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• Thursday, June 12, 2008 07:03 PM

  A $290 cup holder in an $80,000 car

  Yes it's extraordinarily expensive for a titanium heated and cooled cup holder. But given the car costs $80,000 + another 10-11% driveaway price + insurance, I'm sure no one cares.

  If you really need to count pennies to afford your iPhone you shouldn't get one. Maybe when the Obama rules the land, iPhones will be nationalized and made free to freedom loving peoples everywhere. Until then, it's called making a rational decision.

  I am a Sprint subscriber. I can't really imagine what on God's Gray Earth would possess me to claim to NEED an HTC Mogul. Would be nice to have sure, but imperative? Nah. But therein is the key. You see Farhad it's not about consumers it's about competitive advantage. When AT&T can claim that their kewlest 1337 phone is $199 then it makes the others look dull. Verizon offers 6 phones for more than $200 while Sprint has 7 that are $200 and 3 which are more.

  Now I can't speak for Verizon. But Sprint I'm sure will respond the way Sprint always does. By doing nothing and hoping no one notices. And when people stop buying their expensive phones they'll roll out the prior year's models at half price (AT&T does the same thing, they just sell 'refurb' phones aka used phones) and this will leave the top of the market to AT&T. There will always be a niche for unlocked GSM units but those are a blip on the screen volume wise.

  So it's just a titanium heated and cooled cup holder in an $80,000 car. If you can afford the car you don't care about the cup holder.

  —The last digit of pi Read The last digit of pi's other letters
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