So, it won't be long before the carfone warehouse or someone else offers 'free' iPads on 24 month contracts.

Probably at the bargain rate of £45 a month.

Three are going to be offering a similar deal so hopefully they'll be a bit more reasonable. The 1gb data that Orange are offering seems a bit stingy.

Most mobile data contracts sting a bit.

Yup, as I thought, the Three deal is much better - for me anyway..
Clicky

My iPhone contract is only 500mb, but as I'm mostly at home or work, I barely use a tenth of it. One thing I'm annoyed about is that I'm on the most expensive contract i've ever been on with unlimited calls and texts, but for the first time int life, I'm having to pay for voicemails. I use about 10 minutes a month and send no more than 20 texts, so to pay extra for voicemail seems a piss take to me. I was not informed up front, if I was, I would have had a bit of a rethink. Stupidly I never even considered I'd have to pay for voicemail.

Probably would have been cheaper to have stayed on my old contract and bought the iPhone outright.

I'm sure I read recently that it was against the law to charge for retrieving voicemail when roaming abroad. Ironic if it's cheaper than doing it from home

I did pay for voicemail on my first ever contract, but that was well over a decade ago.

The 64Gb Wifi and 3G contract looks reasonable. The total cost over two years including the upfront cost is £949 but the iPad alone will cost you £699. So the cost for two years is just over £10 a month. If the next version has a front facing camera, then I think that if these terms are continued that it would make much more sense for Facetime calls and Skype. Otherwise I might stick with my plans to get a wifi only version.