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Virgin Mobile Becomes World's First iPhone-Exclusive Carrier, Offers Year of Service For $1 (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli quotes a report via BetaNews: Goodness gracious, Virgin Mobile USA has made quite the bold moves today. The cellular service provider has become the world's first iPhone-exclusive carrier. In other words, it will no longer offer Android at all. Crazy, right? This is through a partnership with Apple, and Virgin will offer many versions of the device, including iPhone 6, 6S, 7, and SE. The craziness doesn't stop there, however, as there is even something much more exciting -- Virgin Mobile USA is offering unlimited talk, text and data for a dollar. No, that is not a typo -- a single buck will get you unlimited everything for up to a year! This is through a new scheme called "Inner Circle."
Double Plus Good.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Not surprised they dropped Android. Too much fragmentation and too dependent on the handset manufacturers to keep the install base up to date. A security nightmare waiting to happen to millions of users.
Charles Bronson runs a tight ship at Virgin. The $1 is quite an eyeopener.
Be prepared to be locked into a contract that makes you pay back everything anyway
Who cares
Isn't this the same type of deal that got Microsoft in trouble with antitrust laws?
As said by that Chappelle character.
If this don't set the BS alarm I don't know what would.
Inner Circle must be some sort of piramid scheme. Probably you need to convince friends and family to go to Virgin and shit like that.
But if you read TFA it says (my emphasis)
"Buy an iPhone and get six months of unlimited talk, text and data on Virgin Mobile's nationwide network for only $1 when you join the 'Inner Circle.' Additionally, customers who sign up by Monday, July 31 will receive a promotional offer of 12 months of service for just $1," says Virgin Mobile USA.
Unless iPhones are being given away then it's a bit more than $1. Also as per TFA .. it's Sprint's network for better or worse. Plus after the promo it's $50/month.
Soooooo .. basically it's another click bait article.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
And I sign up today
Virgin Mobile in the UK spent a good while trying to persuade me not to get an iPhone a few years back, because they didn't carry it or support it. I was interested in their four service bundle (internet, TV, home phone, mobile) at the time as well.
Still irritating to me that so few carriers in the UK fully support the iPhone - am specifically thinking Visual Voicemail here, and also native wifi calling as opposed to "here - download our horrible underdeveloped and intrusive app instead!". It was the O2 god-awful app (TuGo?) that finally pushed me off that network after having been on since the launch of the iPhone 3GS.
Slashdot Becomes World's First iPhone-Exclusive News Site, Offers Year of Shilling (For Free).
If it sounds too good to be true, it's because it is. If you can't figure out how they're making money, it's because they are selling you/your data to someone else.
Anybody seen Samuel L. Jackson around lately?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You understand that the carrier provides service to a SIM, right? iPhone, Android, Toaster, etc it doesn't matter.
A carrier does not provide handsets, nor does it have any job regulating what handsets attach to the network, besides specifying having passed certain radio and radio protocol certification lab testing.
Even if a cell phone company is selling you a phone, you should never buy it.
I was on Virgin Mobile for years as they were one of the first inexpensive pre-paid carriers. Over time they kind of boiled-frogged me to higher and higher (ie more expensive) tiers.
Just switched to usmobile and am now paying 12$ month for similar service.
love is just extroverted narcissism
This is the greatest scam ever! They sell you a year of service and an iPhone for one price, then the service doesn't work so they refund your $1 and you can not even take the iPhone elsewhere.
I used to be a VM customer. Shudder.
. . . and I won't go back.
Superior service and lower cost are why I went with Ting. Leaving VM was a big hassle, too, as they didn't appear to have their people (few of whom were anywhere near my time zone) trained properly.
Still with Ting, who doesn't care which device I use.
I have an Android Galaxy J3 on Virgin Mobile. My monthly charge recently was reduced to $35 for unlimited voice and about 4G of data. It's a reasonable plan that I hope to continue.
If Virgin is going to stop supporting my hardware, I hope that they will unlock it so I can use it on another carrier.
The cellular service provider has become the world's first iPhone-exclusive carrier. In other words, it will no longer offer Android at all.
And guess who I won't be signing up with, at all.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I have an unlimited month to month plan with Virgin; I just got off the phone with their representative who said "no sir, you're confused. We're offering a new plan but your old service and old phone are going to work just fine. You have nothing to worry about."
It's possible their representative didn't know for sure, but I'd damn sure trust the over the FUD we see here.
iPhone... 1$ a year.. Overpriced.
Last time I checked, big telecom companies aren't allowed to lose money on their services. That's anti-competitive, and it's illegal, around here anyway.
First a rant. If only we could vote this trashastroturf off the front by page of slashdot . You have to join the $50/mo circle plan. The linked article is just some click site.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Anyone know when they will cancel the current android service ?
Yet another stunningly useless Article
And /without/ needing to join a $50/mo plan, or finance an iPhone. You can bring your own cheap Moto G Play or similar. You only pay a few bucks in taxes/fees some of which get credited back if you do auto-pay. The main catch is you have to be a current customer of another postpaid carrier, bring a Sprint compatible phone, and port in your number. I guess the goal here is to steal customers from the competition. In my area Sprint coverage is as good or better than Verizon or AT&T so I've ported two phones over already and am considering doing two more (but it would mean I need to first re-activate them on a competitors network before I can port them to Sprint, which is a pain and causes another credit pull). Some people claim to have had luck porting pre-paid lines, but the rep flat out told me no, so YMMV. For reference sprint.com/1yearfree if you missed it.
..with a very limited circle.
and you'll buy the phone for 123423 bucks or some shit like that.
and being american, the data is sure as fuck not going to be unlimited - plus are they just fucking going to ban androids? I guess it would work if they were only allowing phones sold by them. you wouldn't get away with one dollar though. more like paying 40 bucks for the phone per month and 1 for service..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So how long is it going to be before people figure out how to get the 'sim' out, load it into a cheap Android phone and then sell it to a Chinese guy who sells the iPhone on at triple profit?
A blog I run for the wealth
Selling Android phones keeps mobile sellers fluid in the months before the new iPhone comes out.
They're going to have a rubber banding sales pattern after this.
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