AT&T announced additional pricing details for the upcoming iPhone 3G today though it’s not likely to answer all the questions that people might have. Let’s go over what we do know thus far.

First off, the $199 8GB iPhone 3G and $299 16GB iPhone 3G requires a new two year contract and is available to the following customers:

• iPhone customers who purchased before July 11
• Customers activating a new line with AT&T
• Current AT&T customers who are eligible, at the time of purchase, for an upgrade discount

OK.. so what that says to me is.. if you purchased a 1st generation iPhone before July 11th and you’re up and running with AT&T already, then by default, you’re eligible for the new iPhone 3G. What that also says to me is.. if you are already an AT&T customer AND you’re NOT an iPhone user, you MIGHT be eligible for the new iPhone 3G at the reduced discount.

So.. how do you know if you’re eligible for the discount? You’ll need to log into your account at AT&T Wireless and then click on the “Upgrade Phone” link. That will tell you if you’re eligible for an upgrade discount on a new two year plan.

Now with that said.. if you’re an AT&T customer and you are NOT eligible for an upgrade discount, then the new iPhone 3G will cost $399 for the 8GB and $499 for the 16GB model. This still requires a new two year agreement with AT&T of course.

Down the road, AT&T will also offer a no-contract required option for the iPhone but that also means you’ll be paying the most of the 3G phone with the 8GB model going for $599 and the 16GB for $699.

Make sense?

Oh yeah.. there’s also an “upgrade fee” for current AT&T customers who are upgrading to the iPhone 3G. There’s also an “activation fee” of $36 dollars for new AT&T customers. They sure know how to milk ya!

OK.. so that’s just the price of the phone. We haven’t even begun talking about the plans yet.  To me - the plans are perhaps the most annoying because they’ve changed in a devious way. First off - you’ll be paying more per month than what you previously did with the first generation iPhone. Of course, it’s faster service but.. here’s the kicker - the plan does NOT include the original # of text messages. You want text messages, that’s more too!

Let’s summarize the individual plans - all of which have unlimited data.

On the low end, there’s the AT&T Nation 450 plan which includes 450 Anytime Minutes, 5000 Nights and Weekend Minutes for $69.99 a month

Next, there’s the AT&T Nation 900 plan which includes 900 Anytime Minutes, and unlimited Night and Weekend Minutes for $89.99 a month

Next, there’s the AT&T Nation 1350 plan which has (you guessed it), 1350 Anytime Minutes and unlimited Night and Weekend Minutes for $109.99 a month

Finally, there’s the AT&T Nation Unlimited which includes unlimited Anytime Minutes for $129.99. Thus, I suppose the $99.99 unlimited plans don’t apply to the iPhone 3G eh?

OK.. but notice - nowhere in here is anything about text messages. You want texting you say? That’s more! For 200 messages a month, it’ll be $ 5 dollars. For 1500 messages, it’ll be $15 dollars and for unlimited text messages, it’ll be $20 dollars a month. Yes.. that means the lowest plan will be actually $74.99 a month for 450 Anytime Minutes and 200 text messages. That’s $15 dollars more a month than what the lowest 1st gen iPhone user pays now.

Want family options?

AT&T’s FamilyTalk by default comes with two lines. Each additional line will cost you $39.99 extra for up to three more lines. All FamilyTalk lines come with unlimited data, nights and weekends and mobile to mobile.

On the low end, there’s a 700 Shared Anytime Minute plan which costs $129.99. For 1400 Anytime Minutes, you’ll pay $149.99 a month. Next up is the 2100 Anytime Minutes plan for $169.99 a month. Then the 3000 minute plan for $209.99 a month etc etc.

Of course, text messaging is EXTRA too.

Want more info or better pictures? Check out the pricing page here on AT&T’s website.

