[Apple News] AT&T Chats about the iPhone

Over at the Seattle Times today (I'm starting to read a lot of different newspapers from around the US and Globally lately, even if I live in a tiny surf-town in Southern California), Brier Dudley posted in his blog today about a discussion he had with Glenn Lurie. Lurie is the AT&T's president of national distribution for the iPhone, and he offered some interesting insights into the marketing of the device.

A couple of points made:

1) The iPhone will not have a subscription service for music. You'll have to synch it from your computer.

2) The price for the iPhone isn't unreasonable. He pointed out that an iPod Nano is $200, and that blackberry you're carrying is another $200...and then there's your cellphone which is another $50 or so, plus its subscription rate. That's close to $500 right there. :)

3) He really gets into how happy they are to work with Apple because of their outlooks on the customer experience.

Now, let's be honest, I've never found AT&T to be the best with customer service (15 days to get my phone line up, and I had to fight to get those 15 days prorated)...so his statement about being on the level with Apple was interesting...I'm personally not confident in AT&T's customer service and customer experience. He avoided any discussion about subsidizing the cost of the iPhone, which was also interesting.

What I can agree with is their outlook about being the first to change the phone industry. Motorola did it 11 years ago with tiny flip phones, and now Apple and AT&T are about to give it a swift kick in the creativity sacs with the iPhone.