I bought the iPhone 3G in July 2008 on a 24 month contract with Telstra. At the time they refused to allow iPhone users to utilise their “Cap Plans”, and as such became the only carrier in Australia to offer iPhones without Cap plans. I signed up to the $80 per month “iPhone plan” and that includes $70 worth of calls.
As of June 26th 2009, the iPhone 3GS was released. Telstra now offer iPhones (the new or old model) on the original plans, but you can now sign up to the Cap plans. Comparing these plans at the $80 per month spend level shows:
iPhone Plan
NextG Cap Plan
Minimum Monthly Spend
$80
$79
Included Call Value
$70
$450
Bonus Mobile call credit
$0
$100
Flagfall
27c
37c
Call rate per 30 seconds
26c
35c
SMS Rate
25c
25c
Note: For data usage you need to pay an additional cost per month if you don’t want to incur AUD$2 per Megabyte of data. This is the same for iPhone or Cap plan, so I wont compare these in this post.
As can be seen from the above data, the original iPhone plan versus the NextG Cap plans now offered on the iPhone differ significantly. Discounting the flag-fall:
With the iPhone plan you get 259 minutes of talking time, roughly 4.3 hours.
With the Cap plan you get 608 minutes of talking time, roughly 10 hours. (Not including the extra $100 credit to Telstra Mobiles).
Hopefully you can see now why the Cap plans are better value. What does one do in this situation? One would think that you could call billing, change plans to a practically exactly the same priced plan – and change over.
With the hope of a changeover, I called billing. I wouldn’t mind taking the hit of having to sign up for 24 months again, and I learned that this would be required – BUT – and there is always a but with Telstra, this wasn’t all. If I wanted to change my iPhone plan to a Cap Plan I would have to agree to the following:
Sign up to the Next G cap plan for a full 24 months again
Pay out my current plan (in other words pay off the iPhone)
Paying off the current plan would cost me $850 upfront, or $70 per month for the next year.
Telstra – where is the incentive to keep customers. This is not a way to show it. Had you allowed a plan change to one now offered to newcomers to the iPhone on your network, I’d still be a paying customer for another 2 years (an additional year on top of my current obligation). Money grabbing to “pay out” my current plan and THEN signing up to a full new contract is a customer loyalty killer. Next G speed and coverage be damned.
An update for Skype on the iPhone has been released. Version 1.1 of the update offers some additional fixes and localisations, but the major addition is ability to send SMS.
This update is compatible with the iPhone 3.0 Firmware, so many people were hoping that Push notification would be included. It has not been, so the functionality of Skype on the iPhone is limited. Apple does not allow Applications to run in the background, so one can’t receive calls or message notifications in Skype without the app continuously running. The moment you jump out to the iPod, Contacts, Phone or any other part of your iPhone OS, Skype quits.
Without push notifications V1.1 of the Skype App for iPhone remains a novelty for Skype users, and only mildly useful for “away from the desktop” users who need to make a call over wifi.
Tweetdeck, one of the better Twitter desktop clients, has now been release for the iPhone.
I used to use Tweetdeck, until Tweetie came out for the Mac (a native client). However on any other non-apple platform I recommend Tweetdeck or DestroyTwitter (both Adobe Air apps) to my friends.
In the last 24 hours Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, blogged about getting hold of the Tweetdeck beta. Since then the blogosphere has gone mad about it. Mashable reports that the app is now live in the Apple appstore.
The world health organisation has today raised the Influenza alert level to 6, the highest level, indicating a pandemic is underway. They rate the 2009 flu pandemic as currently moderate, with most people recovering, and I quote:
This particular H1N1 strain has not circulated previously in humans. The virus is entirely new.
The virus is contagious, spreading easily from one person to another, and from one country to another.
As of today, nearly 30,000 confirmed cases have been reported in 74 countries.
… I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.
… On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment. Worldwide, the number of deaths is small. Each and every one of these deaths is tragic, and we have to brace ourselves to see more. However, we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe or fatal infections.
… Most cases of severe and fatal infections have been in adults between the ages of 30 and 50 years.
This pattern is significantly different from that seen during epidemics of seasonal influenza, when most deaths occur in frail elderly people. … At the same time, it is important to note that around one third to half of the severe and fatal infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people.
Read more details in the World Health Organisation press release.
This is also a timely reminder to people who work in office spaces about coughing/sneezing not into your hands, but the best cloth at hand. Two years ago at the start of the Flu season in Australia I blogged about the benefits of using your sleeves for catching germs. I’ll re-iterate this again with this comic but well done video:
The WHO has more details on the H1N1 strain of the Flu. There are also details on the current severity of this strain.
The new iPhone 3GS was announced yesterday at WWDC. The main changes are in the hardware. The differences are now:
32GB Option
3 Megapixel camera with autofocus
Video Recording capabilities with upload to Youtube function
Voice Control
Compass
The other new features coming to the iPhone such as:
Cut, Copy & Paste (about time!)
MMS and contact send/receive via SMS
Bluetooth transfer and A2DP support
Data tethering to your laptop (USB or Bluetooth)
Spotlight Search
Landscape keyboard across all apps
Voice Memos
will be available on the current iPhone 3G, the iPhone 2G and included oin the new 3GS. A free software upgrade to Version 3.0 of the firmware will be ready for download to the public June the 17th.
For the die-hard Apple fanboys, a Quicktime stream of the keynote speech given by Phil Schiller is now online.
Tweetdeck, one of the better Twitter desktop clients, has now been release for the iPhone.
