Blog de Puree

Please say our worst fears are not true. Please say we’re not going to going to have to pay full price for the iPhone and get saddled with a 2-year contract from an average cell phone company.

According to SciFi Tech columnist Adam Frucci, Apple had the chance to revolutionize the cell phone industry, but instead it seems the company may have taken the low road. Granted, Apple is a company and its business is to make money, like all businesses. And you can’t fault it for monetizing great products like the iPod and iTunes, but at least in that model, both consumers and industry businesses found a happy middle ground and everyone was generally satisfied.

Frucci hones in on the rebate factor within the cell phone industry, where American customers get phones for free and at supposedly less than half of “official” prices and lock themselves into 2 year contracts and pay hundreds of dollars in usage charges. He then notes that Apple knew that customers would have paid full price for the iPhone–from all the hype so far–and they could have sold the phones without attaching them to any particular cell phone carrier. Instead, Apple chose to to make a partnership with AT&T, and it seems that customers like us will have to pay full price for the iPhone and get saddled with a 2-year contract.

Not only that, is it possible that Apple will start a new trend where U.S. cell phone companies start charging full price for the phones AND require 2-year contracts?

Frucci writes, “The last thing we need is for one of the most blatantly anticonsumer industries in this country to start thinking they can rip us off even more. Thanks, Apple. Somehow we expected more from you.”

Maybe I’ll buy the Treo or a BlackBerry after all.