AT&T Branding, iPhone and Revenue Sharing

That's fine....as long as my iPhone doesn't say "AT&T Wireless" anywhere on it (not that I expect it to).

i still find it interesting that Apple is getting a part of the monthly cost. and i wonder if it has to do with some expense on Apple's side of things. Upgrade rollouts and such on their Servers? hard to tell. Apple is definitely shaking up the phone market like never before though.

That's fine....as long as my iPhone doesn't say "AT&T Wireless" anywhere on it (not that I expect it to).

From what I read, Apple also made sure the terms allowed only on-screen branding... no physical branding of the device.

arn

From what I read, Apple also made sure the terms allowed only on-screen branding... no physical branding of the device.

arn

I don't love the idea of on-screen branding either, but at least that wouldn't completely ruin the physical aesthetics of the device.

Can you imagine the TV and media blitz that Apple PLUS AT&T will be bombarding us with? :o I already see a ton of AT&T ads and quite a few Apple ones. Combine the two and the remaining seven people who haven't heard of thee iPhone are sure to find out...

I don't love the idea of on-screen branding either, but at least that wouldn't completely ruin the physical aesthetics of the device.

Not so bad if it's just that tiny status line we've seen at top left. A big animated AT&T startup logo would be annoying--but I'd deal as long as it only happened on a true reboot, not every time you woke from sleep.

Apple is providing direct customer support, and at their last quarterly earnings call they also highlighted an accounting change for the iPhone that they will be providing software updates, possibly even feature upgrades, on an ongoing basis.

i still find it interesting that Apple is getting a part of the monthly cost. and i wonder if it has to do with some expense on Apple's side of things. Upgrade rollouts and such on their Servers? hard to tell. Apple is definitely shaking up the phone market like never before though.

So Americans pay for an unsubsidized mobile phone and they also have to pay for monthly fees to Apple. I think this is a rip off. :mad:

i still find it interesting that Apple is getting a part of the monthly cost. and i wonder if it has to do with some expense on Apple's side of things. Upgrade rollouts and such on their Servers? hard to tell. Apple is definitely shaking up the phone market like never before though.

A couple of options I can think of. The cell phone industry is notoriously harsh on cell phone makers- phones are considered to be worth far less than they cost to make. Because of that it's hard to sell more expensive phones that actually make a profit and are distinctive. Clones come out fast and pressure to reduce prices is so great that a hip phone can't last long, because soon everybody will have one, etc.

Apple could be trying to boost the asking price for a phone to change this situation, while still getting money. Further, by keeping the price artificially high, they keep the phone exclusive, desirable, and thus, profitable, for much longer than would otherwise be the case. Apple sees the cell phone as a threat to the ipod buisness, so they've decided the good position to be in is to make music player phones themselves- but they want to keep the ipod's prices in these phones, not typical phone prices.

Another, much simpler option is that apple thinks people will use the iphone and it's web services more than AT&T thinks people will, and so apple sees more revenue from their portion of the service plan than the phone subsidy is worth, while AT&T sees the opposite.

So Americans pay for an unsubsidized mobile phone and they also have to pay for monthly fees to Apple. I think this is a rip off. :mad:

Apple will be supporting the applications and hardware and if you've read other rumers there will be ongoing additions to the applications. Money isn't generated out of their butts, so taking a bit of the service fee will help cover costs. :)

This further goes to show how skilled Apple is at strong-arming "partners" into getting a fabulous cut from a deal. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but it's a bit of a bully-esque thing to do. The shareholders like it, I'm sure.

-Clive