If you would have asked me a few weeks ago whether or not I was going to get an iPhone, I would have laughed and said absolutely not. The original plans offered by Rogers wireless in Canada were, in a word, pathetic. Not only were they asking customers to lock into a three year contract, but they also didn’t offer an unlimited data plan, something nearly every carrier in the entire world has offered with the iPhone.

Rogers received an incredible amount of negative publicity regarding their price plans, and was covered by most of the major news outlets (only those, of course, that weren’t owned by Rogers Communications). An online petition quickly formed that received over 50,000 signatures, all protesting the price gouging by Rogers. And thankfully, at nearly the 11th hour, Rogers caved in to pressure and decided to offer a 6GB/month data plan for $30/mo, which for all intents and purposes, is unlimited.

Understand that the iPhone is not a typical cell phone. If anything, it is a powerful internet device that just happens to have a phone on it. That is why having a reasonable data plan with the phone was absolutely necessary.

Shortly after Roger’s change of heart, I found myself in a line in front of the Rogers store on Davie street last Friday. Truthfully, I actually only swung by so I could grab a few photos of all the crazies standing in line for my Flickr account. But once I realized they actually had enough units for everyone in the line, I decided to join the party.

The iPhone launch that day was a worldwide debacle. Not only did Apple’s activation servers go offline for the better part of the day, but Roger’s entire computer backbone also fell down dead due to the sheer volume of people trying to activate their new iPhones. In addition, the free breakfast that Rogers promised everyone at their Broadway store in Vancouver turned out to be Presidents Choice drink boxes along with a bin of granola bars. Way to go all out for the launch, Rogers.

It only took me 45 minutes or so to get from the back of the line and into the store, but I spent another four and a half hours on a chair waiting for the computers to come back online long enough to activate my phone.

For those of you wondering about the specifics of the iPhone 3G, here they are. Rogers originally offered a few plans that started at $60/mo. These plans had very few airtime minutes for phone calls, and offered only a measly 400MB of data transfer a month. After their change of heart the other day, they decided that you could pick and choose any plan from their current repertoire (most of which are reasonable), and simply couple it with the $30/mo 6GB/mo data plan, which is basically what every single person in the line-up ended up doing.

The 6GB/mo data plan is only available up until August 31st, after which (presumably) it will disappear, leaving only the original (insufficient) data plans that Rogers originally offered. For those of you on existing Rogers plans, you should be able to simply add the $30/mo plan to your phone and keep your current telephone rates and packages. For new users, you can walk into a store and choose which plan and extras (voice mail, caller ID, etc). you want, and then add the data package to it. One thing I’d recommend is splurging the extra $4/month and getting the visual voice mail. Most voice mail systems work by having you call in to receive a message. The visual voice mail system on the iPhone actually just has an icon on the phone that shows when you have a voice mail. If you click it, you can see a full listing of every voice mail you have right on your iPhone, and simply click the desired entry to listen to a MP3 of the call. No more calling in to retrieve a message.

I’ve been using my iPhone 3G since Friday, and it’s truly an amazing device. It’s a strange thing to be able to access the internet from basically anywhere. I was at the beach the other day wondering if the tide was coming in or out. Instead of wondering, I simply fired up the iPhone and a did a quick Google search in Safari for the appropriate tide chart. Thirty seconds later I knew exactly when high and low tide would occur.

Also released at the same time is Apple’s new Mobile Me service. It effectively replaces the old .Mac service, and adds a host of features (Email, Calendar, Contacts, etc) similar to Google’s Gmail and Calendar offerings. The coolest part about it in my opinion is that it supports PUSH email. Most email systems (IMAP, POP, etc) all use polling to figure out when a new message arrives. For example, I have my iPhone configured to access my Gmail account. To determine whether or not I have a new message, my iPhone will access Gmail every 15 minutes and check. With Mobile Me, the service actually contacts your phone the moment a new message comes in. So you basically get new mail the very instant it’s sent to you. I tested this a few times, and it takes about three seconds from the time I click send in gmail until the time my iPhone chirps letting me know there’s a new Mobile Me message on it. In addition, Mobile Me will also synchronize your contacts and data between all your Apple computers and devices, using PUSH when it can.

