iPhone Round-Up: AT&T Tethering Prices; iPhone In China; Crazy Pre-Orders; Speed Face-Off
There’s a ton of news trickling out about the iPhone 3G S, which officially went on sale today. If you are feeling overloaded, here’s a top-line summary of the most interesting stuff:
– AT&T’s position on iPhone tethering: AT&T (NYSE: T) quickly shot down rumors today that said using the iPhone as a modem for your computer would cost subscribers an additional $55 a month. AppModo reported that “The highly anticipated tethering option will also be delivered towards the end of July with pricing around $55 per month.” AT&T wrote on its Facebook page that the information was incorrect. It wrote: “There are a lot of reports out there, but wanted you guys to know that rumors of $55 tethering plan on top of an unlimited data plan are false. We
YouTube clips on the iPhone over 3G are limited by AT&T it would appear. The quality when you are on WiFi is vastly different. I'm also not entirely sure how comparing completely disparate networks (and AT&Ts; being notably bad) give any indication of the actual phone speed. It would have made more sense to compare them when both phones were on WiFi.
Because we work in the web space in China (http://popupchinese.com), we do occasional research into the mobile market here.
What's really interesting about the iPhone from the Chinese perspective is that the software is essentially all free because of piracy. The devices are really growing pervasive and since everyone already buys cracked versions in order to install the pirated software it doesn't really matter what happens with the carrier. Apple has already won.
–david