The Apple iPhone 3G and 3G S is now available in the US contract free costing $499 (8GB 3G) and $599/$699 for the 3G S 16GB/32GB respectively.
The Apple [AAPL] device can be purchased without a contract and without having an AT&T account although the phones are still locked to AT&T’s network. If you want to put another SIM in from another network then you’ll need to Jailbreak your iPhone with a tool such as Blackra1n and then apply an unlock.
There is a limit of 1 iPhone per day that you can purchase with a maximum of 10 phones in a life time.
Other than the pesky lock status, it’s not too much of a bad deal and according to documents over at Gizmodo about the matter the offer starts immediately.
Back to the Blackra1n tool, it does work on the newer handsets although depending on which boot loader you get with the phone (ie, if it’s not old stock and fresh from production) then you’ll need to tether your iPhone to your computer and run the Blackra1n app each time you need to boot your phone. Once Blackra1n is installed you can unlock the phone easily from the app on the iPhone. The unlock needs to be applied just once although tethered booting needs to be done each time, so make sure you read up first and check which versions of the phone you have before you proceed.
With out the contract/$200 rebate, that’s a pretty steep price to pay for a phone. Forking out $500 is like buying a laptop…