There’s also built in GPS on the unit, so you can simply press a button to see exactly where you are using Google maps. It sure makes navigating a breeze. Once a few more applications are released, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can simply SMS your GPS coordinates to a friend, and have them magically show up for a beer at the bar you are at. No more having to explain to someone how to find you.

So, while it’s not the cheapest toy in the world, it really is a revolutionary device. I’ve only just scratched the surface with what it can do, but I think it’s a fairly good primer for those of you looking to get one. I picked one up on Friday, and Dale got his today. Hopefully Matt’s not far behind.

I‘ve been messing around with the iPhone 3G pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours. For the most part, it has exceeded my expectations.

First, being able to check your email or surf the web from any location is a pretty awesome feature. For example, today I was at the beach with some friends and we noticed that the tide was slowly creeping up the shore. I quickly fired up Safari, did a Google search for “Vancouver Tide Table”, and determined that high tide was in about two hours.

As most people know, the iPhone 2.0 firmware brings with it the iPhone application store. I’ve already purchased two applications, the premium Twitterific app and the Flickr app. The Twitterific app is a bit more polished, but the Flickr app is fully functional and will probably make life with Flickr that much easier.

One application that is notably missing is something to share your current location with your friends. The AGPS system in the iPhone works surprisingly well with the Google maps application, but I have yet to have it work well with anything else. I updated my location in Twitter today using the Twitterific application, only to realize that it was about 2 or 3 miles off when someone viewed the location from my Twitter profile. Ideally, I want a way to send my GPS coordinates to someone so they can find me. I was trying to tell John Biehler how to get to the beach we were at today, when I really should have been able to fire him off a URL of where I was and have him walk right up to me. Perhaps that functionality is buried in the iPhone somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.

I was pretty worried with the battery life yesterday after I picked it up. It was 50% full when I purchased it, and I nearly ran it down to 0 by the time I got home. I gave it a full charge overnight, and was relieved when I got home tonight and it was still nearly full. So battery life seems to at least be good enough to do a full day or random calling and surfing.

One disappointing aspect is that the iPhone 3G doesn’t appear to work with my iPod dock. The current dock I have has worked for three generations of iPods (the original, the nano and the touch), so I was disappointed when I plugged it into my stereo dock as night only to be told by the iPhone that it wasn’t compatible. I can’t really imagine a scenario where Apple couldn’t make it work with the old dock if they wanted to (the pin configurations are the same), so I can only conclude that the purposefully broke it so people would be forced to buy new docks for the iPhone 3G.

I also signed up for a trial Mobile Me account tonight. Mobile Me is Apple’s new web-based service that can synchronize content between Mac devices in real-time. One nice thing about the Mobile Me service is that it operates off a PUSH delivery system, which means that it automatically sends data to all devices immediately after the data is changed. The opposite of that is a PULL system (often called polling or fetching), where each device periodically checks for updates, even if none exist. The PUSH system is obviously far more efficient, and ultimately uses less battery life (since no data is transferred when no updates are available). I have to say, it’s pretty cool seeing your iPhone chirp about 3 seconds after you send an email to your Mobile Me address. I also updated a pile of contacts on my Laptop to see what would happen on my iPhone. Without any intervention, the contacts on my iPhone automatically changed as well within about 15 seconds of finishing synchronizing them on my laptop. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the Mobile Me website seems borked right now, and it won’t let me log in using my credentials. Until then, I won’t be able to see how it compares against Google’s suite of products.

In terms of data usage, it would seem I haven’t used all that much. In the 36 hours or so that I’ve had the device, I’ve only used 40MB worth of data. I would consider myself in the “power user” category, and I’m actually a bit surprised that it’s so low. I imagine once I start uploading photos routinely it will climb, but at my current rate I’ll barely hit 1GB worth of data this month.

