seriously, these phone guys need to rethink their pricing. $200 for a resistive touch screen device, in almost 2010? This should be free on contract at the least. Of course then that throws off the $25 pixies, who would then have to match or go better. Not to mention the the $10 dumbphones.
This whole phone pricing thing is getting pretty screwed up lately with so much competition in the high end, forcing prices down into the low end market. I guess the only reason for going with a $10 dumbphone these days is to get a cheaper plan (for those not interested in data)

my thoughts exactly - Apple understood this with video rentals vs purchases - Apple has notoriously been a purchase-oriented company, shying away from rentals/subscriptions until they started distributing videos via iTS, but even then it wasn't implemented at first.

The old model, go to blockbuster and rent a movie for $4 for a few days, or possibly pick up the same dvd in the discount bin at walmart for $8 makes purchasing seem a lot more reasonable (only have to watch the movie twice to make the purchase pay for itself).

But redbox has definitely changed things (same with the weekly $.99 iTunes movie rentals) - I would now have to watch the movie EIGHT times before a purchase was justified. I have literally only seen 2 or 3 movies that many times (and even then, only because friends were watching, etc - not out of pure desire to see it).

Redbox and iTunes and even netflix to some degree, have set a new pricing model that no longer favors purchasing.

Hulu is going paid next year. Why does everyone keep referring to hulu as a viable free alternative? OK so it is...for the next few months. Then what?

I can't imagine apple being too thrilled with this - think of all the lost revenue from tom tom (they get ~$30 for each copy sold, slightly less for navigon etc). But it would be a killer feature.

I can't imagine apple wanting to miss out on this though. I can see the big poster dedicated to 'free innovative turn by turn' hanging in an apple store already

they had me till it required I install silverlight. Sorry MS - my attention is going elsewhere~

They do change up style, it just takes awhile. The powerbooks had the aluminum enclosure for years (2002 - 2008? something like that) before going unibody. The imacs had the half-dome body/neck/floating screen for awhile. Their products go through design iterations, but you don't fix what still works.

read this days ago on giz

Have had my 3G for over a year with no case, and you'd be hard pressed to find a scratch anywhere on it. Just take care of your devices, it's not that hard.

That is what I do not understand - outside of monthly contract prices, how can they charge $70 for this thing when a refurbished (new, for all intents) iphone can be had for $50 (which is crazy, imo). Or even the Pre for $80 now. Who is vzw trying to kid?
(again, if this can be had for $50/mo or something more reasonable, a higher price is warranted).

Garmin defiantly refuses the app store, thinking they will counter navigon and tomtom with this? Nice try.