6 ms·

I guess people aren't able to do enough arithmetic to figure out that the monthly bill over the lifetime of a two-year contract swamps the $200 you have to pay

I guess people aren't able to do enough arithmetic to figure out that the monthly bill over the lifetime of a two-year contract swamps the $200 you have to pay upfront for a far more capable device. Caveat emptor. As an iOS dev I'm a little sad that I'm going to have to keep that low a common denominator in mind for the next few years though.

arn 15y ago
That's not necessarily the case. $200 is still $200. They pay the contract regardless. The same argument could be made about only getting the high end 64GB iPhone since $399 is a drop in the bucket compared to your contract. Or cable boxes. I assume that you have a top of the line TiVO rather than using what the cable company offers? Cause the upfront cost of the TiVo box is dwarfed by your long term cable bill. Some people just have different priorities.
- cageface 15y ago
  It looks like the absolute minimum you're going to spend on a 2 year contract is about $1300. You get tremendous bang for your buck for the extra 15% (or much less) a new iPhone 4S will cost you. I've never thought cable was worth the money so I can't say if a similar logic applies there.
Synaesthesia 15y ago
The 3GS has a modern CPU and GPU, very similar to the iPhone 4's, and run the latest iOS 5, so it shouldn't really cause headaches for you as a dev.
- cageface 15y ago
  I write cpu-intensive audio apps. The difference in performance between 3GS-level devices and the newer models is big enough to require some serious architectural differences in my code.
  - VBprogrammer 15y ago
    Without sounding like a snob, I would hesitantly suggest that those people who held out for a free iPhone 3gs are less likely to go spending a huge amount of money in the AppStore.
dendory 15y ago
That's not really true. I'm on Rogers here in Canada. Pre-paid used to give you some limited data connectivity, but they removed the option, and left it for dumb phones only. If you want to use a smartphone on pre-paid there is no way to add monthly data. The only option they offer is a $4 per DAY special data package. So I have to get a contract. My 3GS is still running fine, altho slowly with iOS5. It will last me until the iPhone 5.

arn 15y ago

That's not necessarily the case. $200 is still $200. They pay the contract regardless. The same argument could be made about only getting the high end 64GB iPhone since $399 is a drop in the bucket compared to your contract. Or cable boxes. I assume that you have a top of the line TiVO rather than using what the cable company offers? Cause the upfront cost of the TiVo box is dwarfed by your long term cable bill. Some people just have different priorities.

cageface 15y ago
It looks like the absolute minimum you're going to spend on a 2 year contract is about $1300. You get tremendous bang for your buck for the extra 15% (or much less) a new iPhone 4S will cost you. I've never thought cable was worth the money so I can't say if a similar logic applies there.

Synaesthesia 15y ago

The 3GS has a modern CPU and GPU, very similar to the iPhone 4's, and run the latest iOS 5, so it shouldn't really cause headaches for you as a dev.

cageface 15y ago
I write cpu-intensive audio apps. The difference in performance between 3GS-level devices and the newer models is big enough to require some serious architectural differences in my code.
- VBprogrammer 15y ago
  Without sounding like a snob, I would hesitantly suggest that those people who held out for a free iPhone 3gs are less likely to go spending a huge amount of money in the AppStore.

dendory 15y ago

That's not really true. I'm on Rogers here in Canada. Pre-paid used to give you some limited data connectivity, but they removed the option, and left it for dumb phones only. If you want to use a smartphone on pre-paid there is no way to add monthly data. The only option they offer is a $4 per DAY special data package. So I have to get a contract. My 3GS is still running fine, altho slowly with iOS5. It will last me until the iPhone 5.