Travel Technology - Anyone else get the iPhone 3G S yet?

I got mine already, although the process was not as smooth as it should have been. So far, on day 1, Apple has managed to live down to all expectations. I rolled out of bed at 5:30am, and was in line outside the mall at 6:30am, ready and waiting for when the doors to the Apple Store would open at 7. It started off nice, as at about 6:40 Apple employees came outside to greet us with coffee and doughnuts, and to pump up the crowd. At 6:50 they took us into the mall, and divided us up into two groups, those with reservations, and those without. Those without reservations were told the only iPhone 3G S available for them would be a black 16GB phone.

At about 7:45, I got to the front of the line. The concierge attempted to find my reservation, but was unable to do so. No problem, I thought, I can just pull up the email on my original iPhone. I showed it to the concierge, who them started to hem and haw, as she called a manager. Apparently, my reservation wasn't really a reservation, although the email from Apple sure looks like one. After all, the email says, "Thanks for starting your iPhone purchase online. To finish the process, come to your nearest Apple Retail Store and look for a Concierge in an orange shirt. We'll help you complete your purchase, activate your new iPhone, and set it up for you."

But somewhere between starting my online purchase and coming to the Apple store to finish it, there should have been another email. I'm not quite sure what that email looks like, since I never got it. I guess I should have been looking more for the email that says "Oh, but here in the middle of those two things is another step." Also, the line at the bottom of my original email that iPhones are sold on a first-come, first-served basis doesn't really apply.

Tim, the manager, told me that I was more than welcome to buy the 16GB iPhone, which I declined. As I walked away, he tried to explain to me that he understood exactly how I felt. Oh really Tim? Did you pre-order a phone, wake up many hours earlier than usual to go get it, and then be told you didn't really order one? "Um, well, no. But I don't have the new phone yet either." Ok, thanks Tim, that's exactly how I feel.

Solution? Go across the street to an AT&T store, spend less than 5 minutes waiting for a rep to get to me, and out the door with the 32GB iPhone in less than 20 minutes. On this one, AT&T gets a big thumbs up, while Apple, um, not so much.

PS I was at least the sixth person that went from the Apple store to the AT&T store. So, clearly, I'm not the only one that is having issues with Apple today.

Apple ALWAYS screws up the launch day of the iPhone, I remember people standing in line for 12 hours last year, only to find out that they couldn't buy a 3G iPhone because they had a discount code on their AT&T plan. Then again, with this much attention, and interest in the phone, it is no surprise that things go wrong.

I left the house at 6:30, drove 20 miles, waited 5 minutes in "line," spent 5 minutes at the counter, drove home, restored my backup to the new phone, synced my music/apps/videos, put on a protective film, put my old cover on, and was still completely done well before 9AM. AT&T couldn't have handled this better.

Now I'm wiping my old phone, getting ready to sell to someone contract-averse.

I woke up late so got to the local AT&T store at 9:30. They said they only had the 32gig White, so I drove over to Short Hills mall in NJ. Apple is apparently sold out for walk ins, but I was in and out of the AT&T store in 15 minutes.

I had a couple hickups too.
I did a "pre-order" with apple, went to the stanford apple store, not the Palo Alto flagship.

I was about 15 in the pre-order line, but the apple activation point of sale devices couldn't get my account info (I have been a wireless customer with ATT now for nearly 20 years, and ATT Bay Area GSM for nearly a decade)

So, they couldn't sell me the phone, which I can understand, but don't know why the online order process went fine, but it actually didn't.

So, yes had to go to the ATT store down the street, stand in line again (i'm on crutches these days, so it is a bit of a pain, but they were very accomodating and offered me a chair, water)

They managed to alter my account (I had a legacy ATT GSM account which was cheap, and 1200 minutes, and I didn't want to lose those benefits, I just wanted to add data and sms)

And, after about 30 minutes I walked out with my phone. We've had the two previous generations, and this is definitly faster, camera is nice, much nicer pictures, and the video works well.

I'm working on an iphone application now, so needed the phone with the compass.

I preordered the black 16gb and received it today via UPS ground. I also received a note from Apple regarding my $200 credit for upgrading. I am now trying to activate on iTunes and received a screen note that it was going to take up to 48 hours to activate my phone and would receive an email when to start the process.

EDIT: I called AT&T last night and they activated my phone within a couple of minutes.

