Fuck the contract, I'm abandoning AT&T and the shitty iPhone. I've been rocking the iPhone 1st gen for a while now, because I'm not all "OMG I NEED TO PLAY GAMEZ ON MAI FONE!". I use my phone to absorb basic information, and before this whole ios4 thing came along, it did all that just fine. Of course, I figured I wouldn't need to worry about the new os update because it wasn't coming to the original iPhone. Apparently I was wrong.
As usual, I download all the updates for my necessary apps, and there are a ton of updates to support ios4. I try my Twitter client, and it crashes. My Facebook app crashes. My TIME.com app crashes. Almost everything fucking crashes.
I'm shocked and amazed that Apple managed to screw over not only their new customers, but their existing ones as well. I'm also tired of losing my AT&T coverage everywhere I go. I feel like hitting my friend who convinced me that Verizon sucks and AT&T is where it's at. I'm now determined to switch over to Verizon, pick up a nice phone with Android support, and throwing my iPhone into the fucking fireplace. It's now a useless hunk of glass, plastic and metal. Hell, even my phone calls are crashing my phone these days!

Droid X?

If your apps crash because you're using a 1st gen iPhone, it isn't only Apple's fault for approving the apps, but the dev's fault for not making sure the app works for the 1st get iPhone.

FYI, since putting IOS4 on my 3G iPhone it too has had a fuck load more crashes. I've had 3rd party apps crash, I've had Apple's primary apps crash. It's far slower in dong a lot of things such as starting up iPod functions and the battery consumption rate is through the roof (a good indication that apps are refusing to terminate correctly.
If I wanted to entertain conspiracy theories, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this was some ploy to "persuade" owners of older gen iPhones to move onto the new one. It's certainly a sign that they don't really care for testing the OSes extensively on anything but the newest revision of the phone.
Still, I'm not about to rush out to get a newer version or a different phone. Perhaps in another year or two.

IIRC, Apple recently changed the OS version you have to be compatible with from 2.0+ to 3.0+. However, I believe you can install any OS version on any iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple didn't make any effort to test new versions of their apps on the old phone. It does them little good to support them (other than customer loyalty, but Apple has never been good at supporting legacy devices). 3rd party developers, on the other hand, really should support the 1st gen iPhone because it's lost ad revenue / a lost sale if they don't.

I have a three year old flip-phone I got for free because I don't give a shit. I only want it to make calls, and it does that well.

The days when Apple were all about quality and 'just working' were over about five or more years ago now. It's only going to become more and more obvious that their current agenda is all about screwing over the customer under the guise of OMG TEH SHINY! LOOK AT THE SHINY! WHY WOULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT FEATURES WHEN YOU HAVE TEH SHINY?!

Exactly, my 80GB iPod (5.5G) doesn't have a crapload of features, but it's shiny and a damn good audio player. Of course, it is a few years old so it may very well fit your idea.

Can't help but think of the futurama pisstake

In regards to AT&T, my email stopped working mid-week. I could receive but not send. Turned out they had changed the outgoing servers and had not informed me that I needed to change the server info in my email apps.
AT&T also dumped me into a mail service that I have NO INTEREST in being associated with. Seems the customer is the least important aspect of doing business nowadays.

Well it wasn't a sudden switch in the company. It's something that has gradually happened since the first iPod. But the company ethos and reasons for buying an Apple product now seem to be radically different from what they were. Especially in the case of the iPad. For which no reason has yet been found.

Ah yes, the eyePhone.
*twitch*

Aussie ISPs like 14,000 times more expensive than anywhere else in the world?

I love my Sony Ericsson K330. I can write short messages, I can make phone calls with decent voice quality. No need for anything else. :p

I just impulse bought a T-mobile G1 for $100 on ebay yesterday. The previous owner already rooted it and put Android 2.2 on it. But T-mobile has zero coverage in my area, so I'm going to be stuck with AT&T. :(
I'm just getting the prepaid service because nobody calls me anyway.
But if you're going with Verizon, the Droid is probably the best out there.
They were $150-$200 on ebay when I looked yesterday.