But let me see if I can summarize for you:

AT&T Nation plans:

AT&T FamilyTalk plans:

[Check out the press release]

[Check out the price plans]

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Apple, iPhone 3G, Price Details, Price Plan

There’s a new review of the HTC Touch Diamond up on the net - this time by the folks at Mobile Tech Addicts. The Touch Diamond is of course, HTC’s latest attempt at creating an iPhone competing device. Unfortunately early reviews were not very positive about the Touch Flo 3D interface that comes with the Touch Diamond and it appears that the Mobile Tech Addicts review is very much the same way. Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion:

With Touch Flo 3D running it is far from a polished user experience, it is slow and buggy…If you are looking for a Windows Mobile device and know your way around the OS already this could be a good option but switch off Touch Flo 3D.

While I haven’t played with the Touch Diamond as of yet, it seems like a pretty good bet to look around before committing to the Diamond. No offense to Windows Mobile devices but the Touch Diamond is just another example of a Windows Mobile device with a kludged touch-based user interface strapped on top of the OS. While I do love Windows Mobile devices, I love the iPhone even more and the success of the iPhone should prove to Windows Mobile manufactures that the key is to redesign the entire platform including third aprty applications and how they interface to the user.

[Check it out via Mobility Today]

Technorati Tags: Mobility Tech Addicts, HTC Touch Diamond, Review

If you’re in need of a rugged Windows Smartphone device, you might be interested in the expensive Logic Instrument Tetra T-Pad. This smartphone features:

• Intel XScale 400MHz PXA263 procesor
• Drop Shock resistant design
• Windows CE.NET 4.2 OS
• 4 inch Transmissive TFT LCD touchscreen display with 480 x 640 resolution
• 16 key alphanumeric keyboard
• 5 hours of battery life
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Ethernet

The T-Pad meets U.S military standards for harsh conditions, weighs less than 1.3 lbs, is nearly anything proof (ok.. dust and water), can withstand shock, vibration, and freezing temperatures.. and yes.. costs ahem.. $2600.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Logic instrument, Tetra T-Pad, Windows smartphone

Verizon Wireless has announced that the new touch-screen based LG Dare is now available on the Verizon Wireless online store. The LG Dare is certainly an interesting looking and feature rich smartphone with capabilities such as:

• 3.2 megapixel camera with face detection and flash
• Three inch touch-screen (240 x 400) and tactile feedback display with handwriting recognition
• Schneider-Kreuznach certified lens
• Support for V CAST Music
• Supports MP3, WMA, Unprotected AAC, and Unprotected AAC+ files
• microSD slot
• USB Mass Storage support
• Video recording capabilities
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• One touch speakerphone
• Speaker independent voice commands
• Voice recoprding
• HTML web browser
• Mobile email support
• Mobile IM support
• VZ Navigator support
• EVDO support
• Measures 4.1 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches and weighs 3.76 oz
• 280 minute talk time and 360 hour standby time

The Dare can be purchased for $199.99 after a $50 dollar mail-in rebate and a new two year customer agreement. The phone will go on sale in retail stores starting on July 3rd.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Verizon Wireless, LG Dare

While you’re waiting to purchase the new iPhone 3G on July 11th, ZAGG Inc., is hoping you’ll also go ahead and pre-order their new invisibleSHIELD protective film covering for the iPhone 3G. The invisibleSHIELD  adhesive film cover actually has been available for pre-order for approximately three weeks now and ZAGG reports that over 50,000 pre-orders have already come in.  The company is also reporting that the invisibleSHIELD will begin shipping on June 27th which is two weeks prior to the launch of the new iPhone. If you pre-order now, you’ll get 20% off the normal price at checkout. There are three options - a full body coverage at $24.95, back coverage at $18.95 and front coverage at $14.95.

One thing I couldn’t help but do was to calculate some of the early revenues that ZAGG has already accumulated. If 50,000 pre-orders have already come in.. and we assume that people are at a minimum ordering just the front coverage for $14.95 (minus the 20% discount which comes to $11.96), then the company has already earned roughly $598,000 at a minimum. NICE….

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Apple iPhone 3G, invisibleSHIELD, ZAGG

Making sure the world didn’t forget about the new Samsung Instinct, Sprint announced today that the new Instinct was the “fastest selling EVDO handset in Sprint history.” The handset was made available exclusively to Sprint customers on June 19th and made available to everyone on June 20th. The company said that the Instinct broke Sprint’s record for the first week of sales for any device.

