3G

Would you pay your full cable bill if there was static on the screen all month? Buy a dozen eggs if three of them were broken? How about paying $30 a month for the same service that others get for $20 a month?

This is exactly what I pay for a service I can't use. I love the iPhone 3G, but I can only use the EDGE network. I leave the phone set to EDGE because it works. The moment I switch over to 3G, data latency times shoot through the roof, voice quality decreases noticably, and calls drop every five minutes.

Apple and AT&T both deserve kudos for pioneering such an outstanding new product. I am willing to be patient with their growing pains. The network is going to be a perpetual work in progress. But it's not right to force me to pay for something that doesn't work. See, if I had an original iPhone, my data plan would be $20 a month and limited to EDGE. As it is, I have an iPhone 3G with a $30 data plan limited to EDGE.

I continue to try and use 3G at least twice a week to check up on the network but there has been no improvement. Various customer service representatives at AT&T have listened to my story. Of course I've updated to 2.0.2. Yes, I've rebooted my phone. A million times. No, not just using the sleep button. Yes, I've held down the home button and sleep button to reset. Nothing works. Nothing works except for EDGE.

When it was announced earlier this past week that AT&T planned to open its retail locations at 8am for the launch of the Apple iPhone, many were perplexed at the lack of a similar indication from Apple. After all, why would Apple allow AT&T to draw the crowds to their stores and forfeit all those direct iPhone sales -- not to mention the oodles of companion purchases? As it turns out, Apple isn't that stupid (surprise, surprise), and will be joining the 8am party along with AT&T.

Although unannounced, we've just returned from a long overdue 2 week vacation. A lot transpired during the two weeks our offices were closed (and not just in the world of the iPhone). We won't be able to catch you up all on all of it, but we'll certainly get the important things posted ASAP. Speaking of which, how nice to come home to recently surfaced iPhone 3G unboxing pictures. The following pictures, which turned up on the iPhone Portugal forums seem to be the first legitimate unboxing shots of the new 3G iPhone.

If you're like me, as soon as you get your iPhone 3G home and unboxed, you're going to want to slap a full body 3G iPhone invisibleSHIELD on it before exposing it to the elements. My current iPhone has been protected by the invisibleSHIELD since a few weeks after I purchased it on release day last year.

Yes, "confirmed" is a relative term, at least when it comes to "unconfirmed" iPhone release dates. However, that said, Gizmodo recently reported that a source they describe as "very, very close to the 3G iPhone launch" has confirmed that the 3G iPhone will be announced at this year's WWDC and will be available worldwide immediately thereafter.

Of course, there's no word on this from Apple or AT&T here in the US, but who would expect such?

The report also suggests that the iPhone will no longer be sold at a