Over at Hydrapinion, I punched out a short story on some iPhone hits and misses.

Stop by for a read.

 iPhone

I've just popped this news story up at Australian Macworld. Australia's largest telco, Telstra, has boosted their anaemic iPhone plans to offer decent amounts of data by local standards.

Telstra has finally relented and is now offering greatly improved, although in no way market leading, data plans for all its NextG customers including iPhone users.

 iPhone • Telstra

Over at Australian Macworld, editor Matthew JC Powell says the following in a recent story:

Imagine, for a moment, an e-mail program that doesn't allow you to search for past messages you've received except by flicking through the list and hoping you don't miss one. Imagine not having the facility to mark messages as read so they don't irritate you with notifications, except by reading them. Imagine not having the ability to have all your messages in one unified inbox except by forwarding mail from your other accounts to that one — meaning that if you also want to have mail going where it's meant to go you have to receive everything twice

After over a week of using my iPhone I have to agree - there are many things that Apple's iPhone does really well but email isn't one of them. I'd go a couple of steps further. Apple has bragged about the iPhone running OS X. Not some half-arsed stripped back mobile OS but a proper desktop OS that's been scaled to run on smaller screens with different input. However, they've left out some things that users expect from any operating system.

1 - Selecting text: Why can't I drag my finger over some text to highlight so I can delete it or copy/paste? And that brings me to Issue Number 2.

2 - Cut, copy and paste: Why can't I take some text I wrote in one place and copy or move it to another? That's plain dumb.

3 - An accessible file system: Why can't I store a few documents in a folder? At the moment, the only way I can do this is to email documents to myself. There's a proper OS under there - why can't I use it?

Here's the thing - it's really frustrating to use something that is clearly very well made and delivers on so many fronts but misses on a really fundamental feature. With the Microsoft Exchange support it's clear that Apple is aiming its sights on the lucrative corporate market. However, they'll not usurp RIM and Microsoft from the pockets of mobile execs until they get these basics right.

Over at hydrapinion, I've punched out a story on my iPhone observations.

Stop by for a read.

Here's another little iPhone story I've penned over at Australian Macworld. This one's about Apple's little "secret" - many iPod accessories won't work with the iPhone 3G.

Now that I have my iPhone 3G I'm somewhat stunned at the fact that many of my iPod accessories are now either nobbled in some way or completely useless.

 iPhone 3G

It took me an extra week to track one down but I finally have an iPhone of my own. I had held out mainly because the extra cost over my current handset wasn't justified but having sold a couple of iPhone stories to some local magazines and selling my Nokia N95 handset has turned the benefit case around so that I've effectively achieved payback on the cost difference from my old deal.

I've gone for a white 16GB unit as I don't think the white will show fingerprints up as much as the black. I've got a 16GB iPod touch and find that less storage would not be a good thing for me. The games and apps I downloaded or purchased for the iPod touch synced across painlessly so it didn't take long for the iPhone to be fully functional for me.

I was porting my number from another carrier. I should make it clear that I've been really happy with Three. However, not being an iPhone carrier and their roaming arrangements for data (if you fall out of Three's 3G area you roam on Telstra's GPRS which as well as being slower costs a king's ransom to use) have tipped me over. Furthermore, Three (or Telstra or Vodafone) don't have network coverage at my home. Optus has coverage at my home.

Activation was quite fast an painless. Stan at MyMac Australia had set up my account and ported my number in less that 20 minutes. If you're planning to port a number from another carrier when you get you iPhone I suggest that you make sure you bring an old phone bill with the account number as that makes the transition process much faster.

I've not yet made or received a call but I have received SMS and it seems that the email features are working as advertised despite the many teething issues MobileMe is facing. A MobileMe update was released by Apple and appeared on one of my Macs via Software Update. I can't spot it on Apple's support pages and it's not appearing in Software update on my MacBook Pro so I'm not too sure what's happening there.

In any case, iPhone Mojo now has its own official iPhone and is battling Super Monkeyball addiction.

 iPhone

While I've not been blogging I have been penning stories for a number of magazines and online publications over the last few days.

Over at Australian Macworld, I've penned this story on how the iPhone has shaken the mobile market.

More interesting, in our view, is the number of downloads from the App Store — ten million on the opening weekend. Now that's a market change worth looking at.

