Calling Steve Jobs a trickster God might be over the top, but if you review the particulars, the price of the iPhone has not been slashed, and is actually way more expensive!

Here's the issue. First of all, thanks to a new anti unlocking strategy, you can no longer buy an iPhone online and have to get it either in an Apple or AT&T store, having to activate it through AT&T in the store. Meaning it's impossible to get the iPhone 3G without signing on for a two year service plan with AT&T.

So what are you actually signing on for? An unlimited data plan will cost $30 a month, while AT&T is raising the minimum minutes plan to $40 a month, for 450 weekday minutes, meaning the cheapest your iPhone bill will be per month is $70 after already buying the thing.

And that's just the low end, the average iPhone user has an AT&T bill of $90 a month, and that's before the price increase or the 3G data plans were introduced.

All meaning that iPhone fans might soon find themselves pining for the days, that an iPhone only cost $399.