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Well, I just been told that the Online trading will indeed continue to be supported this weekend :)

If you have been waiting to get the iPhone 4 on the Three network, congratulations! Today is the day! Today Three has announced the sale of the iPhone 4 in the UK nationwide in Three stores and online.

As you’ve probably known, unlike other UK networks, although Three announced their pricing plan on time, they didn’t manage to sell the iPhone 4 on the launch date (as I’ve predicted).

But if you are one of the people who have been holding off buying iPhone 4 because of Three, rejoice! Because the wait is over :) And it would be worthwhile too, because as I mentioned before, Three has the cheapest plans (along with Vodafone but with more minutes and texts and lower cost of initial handset price) of all plans from the 4 networks that carry iPhone 4.

Now, I’ve been told that as per today’s sale date, you can only get the Black – 32GB – iPhone 4. The white iPhone 4, as you know, is not even out yet, and as for the availability of the 16GB iPhone 4, I will let you know when I know it.
A quick test at the Online Three Store confirm this. When I chose the 16GB iPhone 4, there is no ‘Buy this deal‘ button available like the 32GB has. Instead you will get a ‘poorly-worded’ message saying something about ‘White iPhone 4 is currently unavailable …‘?!

Breaking down of what Three is offering, basically you have 4 choices of plan. All plans are for 24-month contract and each will carry 5000 Texts, 5000 Three to Three Minutes and 1GB of Internet allowance. The difference will be in the number of cross-network minutes and the handset up-front cost, which are the followings:

1. Internet Texter 500: 500 minutes with up-front cost £189 and £30 monthly payment.
2. Internet Texter 900: 900 minutes with up-front cost £189 and £35 monthly payment.
3. The One Plan #1: 2000 minutes with £149 up-front cost and £40 monthly payment.
4. The One Plan #2: 2000 minutes with £89 up-front cost and £45 monthly payment.

If you look at the comparison spreadsheet I have, you will see that the tariff number 1, i.e. the Internet Texter 500, is the cheapest of all plans from all network, in term of Total Cost of Acquisition, which will be £909 for 24-month contract. Second only to the Vodafone £25 monthly contract, but with more minutes/texts and lower up-front cost.

If you still haven’t got the iPhone 4, and is still waiting to get one, Three is offering the best plan that you can get today. Provided that you don’t mind to be locked in a 24-month contract and really want the 32GB iPhone 4 (which to be honest, with all the HD video you are going to take, you will want all the space you need).

I’m sorry, I found this on the net and I just have to share it with you.

I mean … really?  really?

Check out some of the Table of Contents:

Apparently it sells for about £9 at Amazon UK (crazy!).  And I also noticed that there is ‘Wii for Dummies‘ too!

Following Steve Jobs’ promise at the Special Apple Press Conference last week, this morning iPhone 4 users woke up with an email from Apple in their inbox.  The email is confirming the eligibility of the user to get a free iPhone 4 Bumper (or a selected third-party case).  It’s also giving a further instruction to download the iPhone 4 Case Program App, where the user can pick and claim the Bumper/Case.

After downloading and running the iPhone Case Program App, you will be presented with a list of available Bumper and Cases.  At this moment, there is 1 Bumper from Apple and 7 third-party cases available cases to pick.  Selecting one of the item will take you to the detail page where you can read a more detail description and see some additional photos of the case, and finally you can select the one you want.

The choice of cases are not bad either, considering that they are free.  I still think that it’s a bit ‘daft‘ to have to use a bumper/case to fix this hardware problem.

One thing I noticed is that you probably won’t be able to get your hands on one of these very soon as a quick glance to the shipping time tells you that the quickest you can get it is in 3 weeks, or if you are unlucky, you might get it in 3 months!

To be honest I didn’t expect this thing would take form as an iPhone app as Steve said something about ‘checking’ it at the Apple Store, but thinking about it again, it does seem to be the most natural way of doing it.

So, have you get any experience with one of these?  I need some advise.

With the aftermath of iPhone 4′s so-called Antennagate culminating on Steve Jobs’ Special Press Conference, customers (or more precisely to-be customers) might be willing to forgive and forget, but as one of the tech-media concluded, the damage is done.  Even with the promise of the free bumper for every existing iPhone 4 customer, Apple’s unblemished, clean-cut face has been tarnished, and there is no going back.  It’s ashamed, because as an avid fan of Apple (yes I have an iPhone 4 and yes mine has problem with the antenna reception), personally I think Apple should’ve not left it this long, and should’ve just came out clean and admitted the problem much earlier.

