I have a couple of comments,

- Americans have never understood the value of unlocked mobile devices. A simple question(comparison) to ask people and businesses would be; "Would you like to buy a laptop with built-in WiFi/WLAN but you can only get to internet through us?"

The obvious answer is no, the same stupid approach like Apple in the PC business has been used in USA by Dell, Sony and others where you have to specifically buy a specific laptop version to be able to use wireless internet access (3G-CDMA from Verizon, 3G-CDMA from Sprint and 3GHSPA/Edge from AT&T). So now you have spent the money on a nice new laptop and then you have to buy an external USB/PCcard if you neeed to use another mobile service provider.

- Secondly, there is always of course a trade off between price for a new device such as iPhone and openess, if the service providers have to subsidize they have to tie you to a contract but the iPhone device should always be unlocked. As a consumer I am not willing to spend a lot of money on an expensive device and be told that, fine as long as you use us as a service provider. For a cheap device, I can accept whatever restrictions but for a smart phone price no way. The device is mine. Buying a subsidized device can be compared to buying full price using a credit card, the bank trusts you through the credit card issuer, that you will pay what you owe eventually.

- Thirdly, to truly appreciate using an iPhone, you need as a consumer cheap broadband wireless data service. I don't care what Apple and Telcos do in the boardroom, I want real value as perceived by me. Apple managed to get OK data rates in USA by a special deal with AT&T (which also explains their exclusiveness in the USA market).

- Finally from a technical point of view, the iPhone is great, lack of 3G is a serious flaw though (in particular in USA with really slow... networks), the lack of the possibility to easily replace the battery is another design mistake, I understand Apple's reasoning but stil a mistake. From an UI point of view, my only complaint is if you are a heavy messaging user, getting up to speed with the iPhone keyboard is tough.

regards,
Thomas Lidforss
http://www.lidforss.com