In the midst of tweets proclaiming, “I’m downloading 3.0 RIGHT NOW!!!”, AT&T shook things up a little more. They have revised their upgrade schedule to allow the advertised pricing of $199 and $299 to a larger number of people.  If AT&T has told you you would become upgrade eligible during or before September 2009, you may be eligible for the best upgrade pricing as of June 19.  But there are a lot of other variables in the mix, including how much you pay for your service on a monthly basis, and the only way to know which side of the line you are on is to call AT&T or check their site.

Another 3G S bit of news today was Apple slowing down the shipments of iPhones from China so they would not reach purchasers’ homes before the street date of June 19.  When UPS first sent out their notifications of shipment, they gave June 18 as the scheduled delivery day.  This got a lot of people excited, until mid-yesterday when the scheduled delivery date just dropped off UPS’s tracking web page.  Today (at least on orders to the United States, which pass through The UPS central hub in Louisville, Kentucky) there is a note that the receiver (Apple) has put a hold on the shipment.  They should still reach everybody who ordered on or before June 13 on Friday of this week, but don’t expect them a day sooner.

Finally, there’s that little matter of the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  The servers were up and down through the day, but seem to be up and running now. So if you have an iPhone, let the downloading begin! The most obvious change is the Voice Memos button, which will now appear on your home screen. You can record and store multiple memos and do simple trims to the audio files.  Another change to the face of the phone is the addition of the Spotlight search feature.  If you look at the dots at the bottom of the screen (which indicate which screen of buttons you are on) you’ll notice the furthest left one is now an incredibly tiny magnifying glass. Flick left to right as if going to that screen and you’ll have a search interface that will find just about anything on your phone. Cut, Copy, and Paste is finally here, as well.  selections are made by tapping what you want to copy, dragging a selection block for exact start and end points, selecting Copy or Cut, then tapping where you want to paste and selecting that action.  It takes a little getting used to, but only a little.  There are a ton of new features, more than can be listed here.  Mobile Crunch has a great list of 21 new things worth checking out.

Now, just two days until the other shoe of new iPhone week drops.  Hopefully, the changes in AT&T’s terms will allow more people to get a 3G S than previously.  I’ll be back on Friday with my thoughts on the new handset.

First, the iPhone stuff.  If you have no interest in the iPhone, you might want to skip down a couple paragraphs. But if you really hate iPhones, you’ll probably get some satisfaction in the way loyal owners are being treated.  The good news is that there are some nice new features in what is being called the iPhone 3G S. There’s a new processor, which promises to increase computing speed by up to twice as much. A new 3-megapixel camera with digital zoom, tap focus (tap on the screen to designate a focus point), and geotagging of images.  Better news is that the iPhone finally has video capture abilities, and the software to do some basic editing, but unfortunately only in VGA quality.  The phone has voice control now, bringing it current with many other phones that have had this for quite a while.  Cut, copy and paste has been an iPhone grail for a long time. The 3.0 software makes it a reality, finally.  Other features we’ve known about for a while, such as a digital compass and voice memos are now available.  Finally, tethering (the ability to use your phone to give your notebook computer internet access across the 3G network) is promised, and, via Engadget, AT&T says they’ll be on board, but no date or pricing has been revealed.  The iPhone 3G S will become available June 19.

All that’s great, as is the $199 and $299 prices for 16 and 32 GB sizes. And the current 8 GB iPhone 3G has dropped to $99.  Except, those prices aren’t available if you’ve bought an iPhone too recently.  And anyone with an iPhone 3G has.  If you have the ugly habit of giving Apple/AT&T money too often, you’ll be assessed a $200 loyalty penalty, on top of the widely advertised price. If you’re not an AT&T customer, you’re one of their favorite people in the world, and in the clear.  If you are an AT&T customer, the best plan is to go to the Apple site that is selling the phone and find out what the specific dates and prices involved for you may be.  In my case, having bought an iPhone 3G last July, I’d be eligible for the advertised pricing after March 2010. Of course, you can also call AT&T at 1-800-333-6651.

Moving on to happier news, the next major update to OS X, Snow Leopard, will be rolling out in September for an upgrade price of $29.  The changes aren’t too flashy, more refinements to what’s already there, but the upgrade looks to be well worth the price.  Examples of what to expect are a total installed size 6 GB smaller than current and the Expose feature available from the dock.

