Apple and AT&T Are Unloading Old iPhones - $49

Remember the old 8GB 3G iPhones from back in the day (sure you know months ago), well AT&T has quite a few in surplus and is unloading the refurbed smartphones for as low as $49 a pop

A recent scan of the iPhone 3GS availability tool shows that many of the Apple stores are stocked with plenty iPhone 3GS models , this availability is probably the reason for the older phone's price drop. If you want the reduced price 3G better act fast, $49 might be a little to hard to resist for most people.

iPhone's Link to AT&T May Lead to Diminished Growth

Apple and AT&T's exclusive agreement is probably not the best way to sell the maximum amount of iPhones.

Apple made a deal with AT&T to lock down the iPhones so that they would solely run on the company's network. The agreement has opened the door for 'hacks' to create software so the phone can be unlocked from the network.

The result of numerous consumer questionnaires suggest that more folks would purchase the iPhone if it were made available through a different wireless company.

More specifically the results of those mentioned polls showed that over 10% of the participating cell phone consumers would purchase an iPhone if was made available with another network. Dropped calls and limited coverage may be the number one and two reasons for such discontent.

Chief Operating Officer of Apple Tim Cook has stated:

"the relationship with AT&T is strong and he is happy."

So while not every customer is thrilled with this agreement, Apple does not seem to be hurting, they are still scoring record profits.

iPhone 3GS Produces ATT's 'best-ever sales day'

The iPhone 3GS launch on June 19th produced a "best-ever sales day" for AT&T's retail stores, a leaked memo is said to claim. The carrier similarly notes that it experienced its second-largest amount of one-day foot traffic, and the most transactions and upgrade eligibilities it has ever had to process. This comes despite also recording the largest-ever number of phone and feature orders through the AT&T website.

If true the achievements are notable for several reasons, such as surpassing the iPhone 3G launch in 2008, which itself drew major numbers that led to crashing activation servers. Records would further come in spite of Apple taking orders at its own stores and website, and allowing Best Buy and Walmart as third-party vendors. The 3GS can also be seen as an incremental upgrade to the 3G, mainly adding better performance.AT&T has not published exact numbers; Apple however has announced worldwide sales of over 1 million units during the launch weekend, the greatest percentage of which are likely to have been sold in the US.
article source: http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/07/02/iphone.3gs.launch.record/