no 3G iphone, there is no announcement about a 3G iphone. The is no release date for a 3G iphone. So my advice is if you want one don't wait on the basis of speculation like this.

Agreed. It might be wise to wait until after 15th Jan for any minor upgrade (16GB is an outside chance).

It could be a long wait for 3G (Autumn this year?). However, I'm willing to be surprised.

 

[Santa Rosa]

my feeling is that the carrier will let you upgrade to 3g but at the cost of extending your contract for another 18 months on top of what you have left to run. That way they tie you in for as long as possible and also get the phone revenue.

That would seem to make sense but I would like to see Apple advertising the fact. Buy the new iPhone, extend your contract to what would be another two years of the same contract (18 months UK) on top of what you have remaining, no hope of a change to give you more minutes and more texts or something along those lines.

I cannot see people wanting to do that. The iPhone contracts in the UK are pretty bad to many people already as so so so few people take into account the data that you get as many wouldnt use it and I hazard a guess there are a whole load more people that probably dont know or understand what it is or what its for.

Hence many people have not bought the iPhone due to this, I think it would be terrible to alienate the people that have got the iPhone contract in not allowing them to buy the 3G iPhone without further contractual commitment.

 

[mudaudio]

http://www.o2.co.uk/termsconditions/iphone

Section 8.3
If this Agreement is ended during the Minimum Period, you may be required to pay us the monthly subscription charges up to the end of that Minimum Period. This does not apply if you end the Agreement for the reasons in paragraph 8.4 or if you purchase a new iPhone from us, but in this case you agree that a new Minimum Period will apply.

--

I was wary that they may change the terms. I have a PDF copy just in case. (but I'm sure I read somewhere that T&Cs cannot be changed 'significantly' without letting you break the contract or something. Not sure if that's true?).

Either way, it seems that o2 users will be able to upgrade without a fee, but a new minimum term will apply.

 

[bentup]

IF Apple sticks with ATT, and a new iPhone comes out before the two years are up. You are likely going to have to pay the full price of a new phone and renew a two year subscription with ATT. The two year thing is pretty standard with new phones from ATT. If Apple ditches ATT... Well then we are all going to have to pay a cancelation fee!

 

[Santa Rosa]

So according to O2 we are going to be stuck with our contracts no matter what. That really sucks.

It still seems strange though because they must be fully aware of the way Apple's products are followed by their fans and what a different device the iPhone actually is.

When have you ever seen a Sony Ericsson fan (Sony Ericsson rumors!!) lol, massive queues to buy the new Sony Ericsson phone etc!!!

The iPhone is just something completely different and I think the contracts that are applied to it have to follow suit.

 

[Aries326]

Why would you have to renew a 2 year contract with AT&T to buy a new 3G iPhone if they're not even offering the phone with a discount? That doesn't make sense. When I wanted to upgrade to a new phone when I was with T-Mobile, I just bought a phone from eBay and swapped out the SIMs. T-Mobile didn't make me renew the contract just because the phone is new.

Just go buy a 3G iPhone from Apple or eBay where they don't make you sign a 2 year contract at the time of purchase and swap out the SIM. The sims in these phones are already 3G ready to begin with. Stick the new SIM from the 3G iPhone into the old iPhone, sell it on eBay and have the new owner activate it.

 

[SilentLoner]

I know this confuses me too. I have no problem getting a 3g iphone but will I just be able to swap sims?

 

[lennyp06]

If you were to buy a new 3g iphone and swap sim cards all your doing is getting a newer shell for your account. The speed for the att network is followed by the sim card, not the phone itself. And while the phone needs to have the components to run 3g you have to have a card to communicate 3g

 

[SilentLoner]

If you were to buy a new 3g iphone and swap sim cards all your doing is getting a newer shell for your account. The speed for the att network is followed by the sim card, not the phone itself. And while the phone needs to have the components to run 3g you have to have a card to communicate 3g

I do know how the gsm networks run having a hobby in them helps, I would assume that you would just buy a new 3g iphone and put your old sim in and activate it the usual way.

I would assume so anyways.

 

[lennyp06]

I do know how the gsm networks run having a hobby in them helps, I would assume that you would just buy a new 3g iphone and put your old sim in and activate it the usual way.

I would assume so anyways.

I did not realize until after i posted that the card that comes in the iphone is a 3g card so that makes sense. I dont know if you would have to activate it per se, but just popping a sim card in there should be good enough. At least that is how it works with most other phones.

 

[isooz]

Scuse ignorance but why would you want 3g that much anyway? My previous phone was a 3g phone - unlocked. I used my old sim ( that I've had for 3 or 4 years) in it. 3g worked fine, but my iphone is by far and away better even without 3g. IMHO 3g is overated. But then maybe I'm missing something.

 

[gloss]

Scuse ignorance but why would you want 3g that much anyway? My previous phone was a 3g phone - unlocked. I used my old sim ( that I've had for 3 or 4 years) in it. 3g worked fine, but my iphone is by far and away better even without 3g. IMHO 3g is overated. But then maybe I'm missing something.

3G equals faster browsing on the go. Not hard to see why it would be tempting.