But when there is always somebody who get some kind of advantage over somebody else’s misery.  For Apple, this time is Motorola Droid X, which ‘accidentally’ started to sell on Verizon Wireless ‘one day’ before the Apple Press Conference (which was put early one month before the original launch date).

The arrival of this next in-line of Motorola Droid series has been anticipated so much (at least in the US, because that’s the only place on earth where you can get them, for now), and with Google ‘pulled the rug‘ under Nexus One‘s feet, the Droid X could be the first in line of Android defense against the advancing forces of Apple iPhones.

Looking at the list of Droid X Tech – Specs, it appears to be that perfect smartphone that everyone’s always wanted.  Check out the highlights:

• 4.3″ Screen with 480 x 854 resolution
• 8 MP Camera with dual LED
• HD 720p Video capture
• 1 GHz T1 OMAP Processor
• 512 MB Ram, 8 GB User Storage + 16GB MicroSD pre-installed
• HDMI Output (cable included)
• 3 mics for noise cancellation
• WiFi N and 3G Hotspot capability (meaning you can share your Internet with others, like MiFi does)
• Antenna (type Internal)
• and of course Android 2.1 OS with the latest Motorola Motoblur interface

Sound good?  That’s because they are. As a matter of fact TestFreaks.com gives it 8.8 out of 10 Freak Score.  Other media reviewers have passed more or less the same judgement on the hardware front.

The only problem with this phone comes from Software, in particular the Motoblur.  Some reviewers wrote that the software felt lagging, citing in particular the camera app which seemed to have difficulties in getting focus especially when the object is near almost macro mode.  Engadget concluded that Motorola still has a lot of catching up to do, to compete with the like of HTC’s Sense.

With Hardware Spec to-die-for, the Droid X could’ve been the best Android phone ever.  Alas, minor software nags would prevent it to be just that.  If you like watching video on nice big screen, then this phone might be for you, but if you want something else, it’s probably safe to wait for a couple of months for better ones.

Or if you can’t wait that long …. there is always the iPhone 4 :)

So, when is Unlimited ceased to be Unlimited?  It’s when we say it’s not of course :)
Last month we heard from O2′s CEO Ronan Dunne about ‘Offering fair and transparent access to mobile data‘, which led to the ‘abolishment‘ of the term Unlimited.  This followed with O2′s announcement of their new iPhone tariffs which cap the data allowance to 1GB mark.  Commenting on this big change, Dunne said

“Our new billing strategy is an important stepping stone to that future – a means to ensure that however it evolves, everyone has fair, transparent access to the mobile data they need.”

Coming from almost similar background, Three UK has launched their latest plan called The One Plan.  This change has been driven by Three UK’s involvement in the Terminate The Rate campaign, which is a campaign to lower the Mobile Termination Rate (or MTR, basically a fee that you have to pay when you call people from different mobile network).
Whilst Ofcom’s proposed changes might take a while to materilise (due to the opposition of other mobile networks), Three UK, through this One Plan, is realising it today.
Another thing that Three UK has changed on this plan is they are dropping the term ‘Unlimited‘ in relation to data allowance.  Now with this One Plan, customers will get a clear and transparent indication of what they will get, which in the case of this plan will be cap to 1GB per month (similar to what O2 is offering, but with much cheaper tariff).
At the launch event yesterday, Kevin Russell (3′s CEO) underlined

“Three was built to bring the mobile and the internet together as one.  With a clear direction from Ofcom on Mobile Termination Rates we believe, for the first time, that we can offer an inclusive package for smartphone users that covers all of their communications needs at a market-moving price point.”

So what do we get from The One Plan?  Essentially Three is offering 2 type of deals, one is for the Pay Monthly, the second one is for the SIM Only Plan.

As per usual, you will also get Free Skype to Skype call, Free Windows Live Messenger, and Free Twitter :)

Finally, after waiting for so long, Three UK announced their iPhone 4 prices and plans.  But here is the thing, Three announced it on the day of the launch date!  It’s on the day where people were supposed to be queueing outside every Apple Stores and Mobile Network shops around the country!  It’s the day where many people should had been already made up their mind in deciding about which network they want to go to and which tariff they would like to dedicate their life to.

Was it not a bit to late, Three?

