iPhone 2.0

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.

Despite the overwhelming success of the first Apple iPhone launch day, Apple and AT&T did have one glaring black eye left shining after the event: countless owners were plagued by activation problems which prevented new iPhone owners from activating for, in some cases, up to three days. An unactivated iPhone is essentially useless, with functionality locked out pending activation. In many cases, this left new owners with no working phone, as swapping their iPhone SIM with their older device didn't work. The whole activation process was, to put it mildly, an abomination. Considering the heat both Apple and AT&T took in regards to the activation process for the inaugural iPhone launch -- we all could have safely predicted that Apple and AT&T would have all their ducks in line for the iPhone 3G launch, and customers would enjoy a problem-free, quick and easy activation. Right?

Evidently not. Reports have been coming in all morning about what appears to be an eerily similar situation developing with activations of new 3G iPhones. Lines at both Apple and AT&T stores

Not even a day after the launch of the new iPhone AppStore, there are already almost 150 free applications available to those who have upgraded their iPhone to OS 2.0. Most of the applications download and install in a snap, and to make matters even sweeter, many are incredibly useful.

Apple released the new iPhone OS 2.0 and launched the AppStore yesterday via the new version of iTunes, version 7.7. The reaction to the new OS and the AppStore has been overwhelmingly positive, and it is easy to see why. Between the new features of OS 2.0 and those brought forth by the hundreds of add-on applications now available, iPhone owners are getting a whole new experience from their devices.

Though many of the applications (especially the games) cost money, as the title indicates, there are already plenty of free applications you can quickly install and enjoy. Here are just a few highlights of the almost 150 free applications already available via the AppStore:

With the release of the second generation iPhone 3G right around the proverbial corner, Apple has released the accompanying iPhone OS 2.0 to the public. iPhone OS 2.0 has been in beta testing with developers for months now, and has been the test bed for the first official third party applications which are now available via the iPhone AppStore (you must be running OS 2.0 to access the AppStore).

New iPhone 3G models will be pre-loaded with iPhone OS 2.0, but the public release of the software allows existing owners of the first generation iPhone to upgrade their phones to the new 2.0 firmware. The new iPhone OS brings a host of new

We told you earlier that the Apple online retail store went down, in typical Apple fashion, pending an update related to the new iPhone 3G. Like the rest of you, we had hoped that the update would include the release and ability to buy the 3G iPhone, but it was not to be. However, even though the iPhone 3G was not released at the WWDC, the Apple online store was updated with a 3G iPhone information page.

The information page has a large collection of information on the new 3G iPhone, including