Has the 8GB iPhone 3G been discontinued?
As of Tuesday morning, the 8GB iPhone 3G is no longer for sale on Apple’s Web site.
To be clear, that’s the 2-year-old iPhone 3G, not the year-old iPhone 3GS. But Apple has been offering a steep discount on the 3G since last year and now it appears customers no longer have the option to buy it online at all. Apple hasn’t responded to a request for comment about it.
But this isn’t very surprising. Apple is widely expected to introduce a new iPhone at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7, an event that’s now just a few weeks away. It’s very likely that once the new iPhone hits stores, the iPhone 3GS will take the 3G’s place as the discount model phone.
The clues that a new phone is imminent have begun to pile up: Wal-Mart announced it is cutting the price on the 16GB iPhone 3GS to $97, an indication that the retailer is trying to blow out its stock of the device to make room for new products. Earlier Tuesday there were reports that Apple was casting for a new iPhone commercial. And last week came a report that one of Apple’s contract manufacturers was in the process of fulfilling a huge order for iPhones.
Of course there was also the photo evidence from the lost iPhone episode. Last month, Gizmodo purchased and published photos of what is thought to be a prototype of the next iPhone from a man who found it in a bar after it was left behind by an Apple engineer