Jen Thomas
Glyphius Software

But oddly, a voice-only plan for a Rogers iPhone actually makes the deal seem more attractive to me!

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/topics/technology/story.html?id=e08b9229-c40e-4f84-b44d-e89e34ea7bbf

Caller ID don;t really care all that much about it.

There being no GPS in the iPodTouch actually makes it more attractive a device for me than the iPhone.

Which makes it sound like I’m backing Rogers on this one. Well, I’m not. I’m a light cell phone user, partly because of the cost of the talk plans and per-minute charges penalizing you for exceeding your plan. Rogers has taken this same thinking and applied it to data. They are selling the iPhone as a moderate-use Internet device, but as we know, iPhone is Internet crack and is really a heavy-use Internet device.

While I think the $75 (300 minutes, 750GB data, +$6.95 access fee) would be a workable plan for me, I’m still not buying in because:
1. I refuse to be locked into another 3-year contract, to incur huge penalties if, at some point, my situation changes and I no longer wish to subscribe to a talk+data plan. (Do I have to relinquish my iPhone if I prematurely terminate my contract, too?)
2. Lots of web sites are heavy on advertising and, even worse, multi-media advertising. Are we really expected to pay through the nose for the 3G data consumed by these adverts? It reminds me of the days of fax machines, where junk mailers would send you ads at your expense for paper and toner.

Rogers has tried to make the plans more palatable by bundling HotSpot wi-fi access, which basically amounts to free Internet at Second Cup coffee shops. And what’s with not including caller id by default. Doesn’t everyone with a cell phone have caller id? A decade ago, caller id was included in all plans; time to put it back in and stop charging $5+ a month for the luxury.

One thing I found interesting were the penalties for exceeding your monthly data allocation: $30 for the first 60MB over (ouch) and then $30/GB thereafter. Part of the reason for this is to ensure that there is no cost benefit in abusing the various monthly pricing-plan tiers. But it also demonstrates at least how cheaply they could be offering data and still be making a healthy profit: $30/GB.

So yes, at this point, the iPod Touch looks to be the more attractive device, despite it being a stripped-down iPhone (no GPS, no telephone hardware, inferior LCD). No iPhone for me!

This really sucks; I know so many people, myself included, who were hyped about this phone, and now we’re all backing off. It’s not even a money issue — we can afford it — it’s just the feeling that Rogers is telling us that we’re suckers and will sign up for a shitty rate plan and 3 year contract because we can’t resist this phone.

Still, I almost feel sorry for them; they might be underestimating the negative press the target demographic of this phone is capable of generating…

That site has the right idea, maybe.