I think the iPhone is one damn sexy device. I have most of the same functionality in my iPod Touch. The real downside is that I also carry a mobile phone, using more space in my pocket. As I’ve written before, the only reason I don’t already have an iPhone is the ridiculous price Rogers charges to use it on their network.
A couple of months ago, Don discovered that you’re not required to sign up for the iPhone plan to use the iPhone. I’m sure there are still restrictions, but he talked to a person who had an iPhone with talk minutes, but no data plan. Certainly that’s going to be cheaper, and the device has the ability to use WiFi access points. Certainly there are many areas without WiFi access, but I’ve never found this such a problem with the iPod Touch. I mean, if there’s no access point around, I wait until later. No big. Nothing’s so important that I must have it immediately.
He went and got himself an iPhone and beyond paying for it, all he had to do was sign up for three more years of the plan he was already using. Sweet!
Maybe someday, but it won’t happen any time soon for me. Still though, it’s nice to know that I won’t have to pay some $70/month if I ever do decide to make the leap. My money has other places to go in the meantime.
For now, I’m on the pay-as-you-go plan and doing just fine. Jessica told me that when she first signed up for pay-as-you-go, she bought $100 of time and it lasted nearly a year. So far, the $100 I bought in September is half gone, but that’s still just an average of $12.50/month. I know of no monthly plan so low. I won’t even be thinking about changing my mobile phone plan for at least another six months.
I’d love an iPhone, but I don’t need an iPhone.
Bradley
I was just in this boat … I wanted an iPhone but contemplated an iTouch instead. Turns out the 16gb iPhone and iTouch are the same price (on a 3 year term of course) … it was a no brainer for me to upgrade the phone. I was still in a previous 3 year contract (no problem they said … about a year in you should be good to go to upgrade). I kept my current plan (which they no longer offer) and added the data plan. The nice thing? The data plan included all the bells and whistles like voice mail etc that I was paying for, so the data plan only tacked on an additional $19. I cancelled my home phone and now the iPhone is cheaper than cell + land line 🙂
Purchase. Justified.