One thing I have noticed however is that the user interface seems a bit sluggist on the iPhone 3G compared to my iPod touch. I played around with John Biehler’s device today, and although it seemed slightly snappier, you can see a slight delay when bouncing between contacts or adding new ones. I’ve been told that the original iPhone firmwares also had speed issues, and slowly improved with each iteration. So hopefully the next version of the 3G firmware will make the UI a bit peppier.

All in all, I’m extremely happy with my purchase, and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a mobile computing device. Surprisingly, I haven’t really made that many calls with it since I’ve gotten it. In fact, I consider the ability to surf and interact wirelessly over 3G the device’s main selling point.

** Update – Also, the iPhone 3G doesn’t appear to support the 802.11n. That’s pretty disappointing considering every Mac product in my house is using it, including my new Airport base station. The only way I can make my iPod touch work with it is to reconfigure my router to do a+b as well as n, but that means I can’t use the 802.11n in wide mode. Maybe I’ll bridge my router at home with another 802.11b router I have, but that’s a huge pain in the ass. I’m really surprised 802.11n isn’t supported on the iPhone 3G.

As if there isn’t enough conjecture and hoopla surrounding the launch of the iPhone 3G tomorrow along with a new version of iTunes, AppleTV software, The iPhone/iPod touch App Store and of course the iPhone 2.0 software. Still, I thought I’d throw some thoughts in the bucket from someone who’s used iPhone 1.0 for nearly a year, and someone who, on a daily basis, works with all this Apple gear that needs to work seamlessly together to both provide me the working environment I need, and be the stalwart of our home entertainment network.

iPhone 2.0

Much ado about nothing to comment seriously on this software update, as it’s been in beta for quite awhile and the backbone of what developers have been using to craft new native applications for the iPhone. With enterprise features, integration with Apple’s new MobileMe push-sync service, and of course the App Store, iPhone 2.0 stands to be a significant upgrade all around. That said, it’s still missing basic productivity functions like cut-and-paste which leave those of us who are trying to use the device as a mini-portable computer high and dry.

App Store

After window shopping in the now viewable iPhone/iPod touch Applications Store, I got excited at some of the titles which I know for certain will improve my device experience, notably the native AOL chat, Facebook, Flickr & Twitter applications. I’m sure a WordPress blogging application will arrive soon as well, along with other productivity apps which will supercede the web apps currently in vogue for similar functions.

At current, 25% of the store’s apps are free, and 90% of all the paid apps are 9.99 or less. Though I’ve enjoyed a jailbroken iPhone with 3rd party apps to date, I don’t think I’ll mind losing that and having the app store instead, even if I need to pay small fees to have the applications I want. The Apple way is a better overall ecosystem, and I believe in the quality of the Applications being a key to the success of the Application Store, with Apple overseeing things I believe the quality of the Applications (in functionality and security terms) will improve.

MobileMe

Apple’s newly re-branded, revised, and expanded .Mac service, MobileMe also soft launched today, with push services becoming active. The service will greatly benefit me, as I currently have two production Macs (iMac, MacBook Air) along with my iPhone that I would to have all synced with the new push service.

I’ll be awaiting the arrival of the service to my iPhone however, since I cannot install the 2.0 software at current without losing the phone’s functionality (I have it running unlocked on Fido here in Canada). Having push-sync between the devices means that I can instantly record data on one computer then use the other and see those changes reflected instantly, something which really will benefit users when they’re away from one device and working, then return to the other(s) and have things significantly out of sync with each other. MobileMe will make working with multiple computers that much easier.

Apple’s web applications for MobileMe also look very impressive, something which, should I be in a situation where I need to use a temporary computer (even a PC egad!) I can view all my MobileMe information online in rich application-like experiences, having any changes I make be reflected on my phone and work computers instantly when I return to them.

