Today, Wal-Mart cut the price of the 16GB iPhone 3GS to $97, less than half its normal price. In case you're still on your first coffee of the day, that the the 3GS, not the already discounted 3G.

There are two ways to read this, both of which presume a new iPhone announcement at the Jobsnote on June 7th. One is that Wal-Mart has lots of excess inventory it wants to shift before the iPhone 4G kills sales. The second, and more likely, is that the 3GS will take the place of the 8GB 3G as the entry-level iPhone for the next year. In this latter case, Wal-Mart would simply be the first to jump, and the first 3G iPhone would be no more.

Apple needs a $99 iPhone to hit the magic impulse-purchase price-point, the same reason the iPod Touch starts off at $199 (and features slower hardware and less memory to get it in under $200). The likelihood of it keeping an old model into its third year, and having a confusing lineup of three different handsets is very un-Apple. So if you're planning on grabbing a cheap iPhone, and don't care for anything new that might come in June, head to Wal-Mart. Or just wait until it costs $100 everywhere.

Wal-Mart slashes iPhone price to $97 [CNN]

iPhone product page [Wal-Mart]

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