APC has popped a few more of my reviews up covering three different product categories; routers, NAS and mobile Internet.

Billion BiPAC 7300N: a good all-round modem: Billion's BiPAC 7300N is packed with enough features to support the needs of almost every home or small office user.

Three Internet Key: hassle free mobile internet: Three's Internet Key is dead easy to set up and delivers great performance.

SMC Wireless Barricade N Gigabit Router: fit the internet in your pocket: How does SMC try to stand out from the crowded router marketplace? With a great all-round router that includes scanner sharing.

LaCie 2big network 2-bay NAS: 2TB of 'safe' storage: LaCie's 2big network ticks the right boxes for perfomance, looks and ease of use.

Thecus N3200 Home NAS: securely store and deliver data: Made with the home user in mind, the Thecus N3200 NAS ticks all the boxes.

Linksys WRT310N Wireless-N Broadband Router: now with added gigabit: The Linksys WRT310N builds on the success of the WRT160N.

Happy reading.

 3G • HSDPA • Internet • iPhone • NAS • Router

Even though I'm writing this for iPhone Mojo (part of the pocket Mojo family) you'll notice that I've largely ignored the iPhone 3G hype cycle. Frankly, there's not much I can add to the enromous chatter in the blogosphere. Given that the iPhone 3G was announced weeks ago and Apple seeded a few units to the media under NDA, the hardware story has been done to death.

The real story in Australia are the appalling data plans being spewed forth. I'm going to suggest that 1GB will be a reasonable data allowance for someone planning to do a reasonable volume of web browsing, receives about 50 emails per day and might use some other web services such an RSS reader that they update a couple of times per day.

Telstra's data plans can be found here. I find it hard to beleive that Telstra will be charging $89 for 1GB of data (you'll need to add a call plan and, potentially, an up-front purchase fee). WiFi browsing at Telstra hotspots is included at no charge.

Optus' plans are better but will need to either look at the $149 monthly cap (that includes a generous allowance for phone calls) or $99 per month with a lower call allowance. You can buy an iPhone on Pre-Paid with an upfront payment of either $729 or $849. Thisd includes $400 of credit that can be topped up on demand. For an extra $80 the handset can be unlocked and used with any carrier. WiFi browsing at Optus hotspots is supported but there are fewer than Telstra have.

Vodafone's iPhone offering is the one that totally baffles me. Frankly, I expect telstra to gouge the price and Optus to be not far behind but I epxcted Vodafone to be far more agressive with its pricing., To get 1GB of data you'll need a monthly outlay of $169. This includes a 8GB handset. A 16GB iPhone adds another $3.71 per month.

The one carrier in Australia that's not at the iPhone party is Three. It'sd a shame when you consider that their Mobile Internet packs offer 1GB for $15. Add that to a $29 monthly cap and $30 per month for the handset and about $75 could deliver a decent iPhone package.

 iPhone 3G pricing

Telstra, Austrlaia's largest mobile phone network, is one of Apple's iPhone resellers. They've announced their data plans with the cheapest iPhone option offering 5 MB (no, that's not a typo).

To put that into context I loaded a couple of my regular websites up and lloked at what sort of traffic they would count. The Age and APC Mag each counted for about 300K of traffic. The Age automatically refreshes every few minutes meaning that it's conceivable that the entire 5 MB allowance in just a few minutes.

I know that they're offering free WiFi but it's hardly ubiquitous in Australia.

Also, the Twitterverse is suggesting that Telstra's NextG network is almost maxed out already so the potential for full speed NextG may be limited.

 iPhone 3G • Telstra

I don't often use PocketMojo to proselytise or rant but I'm compelled to do so today. iPhone 3G reviews are starting to flow now that the NDA has lapsed and the phrase "Jesus Phone" is being thrown around as if it isn't highly offensive and blasphemous.

If you're a journalist, blogger or any other commentor on the iPhone:

STOP CALLING THE IPHONE THE "JESUS PHONE"

Would you call it the "Allah Phone" or "Buddha Phone"? It seems that mocking Christianity is OK but other religions are off limits. We may not all share the same beliefs but that's not an excuse to mock the beleifs of others.

In case you missed it the first time:

STOP CALLING THE IPHONE THE "JESUS PHONE"

Thanks