@adolsecent
28% of the smart phone market. This is based on Apple's reckoning, of course. According to Wikipedia and Canalys, Apple's at 6.5% behind RIM (11.4%) and Nokia (52.9%). That's likely do to Apple's selective definition of smart phone--or perhaps Canalys is being too generous. Apple may also be including the iPod Touch in their numbers, as it's a viable target for the SDK and their new software distribution channel.
I agree with you on the price thing. You're not required to get an AT&T contract when you buy an iPhone (in which case it's just an iPod Touch with a camera and speakers), but it would be nice if Apple cut the price a bit for people that did. It's an amazing toy, though, and they've made development (from a Mac, of course) as easy as it gets, including using a consumer iPhone/iPod Touch for source-level debugging across a USB cable. (Microsoft hasn't made it to difficult, and Linux is fine, too, but until recently, it was next to impossible for a consumer to get an SDK for a phone based on Symbian. You wouldn't believe what a pain in the ass it was for me to get my Slvr to allow me to upload Java apps over USB, not knowing the internals of the phone.)
I don't own a smart phone at the moment, primarily because I'm not willing to pay more for monthly cell-based broadband than I do for traditional broadband at home. What I'd really like to hear is AT&T saying, "What, you have our broadband service at home? Then Edge is included." That's not going to happen, of course. The US cell market is a frag fest all around, with consumers as the targets. Just about everything is pay-per-use, even when you think you're paying a flat fee (which is really just pre-paying for a block of pay-per-use services, some of which you may not actually use).
