In one way, I’m glad, as the plans were fairly expensive. In another, I’m now just that little bit more paranoid that Telstra’s plans will be even more out of my price-range.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been looking at switching to Telstra as my provider for the iPhone.

In Australia, they simply have both the biggest, and the best network available.

With 3, I’m having all sorts of reception issues. Any time I walk in to a building, things go to pot, and as Tim(b) said to me not long ago “Telstra has service everywhere. Carparks, indoors, pluto, etc.”

The plan with Telstra is $10 per month more expensive at a whopping $79, and has 750mb of data per month. I don’t even come close to using 300mb on my plan with 3 (which allows for 1gb).

My call credit per month would go up from $600-ish to $800, although I have no idea if calling would be more expensive, but given Telstra’s ability to take arms and legs, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are much more expensive.

Is it really worth the extra money for decent coverage, and hopefully-decent mobile internet speeds? Who knows.

Jason is having all sorts of issues with iOS4. Ranging from all the photos in his library being speckled, to his iPod app crashing.

The fact that over 60 security vulnerabilities have been fixed is great, but what’s the point, really?

Wallpapers:- I was already able to set the lock screen wallpaper, but the home screen is a new feature. Useful? Probably not for photos and the like, as the icons will cover up way too much of the photo. Perhaps some cool patterns?

Fast app switching:- Cute feature, but my 3GS already switches pretty quickly. The fact that these apps will be ‘running in the background’ bothers me greatly, because as anyone that talks to me about my iPhone knows, I’m such a heavy user that I get maybe 4-5 hours out of the battery life.

Save state:- In my opinion this is one of the most brilliant features. With a low tolerance for annoying things, almost bordering on OCD, one of the things I hate most is in the Facebook app. Every time I go to timeline, it shows me everything, and I manually have to switch to status updates only. Really people, I couldn’t care less about your farmville updates. You piss me off.

Save state will allow that particular view to be saved, as if I never exited the application. Now to hope that the facebook app gets updated with this ability.

Orientation lock:- Portrait mode only? That’s just slack, guys. How hard would it be to lock in whatever view you’re currently using?

Folders:- Good for hiding stuff I don’t use, and cant be bothered deleting.

Unified inbox:- I’m sure this is useful for some people, but I’m not really a fan of this feature.

Spell check:- with the ever-increasing number of people who simply couldn’t be bothered to learn the language they are speaking, or are simply too lazy to type properly, the additions to the way spell-check works will be a welcome change in my books (If you text me, or email me, take note. “Leet speak” makes you look like an under-educated douche-bag.

Time to download the update to my laptop. I’ll decide what to do with it later.

So here it is. Facebook and twitter authentication has been (theoretically) integrated. Now I need people to test it, and tell me if it works.

Limited multitasking ability may be great for some, but with my IM apps placing me in to “away” mode while I’m not in the application, I really don’t see the need for it.
Most satnav applications also have the ability to access the music library on the phone, so again, I’m not seeing the usefulness for me.
Don’t get me wrong, this has been one of the most whinged about “missing features” in the history of the iPhone, just for me personally, I don’t believe that I will find a use for it.

My double-push of the home button is well-suited to access my iPod controls – thankyou.

Sure, I have an iPhone 3GS, and the people with a 3G or earlier won’t share my point of view on this, but I can already exit an application, then enter a new one in a timely manner. Is the new “quick switching” going to do much for me? I don’t think so.
I digress, I seem to have started focusing on iOS4, not the iPhone itself.

New features:
- 5mega-pixel camera.
The camera upgrade is going to bring the iPhone one step closer to replacing the separate camera that you carry around in your other pocket. Five mega-pixels will be fairly decent, especially for anything that’s no more than a few meters away.

- Front facing camera.
Just what we all needed – easier access to myspace-angles for eleventy billion people.

- Video calling.
I had this a LONG time ago with “3″, when they first started out. The phone was big and bulky, but video calling (over the 3G network) worked.
After a few trials to see how it worked, I never used it again.
Now it’s making a comeback, but will only work over Wi-Fi? Seriously guys.

- HD video recording.
Again, another feature that I’m not going to use, but this time I can see how it would be useful to other people.n In my year with the iPhone 3GS, I’ve recorded one video, of my fish, just to see what video recording was like.

Wow.. This sounds like a whole hell of a lot of negativity so far.
I’m generally fairly enthused about Apple’s phone to end all phones, and reading above this point probably gives you the wrong idea about what I think of the new iPhone.

I’m keen to see this thing go to market, hell, I’m keen to buy one, but not for anything I’ve listed above.

I’m a heavy user of my 3GS, and the one thorn in my side is battery life.
Currently half my life is planned around the battery life of my iPhone. I have a charger beside my bed, a USB cable on my laptop for charging. I installed USB ports IN MY CAR, so that I could charge on the go.
Whenever I visit friends, shortly after the “Hi, how are you” is out of the way, the next question is “do you have an iPhone charger?”

The all glass front (and back) panels may hopefully help with the less-than-desirable reception these phones have, as will the quad-band.
Ok, so quad-band won’t actually help with reception, it will just mean greater 3G areas for those of us not on Telstra.

Apple’s A4 processor is also going to make this phone lightning quick. The step up to 1GHz is certainly going to please a lot of games developers.

LED flash. All I have to say on the matter is “It’s about bloody time”.

I’ve never been a fan of the volume button, or the mute switch on the 3GS, and without playing with the mute switch on the iPhone 4, I can’t really make comment there, but the volume buttons are just the way I’d like volume buttons to be. Separated.

What are your thoughts on Apple’s new iPhone 4?
If I happen to have some cash laying about, I’ll be buying the 32gb version. iPad can wait until the next hardware revision.

If I didn’t already have an Apple laptop, and an iPhone 3GS, I would definitely jump at the top-end iPad.

Is it the magical device that Steve Jobs claims it is?
Absolutely not.

Having had a bit of a chance to read around, and think about what I’ve read in the keynote, I have a few thoughts:

- Data plans in Australia suck, and I’m sure there won’t be anything interesting for the iPad.
- No flash. While this isn’t really an issue on the iPhone, here we have a “computer” which can’t even play facebook games.
- No camera / no videoconferencing.
- Awkward to hold/use while sitting on the couch, or laying in bed.
- Big ugly bezel.

- iWork usability on the touch interface seems awesome. I really like it. Hell, I’m umming and arrhing about buying an iPad, just so I can use iWork on it.
- Photo slideshow when idle on the charging dock. Now I won’t buy that digital photo frame I’ve always been thinking about.
- Ever watch StarTrek? How cool are those PADs?

Let’s say for a moment that this was my portable device of choice, and I carried it instead of a laptop.
I could no longer transfer pictures from my digital camera. File transfer from me to other people would be a lost art, unless I was in a 3G zone, and I could email them over, and most importantly, there is no built in GPS, so the Google Maps become infinitely less useful.

What exactly is the iPad for?
It’s way too big for any pocket, so it’s not the always-with-you portable device that the iPhone is.
It’s not open enough, fast enough, or able to run “normal” OSX programs, so it’s certainly not your main computer.
The only use that I can think of is coffee-table, or showing off to your friends in a cafe.

I’ll have the 64gb 3G model for my coffee-table, thanks.