elyse

Yeah it really is kind of sleazy the way they tout in TV commercials that the phone is cheaper, when in reality over the life of the contract, it's actually more expensive, particularly since there's no free text messaging. Speaking of which, what's up with companies doing unlimited data service but not throwing in the text messaging. That's pure profiteering right there as the text messages use almost no bandwidth and really are almost 100% profit in the pockets of the cell service providers. - Alex Scoble CISSP

At the end of the day though, it's just a freakin' phone. Most people (90%) would be better off getting whatever free phone is available for AT&T through Verizon. Blackberry Curve anyone? - Alex Scoble CISSP

Who is Alex Scoble and what has he done with Robert? - Eric Schlissel via twhirl

There's definitely something weird going on with battery drain. Sometimes my phone will be dead if left to sit overnight, other times it's practically fully charged. - invariant

Why isn't there a voice guided turn-by-turn application already available? I read somewhere that in the iPhone SDK terms-of-acceptance, it says that you are not allowed to develop voice guided turn-by-turn. Is that true? - oregon_tony

Interestingly none of those reasons apply in the UK. The monthly cost is the same (both data and voice/sms), but many more minutes & sms are thrown in now. The handset one-off price is much cheaper. O2 are doing deals to enable 2g iPhone owners to upgrade before the end of their 18 month contract. The O2 3G network is OK (not good, but OK), and the O2 Edge network is crap. Because network coverage is better, the phone does not need to work so hard, and so the battery issue is much less of a problem. - Ian Fogg

I upgraded my iTouch and immediately noticed the poorer battery life on that device too. If I use wifi the device is lucky to last 2 days. If I turn that off and stick to my music/podcasts, I can get several days without needing a full charge. I also wonder how much extra power the different apps use. Games like Super Monkey Ball and Labyrinth and the NYTimes app, or Facebook or any of the others that rely on wifi/data connections? Think I'll stick to my Nokia E90. Cheaper with more benefits and software. - Stephen Cropp

Ian - having upgraded last week I have found the battery performance disastrous. The 3g network in London is patchy to say the least. Power managment within the OS seems inefficient. Some form of activity monitor is required - there are times when you know that an app is running in the background and draining the battery yet you cannot confirm or control the process. The GPS without turn by turn instructions is an extremely minor upgrade in my eyes. I am a huge Apple fan however I am seriously considering the new Blackberry until such time as the issues mentioned above and by others are resolved. Dissapointing! - Mark

Same with my Touch (2.0). Then again, I use the wi-fi quite alot at home. the games drain the hell out of my battery. Although Apple made fun of Task Manager in WM6, I'd much prefer it if there was one to use on my Touch. - Roberto Bonini

I think i like my Nokia phone and will stick with it and not go crazy about iphone - Vidya

I used my Blackberry (and now iPhone) as an alarm clock. My usual routine is to charge it every night if the battery is low enough. I'm pretty diligent with conditioning my batteries. Occasionally, I'll have to do an afternoon charge because I'll let it discharge well below 20%. I wonder if people are complaining about battery life because they have to charge it once per day? I keep bluetooth off, everything else is on. It seems to auto-switch WiFi off in standby and flips it back on when wakes up. - Paul Reynolds

i gave four good reasons nearly two months ago: http://bit.ly/3hFVm3 - Rob Shields via twhirl

I have to agree with Thomas. I'd like to note that A-GPS is rather unreliable as it often doesn't work (at least in my case.) I've made the decision replace my iPhone 3G with the N95-3. - Brandon McCall

If you turn of the push feature, then you get much better battery life. I did it and now it much better. And here in Sweden the 3G / HSDPA network is quite good. - Svartling

I had a ATT Samsung 3G phone for about a year prior to buying a 1st gen iPhone. The Samsung would also occasionally just drain the battery even in sleep mode. I suspected it was something to do with the 3G radio and its behavior in poor reception areas, but couldn't reliably reproduce the problem. - Steve Wilhelm