EDIT #2: I finally received my email from Apple telling me that my phone has been activated on Saturday night around 8:00pm.

I may not buy one depending on badly Rogers screws me on upgrading, but since I have to hit the mall after work anyway I'll swing by the Rogers store there and see how it goes.

Woke up today at 7:35am, showered and out the door to catch my 8am bus. Got to the rogers store with only 2 staff members already helping 2 customers. After 5 mins waiting, it was my turn and I picked up my first iphone, 16gb black. I've been wanting one ever since day one. I was 80mins late for work today. LoL :rolleyes: :D

Before boarding my flight in FCO at noon stopped by the TIM store, asked if they were selling the new iPhone and bought it. 15 minutes, no hassles. :)

They managed to alter my account (I had a legacy ATT GSM account which was cheap, and 1200 minutes, and I didn't want to lose those benefits, I just wanted to add data and sms)

I'm surprised they were able to do that. When I got my iPhone almost two years ago they tried to do that and it wouldn't work.

I left the house at 6:30, drove 20 miles, waited 5 minutes in "line," spent 5 minutes at the counter, drove home, restored my backup to the new phone, synced my music/apps/videos, put on a protective film, put my old cover on, and was still completely done well before 9AM. AT&T couldn't have handled this better.

Now I'm wiping my old phone, getting ready to sell to someone contract-averse.

I just sold my original 2G iPhone, which has been in a box in the basement for 11 months, for $100 cash. Whoo hoo! Same person is going to buy my 3G phone for $200 on Monday. So I'm only out of pocket about $30 total for today's upgrade.

I'm surprised they were able to do that. When I got my iPhone almost two years ago they tried to do that and it wouldn't work.

there are ALWAYS work arounds, keeping the plan is not an option, but getting on a new plan and simply adding the codes for more minutes is.

I put my #1 1K GF on an iphone first, she had the original plan, and they just gross up monthly minutes and add roll overs on request.

She ALSO was a wireless customer since 1988.

Sounds like better luck at ATT stores for this launch. Well I hope you at their donuts for their lame issue.

There was a bit of waiting for me since the local apple store had some problems with their registration system. Things went quickly once that got fixed... almost crashed on the ride home :D

Is there an advantage to buying at one or the other - Apple Store vs. ATT store?

Reason I ask, is that I use Macs and have a Treo 650 currently. I'm going to buy a 3G S and am curious if there is an advantage to buying at an Apple store or ATT, with regards to transferring contact info, etc. from the Treo to the 3G S.

I'm a longtime Sprint customer about to reach the end of my contract. Considering a switch to AT&T... Only catch is that I have a flat 25% discount off of everything on my Sprint bill...a discount I've had since being a Sprint PCS launch customer back in the late 1990's.

My question is whether AT&T sales people have the leeway to match other carriers' offers...or if the iPhone is simply so popular that they would say "You must pay full rate to switch." (Pretty much everybody I know gets *some* sort of "discount" on their monthly service...most of my Verizon friends are getting a flat 8-12% through some sort of corporate promo. I don't know any existing AT&T customers.)

I don't mind ponying up some cash to get the physical device, but I don't like the idea of paying a higher monthly fee to the carrier for it. Right now I pay Sprint $137 all in per month for 3 Windows Mobile devices, all data/text, and 1400 total minutes of talk. (We could live with fewer talk minutes...we never use 1400 since most calls are to other Sprint phones and therefore don't count against the 1400. Even on AT&T we wouldn't use anywhere near 1400.)

I'm a longtime Sprint customer about to reach the end of my contract. Considering a switch to AT&T... Only catch is that I have a flat 25% discount off of everything on my Sprint bill...a discount I've had since being a Sprint PCS launch customer back in the late 1990's.

My question is whether AT&T sales people have the leeway to match other carriers' offers...or if the iPhone is simply so popular that they would say "You must pay full rate to switch." (Pretty much everybody I know gets *some* sort of "discount" on their monthly service...most of my Verizon friends are getting a flat 8-12% through some sort of corporate promo. I don't know any existing AT&T customers.)

I don't mind ponying up some cash to get the physical device, but I don't like the idea of paying a higher monthly fee to the carrier for it. Right now I pay Sprint $137 all in per month for 3 Windows Mobile devices, all data/text, and 1400 total minutes of talk. (We could live with fewer talk minutes...we never use 1400 since most calls are to other Sprint phones and therefore don't count against the 1400. Even on AT&T we wouldn't use anywhere near 1400.)

