I have an idea. An extreme idea, of course:
I have been having way too much fun with my jailbroken iPhone 3G. I bought it because I've had the fever ever since it came out, and finally had a reasonable justification for buying one: I'm co-designing an iPhone app and need to test it on a lowest common denominator system--the 3G, which is two years and two generations old.
I bought it for ~$220 and so far I'm not even using it as a phone, so there's no monthly cost to me; I just use wifi. It's in near mint condition, and I think I can keep it in that state for a while. Besides testing the app my cousins and I are designing, I have implemented a "Getting Things Done" system on Omnifocus, synced between the phone and my Mac--this is already paying dividends, frankly.
Anyway, it strikes me that Apple comes out with a new iPhone every June, like clockwork. The $220 I paid for this 3G is the most you'll ever pay for a 3G; the 3GS goes for about $100 more currently. I'm going to hypothesize that if I put the 3G on eBay in May 2011, I'll get what I paid for it back, and then if I wait 30 days I can get a 3GS for about the same amount as the iPhone 4 becomes "old news" and the 3GS becomes, "3G wha?"
Depreciation Surfing: Gadgets
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AlexOliver
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:25 pm
A friend of mine buys a new iPhone every year and sells the old one on eBay for what he bought the new one for. The seller gets the phone without a bill and he gets a new phone every year for free essentially.
If you want to make calls on your phone, I've heard there are some free apps. Skype is $3/month for a phone number, voicemail, and texting. The only downside is you can only accept incoming calls when the app is open.
If you want to make calls on your phone, I've heard there are some free apps. Skype is $3/month for a phone number, voicemail, and texting. The only downside is you can only accept incoming calls when the app is open.
My husband got an original iPhone for *free* this year from some folks we stayed with. They were just going to recycle the phone since selling it was "too much hassle". He uses it on wifi only with Toktumi for voip. We've installed Toktumi on my (company phone) iPhone as well so he can make calls from his own number on either phone. I've used it for work meetings to avoid international charges in Canada and no one said anything about the quality. If you're on satellite internet it's almost unusable though (latency). If you don't mind not having the latest and will be using the phone on wifi anyway, the oldest model is fine. There are tons of free apps out which seem to work on all the models. Some of the games slow down a bit on the original, but are still playable.
Random thoughts:
Apple products do hold their value incredibly well!
A few years ago, Nintendo Wiis were appreciating rather than depreciating. But it took time and effort to acquire them, so you could only "make money" on buying and selling them if you placed very little value on your time.
eBay fees are around 10%, and eBaying is a hassle.
The iPod Touch is the lowest common denominator for iOS development, not the iPhone.
iPhones and iPod Touches are pretty amazing devices.
I'd give Yahoo Messenger a shot for VOIP. They have the best video chat app (iPod Touch/iPhone <-> PC for free) so there's a decent chance they have the best VOIP implementation as well.
Apple products do hold their value incredibly well!
A few years ago, Nintendo Wiis were appreciating rather than depreciating. But it took time and effort to acquire them, so you could only "make money" on buying and selling them if you placed very little value on your time.
eBay fees are around 10%, and eBaying is a hassle.
The iPod Touch is the lowest common denominator for iOS development, not the iPhone.
iPhones and iPod Touches are pretty amazing devices.
I'd give Yahoo Messenger a shot for VOIP. They have the best video chat app (iPod Touch/iPhone <-> PC for free) so there's a decent chance they have the best VOIP implementation as well.