Center for Freudian Analysis to Study iPhone Envy, iPhone Retraction Syndrome

There’s a 33% chance that if you haven’t already purchased an iPhone, you really would like to. This according to a new survey from Lightspeed Research that suggests interest in Apple’s latest play-pretty is actually larger than what the market had anticipated. Thirty-two percent of 39,000 survey respondents who do not currently own an iPhone said they intend to purchase one, with 8% planning to do so in the next three months and 22% at “some time in the future.”

Interesting survey, this. Unsettling too, I’d imagine, if you’re a wireless carrier. Because it follows reports that 25% of the mobile-phone users who purchased an iPhone switched carriers to do so–in many cases shouldering a nasty early termination fee. “Our sources indicate that around 25% of iPhone-AT&T customers are ‘switchers’ from other carriers,” American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu explained. “We find these numbers impressive, showing that a fair amount of customers are willing to pay high early cancellation fees (between $125 and $200) to get out of their existing service contracts for an iPhone. … The only other product we are aware of in recent history that commanded a similar type of respect (at least in the beginning) was the Motorola RAZR in mid- to late 2004, priced at $500 with a service contract and $800 without.”