You're looking at more. The 3 iPhone data plans alone would be $90. 700 minutes would be another $90 (family plan, 3 lines). Texting is extra on top of that, figure $15 if each phone were to have an allotment of 200 texts.

I'm sure there are discounts out there, but we have none.

Is there an advantage to buying at one or the other - Apple Store vs. ATT store?

Reason I ask, is that I use Macs and have a Treo 650 currently. I'm going to buy a 3G S and am curious if there is an advantage to buying at an Apple store or ATT, with regards to transferring contact info, etc. from the Treo to the 3G S.
I went from Treo to iPhone on a Mac. There is a way to make it synch your treo to the Mac contacts (I don't remember as it has been a couple of years) and then when you first synch the iPhone they will appear.

can someone comment on email with the iphone? I am a heavy email user with a blackberry. How is the MS exchange server sync, is it push (i get my BB email literally the same time it appears on my desktop on outlook).. how is the iphone for this sort of business use

can someone comment on email with the iphone? I am a heavy email user with a blackberry. How is the MS exchange server sync, is it push (i get my BB email literally the same time it appears on my desktop on outlook).. how is the iphone for this sort of business use

I don't have experience with MS exchange. I like reading email on the iPhone but it took a while to get used to the virtual keyboard for sending. It arrives quickly but I don't think it's as quick as your BB. Maybe a minute or two later.

The iPhone is an amazingly capable device and with all the incredible apps it's fun to use.

Are the new Touches out?

I just upgraded my 3G to the 32GB 3Gs and I love it. It's so much faster!

Is there an advantage to buying at one or the other - Apple Store vs. ATT store?

Reason I ask, is that I use Macs and have a Treo 650 currently. I'm going to buy a 3G S and am curious if there is an advantage to buying at an Apple store or ATT, with regards to transferring contact info, etc. from the Treo to the 3G S.

I just switched from my Treo 680 to the Iphone 3G S yesterday. I backed up all my contacts from the Treo to Outlook 2003 and was able to transfer them to the Iphone thru Itunes. It is not completely seamless as some "fields" were not recognized so I needed to change any "Company" telephone number to "Primary" which the Iphone then recognized as "Main." In general, I beleive it will not import any user defined fields. Love the phone and the speed on the web. -- Suzanne

I just switched from my Treo 680 to the Iphone 3G S yesterday. I backed up all my contacts from the Treo to Outlook 2003 and was able to transfer them to the Iphone thru Itunes.

Thanks for the info, although I don't use, or own, Outlook.

I seem to have a vague memory that if you bought at the Apple Store, the staff would help you get the old data off your phone and onto the iPhone. Was I imagining that? Anyway, back to the question of there being any advantage from buying from the Apple Store vs. an ATT store.

You're looking at more. The 3 iPhone data plans alone would be $90. 700 minutes would be another $90 (family plan, 3 lines). Texting is extra on top of that, figure $15 if each phone were to have an allotment of 200 texts.

I'm sure there are discounts out there, but we have none.

Yikes...it sounds like I'd be spending an extra $1000-2000 per year for three iPhones. :eek:

Any Palm Pre users? I just got a call from Sprint wanting me to re-up. Same plan, three Pres for $99 apiece. Looks like a touch-screen slide-out keyboard device. (Basically, Sprint's willing to give me $100 per device above the "published" $150 rebate.)

can someone comment on email with the iphone? I am a heavy email user with a blackberry. How is the MS exchange server sync, is it push (i get my BB email literally the same time it appears on my desktop on outlook).. how is the iphone for this sort of business use

Yep, emails tend to arrive on my iPhone *before* they hit my desktop.

Really easy to set up. Just type in your server and account details, and away you go.

Cheers,
Rick

Yikes...it sounds like I'd be spending an extra $1000-2000 per year for three iPhones. :eek:

Any Palm Pre users? I just got a call from Sprint wanting me to re-up. Same plan, three Pres for $99 apiece. Looks like a touch-screen slide-out keyboard device. (Basically, Sprint's willing to give me $100 per device above the "published" $150 rebate.)

