iPhone Japan and Other International Pricing
Japanese mobile carrier Softbank announced pricing for the iPhone 3G which will be launched on July 11th, 2008. Softbank will sell the iPhone 3G for 23,040 yen ($214.6) with a monthly charge of 7,280 yen ($67). The service plan provides unlimited data usage and also allows subscribers to talk free between Softbank subscribers for most of the day. This is 70% higher than the average rate plan in Japan of 4,310 yen ($40). Softbank believes they will be able to attract new users to their service:
"We expect users who pay a lot to migrate from au (KDDI's mobile arm) and DoCoMo," Son told a group of reporters. "There have been users who were just attracted to our low price, but the main point this time is feature attractiveness rather than price."
DoCoMo was also in talks with Apple and has "not given up on talks".
Softbank warns that they expect the first supply to "evaporate instantly" and "we in the company will probably fight to get one as well."
Meanwhile, details of other international pricing and service plans have been emerging, including (unconfirmed):
- UK PAYG iPhone priced at 370
- One Australian customer completed an online survey about phones and price plans and listed the iPhone at $220 upfront and $80/mo service plan but may just be speculative pricing.
- iPhone Mexico rates leaked?
- Vodafone and TIM (Italy) announced unsubsidized pricing 499 and 569 euro (8GB and 16GB).
Popular Stories
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. The lack of ...
The lead developer of the multi-emulator app Provenance has told iMore that his team is working towards releasing the app on the App Store, but he did not provide a timeframe. Provenance is a frontend for many existing emulators, and it would allow iPhone and Apple TV users to emulate games released for a wide variety of classic game consoles, including the original PlayStation, SEGA Genesis,...
