Basically I’m eventually going to get an iPod Touch, and I’m eventually going to get a cell phone (I know I can’t hold out forever) so I’d hoped to just get an iPhone and kill two birds with one stone. But it doesn’t sound worth it.
Here’s what I don’t get. If an iPod Touch (which obviously has no data plan) can access the Internet and e-mail from Wi-fi spots, why can’t the iPhone do that without requiring a data plan?
Because the phone companies want to charge you for that feature. iPod Touches have no phone capabilities, so they don’t threaten the comapany’s dominance in the market.
…That’s really annoying, and has cemented my eventual decision. Thanks.
The iPhone can use Wifi just fine, the problem with Wifi is you can’t use it if you’re not near an access point. The data plan is for the cellular network which you can access anywhere you have a cell phone signal.
Hmm… I tried Googling this and this is the first hit:
Do I need a monthly data plan for my iPhone to work properly?
* NO. You do not need a data plan to use your iPhone in Canada! Some people have read on the internet that you must subscribe to a data plan for your iPhone to work. This is false.
So it should be possible to just get a regular voice plan for iPhones. If I can still use the WiFi stuff with it like TD says, that would be all I need. 
Rogers has a $25 plan which has 150 minutes a month and unlimited evenings/weekends, which should be more than fine for me.
Still not getting one yet (I’m waiting for my current PDA to die) but it’s nice to know it’s available.
Isn’t Verizon supposed to be offering iPhones this year also?
It isn’t bad, but there are many other phones with better battery life. However, a lot of the battery life depends on what you are doing. Are you just using it as a phone, you’ll get great battery life. Are you doing stuff on the 3G network, it’ll hurt it…a lot. Are you on Edge? Then you’ll get fine battery life. Are you watching videos? Then your battery life won’t be the best. If you listen to music you won’t hurt it much. Oh, for the internet thing, you can turn 3G off and just stay on the Edge network. However, 3G is significantly faster than Edge. Edge works fine, and you’ll be fine with it, but after using 3G, it feels a little sluggish at time. It is sort of like going from DSL to a broadband card. Sure the broadband card works fine and is useable, but you still wish you had DSL.
If you are going to get an iPhone though and wind up in an area without any Wi-fi. The IPhone has an annoying habit of constantly downloading data even when it is off (it never actually turns off unless the batteries die), which gets people huge bills especially when roaming (internationally) if they do not have roaming service. If you don’t get the data plan you may eventually be forced into one anyway. Just be careful.
I’m sure there’s a way to be smart about it and make sure it doesn’t download data automatically. Obviously if I had no data plan at all I’d be much more careful about things like that.
If you are a Freshmen entering University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, you are required to have an iphone or an ipod touch.
If I ever have to jailbreak another Mac product due to incompetent people getting a product and asking a “techie” like me to get it work for them… shakes with rage
I’m not TD.
lol maybe they should have turned off Data Roaming.
You can have your provider (if it’s not AT&T) completely block access to their data network, but you have to request it. If you really want to be sure, you would have to jailbreak your iphone so you can disable the Edge network. Honestly though, if you’re going to go though all that trouble to not get a data plan I don’t see why you’d buy an iphone.
The main reason is so I don’t need two separate devices (an iPod Touch and a cell phone).