All joking in my last post aside, the big question in my mind for the last few days has been: how much is a new device going to cost, should one come out?  And Phil Schiller was pretty clear during the not-Jobsnote: it’s $99*, $199*, and $299*.  But what the fuck do the asterisks mean?

Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers; credit check required; must be 18 or older. For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB). [source]

This is kind of a big deal.  Anyone who bought an iPhone 3G last July is going to be paying, as far as I can tell from the Apple website, the full purchase price of the device.

I’d guess that the internet is going to explode over this in t-minus two or three hours.