AT&T and Apple may be preparing a pre-Christmas launch of a $99 8GB iPhone 3G in response to the Droid, according to unconfirmed rumors. “One source said this was AT&T’s way of combating the DROID madness,” wrote BGR, citing two unnamed sources.
The report comes as Verizon launches its family of Droid Android-based cell phones meant to compete with the iPhone from AT&T. The recently-announced Droid Eris will cost $99 and use Android 1.5 rather than Android 2.0, the latest version of Google’s handset operating system.
When Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS in June, it unveiled a 16GB version for $199 and a 32GB version for $299. This latest rumor would seem to defy Apple’s usual practice of unveiling new iPhones in the summer.
In related news, Apple reportedly is testing iPhones that support RFID, allowing the handsets to connect to make payments or use the technology to gather product data. The report follows previous Apple forays into RFID for the iPhone. One Apple patent involved a touchscreen RFID sensor, while other work centered on using RFID to find and connect to Wi-Fi networks.
[Via BGR, Gizmodo and AppleInsider]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
