Not sure how things are (& were) in the states, but down here I think Apple did something interesting. The iphone plans must come with 'data plans.' These have been available but something that consumers just didn't want (to pay for) previously. They always took the 'pay as you go' options, & just avoided using it. So the majority of people that bought phones in the past couple of years had internet enable devices that they never used. Apple broke that.
I think it comes back to Apple's measures of success. They don't just measure sales, they measure use. Do you check mail? Do you listen to music? Do you use the browser?
The contracts (while highly priced) are there to optimise for those latter metrics. It's a much more forward minded strategy then most of what we've seen up to now. Given the whole segment a kick up the arse.
Not sure how things are (& were) in the states, but down here I think Apple did something interesting. The iphone plans must come with 'data plans.' These have been available but something that consumers just didn't want (to pay for) previously. They always took the 'pay as you go' options, & just avoided using it. So the majority of people that bought phones in the past couple of years had internet enable devices that they never used. Apple broke that.
I think it comes back to Apple's measures of success. They don't just measure sales, they measure use. Do you check mail? Do you listen to music? Do you use the browser?
The contracts (while highly priced) are there to optimise for those latter metrics. It's a much more forward minded strategy then most of what we've seen up to now. Given the whole segment a kick up the arse.