Walmart Slashes Apple iPhone 3GS Price; 4G Coming
With Steve Jobs and Co. purported to be prepping to unleash the fourth-generation Apple iPhone on the gadget hungry masses, Walmart is slashing the price of its predecessor with Freddy Krueger-like precision, reducing the price of the 16 GB model of the iPhone 3GS to under $100, according to CNN Money.
Walmart's attractive $97 iPhone 3GS price tag is a $100 savings on the original price of a 16 GB Apple iPhone 3GS, which was released last summer. The catch: to get the deal a new two-year service contract with AT&T is required.
Walmart's Apple iPhone price paring comes as the world expects Apple to announce the fourth-generation version of its now iconic smartphone at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) June 7 to June 11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Apple revealed this week that its top dog Steve Jobs will keynote WWDC 2010.
Though the newest iPhone hardware is sure to cause a stir, the reception could likely be dampened by the sneak preview the world received when an Apple iPhone 4G prototype was lost, found and sold to Gizmodo, sparking police investigations, court proceedings and claims by Apple that leaked iPhone 4G images and details would hurt current iPhone sales.
Still, Walmart's price cut is likely to be an attempt to liquidate stock to make room for Apple's latest smartphone creation. There has been no mention of price reductions for the 8 GB and 32 GB models which sell for $99 and $299, respectively.
Another sign that Apple has a few tricks up its sleeve is the halting of shipments of the iPhone 3G hardware, the predecessor of the 3GS, which was released in 2008. Boy Genius Report noted this week that Apple has stopped shipping 8 GB iPhone 3G models to AT&T stores.