In a somewhat shocking maneuver, it seems like Rogers, who is the mobile carrier in Canada slated to offer the iPhone when it arrives (my money’s on next year) will, in fact, not be able to ream Canadians as they’re often wont to do, with their astronomical data transfer rates.

I had commented on this discrepancy in a prior post, but its worth mentioning in brief: In the United States, Apple’s iPhone (via AT&T) data package *starts* with unlimited data.  Such a thing doesn’t really exist in Canada, but if it did, would, I’m sure, require you to hand over your first born child, in addition to the mortgage of your house.  In the meantime, we get the privilege of getting 20 megabytes per month for the same price, which really is a pissant sum of data.  If you start out at a lower data package (for the Blackberry, for example), you’ll pay through the nose as you’ll almost certainly go over 1 megabyte simply by checking email and the odd blog page {I speak through experience}.

It turns out that Apple is going to enforce some reasonable standard as it applies to data transfer packages, as it has done in the US, and in the soon-to-be-forthcoming UK and Germany.  And to this I say “bravo”, and “hooray”.

The oligopoly that exists in Canada as it refers to most things, but not limited to mobile carriers, means that the free market determines squat, and everyone gets the benefit of paying higher “we-swear-we’re-not-colluding” prices.

The snarky translation to this is that no one is ever going to make Rogers (or Fido, or Bell, or what have you) charge *less* because there is no real business reason to do so — until now.

So while I’ve been critical of Apple in the past, I am all for a company that improves the lot of consumers everywhere — at least all individuals who have a mobile phone that is.  Because make no mistake: if Rogers is forced to offer a more generous data package, it will necessarily have to start lowering / improving all of its mobile packages across the board, and all of the other mobile carriers will undoubtedly follow suit.

I mean, that would make sense, anyway — but, I’m sure the cynic in all of us (who are familiar with such shennanigans) aren’t quite holding their breath just yet.

There are loads of technical, debatable, reasons why the iPhone might or might not be the Invention of the Year, as Time has recently given the iPhone that designation.  But there’s one thing you can’t ignore, and that’s the fact that in the months prior, and the months since its release, there hasn’t been any other piece of consumer technology that’s been as hotly discussed or debated — even in places where it *hasn’t* been released.  More to the point, the iPhone is a piece of technology that caused an entire industry to take notice, and in many cases, force it to respond, whether it be to the touch screen piece of technology, or the relationship between the parent company and a phone carrier.

Is the iPhone the Invention of the Year? There might be more important inventions made this year, but I don’t think there was one that was more hotly debated or industry-changing as the iPhone.  So on those grounds my vote is a “yes” .

I’ve heard from more than one place — including at work, oddly enough — that the Jesus Phone iPhone is coming to Canada via Rogers (one of our few wireless carriers) before Christmas.

Mat Ingram points out that the price might be around $CAD 499 for an 8 gigabyte phone for a 3 year plan.

Personally, I don’t think its coming before Christmas, if only that I would have expected there to be some kind of huge marketing run up well *before* Christmas for the iPhone. God knows that you can see enough of them in Canada already by the Canadian faithful who have purchased them across the border (or, who have gotten them through other enterprising Canadians).

There are two other issues, of course, which makes its debut here — versus the US — even more interesting.

Price: Given the recent surge of the Canadian dollar (above par compared to the USD on most days now) — or the fall of the US dollar — there’s a tremendous amount of consumer pressure these days to have comparable products priced similarly here as in the United States. Am I the only one curious to see how Rogers will actually price the iPhone? I’m sure there are daily debates going on at the highest level about the pressure to absolutely ream its customers on the price vs. the public outcry against the artificially high price bump, as we’re on par with the USD now. $499 for an 8 gig model would probably be right, but its still $100 more than the same piece of technology across the border.

Data plan: I’ve written about this before, but its worth mentioning — Canadians pay more per megabyte than almost any one else in the world as it applies to wireless data plans. Let’s compare the plans for the iPhone with AT&T and, for example, a comparable plan with the BlackBerry for Rogers.

The entry plan with AT&T starts at $59.99 and you get “unlimited data and text” with 450 minutes of voice. My eyes almost fell out their head when I read that the first time.

Rogers? For $60, you get 25 megabytes of data and *nothing* else (i.e. no voice). Oh, you do get the benefit of paying an extra $7 per MB for every megabyte you go over.

So am I waiting for the iPhone in Canada? Of course I am. But only because I’ll be interested to hear the consumer debate over the whole issue as, if history is any indication, Rogers will want to milk us for all its worth — and with the Canadian dollar being on par as it is, everyone will be able to quantify exactly *how* large a new one its ripping us.

Sometimes I think some news are best explained in video. By a puppet.

<edit!>Well, I thought I would just embed it but it breaks my theme.Check out the video over here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RdHv9jw84k

You may have heard that Steve Jobs and Apple have discounted the iPhone by $200 yesterday for a multitude of reasons. This move had Wall Street steamed, but it also had some of the faithful feeling … oh, I don’t know — like they were shanked with a sharpened Newton or something. Perhaps it has to do something with being played like iChimps for dancing like monkeys to Steve Jobs siren song.

