Recently visited Toronto and had a last minute thought the night before boarding the plane: do I need a different plan to use the iphone or my ipad in Canada? Picked up the phone and dialed 611. Guess what the answer was? Of course you do, Sir. Standard international rates are $.79 per minute, but if you pay $4.99 for the month, we’ll reduce it to $.59 per minute. Chances were very good I would exceed 25 minutes usage during the three days and that would justify the fee. The next question: “what about text messages?”. They are 50 cents each but paying $10 for the month will get you 50! And data usage? That’s separate! No way!! Yes, Sir, 50 megs of data will run you $59.99 for the month, but if you don’t keep it for the full month, it will be pro-rated. Great, so every use of this phone is going to be ridiculously expensive.

But wait, it got better… Just after crossing the border, a text message came through stating it would be $15.28 per megabyte of data transfer. Hold on a minute! A 2meg picture of the Canadian border would cost $30 to send? Ridiculous. To say I am displeased with our good friends at ATT would be an understatement.

What this made me realize while being in Canada without my usual tools is that we are far too dependent on this damn iphone. It’s a real dependency and something should be done about it. I couldn’t check email, no looking at google maps to see where I was, no checking facebook, no text messaging just for the hell of it with a picture of my smiling face. Every addiction has a price and this one’s not so bad…