Actually think the cheapest family plan on AT&T is 550 min for $50, $90 for 3 data plans, $15 for 200 messages each, for a total of $155 pretax. To get similar to your plan it would be about $80 (1400 min family plan) + $90 (iphone dataplan) + $30 (unlimited texting) = $200 / month

Or about $18-$63 / month more than Sprint before discounts. $216-$756 / yr more before discounts.

You also have to keep in mind that AT&T has rollover minutes (plus free nights and weekends which you didn't mention in your current plan), so you can usually go with a lower plan and the rollover will even out overages. We have three phones and have never gone over on our 550 minute plan. We constantly have about 1400 minutes of rollover if we do go over for some reason.

I just picked up a 3G S the other day. I picked it up at an AT&T store on some advice from the last launch. It was painless and quick at 7AM launch day. The other advantage of going there over Apple is getting them to apply the employee discount (if your company qualifies).

Email setup was easy and emails are received promptly. However, trying to use two accounts on either Yahoo or gmail was problematic.

Actually think the cheapest family plan on AT&T is 550 min for $50, $90 for 3 data plans, $15 for 200 messages each, for a total of $155 pretax. To get similar to your plan it would be about $80 (1400 min family plan) + $90 (iphone dataplan) + $30 (unlimited texting) = $200 / month

Or about $18-$63 / month more than Sprint before discounts. $216-$756 / yr more before discounts.

You also have to keep in mind that AT&T has rollover minutes (plus free nights and weekends which you didn't mention in your current plan), so you can usually go with a lower plan and the rollover will even out overages. We have three phones and have never gone over on our 550 minute plan. We constantly have about 1400 minutes of rollover if we do go over for some reason.

Sprint has free nights, weekends, and calls to other Sprint phones.

I suspect that the taxes on $155 probably push it into the $180-190 range, right? (My $137 is all taxes included.) So if we can work ourselves into the 550 minute plan we'd be looking at about a $500/yr premium for iPhones.

The other thing I didn't mention: right now, none of us are iPod users. I think we would quickly become iPod users - I certainly have plenty of music and would be likely to buy more from iTunes if I had an iPhone. (Right now, I have a 1st generation Zune but have never purchased much music from Microsoft...it's all my own CDs.)

Anyway, tonight I'm going to go to a Sprint store and mess around with a Pre. My wife is a Palm fan. The upfront costs on the iPhones don't bother me a whole lot, but the thought of a $180/mo. phone bill is a bit chilling. I might make one attempt at showing my Sprint bill to an AT&T rep and seeing if he can do any discounting...

Sprint has free nights, weekends, and calls to other Sprint phones.

I suspect that the taxes on $155 probably push it into the $180-190 range, right? (My $137 is all taxes included.) So if we can work ourselves into the 550 minute plan we'd be looking at about a $500/yr premium for iPhones.

The other thing I didn't mention: right now, none of us are iPod users. I think we would quickly become iPod users - I certainly have plenty of music and would be likely to buy more from iTunes if I had an iPhone. (Right now, I have a 1st generation Zune but have never purchased much music from Microsoft...it's all my own CDs.)

Anyway, tonight I'm going to go to a Sprint store and mess around with a Pre. My wife is a Palm fan. The upfront costs on the iPhones don't bother me a whole lot, but the thought of a $180/mo. phone bill is a bit chilling. I might make one attempt at showing my Sprint bill to an AT&T rep and seeing if he can do any discounting...

I just found out my wife has an 18% discount through work. I'm going to see if I can get this applied to our account today.

I just found out my wife has an 18% discount through work. I'm going to see if I can get this applied to our account today.

I don't think the corporate discounts work on iphone plans, but let us know what you found out. Maybe that's changed. Maybe it's only for those in their initial contract with "discounted" iphones.

-David

If AT&T would go 18% with me, they might have a new customer. Seems like the subscription discount should be lifetime and independent of handset make/model. (I understand that the 18% is not a discount on the devices themselves.)

There's a Verizon store a 1/2 block away from the Sprint one I'm visiting tonight. I might walk in there with my Sprint bill as well and see what they want to do with me. Handset-wise, I'm guessing they're similar to Sprint since they're both CDMA carriers and it seems like the same 3-4 manufacturers do all of the CDMA devices in this world.

