Some of the major features I’ve been waiting for with an iPhone are finally here and am glad I am able to upgrade for the $199 price today.  Most importantly the HD video recording, LED flash, 5-megapixel camera and double RAM are all exciting features I think the iPhone has been needing over the last year to keep up with the Android phones that are being released.

Now, I just got to get my 3GS sold this morning so I can go down and get it!

Tiered pricing structures are seriously a bad thing.  It basically says that the companies like AT&T who are raking in profits from the explosion in iPhone sales over the past few years can’t keep up with the demand, so in order so solve this problem they take a step back in innovation and force us to use our smart phones less.  Yes, less.  Wouldn’t you think a communications company would want their customers to use their phones more?  The fact that AT&T thinks 90% of their smart phone customers use less than 2GB of data per month is ridiculous.  I would love to see these numbers for iPhone users only. What’s worse is Apple is coming out with new phones that depend on extra bandwidth and network needs and AT&T is cutting back.  What a slap in the face to your customers.

I also read about how Skype is now going to charge to use their service over 3G starting in 2011 (it was 2010 until users complained).  Why do you think they are charging?  They have never charged ever for Skype-to-Skype.  If you ask me I think it’s because of AT&T.  This is their new business model; cut the bandwidth of all your users, and make them pay to use specific services.  Here you go folks, a la carte internet.  Want to use Hulu?  Got to pay another $5/m which goes to AT&T.  Netflix?  Another $5/mo.  I think you see where I am going.

Also recently Comcast won in a net neutrality case that gives them the ability to manage or throttle network traffic depending on the service.  This talk has been around for a while but now a court has actually ruled in their favor.  Shame. This gives Comcast the right to even exclude services such as Youtube or Hulu from their network, or charge you higher premium fees to use those ‘bandwidth hog’ services.

Sadly, the way communication companies are controlling the internet for their own gain and limiting technology and innovation for personal profit is leading to a dark future.  It’s something that makes someone who is a programmer and depends on the web and open communication and protocols really uneasy.

Well today I read one of my favorite e-card companies, Someecard had their iPhone application rejected because of “defaming” famous people.  From the Someecards blog:

Imagine the horror we felt to learn our iPhone app wasn’t rejected for some sort of horribly off-color dildo joke. That is, unless the App Store just randomly chose three not-that-objectionable cards as examples of unacceptable content (see below). Are we really being told we can’t “defame” famous people? Even Hitler? Let us know what you think of the notification below.

Wow Apple.  What a way to promote free speech.  Things like this are what make me now want to write iPhone applications more and more each day.

But for some reason I feel like I’m paying for it.

For example, my monthly costs for my lines are now more expensive.  AT&T still hasn’t pushed MMS or tethering and still will not give a expected date of when it will be arriving.  But the worst problem I have, agreeing with Arrington is the lockdown and control AT&T and Apple are having on the applications with the iPhone.  As a software programmer it’s really disheartening to see how much control they want to have over their devices.  We should be pushing more towards open and shared platforms.  Not locked down, controlled environments where AT&T is dictating who gets approved to the App Store or not based on internal reasons that make no sense for consumers, only them.   If I didn’t just resign a two-year deal I probably would think about bailing ship.

I really wanted to start writing iPhone applications as soon as I got my iMac, but maybe I will just look into writing applications for the Palm Pre and their webOS platform.

And another thing.  Why is it so difficult for Apple to implement more common features with their software and hardware, at least relating to iTunes?  The Microsoft Zune has Wi-Fi syncing and a lot of other cool features and it seems Apple is never going to put these into their hardware.  What about iTunes streaming?  Oh, gotta buy an Apple TV for that.