September 30th has come and gone… without a peep from Apple. If you recall, that’s when their iPhone 4 free case program was set to expire. I’d wondered what, if anything, would happen come that date. To help them along, I even offered up a few redesign suggestions that might overcome their reception-killing death grip problem. But three months is a very short period of time to redesign a product that sells in the quantities that Apple’s dealing with… and I suspected Apple might ultimately decide to apply some sort of clear coating around the phone’s all-metal trim to reduce attenuation as stop gap (on the road to a LTE iPhone 5).
We did have a litte skin in the game, as Melissa qualifies for a iPhone 4 upgrade. Which is pretty much a no-brainer for her since she can easily sell her 3GS for at least as much as the $200 iPhone 4 will cost her. But on the off-chance Apple could have worked some sort of redesign, we waited it out. So, if/when she chooses to upgrade, we’re now out a free case (~$30). However, Apple is still providing free bumpers to folks with signal issues. As they stated leading up to September 30th:
We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought. A small percentage of iPhone 4 users need a case, and we want to continue providing them a Bumper case for free. For everyone else, we are discontinuing the free case program on all iPhone 4s sold after September 30, 2010.
Of course, you could still get a much cheaper bumper case as well. I got my free bumper case just because it was free, but Monoprice has bumpers for about $1.50 or so. I bought an Otterbox for mine – its nice and sturdy, though large.
I don’t think Melissa will go for a bumper. She needs more protection, although Otter may be too bulky for her. She’s also contemplating dumping AT&T – her bills are like $120/mo. On Sprint, for similar services, we think it’d be about $80. And fewer dropped calls. We’ll see…
Well, apple DID announce that the program was going to be ending as planned, no extension. So, not sure if that qualifies as “without a peep”
Also, I’m not sure one is going to be able to get anywhere near 200$ for a 3g at this point. Most places got so many 3gs, they don’t even know what to do with them. Last I heard, they got about 300K of them. Prices for the 3gs are sometimes in the 150$, but 3g is more like 80-100$. Maybe locally or CL could net you more.
Doh, typo! She has a 3GS. I already have one buyer lined up for $200 and last I checked 2 weeks ago Radio Shack was still doing $200 trade-ins. Market prices actually seem higher, but probably dropping every day.
If you can get a 200$ trade in just by doing the transaction at THE SHACK! I say TAKE IT!