Price drops and spec changes were announced for the MacBook Pro family, as well as the MacBook Air.  The MBP is now available in a 13-inch size for the first time, starting at $1199.  The most controversial move with the notebooks is the removal of the ExpressCard slot, replacing it with an SD card reader, in all except the 17-inch model.  While the SD reader is handy, anyone with a broadband card for net access on the road will tell you trading away the ExpressCard slot is too high a price. All the machines now have non-removable batteries that Apple says will last the average user five years, with up to seven hours on a charge.  The 15-inch model starts at $1699 and the 17-inch is priced at $2499.  Maybe the biggest eyebrow raiser is a $700 cut to the MacBook Air, now starting at $1499, $1799 for an SSD-equipped machine.

So it was a mixed bag.  A lot of things that should have been exciting (and in many cases, were), mingled with just enough take-aways and cross-corporate mucking about (I’m looking at you, AT&T), to unfortunately mute the thunderous applause Apple anticipated.

Probably the biggest news was the implementation of clipboard functionality in the iPhone, the absence of which has allowed many to dismiss the device up until now.  Text is selected by tapping the screen, which puts in grab points so that the block to be copied or cut can be defined.  The clipboard works within or across apps.  To undo a paste, you just shake the phone, and your action is erased. Copy and paste also enables sending multiple photos in the same email.

Up until now, App Store updates have been pretty universally free.  Now that the App Store is up and running, with a dedicated following, Apple and developers are pursuing new opportunities for revenue with “In-App Purchase”.  The concept is that an app, like a game, might come with an initial set of levels, but additional levels will be purchasable from within the game for for an added fee.  Likewise, e-books or magazines might go with a subscription basis, requiring new payments for additional content.  This model will be available only on paid apps; free stuff stays free.

Peer to peer communications have been added, allowing two or more iPhones to connect and share data, using Apple’s Bonjour technology.

There was news relating to 3rd party  hardware, as well.  With 3.0, hardware manufacturers will be able to write their own apps that will provide unique control interfaces that will operate from the phone’s screen.

There’s news regarding the mapping and location services, too.  The Maps API is available to developers now, so that functionality can be rolled into third party apps.  Also, location services has been opened to such a point that apps will be able to provide turn-by-turn navigation. However, for licensing reasons, Google’s maps (the graphic images themselves) are not available, meaning developers will need to provide their own maps to interact with the Google Maps core functionality.

Push notification has finally been enabled, apparently due to implementation suggestions from outside developers that Apple hadn’t considered. The stumbling block in the past has been an unacceptable hit to battery life.

A small, but nice upgrade is that landscape mode, triggered by turning the phone on its side, will now work in email, Notes, and SMS messaging as well.  The Calendar and Stocks apps also saw upgrades, with calendars becoming searchable and business news becoming available through the Stocks app.  Universal search has been added, allowing searching for anything on the phone in the same format as Spotlight, used on Macs.

The arrival date of the consumer-ready version is a non-specific “this summer”.  My guess is it will roll out at about the same time as 3rd generation iPhone hardware.  The developer beta is available today.  It will work on original iPhones as well as the 3G, but some functionality (like MMS) will be 3G only due to hardware constraints.  It will be free on the iPhone 3G and $9.95 for original iPhone and iPod Touch.

Never the less, if you are in an area under-served by a good 3G signal (and yes, that’s most of the U.S.), you may want to give this a try.  To connect, find an AT&T hotspot.  Once there, activate the Wi-Fi setting on your iPhone, if it’s not activated already.  Select “attwifi” from the available networks list.  You will be prompted to enter your phone number.  After you do, you’ll receive a text message (free to you) that will include a secure link to the network.  The link will be valid for 24 hours at the hotspot where the request was made.

I can see the pleasure of a nice cup of coffee and a few video podcasts as a enjoyable break in the day, so maybe I’ll give this a try.  But I really do feel that I’d have to plan some larger-than-average downloads to properly appreciate the Wi-Fi connection.

To give new G1 owners something interesting to do with their phones other than that calling and web browsing stuff, the Android Market also opened, offering over 50 applications on day one. The mix is similar to that on the iPhone’s App Store: Games, travel guides, messaging tools and productivity software are all available. Apps currently are free, but early next year developers will be able to start charging for their software.

If you’ve got a G1, leave a comment and let me know what you think of it.

Since the iPhone wowed phone buyers and gadget lovers with its incredibly versatile (and visually appealing) touch screen, other phone makers have set their sights on the iPhone market, with glass-fronted devices sporting colorful icons to launch extended functions.  Recently we saw the rollout of the HTC G1, the first phone that will run the Google Android platform.  Today, Nokia introduced their first real iPhone competitor, the 5800 XpressMusic.

