Sprint Goes After iPhone
Sprint released an attack on the as yet unreleased iPhone this week, launching both a new phone and a new music service. The phone is called the UpStage. It is trying to compete directly with the iPhone in design and function, working as both a phone and music player. They are touting this phone as being more equally call friendly and music friendly. One side has a large screen and controls for music video, music and video playback. The other side has a camera, the normal style cell phone keypad and a smaller display. The camera included is 1.3 megapixel - a pretty decent size for a cell phone.
The music store half of the attack, Sprint Music Store is cutting prices on all wireless music downloads to 99 cents in direct competition with iTunes’ famously competitive prices. Sprint’s online store will also offer a second copy of the song downloaded for your home computer. Of course, with the iPhone you will just be able to sync your Apple products anytime you’d like without the hassle of having to download two copies, but it’s a valiant try on sprint’s part anyway.
The main competitive edge Sprint’s UpStage will have is price. At $149.00 USD it is much more cost effective than the iPhone’s introductory price is slated to be. Apple’s weakness has always been the cost of entry to the Mac world. I’d hate to see what looks like a fantastic and innovative product from Apple get broadsided by the lower price of a competitor, but that is exactly what might happen if they don’t adjust the price point on the iPhone.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Very true. The upfront cost of Apple products kept me at bay for years from buying them. It wasnt until some one gave me the gift of an APPLE product that I had any clue what I was missing out on. I will never stay away from an Apple product because of price, however, the Iphone is way expensive. I might wait for the price to drop, but I WILL NOT buy a sprint knock off!