Apple and AT&T: No iPhone rate plan - No iPhone iPod features

Fine print sucks, and here’s why. If you pay close attention to Apple’s new rate plan schedule for the iPhone, you’ll notice some interesting fine print at the bottom of the chart. As far as we can tell, the fine print basically stipulates that those of you hoping to get a brand new iPhone and use it as a WiFi-enabled iPod (without the calling features) can, well, just keep on hoping. The thing is, that little piece of text next to the asterisk (*) makes it so you will not be getting an iPhone without a 2-year service agreement with AT&T. And that, people, is how you turn a marketing phenomenon into a cash cow!

We’ll have to wait and see what this means for current AT&T post-paid and AT&T GoPhone (pre-paid) customers. It’s likely that current AT&T post-paid (bound to a service contract) will have their service agreement “clock” reset to 2-years upon registering the iPhone. And we’d love to see the iPhone being offered on a GoPhone plan with the purchase of the $20 monthly iPhone Data Plan - but, as with soo many things iPhone, we’ll just have to wait and see. (We’re really getting tired of saying that)

[Via: TUAW]