The 5800 has a 3.2″ display screen that supports input both from finger touch and a stylus. the dislay has a 640 x 360 resolution and a 16 x 9 aspect ratio.  All storage is on MicroSD cards, and the phone comes with an 8 GB card.  Many of the capabilities of the iPhone, such as accelerometer-driven screen re-orientation and GPS map services are present in the 5800.

The basic phone is set to go on sale before the end of the year.  For those willing to wait until next year, Nokia will add a major feature:  Support for their new subscription-based Comes With Music service.  Considering the number of people who been hankering for a subscription option on iTunes, that could be an enticement to check out the new phone.

An open source OS means anyone can create and distribute applications for Android phones.  The nicest thing about the iPhone since the rollout of the 3G has been the App Store.  It’s also been one of the biggest points of contention as Apple controls access to the iPhone, determining which apps will be allowed and which won’t.  A number of promising applications have been denied access to the platform, sometimes for rather mystifying reasons.

Apple has justified their closed system as a way to keep the iPhone benevolent and safe for all users.  Open it up, and it will be a situation where the buyer must beware, has gone the reasoning.  Google, and their initial partners, T-Mobile and HTC, are embracing the richness of a system in which anyone can write software.   Will it help them succeed in meeting the strong appeal the iPhone already enjoys?   Will this be the Mac and the PC all over again?   And which are you more concerned by: A phone where not all applications may have your best interests at heart, or one where every app must satisfy all the motives of the hardware manufacturer?

More background on how this came about and when you can hope to get it on your iPhone is here in Cali’s audio interview with Zac.  The only sad part of this is that it will only work with apps programmed to use the functionality.  That means it won’t be working in any Apple-owned applications like Notes or Mail.  Apple has said they have their own people working on their own version of a solution, but it isn’t a high priority for them.  Too bad, it is for everyone else.

Cut and Paste for iPhone from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.

Having had a little trouble with restoring backups recently, I was a bit concerned whether moving the backup taken from my original iPhone would work smoothly.  It did, and personal data such as contacts and bookmarks were added to the new phone. The whole process took about an hour.

I’ve now used the 3G for a couple of days.  By and large, I find very little difference between it and the original iPhone.  There are two notable upgrades for me: One is the improved Location Services.  Although the original iPhone’s system of locating by triangulating on network and cell signals was surprisingly good, sometimes it could also be inaccurate.  And, if you were truly lost, it would be hard to know how much to trust it, particularly outside an urban area.  The GPS-enabled 3G gives much more accurate locations, and it live tracks the phone as you move, rather than the old system which was a location snapshot.  The other big improvement is the larger storage capacity.  While a 16 GB iPhone has been available for a few months now, my old one was only 8 GB, so I’m enjoying expanded space to hold more music and video.

The most widely-touted upgrade, increasing data speed by moving to a 3G network, has proven of little use to me.  Although I use data services on my phone constantly, and am usually in a 3G coverage area, I’ve found that the signal is often much weaker than the EDGE signal in the same area.  It turns out that five bars of EDGE is just as fast (by my unscientific observation) as one or two bars of 3G, but the 3G sucks down the battery a lot faster.  So today, with mild reluctance, I turned 3G off and returned to the EDGE world.  If I’m in an area with a very strong 3G signal, I can always turn it on again, but it will come at a cost to the battery.

Power management has widely, and correctly, been reported as a much greater concern with the 3G.  With my original iPhone, it was extremely rare that 18 hours away from the charger would leave the battery much more than half-depleted. Today, I used Location Services for about a hour, and web/email service throughout the day.  I made no use of phone features, but by the time I got home (about 11 hours after unplugging from the charger) the battery was down to about 20% of its capacity.  Battery life can be lengthened, ironically, by turning off most of the 3G’s new features, such as Location, 3G network, data push and fetch, and email fetch.  Worth noting is that turning off fetch for applications will not turn it off for e-mail; that needs to be done one level deeper under the Settings menu (Settings > Fetch New Data > Advanced > Mail, Contacts, Calendar).  With all these new features turned off, and activated only for short periods as needed, battery life becomes more comparable to the original iPhone.

I still think the iPhone 3G is a great device, and well worth the investment for someone who doesn’t have an original iPhone.  However those who are not new to the iPhone should consider carefully exactly what they would gain in the upgrade and whether using those new features would result in an unacceptably short battery life.