To iPhone or not to iPhone, that is the question...

Hey All,

I was hoping you could help me out with a quandary I find myself in. As you all know, the next iteration of the god phone is upon us once again and once again I have managed to beat a piece of kit to death right before hand (my g1 ipod touch). Now I love the iPhone, loved having one back in the day but now I am left with this problem, should I get another one? Is 70 dollars a month, $840 per year worth it? The iPod already does many of the things the iPhone does, but lacks a few critical things (I am betting it will finally get some of them here in sep when gen 3 comes out). Alright, there is Elite Force I would like to be playing so lets cut to the quick. Here is my situation now.

1. I have a corporate Blackberry 8820.... it sucks BIG time but does make calls (if you sift through enough pointless, slow menus to get to that stage)
2. I have an AT&T wireless card which I think is still unlimited 3G (unlike the poor saps that now have a 5 gig cap)
3. I have the already mentioned beaten up ipod which miraculously still works

When I first got the BB and let my wife have my iphone I hoped that the ipod would be all I needed to work with the Rim device. It has been... irritating. I WANT SPEAKERS! I WANT VOLUME CONTROL! I WANT SKYPE TO WORK! All of these things now work on the new ipod (will still be waiting for the third gen though so it has the new chipset). The one thing really lacking though on top of these already fixed problems is, even if I have skype and speakers and stuffs when i am not at home (where I would just use one of my computers anyways) its somewhat difficult to stay connected (yes i am an internet junky and yes this does mean shakes when i am away from my twitters for too long).

Now there are two solutions to this problem as I see it. Get a 3GS iPhone and rock out with its eternal life. Plan 2?

See HERE and HERE and HERE

Pogues post on the mifi got me thinking about the idea of mobile hotspots and low and behold, someone makes one that uses someones existant USB stick. If you read the articles above I think you could have a really good idea what this gadget does. This would allow me to not only have my skype on my ipod, but allow anyone of my friends to have wifi around me as well. There would be no extra $840 dollars to spend (can anyone say new jeep tires right there?) and combined with even the already existent updates to the iPod touch I will probably be a happy man. I am thinking that when i have everything set in its little case I shouldn't ever need to remove any of it. With the car charger just toss it in and go. From the time I am off work to home I am connected, any where i go with a car i am connected. When i do want to go to a restaurant i use the cases caribeaner and take internet (fast internet) with me anywhere (my wife can use the faster connection with you iphone gen 1 if she wants to as well).

The downside, something else to carry and charge (though it can charge off a usb as well as wall wart which is nice) and I still might not have features like gps on the next ipod (sounds like camera is almost a done thing by now though).

So what are your opinions? Are there things I have not thought of here? Do you think that carrying the hotspot around will drive me nutters? Post your comments and let me know what you think. I would appreciate it.