While I think the enhanced iDisk features and 20GB of storage are nice, it doesn’t really entice me to start really using the web as a viable mobile hard disk. I’d have liked to see 100GB of storage standard with the service, especially seeing as the price has been increased here in Canada to $109 for the service. You can however add on extra storage space, with another 20GB for $49, and 40GB for $99. Other online storage solutions are cheaper however, but don’t allow for the elegant Finder-based usage without advanced configuration.

iPhone 3G Launch

Yes, tomorrow the world will all be clamouring and fawning over the next generation iPhone, and here in Canada many consumers will roll over and take it in the wallet just to have the device, despite Rogers’ steep package prices (and by most accounts data price gouging).

As I’ve mentioned with friends and colleagues, the ‘breakthough internet device’ the iPhone is heralded to be simply can’t be just that without a simple unlimited data plan, that lets users never have to worry about what they’ve racking up in terms of usage.

I for one would willingly pay $50/month for such a luxury, but even that’s expensive. The $60 baseline package plan they offer is simple far too empty a phone package for this device, especially considering Caller ID isn’t even included! That and the fact that they (Rogers & Fido) are world’s only carriers who force iPhone users to lock into a 36-month contact which, all figures included, will cost a user over $1000/year to have the device in it’s basic form on the networks.

We at BraveNewCode would like to get a few of the phones and a plan to match our long-distance requirements for business, but at this time have wavered and hesitated about it. It almost seems a pipe dream now to think that plans will improve over the next few weeks, but pressure continues to be applied to the wireless giant, so who knows.

The next week will be a big one for Apple, and it remains to be seen how all of these changes will affect each other, and how seamless an experience using the MobileMe service will be. One thing’s for sure though with regard to us here at BraveNewCode: we’re not going to watch it all from the sidelines. We have major plans to introduce some startling upgrades to our WPtouch plugin, and we’ll reveal a little bit about that in the next 24-48 hours.

Most of us have been waiting patiently for Rogers to finally release their data rates for the iPhone 3G that is coming to Canada on July 11th. The good news is that the wait is finally over… Rogers just released full information about their plans.

Unfortunately, Rogers completely missed the boat on this one. They had the chance to bring Canada to the forefront of the wireless world, but instead felt compelled to keep us locked up in our draconian past. There are no unlimited data rates for the new plans, and anything approaching 1GB will cost you $100 or more per month (plus, I’m sure, the 9/11 fee and the system access fee, bringing your bill to $120 or more).

To be honest, it’s exactly what I expected, but I can’t honestly say I didn’t dare to hope that things might be better. On my recent trip down south I walked into a Best Buy and bought a pay as you go plan, including a free phone, for $15. No contract, no nothing. The same deal up here will run about $80, and you need your own phone. In addition, Jason lent me a little USB dongle for my laptop that took a GSM SIM card and provided unlimited internet access anywhere in the US for only $60/mo. We’re so far behind here it’s not even funny.

The iPhone is a revolutionary invention, but it really needs to be augmented with an unlimited data plan to bring it to fruition. Given that Rogers is adamant about a 3 year contract (I can’t think of a single other carrier that wants a 3 year contract), and that their data rates leave much to be desired, I’m probably going to pass on getting the iPhone, and spend the next few days reflecting on the wireless dream that never was.

If you’re currently enjoying WPtouch installed on your website or blog, hopefully you’ve heard of WPhone, the excellent WordPress plugin that delivers AJAX goodness, simple and clear navigation structure and an intuitive, easy to use interface for the WordPress admin.

If you haven’t come across it, but have considered blogging from your iPhone or iPod touch if it weren’t for the slow, bloaty WordPress admin- I just made your day (actually WPhone will, but I digress).

I wrote this post using its slick admin, and its post limitations are really Apple’s devices’ limits (no cut and paste, no image upload).

There seems to be one bug where editing a post means re-typing the title each time, but I may be overlooking something in that regard.

Check it out.