Congratulations to all of you getting an iPhone, clearly we have won afterall, my mistake. We're #2 in the world price-wise:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/10/tech-iphoneindex.html
Yay!
Sigh.
That report is factually correct, but it is also extremely misleading, and I'm actually kind of ashamed that the venerable CBC was responsible for publishing it.
The report states that the Canadian price is higher by virtue of the 3-year contract. That ignores the simple fact that
even if some people aren't locked in for a 3-year term, they'll still be paying somebody for their cellular service.
For example, in Belgium, the upfront cost is $679. But having done that, until a consumer hooks it up to their choice of a service agreement, they'll be the proud owner of a stylish paperweight. If we assume that Mobistar's plan is reasonably close to the price plans they'd be paying to get equivalent service from a competitor, they'll still be shelling out $47 a month. Over the course of each year they keep their phone, they'll be shelling out $564. By the end of three years, they'll have spent $2461 on their iPhone. For those of you who are counting, that's $285
more than CBC's example for an early-adopter Rogers customer, and only $111 less than their example of a late-adopter Rogers customer.
And I personally think their example for a Rogers customer's minimum obligation is rubbish too. Even if Rogers doesn't announce on September 1st that they've decided to extend their $30/6GB offer indefinitely (which I believe they will), nothing will happen on August 31st which would magically force a new Rogers customer's minimum monthly obligation to jump.
Rogers has clearly stated that newly purchased iPhone customers will be at liberty to choose *any* combination of Rogers' then-available voice and data plans, and that you're at liberty to not opt-in to any data plan at all, if you so choose. The way I interpret it, that means you could also opt for one of their $25 voice-only plans, use free public WiFi only for data (instructing Rogers to block any EDGE or 3G data access), and come out way ahead.