On a fair side though, this probably would only affect the early adopters, and new customers who either  have never had an iPhone before, or are not attached to a certain network.   As for Three’s existing customers, this is obviously the news they have been (willing) waiting for.

The good news is, if we compare Three prices and plans to the other network, it has the cheapest Total Cost of Acquisition in both 16GB and 32GB iPhone 4 for the 24 months tariff (Three doesn’t have 18 months tariff).  This is of course, depending on how much you can spend for the handset and how much you are willing to spend every month.  They also have the highest number of free minutes compare to other networks on the same price range, except for the Unlimited minutes on the highest tariffs from other networks (anyway do you really need Unlimited phone call?).  As for the internet allowance, Three offers 1GB per month for ‘all’ the price points, but no Free WiFi hotspots.

So, if you ‘still’ don’t have an iPhone 4 and ‘still’ wondering which network to go to, Three offers the cheapest alternative at the moment (in term of Total Cost), if you don’t mind to be attached to them for 24 months.

You can check the Three UK iPhone 4 prices and plans here (or take a peek on the screenshots below).

For comparison with other networks prices, check out my Spreadsheet.

I must admit, I was a bit sceptical when I saw Steve announcing Facetime at this year’s WWDC, especially after that demo video they played then.  I mean, c’mon, video calling is not new at all, I’ve had it on several of my phones (not-iPhone) since the day the mobile phone vendors released the front-facing camera, and that must had been more than 3 years ago!  Moreover, Facetime is supposed to work only with WiFi … I mean, what’s the use is that?!

Even when some of the tech/media pundits praised the new functionality as a killer-feature, I was still not convinced.

Until I watched the video below.

It’s a video made by Joshua Topolsky (Engadget), and it shows him using Facetime to make a video call to Ed Baig (USA Today).

The Eureka moment for me came when I saw in the video, a regular phone-call (via regular phone network) was switched to a Facetime’s WiFi-powered call.  Suddenly I realised that  Facetime is basically a VOIP call, with video, and more importantly … the call is FREE!  When I say free, I mean, unlike the regular video calls, which usually uses the super expensive data tariff (probably the main reason nobody is using it), Facetime is free from that.

Ok, we can say that Skype has done this for donkeys’ years, and UK customers would recognise that the Three network has incorporated free Skype call in its plans for a long time.  But for a mobile video call, this is actually the first!

As a matter of fact, there is another way of running this through the 3G network, and it’s called the MiFi :)  MiFi is a mobile broadband  router which uses mobile 3G network and giving mobile broadband access to any WiFi-aware peripherals, iPhones included.

So, while waiting for Apple to open Facetime for 3G network (in a few months time … so said he), this little MiFi trick will do absolutely fine.

Moreover, we have witnessed more and more WiFi Hotspots being built everywhere, and some of them are also free, which will also help.

Your partner still needs to have an iPhone 4 though.  And that’s probably now the ‘only‘ down-side, in my opinion.

It seems that some ‘very lucky’ people has been allowed to play around with the iPhone 4 before the launch date on Thursday the 24th, and now that Apple’s embargo has been lifted up, we can read some of these reviews.

The reviewers seem to be divided into 2 camps, in one side are the tech-journalists from the mainstream media, and on the other side are the tech-bloggers.

It is interesting to read the each reviews from both camps, because they have different emphasis and depth.

Reviews from the tech-journalists, represented by Walt Mossberg from All Things Digital,  David Pogue from The New York Times and Ed Baig from USA Today, tend to touch on topics such as look and feel, the new IOS4 (Multitasking and App Folder) and most prominently the Facetime, which they seem to agree that it’s the iPhone’s killer feature.

It’s not the first phone with both a front and back camera. It’s not even the first one to make video calls. But the iPhone 4 is the first phone to make good video calls, reliably, with no sign-up or setup, with a single tap. The picture and audio are rock solid, with very little delay, and it works the first time and every time. – David Pogue

FaceTime video calling on the iPhone 4 is one of those cool “seeing is believing” features … – Ed Baig

Meanwhile, from the tech-bloggers, represented by Xeni Jardin from Boing-Boing and Joshua Topolsky from Engadget, we have a more thorough and in-depth hands-on review.

Xeni was particularly giving the new iPhone Camera a run, and was pleased with the quality of the pictures the iPhone took compare to the old versions (expectedly).  She also noticed that the shutter speed has become … speedier.