Unfortunately, Sprint failed to actually say how many units were sold during this time period - thus I suppose someone could sit down and do the research on previous phone models that were sold by Sprint to figure out on the low side how many Instinct were actually sold (sorry - I’m not going to try and figure this out). However.. it would have been nice if Sprint actually compiled the numbers and told the press themselves. One would imagine that they know these numbers otherwise they wouldn’t be sending this release out right?

In any event, I’m sure the new Samsung Instinct is probably doing quite well overall for Sprint but it’s also important to remember that Sprint is going to pump out all the PR and marketing fluff it can right NOW while the rest of the world waits for the new iPhone 3G on July 11th. In many ways, this is the calm before the storm - with the storm being the arrival of the new iPhone 3G.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Samsung Instinct, Sprint

Nokia also announced today (well more like yesterday now), that the new Nokia N78 is now available in the U.S. The N78 includes features such as :

• Integrated Assisted GPS
• 3.2 megapixel digital camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• 20x digial zoom
• MPEG-4 VGA video capture at up to 15fps
• High-speed HSDPA connectivity on 850/1900MHz networks
• Free three month trial navigation license for Nokia Maps service
• Digital music player
• Integrated FM transmitter
• MicroSD memory card slot
• Widget support enabled via Web Runtime technology
• Up to 70MB internal memory
• 2.4 inch QVGA (240 x 320) resolution display
• Symbian OS
• Measures 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm and weighs 101.8 grams
• Up to 24 hour music playback time
• Wi-Fi support
• USB 2.0 support
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Nokia N78

If you’re looking forward to a Google Android phone, your wait is going to be a tad bit longer. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google Android handsets will not be available until sometime in the fourth quarter and even that date is a bit of a stretch for some manufacturers. Some carriers and application developers are having a hard time meeting even that schedule. Carriers such as Sprint and China Mobile will probably not be able to launch Android phones this year although T-Mobile still claims that they will deliver a phone by the fourth quarter.

Does this spell trouble for Google’s mobile efforts? Not at all - many of the delays can be traced back to one of a few things including the upcoming launch of the iPhone 3G mobile phone, the fact that Android itself isn’t finished, and the sheer fact that developers have to deal with a whole new platform SDK. The real question won’t be whether handset manufacturers and carriers support Android - it’ll be whether consumers and business adopt Android based handsets.

[Check it out via News.com]

Technorati Tags: Google, Android, delays

You can categorize this one under “Why hasn’t someone thought of this before?” Since more and more households have one or more iPods, it makes only perfect sense that someone would eventually want a dual iPod docking station. That’s exactly what JVC announced today with the NX-PN7 - the industry’s first dual iPod docking stations. The system can accommodate two iPods side by side charging them both simultaneously. You can also choose to play back music from either iPod through the dock’s built-in speaker system. The dock also comes with an AM/FM tuner, clock, timer, remote control, and an analog audio input for connecting other audio devices. The remote control also comes with dedicated iPod control keys that simulate the iPod control wheel layout. There’s also an NX-PN7 model which supports the Apple iPhone. The new docking station is now available for $149.95.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: JVC NX-PN7, dual iPod, iPhone docking station

If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to jazz up that iPhone of yours - might I suggest a GelaSkin? They’re thin vinyl protective covers that apply right onto the back of your iPhone. The best part - you can easily remove them and not leave a mark on your phone. Each GelaSkin is scratch resistant and extremely durable - I’ve had mine since CES 2008 (got a free one which I’ll show later on this week I hope .. I know.. I’ve been lagging a bit). GelaSkin also has downloadable wallpapers for each of the designs that they sell. They’re latest design is called the Love Cow and it’s by Anthony Hurd - a famous video and graphics artist. You can see his latest design here on GelaSkin’s website ( you can buy it for $14.95). GelaSkins will certainly help personalize your iPhone (especially since it seems like everyone has an iPhone these days!)

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: GelaSkin, Apple iPhone, Skins, Anthony Hurd, Love Cow