I think in terms of devices Verizon is behind until a couple new devices come out later this summer. Verizon also is in the habit of crippling some features like certain Bluetooth protocols. Even if they "catch up" the momentum of the iPhone and the App Store will be hard to match.

I think you have to use the iPhone to really understand how much better it is than the also-ran players. Especially for games, I think the iPhone is most interesting platform to come out in a long time. I doubt the new devices will be able to match it. It's the software that makes the huge difference.

It's too bad Verizon didn't accept the first iPhone since I think they have a superior network compared to AT&T.

I don't think the corporate discounts work on iphone plans, but let us know what you found out. Maybe that's changed. Maybe it's only for those in their initial contract with "discounted" iphones.

-David

Anything over $30 is discountable, according to the person at the store, who seemed quite knowledgeable. So...

$14.40 off the $80 first line.
$5.40 off each of 2 iPhone data plans

This comes to $25+ per month off the top. Not bad. Wish I knew about this before.

(Of course, this presupposes that I will actually *get* those discounts.)

Rich,

We have the corp discount also, but I remember my 2 good friends at work told me they didn't apply to the iphone plans. But maybe that changed, they are both early adopters.

I will check with them.

-David

ok, they do get the company discount on their iphone monthly plans, but not on the equipment.

-David

ok, they do get the company discount on their iphone monthly plans, but not on the equipment.

-David

Nor on the data plans -- our monthly plan has been updated to reflect an ~ $15 discount per month on the main line. There's a mention there that the iPhone data plans do not qualify for the discount.

many discounts will apply to iphone, my historical plan and discounts applied no problem.

I pay now 65$ with taxes for iphone
1000 min, N&W, M2M
Unlimited data
750 texts. (iphone DID kill my unlimited texts)

OK, Sprint ended up retaining me for two more years. Their final offer: three free Palm Pre devices, $50 per line retention credit, and I convert to a plan that costs about $4 higher per month than what I have now. (Although I get "unlimited texts", not that I really use them.)

So I'll be at about $141/mo. all in for 3 lines and 1500 total anytime minutes per month, plus unlimited web/data/video/pictures/texts. And $150 in credits vs. the $700-ish out-of-pocket I would have been for iPhones.

Hey, I still have that 1st generation Zune... :D

Nice. We'll be expecting a full report on the Pre.

Got mine today. Cant really tell that much difference from the 3g running 3.0. I do like that all my music will fit on it now, only 1gb free with the 32gb model.

Nice. We'll be expecting a full report on the Pre.

I will provide one in about a week. The other string attached to my deal is that my corp rep can only order the devices from the warehouse. I can't walk into a Sprint store and grab three Pres.

They're in stock and shipping today...or so I'm told. Hopefully by the weekend.

One downside to the Pre for some of you big music fans: it's an 8-gig device. I believe it's expandable with a memory card, but it's a far cry from a 32-gig iPhone. For me, it's not a big deal: my Zune maybe has 6 gigs of music on it. (And I thought that was a lot!! :o)

ok, they do get the company discount on their iphone monthly plans, but not on the equipment.

-David

Correct. My corp. discount worked on my plan, but not on the phone.

Correct. My corp. discount worked on my plan, but not on the phone.

Are you getting a discount on the $30 iPhone data plan?

Related question: Should I get a 3G USB stick or wait until AT&T officially supports tethering for the iPhone? I really don't know if I want to rely on the iPhone for tethering, to be honest.

I looked on my online account info. I can upgrade 12/09 to the 3GS with the subsidized price. We'll see if I do it.

Related question: Should I get a 3G USB stick or wait until AT&T officially supports tethering for the iPhone? I really don't know if I want to rely on the iPhone for tethering, to be honest.

If you are willing to jailbreak it, which is very easy to do and can easily be reverted, you can have tethering soon, when the dev team releases the jailbreak for the 3GS. My guess is they will have the jailbreak for the 3GS soon, but who knows what they ran into with the actual release on Friday. (They already have jailbreak and unlock for the 3g and the original iphone, both with 3.0). jailbreak gives you an app called cydia. You then use cydia to download an app called PDANET. http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/index.php

I've never tried pdanet, so I guess you will have to do some due diligence to make sure it works with 3.0.

But it sounds like you answered your own question with your second sentence.