I understand that technology drops in price. I think its a given these days that technology is somewhat disposable that way. I get it. Most people do. But the question here isn’t one of principle. Its one of scale. How fast things are changing. A slippery slope.

I mean, does it bother me that the rear projection high definition 42″ television that I bought 4 years ago can now be had for less than 1/3 of the price? Of course. But it doesn’t really get me *angry* because its a slow process that happened over a few years time.

But a 33% drop in 66 days?

Come on, man!

That’s approaching new levels of absurdity! Unless, of course, its a tell on behalf of Steve Jobs that he’s not happy with how fast his Jesus phones are moving (or, perhaps not), and not reaching the supposed 3 million units sold in a year.

Maybe.

At any rate, I think the price drop is significant for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that it sets a precedent. A happy precedent for some (the later adopters), and an unhappy for others (extra early adopters). I mean, if this kind of ridiculousness is par for the course, what else can we expect in the future?

$500 drops on the next iMac 6 months after its released? $750 rebates off the next Macbook 3 months after its launched?

Or should we only expect it if sales aren’t quite hitting their targets?

Some people, such as Robert Scoble, don’t really mind that they paid a $200 premium for the geekish privilege of having such a Sacred Object. Which is fine. I think companies like Apple need *more* fans like him, and not less, when Apple pulls stunts like these.  I mean, you have to be “ok” with things even when Apple treats you, its early adopters, and its business partners like chumps.

I mean if it*wasn’t* about the bottom line? Steve Jobs wouldn’t be issuing $100 credits, but full $200 ones.

I was able to play with the iPhone yesterday.  For my fellow Canadians, and anyone who hasn’t yet had the pleasure of touching the device, it is almost everything that the hype makes it out to be.

It is thin.

It is fast.

I love how it “knows” when you’re looking at it in “landscape” fashion, and when you’re holding it upright.

But typing with the touch screen isn’t easy, and in fact, was sometimes downright frustrating — even though I have average-sized mitts.  I could tell that over time, however, that its something you could get used to and compensate for.  Having said that, there’s something to be said for actually having buttons, but I realize what it would do to the rest of the phone.

[incidentally, if you’d like a good laugh, my host, Dreamhost sends out a monthly newsletter that was typed out this month using an apple iPhone — in store.  The text is well intentioned but barely readable.  Those dudes get an A+ for effort!]

The worst thing about the iPhone, by FAR, though, is the EDGE network.  For what the iPhone is *Trying* to do — which is trying to display full webpages, not mobile formatted pages — the EDGE network is an utter abomination.  Truly.  There are no words to compliment a service which hobbles, and at the risk of sounding even more outraged, cripples the phone.

Case in point: I tried to show off the iPhone to my wife, but the phone ended up looking much less cooler after we waited something like 30 seconds for the Apple home page to load.  An agonizing eternity!  Same for the gmail home page.  MSN.com site.  Wow, I could go on.

Luckily, the sheer sexiness of the entire device is more than enough to make up for it.

Well, I guess over 700 000 people think so, anyway.

Or not, perhaps. This morning when stock markets opened, Apple and AT&T stock limped, rather than roared, out of the gate — with Apple prices remaining largely flat.

If you’ve been following the crazed orgamso-frenzy hype around the iPhone, and the Lalapalooza like atmosphere around the Palo Alto Apple store, you might have had a different picture in mind. Heck — I sure did.

But I think that investors (and institutional ones) are looking for harder facts to back up the hype. Namely that Jobs either did too well a job (ha ha, what a lame pun) in stocking his stores with iPhones so that there was no shortage, or that the demand was far lighter than what was actually expected — although I have no feel for how much is “light” in consumer electronics. $170 million worth of merchandise and over 500k units sold seem like a pretty robust to me.

Over the long term I actually do expect this to change for two reasons.

• The iPhone problems will be fixed (one day): Many of the issues around this first generation iPhone will be solved with other iterations of the device, namely problems with ringtones, storage size, porting phone numbers, the overall cost, and other tech issues we haven’t even heard about yet. Apple has a long history of cranking out advanced models at a nauseating clip. First-adopters with respect to the iPod can attest to this.
• Word of Mouth Will Begin To Take Over: Once iPhones are out in circulation, word of mouth will take over from the mainstream media hype. Just like the demand for Wii’s continued well past last Christmas as more and more people saw and touched it, you can bet the same thing will happen with iPhones — in spite of the price.

The interesting thing I found, of course, is the whole disconnect between the tech coverage of the iPhone and the flat stock price. Is it really because techies are first adopters who “get it” in this circumstance? Or is mainstream America wary of the hype? Or, is it really a case of the demand being underestimated? Or, perhaps, is everyone waiting for the price to fall and there to be a change to a faster kind of network?

The iPhone story hasn’t yet been fully told, I think — in fact, now that the release euphoria is over, I suspect its just begun. ;)

[yes, I do own shares of Apple]