The word on the street is that Sprint is betting the farm on an exclusive for the iPhone 5. It will commit almost billion to Apple for 30.5 million iPhones and it won’t even start to make money till 2014. Crazy? Yes and no!

Apple has to love this deal–it basically ensures a nice revenue stream for them, even if the world goes into recession and demand for mobile phones stalls. Second, it takes away some of the Android momentum at one carrier where Android has done well. (I know T-Mobile wants an iPhone too, and too bad they are not getting it.) Now for Sprint, I agree there are risks, but they are calculated risks. The exclusivity of iPhone 5 to Sprint is what reduces the risk around this arrangement.

For starters, globally, the average revenue per user for iPhone is about 1.5 to 2 times the average ARPU for all other phones. The numbers are better in the U.S. On an average, in the U.S., average revenue per user for iPhone is about a month, according to Chetan Sharma, principal at Chetan Sharma Consulting. That works out to about ,080 a year.

Now if  Sprint manages to match Verizon’s performance (it added 2.2 million iPhones during the first two months of the launch of the iPhone 4) during the first six months and another million iPhone users in the next six months, it can attract about 3 million iPhone customers to its roster. I am presuming these will be new customers who would switch to Sprint because of the “exclusive” availability of the device on the Sprint network, or they are fed up with AT&T or Verizon.

That works out to about .2 billion in revenues. And given that analysts estimate Sprint to clock in revenues of around billion in 2012, what we are talking about a nice 10 percent bump in revenues for the company. The presence of the new iPhone would also reduce the churn on Sprint’s network and thus would provide the much-needed stability to their revenue stream.

So as I said –crazy yes, but not completely loco!

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Mobile payments: forecasts, technologies and opportunities
• U.S. Wireless Data Market: Q4 and Year-End 2008
• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T

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Analyst thinks AT&T will keep iPhone till 2011 after iPad deal
Wondering why AT&T’s 3G data pricing for the iPad seems … well, kinda reasonable? One analyst thinks he has the answer: a “quid pro quo,” with AT&T getting a six-month extension on its exclusivity deal for the iPad in exchange for giving iPad users a break on its usual 3G data rates.

Read more on Ben Patterson via Yahoo! News

After a four year hiatus, Microsoft held its X10 conference this week in San Francisco primarily to announce a bunch of release dates for some notable 360-only games due out this year. The company also flexed its exclusivity muscles by showing off some co

Next stop, PlayStation Network, followed by Games for Windows Live and several threads complaining about Games for Windows Live

Whoa. Rockstar just announced that the two DLCs for Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, will be released for the PS3 and PC on March 30. That’s March 30 world-wide, mind you. The games will be sold separately (as downloads on PSN and Games for Windows Live) as well as in the familiar Episodes from Liberty City double pack.

This marks the first time that either of the DLCs will be available for anything other than the Xbox 360. (The rumor was that Microsoft gave Rockstar several sacks of money for a timed exclusivity deal.)

As far as extras go, the PS3 version looks to be pretty much a straight port of the Xbox 360 version(s). PC gamers can look forward to expanded multi-player options (such as a 32-person limit) and “an advanced video editor,” to quote the masterfully worded press release.

PC gamers are invited to complain about needing Games for Windows Live (near universally hated) and the Rockstar Social Club.

No word on price. Sorry.

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Johnny 5 has seen better days. At least he has The 404…

(Credit:
CNET/The404)

No, we don’t have the new iPad/iSlate/iFail just yet, but we’re crossing our fingers hoping for good news at tomorrow’s Apple Event. CNET correspondent Natali Del Conte is already in San Francisco ready to cover the big announcement, and we’re stoked that Jeff hosted Loaded today in her absence. Also, be sure to check out PRE-GAME, Jeff’s newest video game show on CNETV starting next Tuesday, February 2.

Lost in the flurry of Apple rumors circling the Internet (will someone please tell Regis about the Internet??) is the distinct possibility that AT&T will lose iPhone exclusivity tomorrow. According to “industry insiders” (sounds legit to me) other carriers will begin to offer the popular smartphone starting tomorrow due to networking troubles clogging the AT&T pipes. AT&T will make up for the loss of sole ownership by offering a series of Windows Mobile, Android, and WebOS-based handsets as consolation prizes to wayward shoppers.

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iTrust app exposes iPhone lurkers.

(Credit:

Gizmodo)

If you already own an iPhone but fear the prying eyes and fingers of your paranoid better half, we recommend checking out iTrust, a 99-cent app that fools would-be spies by displaying a dummy image of your iPhone home screen and recording any attempts to access private information.

Alternatives to shelling out a buck for this app: 1.) If you know your bf/gf is nuts enough to check your phone for naughty pictures and texts, you can always set a passcode and keep it private, or 2.) download The 404′s forthcoming “girlfriend app” that immediately hides your cache with a simple dice-shaking motion. Hey, don’t steal that idea, for real.

Finally, be sure to stick around in the second half to hear our explanation of THAT ^ in addition to a few more stories and a hilarious Calls From The Public segment! We’d love to hear from you as well, so just give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and tell us what’s on your mind! We’re also still accepting Self-Addressed Stamped Envelopes (SASE) for sticker requests, so check out this fan-made tutorial and get it over to us ASAP!

EPISODE 505

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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast