Early sippers of the iPhone Kool-Aid will want to keep their eyes off this article. For everyone else, there is a way to get your hands on Apple's do everything cell phone for just $79.
The only catch is you have to be willing to download the baby shaker app on a previously loved iPhone. AT&T is selling refurbished 8GB iPhone's for $79, according to our friends at CNN. The phones are ones that were either lightly used and returned within 30 days or phones that had problems and were later repaired.
The price cut is 87 percent lower than when the phone was introduced on the market just two years ago at $599. Two short months later the price dropped to $399 before taking a drop to $199 last summer and $99 last month.
Don't get too excited though. The phone only comes with a 90 day warranty and Apple products are notorious for breaking down right when the coverage runs out. CNN puts the real costs of owning an iPhone into perspective:
Indeed, the price cuts on the iPhone have helped shift the focus from the (heavily subsidized) sticker price to the real cost of ownership: the two-year AT&T contract that starts at $74 a month for unlimited data and 200 text messages. At that rate, a $79 iPhone will cost you a minimum of $1,885, before taxes and surcharges.
But if you must have an iPhone and the start up costs was scaring you off you may no longer have an excuse.
