RSSBest Buy becomes first US retailer to stock iPhone
By Ed Oswald | Published August 13, 2008, 11:40 AM
The leading US electronics retailer will begin selling the hit phone on September 7 in 970 stores, including all the stores where Apple has launched its "mini-store" pilot program.
Best Buy said it would sell iPhones through its Best Buy Mobile shops that it has begun to open across a little over a dozen cities nationwide. Those smaller versions of the bigger retailer focus primarily on mobile phone sales.
Such a deal makes sense considering that Apple has had a closer relationship with Best Buy than with any other US retailer in recent months. The retailer resumed its sales of Apple branded products in December 2006. Later, in May 2007, the companies reached a deal to build a "store-within-a-store" for Mac products and their accessories. So far, the concept has been successful for, and Apple has said it will continue to work with the retailer to open more of these "mini-stores" during the year.
Offering the iPhone could also help Best Buy get a leg up on its competitors during the upcoming holiday season. With the device expected to be one of the hot items, it could have the effect of coercing consumers to make other holiday purchases there.
Best Buy may have also have had some help from its partnership with Britain's Carphone Warehouse. That company is working with Best Buy in its mobile department, while Best Buy is assisting Carphone in its European ventures.
Carphone Warehouse is the selected retail partner for Apple's iPhone within the UK.
Activating the phone would be no different than what Apple currently does through its own stores and AT&T. Customers would need to sign a contract and have their phones activated in-store in order to qualify for the subsidized $199 price.
It doesn't appear that the addition of the iPhone will mean any additional staffing to handle the iPhone specifically, as Best Buy did in some stores for Macs. However, the new mobile store concept includes employees who have specifically been trained for mobile sales, and would likely receive considerable training to deal with the iPhone as well.
Best Buy believes this new focus on mobile has been a key driver in its growth of wireless sales, which had previously been handled by general employees who had only had minimal training in that department.
First off, I'm all for 'the best tool for the job'..which is completely subjective anyway. I loved my old Cingular 8125, but replaced it with the iPhone 3G. I'm very happy with it, even with it's shortcomings. The 2.0.1 software improved reception and made it a bit faster in general. Too bad simplistic functions like copy/paste, or forwarding messages isn't supported (yet). 2.1 is supposed to fix that, though.
It all depends on where you live/what you do/etc as to if the iPhone is even a worthy purchase. Please don't even buy a phone just for curb appeal...then it's more of a fashion statement rather than actual utility.
Gah...it drives me nuts to hear students (I work for a Univ.) talk about getting the latest Mac/Apple hardware...they don't even know what half the stuff does, and it's way overpriced.
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|By 2010, if you are not the proud owner of an iPhone you should be shot on sight.
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|STFU, internetworld7. The iPhone is not the greatest phone in the world. There are way better ones coming out soon (i.e. HTC Diamond). The iPhone's browser (Safari) doesn't even support flash yet. The phone was created with cheap hardware and marked up 300% by Apple just like their other products. I agree that Apple has some good ideas and came up with them first, but that doesn't mean they are the greatest!
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|I don't even have a cellphone.
If you'd like to rectify your dream world scenario I'm gladly taking iPhone donations.
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|"Highlights
- 2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.
- Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
- HTC Weather - providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
- Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
- 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
- 4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
- Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience."
Pretty cool!
EDIT: (These are highlights regarding the HTC Diamond)
http://www.geardiary.com...-reinventing-the-iphone/
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|Lol why are you guys still taking this guy seriously? It is obvious that he is just trying to yank everyone's chain. There is no way this idiot is serious. But seriously dude you sadden me. Get a life.
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|And what does all of this really mean at the end of the day? More Mac switchers brought out of the stone ages of computing!
We all know the iPhone's popularity contributed heavily to the Mac's recent massive growth.
And how much growth are we talking about? When you're now worth more than the big "G" of the internet, that's nothing to sneeze at! Apple is top dog, even more so than inept and soon to be irrelevant Microshaft
http://macdailynews.com/...p/weblog/comments/18159/
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|ok what does microsoft has to do with the iPhone being sold on Best Buy? its like saying that the PSPs are gonna be on sale on Apple Stores and then bashing the DS
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|Soon to be irrelevant please what a load of pooh there. But I would expect nothing else with your post record.
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|Talk about a troll.
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|Stone Age of computing?
SCSI to IDE Change? Hummm...?
PPC to X86? Humm... ?
OS9 to OS X? BSD anyone? PC anyone? Hummm... ?
EFI on Mac... Orginaly made for the PC. Hummm... ?
Funny that everything that a Mac is now, is what PCs have always been. So I guess, somehow 'stone age' of computing doesn't quite fit... as it took Apple years to make these sort of changes to be able to take on Non-OSX bassed computers.
Honnestly, if you want to be a troll thats fine. I've got no real issues with it, you give a chuckle from time to time. However, the least you could do is a little bit a reading on the subject your trying to troll.
By the by, you never did get back to me about why your opinion of Apple products is on par with Steve Jobs.
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|The Troll in me thinks Apple must be getting desperate to rid itself of these things now that even their partner-carriers say the 3G is low quality junk:
http://translate.google....=es&tl=en&tl=en
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|blah blah blah...and "Troll" is the nicest label one can employ...
...and so are the iPod (etc) and all PCs compared to alternative platforms.
yawn.....
The real question is of the perceived value as determined by users - and in this respect your erudite and vapid observation is utterly worthless...as usual.
So, when is your EU court going to address EU based Bulgarian corruption? - if they ever finish establishing trade restrictions masked as resolving competitive issues between two American based CPU manufacturers while totally absolving necessary EU beneficiaries!! LOL!
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|I don't really care about iPhone (whished I could but it's not cutting it for me...) but I was under the impression the carriers are answering to their customers complaints.
Glad I was able to help you to an opportunity to use your favorite word 'erudite' once again. I know it makes you feel smart.
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|INCLUDING THE BEST BUY OF PUERTO RICO?
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|IDC IDC IDC IDC
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|iphone is old news, next
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|As if most of the people that work there weren't bad enough, toss this into play on them. LOL. Can't wait until the first complaints come rollin' in over how the employees can barely turn one on...
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|That's nice. Don't Care.
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