Another theory on the 3G battery life is the radio power is cranked up right now to compensate for the weak coverage and it can be adjusted remotely by the carrier. I forgot to mention I turned "push" down to every 30 minutes. - Paul Reynolds

Just switched over last week after about 7 yrs of BB devices. Certainly has "cool factor", form factor and UI, but BB still better for power user of basic email and phone services without the bells and whistles of iPhone. That said, I think iPhone is a worthwhile investment and good device to have to monitor what is happening with mobile devices and device convergence. Mobile commerce and communication will be important elements to many business strategies. - Fred Neil

I'm very tempted by an unlocked 2nd hand gen 1 iPhone. Being tied to a carrier doesn't work for me no matter how compelling the device - James Clarke

Well James, unlocking for a different carrier is great, but don't expect any good apps in the jailbroken installer. Nothing but stupid themes. - Dennis Jackson

BOOOOO. But thanks. I'm waiting until my contract runs out and it's literally been killing me. At least this helps cool me down a bit. - Sarah Perez

Sometimes it might help to 'get Bold' instead of following the wisdom of the crowds :) - Mrinal Desai

Agreed. As I posted elsewhere, there is nothing compelling enough for me to spend an extra $30 per month. My beat up edge version works beautifully and mine was free! - Brad Nickel

i thought this post was an engaging read. - Carmen via Alert Thingy

What bugs me is that everyone is saying to turn this feature off or that feature off to preserve battery. What's the point of having an iPhone 3G if you have to turn all the features that make it different from the original iPhone off? Hopefully Apple will work on better battery life. For now I'm sticking with the 1st gen. - Dennis Jackson

whoa, the green screen bliss! vi editor where are you?! - Susan Beebe

Ah yes, CLI you are my friend - Joe via twhirl

Wow. I actually remember these green screens. Doesn't that make me an old fart (relatively speaking). - Alex von Halem via twhirl

boy, where is sed? awk mentioned only once or twice and only as part of long command... - silpol

!!! - Mona N.

Kinda thought I'd learn something new... No aux or | mention is baffling. For those working the command line here's one that should have been on that list find . -type f | xargs grep -l "STRING THAT YOU WANT" - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

HAHA. WEB2.0 via command line. LOL - Misha

Never knew about `sudo !!` That's awesome, definitely will come in handy :) - Bartek Gniado

blast from the past. only command-line thing I ever do now is "ping slow-website". :-( - Mitchell Tsai

Stupid Blogger (I find it really hard to say that), in zsh at least grep "STRING THAT YOU WANT" **/* - Michael C. Harris

I'm on the command line about 80% of the time while i'm at work :) - imabonehead

dumb idea for windows users to install cygwin in most cases (unless you are installing sshd or something). no love for tasklist, pathping, robocopy? no mention of powershell? linkd? bah. - Karim

I have been waiting for Gazelle to release new version of QDOS since Windows 3.0 came on the scene. - Jeff

No mention of Poweshell? Bah! - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)

got pico? - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Try viewing is flickr photostream using piclens... it's AMAZING - David Silvernail

Piclens Rocks! - Thomas Hawk

Beautiful...Wish we could get Flikr unblocked here in China - lonnie b hodge

It would be nice if PicLens worked on Friendfeed. - Jauder Ho

dropbox and humyo - Nir Ben Yona via twhirl

Scoble did you sink the Twitter Whale? LOL - Igor The Troll

mediafire - Richard Lawler via twhirl

mediafire, zshare, dropbox, and wuala - Mona N.

wuala. - Chris Chua

my.opera (old school hehe) - Michael W. May via twhirl

Not free, but I use S3 and RapidShare - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

dropbox, like it's extreme simplicity - Dorian Tireli

box.net, fast and simple. - Xavier Moisant via twhirl

Not free but dirt cheap... S3 - Ray Slakinski via twhirl

humyo & boxstr - Cee Bee

drop.io and dropbox - Dennis Leung

adrive.com 50gb free - James Herbert via twhirl

mediafire, dropbox, box.net - eve shot first