A Vertigal Integrator’s Dream
CREDIT:
Could Apple sell an unlocked low-end iPhone for $200-$300 and kill off the iPod Touch? “[I]t could also be used as a phone by simply putting in a sim card . . . Apple probably also has the clout to make a data plan option, a la the 3G iPad, so that you could simply buy a months worth of data on your iPhone, without even having a voice plan.” John Gruber has some doubts:
I don’t know that any U.S. carriers would be willing to offer a data-only plan, though. I know it would be popular, but the mobile carriers aren’t stupid. Down that path lies the end of their business model of selling phone time.
But what if Deutsche Telekom owned a U.S. mobile carrier that it was desperate to sell, and what if the only buyer for that carrier has just been told by the U.S. Department of Justice that it won’t be allowed to buy? Apple has plenty of cash to buy a medium-sized mobile phone company and upgrade its physical infrastructure. Plus the Carly Foulkes T-Mobile ads are, in my view, appealing to the same sensibility as those hoodie guy vs John Hodgman Apple ads from back in the day.
More fun to speculate about than the timing of presidential speeches!
