As for the iPhone disruptions I still think we’re going to see richer web applications aimed at the mobile user. We’re going to see phone manufacturers implementing browsers that don’t tear so much out of webpages and reformat. Rogers will also have to change their plans simply because the only data plan for new consumer level customers is 2mb for $5. Even with 50% compression (acheived through lossy recompression of images and compression of text through zlib) that’s only eight loads of the new york times front page demoed in the keynote. Add push email to the mix and doing what was advertised in the keynote will be beyond premium cost, it’ll be prohibitive.

I am eagerly anticipating news related to the data plans that will be packaged with Cinglar’s iPhone. The more I think about it the less likely I think Rogers will have an unlimited EDGE plan. At the worst case I see them bringing over the business data plans to the consumer side. Best case, they bundle a couple dozen megs of cellular data with access to their wifi hotspots. I’d be ecstatic and switch in a heartbeat if they offer unlimited data for near the converted going rate in the US.

Also, I sent Rogers customer service request to see what they’d suggest for me as a consumer that goes through 30mb of data per month. I wonder if they’ll let me use a business data plan on a consumer voice plan.

Oh, you’ve got the $20 Fido hiptop data plan? You won’t get such a deal again, so before your hiptop dies you might want to do what a friend of mine did: buy a replacement hiptop on eBay. (He bought one where the camera didn’t work, something he didn’t care about, so he got a good price.)

I doubt that disruption is part of Apple’s (and the carriers’) plans. The iPhone is a premium product, not something that will be priced to undercut the competition. Don’t expect to get any deals on data, nor on the phone itself. Steve Jobs wants people to lust after this phone as much as they lust after iPods, and to be willing to make sacrifices elsewhere in their lives as needed to meet his prices.

I too love ubiquitous Internet access (via my Treo 650). My wife and I frequently marvel at this bit of magic. I actually get away with a minimal ($25) data plan, but that’s because I use Opera Mini as my browser. It compresses pages before they get transmitted over the air. Not only does this make the speed acceptable (using my Treo’s built-in browser is like being on dialup), but it vastly reduces the amount of data transmitted, to the extent that I don’t hit the bandwidth limit on my cheap plan. Unless Apple allows Opera Mini to run on the iPhone, using an iPhone might require a higher-end (i.e. expensive) data plan.