It’s been 48 hours since Apple at WWDC announced the iPhone 3G S, and people are already complaining. Aside from some people saying that it was all a bit of a letdown in terms of announcements, the large majority of whining comes from iPhone users on O2 that want to upgrade but have a problem.

The issue stems from the fact that when the 3G got released, O2 UK allowed for free upgrades to the new handset. This time, O2 are refusing it. People are unhappy as they don’t want to either be locked into the remaining months on their contract nor pay a large charge to get out of said contract. Granted, it’s a hefty phone bill anyway, but this does seem quite strange behaviour from the consumers.

in the UK, it is extremely rare for the phone provider to allow for a free upgrade before a contract is up (You know, what we call “Normal”). Usually this would be towards the last two months of a contract, but last time O2 were benevolent enough to allow this to be extended. This time, the change in the handset involved is only minor, and in a climate where O2 needs all the money it can get (the economy is “bad”, apparently), I can’t really see O2 actually doing anything wrong here.

I know with my own phone contract that I’m stuck with it for 18 months. I don’t expect the phone company I am with to allow me special dispensation to cut the contract short because I want it to. I paid my money, I made my choice. If I were running the phone company, I would have to be asking serious questions of myself and my staff if this were allowed to happen to everyone.

Seriously, grow up…

The Apple Keynote at the WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) cued cheering from many mac enthusiasts. The main order of the day was to announce an upgrade to the iPhone 3G. Namely the iPhone 3G S.

The Basics:

• Camera has been upgraded to 3 megapixel
• Battery is longer. Apparently.
• Can now use 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
• 16Gb and 32Gb models
• Cut, Copy and Paste actually works (OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!)
• MMS messages now work, although you’re probably used to e-mailing them around now, right?
• Available June 19th in UK, US, Canada, France, Mars…

Apple have put a guided tour of the new phone online, but if you want the full press release with more details, you can find it… after the jump!

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As many of you that read one of the other blogs will know, I have owned my 3 Skypephone for a good few months now. I loved the idea of being able to use Skype on a mobile phone without resorting to some cobbled together solution involving extra equipment nor a computer. I blathered about it being a smart and useable handset that turned out to be suprisingly cheap over at Blatantly Random, but now that I have lived with it for a few months, the honeymoon period is over.

In a nutshell, it’s a normal candybar mobile phone. It’s cheap, it’s functional for calls, texts and mms, and it has hefty Skype integration, allowing you to call people from your phonebook on either their mobile, housephone or their Skype client if it’s accepting calls. The important part is that 3 UK offer this Skype functionality for no extra charge, so long as you are either on a contract or on a prepay solution. It does the jobs as described, but it does have it’s faults….

The most obvious problem is cosmetic. Rubbery latex covers most of the handset which, despite being a bit odd in terms of coating, is lovely to touch. Sadly, the coating for the removable back cover has mostly peeled off. Weirdly it is just this back cover that has the problem, since the rest of the phone seems to look ok.

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Apple have unleashed possibly their worst kept secret ever.

Apple (United Kingdom) – iPhone:
Introducing iPhone 3G. With fast 3G wireless technology, Maps with GPS, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more amazing features in your hands.

Now, I have already said in the past that I wouldn’t have minded getting my own iPhone, but eventually I turned away, partly because of the excessive cost of the unit excluding the contract, partly the fact that it was a futuristic phone that did NOT have 3G. Now, with 3G, a decent GPS feature among other improvements, it’s enticing. The much lower initial cost is now comparable to other handsets.

BBC NEWS | dot.life | A blog about technology from BBC News | Hands on with iPhone 3G:
Questions to Greg Joswiak about refunds for anyone who has just recently bought the old iPhone were met with little sympathy as he pointed out that news of the 3G version was ‘hardly the best kept secret in the world”.

I do have to say it’s probably not a leaked secret. 3G has been such an asked for and complained about problem of the original iPhone that it was logical for Apple to work on this anyway, and for people to talk about it.
There was no leak. The hype and guessing was just correct on something obvious.