The 3G iPhone is being released tomorrow. I am struggling on whether I plan to get one or not. The big problem for me: I am in Canada and Roger's is just not a good company to have to deal with and the CRTC (our regulatory agency) seems to like the monopoly which, in my opinion, it had a big hand in creating.
For me, this goes beyond a personal toy. I signed Cadent up for the iPhone dev program and was accepted. We are ready to go and have a couple of good ideas we want to develop. I would like an iPhone for development purposes. However, to get locked into a crappy Roger's 3 year contract just to have a development device does not make good business sense. Over three years, such a contract will cost us over $3,000 when taxes come into play (our government is in on this gravy train). As I'm watching iPhone users rush to the trough of free (as in beer), I cannot justify spending $3,000 along with development effort just to make no sales just because I am, gasp, actually expecting to get some sort of return on investment.
I've heard nothing from Apple about the availability of iPhones to developers for dev systems (hello, Apple, where are you?). Perhaps we will hear something tomorrow. Otherwise, I am finding it difficult to justify committing to developing for the iPhone under an oppressive Roger's contract.