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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (133823)	5/17/2012 7:23:20 PM
From: Sr K	Respond to of 213177

Verizon: Users Can Pay Full Phone Price Verizon Wireless said there was one surefire way for users to keep their all-you-can-eat plans: Pay full price for their smartphones. wsj.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (133823)	5/17/2012 7:57:24 PM
From: Cogito	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

What power does Apple have? They have the single best selling smartphone lineup in the world, which every carrier's customers demand, and which those customers have shown a willingness to go elsewhere to get. That's a pretty good bargaining chip. It's not even so much a matter of Apple driving a hard bargain with the carriers. It's their customers. If the subsidies for all phones are reduced, then iPhones will cost incrementally more, upfront. But so will every other phone. Will upgrade cycles slow down, as the carriers want? Probably, but how much that affects Apple will depend, in part, on how compelling each new iPhone upgrade is. Since the cycle already depends on that, I don't see what there is to be so worried about.

To: Road Walker who wrote (133823)	5/17/2012 9:17:02 PM
From: Lahcim Leinad	Respond to of 213177

I didn't think so at first, but now I'm thinking a power struggle is developing between the carriers and Apple. It could be why the stock is down. What power does Apple have? If they could sell that the total cost of ownership is less if people buy an unlocked iPhone, they could really screw the carriers scam. But that is a really hard sell. How tough is Cook, we might find out. I'm with you on this as of today, 100%. Why? Because as of today - like many others - I am happily phoning via my free iPhone, on my network of choice, namely T-Mobile. Didn't cost T-Mobile a penny. They were happy to help me, free of charge, at both ends. Painless: I swapped the sim cards; took a minute. Ergo, I'll remain a loyal T-Mobile customer, same bare bones phone plan I ever had, and will purchase pay-as-you-go T-Mobile data, when I need it. Win win for me and T-Mobile. Not that much win for AT&T, who originally subsidized this hand me down iPhone to the tune of serious hundreds of genuine US greenbacks, then unlocked it for free, at their cost of said money, time and effort. Things have changed. I don't fully understand exactly how far that will reach, in terms of Apple's pocket cash, but I can't see where it's profitable for anyone who paid for this to happen, in the first place. Not any longer. Worked then, but this is now. Times have changed, as they tend to do. So, I can see why carriers no longer want to pay as much as they did, given they now have viable, acceptable to customers, cheaper for carriers alternatives to push, instead. Plot thickens. :-)

To: Road Walker who wrote (133823)	5/17/2012 9:33:51 PM
From: Win-Lose-Draw	1 Recommendation Respond to of 213177

They need their own network. But that won't help outside the US.

To: Road Walker who wrote (133823)	5/18/2012 3:01:12 PM
From: Doren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

> a power struggle is developing between the carriers and Apple I think there has ALWAYS been a power struggle between Apple and the carriers. My guess is Jobs absolutely hated the carriers. Jobs was all about creating the future, the carriers were all about leveraging the past and protecting their fiefdoms. They've moved into the future reluctantly. If the iPhone didn't need the carriers, everyone would own one. I've always thought that Jobs' greatest desire once the iPhone was out there was to obsolete the carriers. I'm sure he thought about it a lot. He just couldn't figure out a cost effective way to do it. It was the carriers he really hated dealing with, not the content companies. I'm sure that's still on everyone's mind inside the inner sanctums of Apple.