I brought my iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 to the Venice Beach skate park, to take shots of fast-moving skaters in those magical aerial moments, just before a swan-dive into the belly of the bowl. With earlier iPhones, man, just forget it. You’re using the wrong device. Response is too sluggish for good odds on getting good action shots. But with iPhone 4, I was able to tap-tap-tap in rapid succession, or tap once at just the right instant, and bring home some real trophy jpegs. – Xeni Jardin

As for Engadget review, as usual, they tested almost everything we want to know from this new piece of hardware and software.  I’m particularly impressed on this photo comparison between the new and the old iPhone display.  It really shows off how good the Retina Display is. [Photo courtesy of Engadget]

Marvelous!

Joshua’s last words sum up the whole thing:

We’re not going to beat around the bush — in our approximation, the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now. The combination of gorgeous new hardware, that amazing display, upgraded cameras, and major improvements to the operating system make this an extremely formidable package. Yes, there are still pain points that we want to see Apple fix, and yes, there are some amazing alternatives to the iPhone 4 out there. But when it comes to the total package — fit and finish in both software and hardware, performance, app selection, and all of the little details that make a device like this what it is — we think it’s the cream of the current crop.

Have you received your iPhone 4?  If you have, we would like to know how it is :)

It’s not too long until we can get our sweat palm on the new iPhone 4, and I must say here in the UK we are quite spoiled with choices.  For a start, you can go SIM-Free!  When you buy one of the handset from one of the Apple Store on a full price, you get it unlocked!  You are free to put any SIM card from any partner network you fancy.

Most of us though, will either already be having some kind of contract with our existing network provider, or to skint to fork for £599 :)  In which case we will be happy to go to one of these providers and get the contract there.

But just like blessing sometimes can be a curse, choices can often also be confusing.  With at least 3 networks offer a bewildering ranges of prices and tariffs, we can be forgiven to be utterly confused.

But don’t fret! With the help of Google Docs I managed to put together a spreadsheet with details of prices and tariffs from all 3 networks (O2, Orange, and Vodafone) 4 Networks (O2, Orange, Vodafone and Three) all in one place.  Here you can play around with the ‘filter’ and find the combination of price and tariff that most suit your situation and need.

As well as the usual data, I also added a column on the Total Cost of Acquisition. This is how much you would have to pay (at least) at the end of your contract.

One small fact that is actually making quite a big difference in the Total Cost of Acquisition and worth to think about is that most networks allow you to change tariff in the middle of your contract (on the 9th month of your 18M, or 12th month on your 24th), so I added 2 columns at the end of the spreadsheet to calculate this too.  For O2 (according to what the staff said), they will allow customers to change to ‘any’ iPhone tariff of their choice.  I’m not too sure how valid this statement was, because that means we could go from the highest tariff straight down to the lowest tariff.  As for the other 2 networks, they only allow customers to change to the tariff one step down.

[Updated]

I knew it’s too good to be true :(  So for O2 (I have confirmed), like Orange and Vodafone, you can only go down to one tariff directly below.  But here is the thing, you can do this ‘every month’.  The spreadsheet is updated with this information, but only with assumption that we are sticking with only one move.  I’ll leave you with the more elaborate calculation.  Also I haven’t done this calculation for Three, because I haven’t confirmed with them yet if they allow this or not.

Enjoy the spreadsheet, and please let me know if you spot any mistake so I can rectify it quickly.

I have to say that O2‘s marketing arm had done quite a good job in promoting the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 4.

From the well-thought  mini-site; to the informative email countdown, and the very helpful O2 Twitter account (one that actually has somebody on the other side to answer your question, almost individually).  All of these are giving a sense that they care about you as customers and are willing to ‘hold‘ your hand along the way through the whole process.  It has also been succeeding in building up the anticipation to the launch date.

O2 decision on making it’s current customers priority, whilst is not boding well with non-customers, it also shows O2′s commitment on its customer relation, and for me that’s a plus. [disclaimer: I am an existing O2 customer].

Yesterday, O2 surprised me by sending a brand new Micro SIM (along with the adaptor) for the iPhone that I don’t have yet (or even pre-ordered)!  I think it’s a brilliant marketing move :)

“Since you are already registered your interest, why don’t I send you the SIM card, the special SIM card that you are going to use in you brand new iPhone 4.  Just put it ini, connect to iTunes, register, and off you go.  It can’t be easier than!”

It’s the ‘carrot on the end of the stick‘, by now if you are previously thinking about getting one, you will be seriously tempted with this.

Are you ready for Thursday?