-David

I got tethering working on my 3gs without jailbreaking just by going to the help.benm.at site, ridiculously simple. There was some problem with visual voicemail, but it's been figured out with the latest configuration.

can someone comment on email with the iphone? I am a heavy email user with a blackberry. How is the MS exchange server sync, is it push (i get my BB email literally the same time it appears on my desktop on outlook).. how is the iphone for this sort of business use

If you're using Blackberry with a BES (which you are if you get it immediately like that), you'll find the iphone email is delivered slower (but not a lot slower, but slower) with Exchange Activesync; it is push but not as efficient as the BES. Also, Activesync can be annoying to configure on an Exchange Server (depends on the size of your organization and how it's setup, security restrictions, etc, but that's not your problem).

I have heard from other Exchange admins that they sometimes have issues with activesync malfunctioning; it is less reliable than a BES, though that is anecdotal. I myself haven't had that, but most of my clients aren't hundreds or thousands of users.

Also, one advantage to a BES for enterprise is that it backs up your Blackberry entirely; lose it or have it die and you reactivate and get everything back (except apps, which you can reinstall). Not so with ActiveSync.

I got tethering working on my 3gs without jailbreaking just by going to the help.benm.at site, ridiculously simple. There was some problem with visual voicemail, but it's been figured out with the latest configuration.

Do you read German? (Is it in German? I have no idea.)

When I go to that site, it tells me what I can find there in English, but I haven't figured how to actually find anything that I can understand. At help.benm.at it says "Here's what you can find at help.benm.at", and clicking on that takes me to a similar page or pages that are in German. They have a link for tethering 3.0 with windows, here it is, in German.

http://www.benm.at/2009/06/19/howto-firmware-30-tethering-windows/

BTW, I'm pretty sure that pdanet is a well-known app, for many winmo based phones and pdas. I don't think Apple lets them distribute it via the itunes apps store. That's why you need the jailbreak. The jailbreak is trivial to do.

-David

jailbreak gives you an app called cydia. You then use cydia to download an app called PDANET. http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/index.php

I've never tried pdanet, so I guess you will have to do some due diligence to make sure it works with 3.0.

PDANet is one of the slickest pieces of software I have. In fact I'm posting from a PDANet connection on my iPhone 3G with jailbroken 3.0 firmware (thanks to LIH Prem for his help!)

HIGHLY recommended.

I don't think the corporate discounts work on iphone plans, but let us know what you found out. Maybe that's changed. Maybe it's only for those in their initial contract with "discounted" iphones.

-David

I just check my att premiere account and did a dummy iPhone purchase, both the voice and data plan received the discounted price.
450 min w/rollover $39.99 (-28%) = $28.99
iPhone DataPlan $30.00 (-28%) = $21.6

I just check my att premiere account and did a dummy iPhone purchase, both the voice and data plan received the discounted price.
450 min w/rollover $39.99 (-28%) = $28.99
iPhone DataPlan $30.00 (-28%) = $21.6

wow, nice discount. Don't forget the $10 - $15 in "taxes" and AT&T regulatory fees.

-David

I am using PDAnet now...I use it all the time. Great piece of software...well worth the $30.

We have the corp discount also, but I remember my 2 good friends at work told me they didn't apply to the iphone plans. But maybe that changed, they are both early adopters.


That was only on the original iPhone, because of the way the revenue-sharing deal between AT&T and Apple was structured. Since the 3G and 3Gs were sold subsidized, all of the normally available AT&T corporate volume discounts apply.

My corporate discount is enough (19%) to basically wipe out all of the taxes/fees. :rolleyes:

One downside to the Pre for some of you big music fans: it's an 8-gig device. I believe it's expandable with a memory card,

Apparently there's no microSD slot:
http://mobileroar.com/2009/01/24/design-is-reason-for-palm-pre-microsd-absence

PDANet is one of the slickest pieces of software I have. In fact I'm posting from a PDANet connection on my iPhone 3G with jailbroken 3.0 firmware (thanks to LIH Prem for his help!)

HIGHLY recommended.

same here, I have been using it for about three years now, first on the WMPC platform, and now on the iphone. I haven't JB'd my 3Gs yet, but we use the pdanet on the 2G often while traveling, never had a problem.

Apparently there's no microSD slot:
http://mobileroar.com/2009/01/24/design-is-reason-for-palm-pre-microsd-absence

Bummer....I just assumed it was because every other Sprint device I've used in the past 3 years has had one.

