Apple iPhone

[Mike]

I am still waiting to find out what the phone cost will be with a pay monthly tariff but the initial thoughts are that the 24 month O2 300 tariff is a good go. The cost for the calls over the 24 months is £720 (rather than the £750 if you go for a 18 month contract and then pro-rated).

Vodafone appears to offering slightly more for the money over a 24 month period.

Orange is way more expensive.

Come on O2 give us some idea about the cost of the phone!

[Mike]

Vodafone are the first company to release the prices of the new iPhone 4. The cost is £179 for a 16gb model and £280 for a 32gb model. Assuming that O2 is the same sort of pricing structure then it leads me to think that a 24 month contract O2 300 is a good value - total cost of £900 for the two years.

Oh and I claimed that O2 powered the virgin mobile network over the weekend. That has proved to be wrong it is a T-Mobile powered network. Ie soon to be Orange!

[Mike]

iPhone 4 available for pre-order on the Apple website. Cool. Come on O2 I need you to tell me when I can pre-order.

[Mike]

iPhone 4 on Orange for £119 on a £35 a month contract. 600 minutes, unlimited Internet, unlimited texts. Bargin. I may be moving back to Orange!

Interestingly a £30 Vodafone tariff will give you 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 1024mb internet which should be more than sufficient. I may actually be moving to Vodafone - it will save me £20 over the life of the phone.

[Mike]

Here is the final comparison. Very little in it between the three but O2 is the most expensive.

[Mike]

I assume there are less than 24 hours till the iOS 4 updated. Less than 72 hours till the iPhone 4 is released. The countdown has begun.

[Mike]

iOS 4 update has been released and I have got up especially to install it. How sad am I? It was released at 7pm tonight.

Unsurprisingly those iPhone owners out of contract on the original 3G make up the majority of people wanting to upgrade when the iPhone 4 comes out on Thursday.

PS I have noticed a performance increase from my Phone. Maybe the effect of a restore did it good.

[stimpsonslostson]

I've just installed os4.. Can't say I've noticed a change to my 3G at all. (Except the fact that I think the calculator symbol is slightly different). Oh, and that it dropped my cellular data network and I had to reenter it in the settings menu.
I only have 4 extra apps on my phone (airport, remote, facebook and flashlight if you're interested). So multitasking is unlikely to be an issue for me.
Overall I'm a bit "Meh" about the whole situation. Any thoughts Mike?

On another note, I've restored my BIG (and legendarily temperamental) ipod and am currently re-synching it... with a twist. I noticed the convert all songs to 128 AAC... by my calculations this could save me 35GIG(!!) of space from my 145GB library! It's taking FOREVER, 4gig an hour as opposed to 12 with a "normal" transfer. I'll keep you posted.

[liz.brownlloyd]

On another note, I've restored my BIG (and legendarily temperamental) ipod and am currently re-synching it... with a twist. I noticed the convert all songs to 128 AAC... by my calculations this could save me 35GIG(!!) of space from my 145GB library! It's taking FOREVER, 4gig an hour as opposed to 12 with a "normal" transfer. I'll keep you posted.

Crikey, I've read that twice now and I'm sure that's written in a foreign language! Lol!

[Mike]

Ain't geek speak good?!

Phil - there are a number of under the hood improvements. Seach now expands to text messages and internet. Spell checker added. Unified inbox for email and 'chat' organisation for grouping email replies. Folders for organising apps, you can group them together by dragging them on top of another app - if you only have 4 it's probably not worth you playing with it. It helped me rationalise 7 pages of apps to 3!

There seems to be a graphic bug. Typing is not displaying in real time on the 3G - I guess that it is to do with spell checker but it also effects the updated facebook app. You might have noticed a notification numbers displaying oddly.

Macworld has a good article on it.

[Mike]

The graphic problem also effects Safari and this forum.

[Mike]

I now have an iPhone 4 in my sweaty hands. It will be switched on and synced for the first time this evening and we will have to see how it goes. I will have my same number etc so really no change with anything. The iPhone 3G will be sent to recycle tomorrow for £185 (unless someone else would like it!).

Gadget fans caught on the MEN. I am litterally just out of shot next to the guy in green and white.

[johnriley1uk]

Have fun!

[Mike]

First impressions are very good. The phone feels more 'solid' with precision engineered outer case, it's smaller and the screen resolution with text is amazing. In terms of speed and responsiveness it has taken a big leap. I am starting to think that the 3G hardware is struggling with the ios 4 software. For example the 3G takes about a minute to shut down, the new phone takes about . I will have to test more accurately but the perception holds true.

Will test some other new features and keep you all updated.

Oh and one more thing. The packaging and the phone has reduced significantly.

[Mike]

Don't hold your iPhone 4 funny and cover the antenna. It will make the phone drop calls! Doh.