After weeks of rumours and guesses sorrounding the release of Apple iPhone 3G on July 11, AT&T has finally revealed its pricing plan.

As you’d expect, I am not happy. And so aren’t a lot of people. Here’s the lowdown:

You can get an iPhone 3G 8gb for $199 or 16gb for $299 only for

• iPhone customers who purchased before July 11
• Customers activating a new line with AT&T
• Current AT&T customers who are eligible, at the time of purchase, for an upgrade discount

If you don’t qualify for an upgrade discount, like us, you’d pay $399 for 8gb and $499 for 16gb iPhone 3G.

The above prices are available only with a 2-year contract with AT&T.

Wait, there’s more. The real kicker is in AT&T’s pricing plan.

AT&T is increasing the price of the data plan from $20/month to $30/month for 3G network. And it doesn’t include the 200 SMS messages.

Check out the detailed price comparison tables in AppleInsider that accurately shows different options and how much more AT&T has hiked the price of various data plan options.

As you can see, getting a family plan? It’s gonna hurt some more. Now, see if you can get the same clear picture from AT&T’s pricing charts.

With my current plan not eligible for an upgrade discount until Mar 31 2009, a 16gb iPhone 3G will cost me $499 + $30×24 + $18 (activation fees) = $1237 + tax! If we decide to bite the bullet and get one, this will be our most expensive toy. And we don’t even have 3G coverage at where we live.

If I am so peeved about AT&T and it’s pricing, you might wonder why bother buying one? My wife and I did resist the temptation last time around. But, the talk of $199 & $299 again rekindled our interest.

Plus, take a look at this iPhone 3G guided tour! (video link)

Do you blame us for getting tempted to snag one on July 11th?

Apple’s ad says ‘Twice as fast, Half the Price’. I say half the price, my ass.

Hello newcomer, did I say welcome to ShanKri-la yet? Before you move on, just wanted to thank you for visiting and we hope you come back and see us again!

If you are in the market looking for a solid 4GB USB Drive, Buy.com has a 4 GB Kingston DataTraveller USB Drive for $24.95. If you sign-up for a (free) new Google Checkout account, you can get it for $14.95 with free shipping.

This is the lowest I have seen for a 4GB USB Drive and Kingston makes some really good ones. Even if you don’t need one, it could be a nice Christmas gift.

Or, you could get a 2GB Kingston DataTraveller USB Drive for $14.95. With a new Google Checkout account, you could get it for $4.95 with free shipping!

If you are wondering, what you could do with a USB drive, check out my 12 Must Have Portable Apps for your USB Drive for some ideas.

If you are into finding nice tech deals, check out the right most sidebar from Buxr. I have started to keeping an eye on it as they are pretty spot on in deals like the one I have mentioned here. This is not a sponsored post or am I asking you to click on those ads but this has to be one of the most useful ad widgets I have ever had.

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the US next week and I will be posting lightly next week. I have scheduled a few posts to go live next week when I am away but I will resume my regular posting once I get back after the holidays.

Do you have a broken iPod or did your iPhone just get bricked by Apple’s new update? You can actually make some bucks out of those with BuyMyBrokeniPod.com.

Used, new or broken it doesn’t matter. They will buy Classic, Touch, Video, Photo, Nano, Mini, 4th to 1st Generation iPods & iPhones from you, whatever condition that Apple’s piece of beauty is in. No questions asked. Plus, you can get a price estimate even before you send it to them, which I think is very important.

I tried to get an estimate for my wife’s working 2nd Generation iPod Nano in excellent condition but with no box and got a price estimate of $74. When I said it is acting weird and not sure what’s wrong with it, they offered $19 without the original box. I guess that’s not bad for something that doesn’t work, heh.

But, check this out. I said teh same thing for a broken 4GB iPhone and was offered an estimate of $117! That is not bad at all for a broken piece.

After you ship it out, they send you the money by PayPal within 24 hours of receiving your iPod/iPhone. I am not sure how true their claims are but it definitely looks like a site worth checking out. Especially if your broken iPod is a toy for your toddler, you might be able to make some lunch money out of it.

If you have used this service, I would love to hear your experience with them.

