It's not really that much more expensive on the hardware side. It's the data plan that kills you.
I think Jay's point is that while a 16GB iPhone and a 16GB Touch both cost $299, the iPhone requires a 2-year agreement. AT&T will sell you a 8/16gb iPhone with no contract, but I think it's $499/$599. You can't tell me (or Jay) that the GSM radio & GPS chip doubles the cost.
I agree that if you're coming from a non-data cell phone plan, iPhones are more per month. But they're not when compared to every other PDA-centric device from any other manufacturer on any other carrier. People complain about the iPhone's data plans being expensive because they're not used to the fees that carriers charge for data on a PDA phone. The iPhone is not special in this regard. And really, they're not that much more than a 'normal' phone with a data plan. Do the math...
- A 450m/month plan on AT&T is $40/month. Regardless of whether it's a free & simple 'normal' phone, a Blackberry, or an iPhone. $40/month.
- The iPhone's data plan is $30/month.
- A 'normal' phone's unlimited data plan (which gives you WAP pages - yay) is $15/month.
- 200 Text messages cost $5/month on either.
So the cheapest iPhone plan is going to run you $75/month; 450m, unlimited data, 200 txt messages. The same plan on a free 'normal' phone will cost you $60/month. 450m, unilimted data, 200 txt messages. You can scale the minutes or text messages up or down as much as you want. The iPhone is always $15/month more than the 'normal' phone.
I would definitely say that the connected usefulness of my iPhone is worth an extra $15/month compared to what internet browsing and email (never mind everything else, like streaming radio, etc) is like on a 'normal' phone.
And if you compare the iPhone plans to Blackberry, Palm, or WindowsMobile plans, they're exactly the same. Unlimited data, +$30/month. 200 text, $5/month. You're always going to pay that.
And if you get a Gen1 iPhone, the data plan is only $20/month, and that *includes* 200 text messages. Making it the same price per month as a simple phone w/ a data plan + text. $15 less than all of the other PDA-phones.
Now we can certainly argue that AT&T's rates are too high in general (indeed, charging for text messages is stupid, as SMS messaging is part of how GSM phones work), but
that problem is not unique to the iPhone.
