iPhone catch-up: iPhone 4 is $99, iPhone 3GS free with contract, Sprint gets iPhone 4

Well, Apple’s Let’s Talk iPhone event is over. To many people’s disappointment, we got some new iPods, an iPhone 4S, but no iPhone 5. Though it may take a few days to get over the shock that something we waited 16 months for never came to fruition, there’s still good news coming out of today’s announcements.
In addition to Siri, the amazing voice-activated personal assistant that will be offered as a feature on the iPhone 4S, the rest of the iPhone family is also getting a little something to entice customers to purchase the previous-gen iPhones: A price cut. With the addition of the iPhone 4S, Apple will continue selling the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4.
The good news is, the iPhone 3GS is now free with a two-year contract. This sounds like a great deal, but you have to keep in mind that Apple dropped the price of the 3GS back in January from $99 to $49, and back in August, Best Buy was offering the 3GS for free with a new two-year contract as well. Basically, the 3GS is for the someone who doesn’t care about having the fastest and most up-to-date iPhone, but just wants the cheapest possible iPhone.
The iPhone 4 has been dropped from $199 to $99. Only the 8GB version will be available, which means Apple’s getting rid of the 32GB iPhone 4 that was selling for $299.99. You have to wonder if $100-off is actually worth it? For $100 more, you can get the iPhone 4S which has an A5 dual-core processor instead of the iPhone 4’s A4 processor. The CDMA model of the iPhone 4S also features global roaming, which the iPhone 4 does not. The 4S can also capture video at 1080p at 30fps compared to the iPhone 4’s 720p at 30fps. If you’re fine without those things and without the above-mentioned Siri, and you can live with a 5-megapixel camera instead of the 4S’s 8-megapixel camera, the iPhone 4 may be good enough for your needs.

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