I had this written to be posted on Friday but as my luck would have it I spent Friday night at an emergency room with a sprained ankle (from volleyball) that was swollen like I had couple of baseballs in there. Luckily, I didn’t break anything. Thanks to my friends, the 6 hours we spent there wasn’t all that bad.

I got this cool LED Faucet Light at ThinkGeek.com with a gift certificate I won in a T-shirt slogan contest. That’s right not a wet t-shirt contest but a t-shirt slogan contest. My winning slogan: RSS Feeds. I’m Hungry! If you have seen someone wearing this, now you know the brilliant person behind it. Heh.

LED Faucet Lights

Now let’s talk about the LED Faucet light. It has a temperature sensor and the LEDs turn blue if the water is cold and red if the water is hot. Unlike other product pictures, these LEDs are really bight and you clearly tell the colors even in bright day light. We have made a few of our guests jump at night, when we made them turn the faucet on in total darkness.

It’s very functional in kitchens and bathrooms. Plus, as the description at ThinkGeek says it looks like a futuristic alien mouthwash! They come with universal adapters & spare batteries.

This is not a sponsored post. So if you buy it, you just end up with the keenest faucet on the block.

Cool MP3 & CD Player

I came across this cool innovative design for a device that plays both MP3 & CDs at The Unprotected Blog!

Whoever said innovation is slowing down?

Without a doubt, iPhone is a great piece of work. I love its revolutionary touch interface, the wi-fi capability and the large widescreen display. You can read more about my views on it here.

I love the iPod nano and used it a lot before I got my SonyEricsson w810i. It is from the Sony Walkman series and with a 2GB Memory Stick Duo, I am a happy camper when it comes to listening to music. The music quality is awesome but the music player interface itself could use some improvements.

Now, iPod Touch has been unveiled by Apple. It is a lot like Apple iPhone without the phone features. Some of the killer features in iPod Touch that made the iPhone so popular are:

• 3.5 inch widescreen display
• the incredible multi-touch screen
• Wi-fi enabled
• Safari browser with iTunes, YouTube access
• 8GB iPod Touch - $299
• 16GB iPod Touch - $399

As I was thinking that I would absolutely get an iPod Touch before I’d dream of getting an iPhone, Kyle reports that Apple has dropped their prices on iPhones (and on new iPod Nano iPod Classic)! It looks like they are dropping the ball on their 4GB iPhones and hence the price adjustments.

And a huge one at it in just 2 months after its launch. They have dropped a whopping $200 on the 4GB and 8GB iPhones to $299 ($499 earlier) and $399 ($599 earlier) respectively! Talk about paying a premium for the new gadget addiction. I wouldn’t be happy now if I had bought an iPhone when it launched.

Although, this puts the whole thing in a different light for me when it comes to purchasing my next gadget (as if I need one). I might as well get the 8Gb iPhone for the price of a 16GB iPod Touch. But, I have a feeling the price of iPod Touch is in for a quick revision as well right after the holiday season is over. And I might just have to wait until my birthday in January to decide what I want for a gift from you.

Update: Apple is responding to its angry customers and offering $100 Apple store credit to the early iPhone adopters. Read more here..

These two will make great gifts for someone else or yourself, if you are on the market for one:

Slickdeals has listed this deal from Dell SanDisk 4 GB Cruzer Micro U3 USB Flash Drive $30 . I have a Kingston 2GB with U3 in it and it is sweet. It acts as if it is a mini OS by itself is a mini OS by itself where you can install a bunch of free portable apps (maybe I will write a post on U3 soon) and plug it in any computer and use it!

Woot.com has the Sandisk Sansa e140 1GB MP3 Player for $29.99. I bought this for my brother last year. It is very cool and will make a sweet gift!

Enjoy!

Now that you are hooked to Flickr after reading my posts here and here (wishful thinking!), now you can see how popular or unpopular your camera is at Flickr!! This is a new section they have added.  It could be useful for someone about to spend their years savings on a camera to see what is popular amongst some photo lovers.

I use a Canon SD450 and I can’t say enough good things about it! For such a compact camera it packs so much ooomph in it. Looks like it is doing pretty good in the Point & Shoot category even though the SD600 has been gaining a lot of popularity.

What blew me out of the water is the fact that Canon has totally dominated the Point & Shoot  category and has 3 spots out of 5 in the Most popular cameras section as well.

What camera do you use?