Oh well...I am likely one of those users who will never exhaust the 8g - at least not in the two-year lifetime of a mobile contract.

I will give Palm credit on what I've seen so far: the device is very aesthetically pleasing. Beautiful, almost. I'm not 100% convinced that a little card slot would have grossly uglied it up, but oh well... :)

My verdict on the iPhone 3GS?

Amazingly fast compared with the 3G, even when simply surfing the web on Safari, making me wonder if the bottleneck all along wasn't the crappy 3G network, but rather a shortage of CPU/memory resources on the phone. Or maybe Safari was just that much improved in OS 3.0, although I'm doubting that's the big difference.

Ditto your sentiments. The phone really rocks. I'm on an ATT BB plan, but the 3GS is easier to use than my bold. With 3.0, being able to search imap folders for old mails etc....amazing!

Did anyone notice that the plan costs change if you try to upgrade on AT&T wireless?

I currently have the data plan for $20 and it includes 200 text messages a month.

If I click to upgrade, the cost for the data plan goes to $30 and I have to pay $5 for the 200 text messages.

Do you read German? (Is it in German? I have no idea.)

When I go to that site, it tells me what I can find there in English, but I haven't figured how to actually find anything that I can understand. At help.benm.at it says "Here's what you can find at help.benm.at", and clicking on that takes me to a similar page or pages that are in German. They have a link for tethering 3.0 with windows, here it is, in German.

http://www.benm.at/2009/06/19/howto-firmware-30-tethering-windows/

BTW, I'm pretty sure that pdanet is a well-known app, for many winmo based phones and pdas. I don't think Apple lets them distribute it via the itunes apps store. That's why you need the jailbreak. The jailbreak is trivial to do.

-David

Sorry, forgot to say that you have to go to it from the iphone. If you don't go to it from the iphone, it redirects to something different.

I googled PDAnet and it looks like you have to run it on the iPhone to connect?

With the changes from the http://help.benm.at site, there is nothing that needs to be running. You can initiate a BT connection, be online with the laptop, and talk on the phone at the same time for example. Plus it's free.

Did anyone notice that the plan costs change if you try to upgrade on AT&T wireless?

I currently have the data plan for $20 and it includes 200 text messages a month.

If I click to upgrade, the cost for the data plan goes to $30 and I have to pay $5 for the 200 text messages.

This jump occurred when they went from the first gen phone to the second gen (iPhone 3G). It remained the same price between the iPhone 3G and the 3G-S. It puts the cost in line with other 3G smartphones and is primarily to cover the increased bandwidth and infrastructure costs of the 3G network.

Sorry, forgot to say that you have to go to it from the iphone. If you don't go to it from the iphone, it redirects to something different.

...

With the changes from the http://help.benm.at site, there is nothing that needs to be running. You can initiate a BT connection, be online with the laptop, and talk on the phone at the same time for example. Plus it's free.

ok, I just noticed cnet has a video on tethering using help.benm.at.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/tether-your-iphone-os-3-0/9742-1_53-50073569.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0

You're right, it looks easy.

I think the difference between the benm thing and pdanet is that pdanet (which is an app) turns your iphone into an 802.11 wireless router for tethering. benm only works using bt or usb cable. Still, that's probably enough. And the price is right.

-David

... the difference between the benm thing and pdanet is that pdanet (which is an app) turns your iphone into an 802.11 wireless router for tethering. benm only works using bt or usb cable.

PDANet has both the wireless tethering option (which indeed turns the iPhone into a router, so more than one person could conceivably connect) and a USB cable option (which is nice, since the wireless version drains the battery quickly, and in the latest updates to PDANet the iPhone charges while cable-tethered -- which wasn't the case in the earlier versions)

I got my iPhone 3G S yesterday. I was on Verizon and the number porting was fairly painless. My number was ported over to AT&T within an hour of leaving the AT&T store. I already had an Ipod Touch so I was familiar with the interface and apps.

I do like the phone. The network? Not so much. I have dropped from Verizon EVDO to a shaky AT&T EDGE network. They are currently upgrading the AT&T towers in the AVL area to 3g, so we will see.

I just got mine a couple days ago. I upgraded from a horrible Palm Treo 650. I am absolutely in love with my iPhone. I am going crazy downloading apps for it.:cool: