Get an iPhone Without a Two Year Contract
If you really want an iPhone, but you don't want a two-year AT&T; contract, there's good news. You can use it with AT&T;'s prepaid plans.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog has instructions on how to activate the phone with a prepaid plan. They also have screenshots of the monthly plans that are available.
Assuming that $20 of the plan covers the unlimited data usage (web browsing, e-mail, etc), you'll be paying about $0.15 a minute for your talk time. That's with the cheapest plan. For the most expensive plan, you'll be paying about $0.10 a minute for your talk time. The most expensive plan also includes unlimited nights and weekends for and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calls.
In comparison to the $0.19 a minute I'm paying for our current Sprint contract, that's not a bad deal. Maybe there's an iPhone in my future after all!
UPDATE: It's apparently possible to use the iPhone without an AT&T; contract, as long as you activate it first, then cancel the contract within three days. Yeah, it's a pain. But better than nothing. I'm still hoping Apple releases an iPod like the iPhone before Christmas.