Definitely wishful thinking on my part, I wonder whether the real wholesale price for ATT is $599 or $699 or if they get a deal on the subsidy such as $399 or $450? Flagship Nokia phones always debut at $699 or so (E90, N97,n96, N95-4) but within a few months are around $400 unlocked. I was really thinking along the lines of if Apple sold an end user a phone for $299 or $199 (subsidized) and which then required a 2 year subscription to MobileMe or Visual Voicemail.
This would remove the carriers from the equation and free users to use T-Mobile, ATT, Rogers etc. The full price device would be the same and the carriers would be one step closer to being dumb pipes.