Windows Mobile has become somewhat of a a joke in recent years, no thanks to the proliferation of Android and iPhone phones topped off by the utterly disastrous Microsoft Kin launch earlier this year. However, after watching this walkthrough video, I admit I’m warming up to the idea that Windows Phone 7 could actually be a good product. (Especially given that its release is imminent.)

I’m particularly interested in the Xbox Live implementation on a mobile device because from the looks of it, Microsoft’s clearly ahead of Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, and anyone else in terms of gaming platforms on the go. Not only is there seamless integration with your existing Xbox Live profile, the potential is there for real time multiplayer gaming with not only other mobile users, but with Xbox players.

It’s just too bad it’s confined to Windows Phone 7 devices at the moment. As much as I don’t mind Microsoft establishing another great smartphone platform, I sure as hell aren’t buying a new phone anytime soon. If it works out as promised, I wouldn’t mind paying for the Xbox Live functionality on my iPhone, though. Perhaps it may behoove Microsoft to be the go to service for all mobile gaming, rather than tying it to a potential dead end product.

Start watching at around 9:30 for the Xbox Live stuff. If you want a run down of the entire Windows Phone 7 experience, feel free to start from the beginning. Just try and tune out the awkwardly nerdy interviewer.

It just goes to show how accomplished a salesman Steve Jobs is with his introduction of Apple’s iTunes-based social music network, Ping, this past Wednesday. From the way Jobs presented the service, many people felt Ping was the future of music consumption and interaction, calling it a “Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, <insert internet juggernaut here> Killer.” In fact, I believe my initial reaction during the presentation could be paraphrased as “gave me an erection.”

It turns out that all anyone got out of Ping so far was a severe case of blue balls.

If you’re a music fan and you’re wondering if Ping is worth your time, it’s not. You’re much better off with Pandora or last.fm right now. They offer music discovery options that make Ping look like BP of music sites. Don’t bother signing up if you don’t have an iTunes account. If you are already signed up, I guess it couldn’t hurt to opt in to reserve a name/profile just in case Apple improves the service, but no one would blame you if you didn’t care.

In it’s current incarnation, Ping is utterly useless for music consumers and here are ten reasons why:

1. It doesn’t help you discover music in a meaningful way.

According to Apple’s own page for Ping, music discovery is the chief goal of the service. If that’s the case, why are there so few opportunities to discover music?

The first thing your eyes gravitate on the Ping welcome page is a section Apple calls “Artists We Recommend You Follow.” Great, new musical artists to discover! Then you realize that the artists “recommended” are some combination of 50 Cent, U2, Lady Gaga, Diddy, Daddy Yankee, and Keith Urban. By now, if you haven’t realized that this section is just a list of major label artists populated by a iTunes content manager and not actually personalized to you, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

It doesn’t get any better when looking through the profiles themselves. Artists or friends alike, the only components of music discovery on a profile are a static ten song/album list and a ten song/album chart generated from the top purchases of people you “follow.” If we drill in a little further, that list of ten musical selections on your profile is either done automatically through scraping your previous purchases or manually. I think it would be safe to say that automatically picking out ten of your previous purchases is not the best way to represent your musical tastes or discover others’. The best thing to do right now is manually pick out ten of your favorites, but it can be time consuming to update and with the small userbase, there’s no incentive to do so unless you like the flashbacks to picking out your “top friends” on Myspace years ago.

Let’s say you manage to find a cool friend or artist and want to listen to their recommended list of ten. You can’t even listen to complete songs! The best you can do is listen to a 30 second preview. Can you name a time when a 30 second preview has ever been a good way to discover music?

Where’s the dynamic list of songs someone’s listened to over the course of the last year (last.fm)? Where’s the suggested artists or songs based off of what you like (Pandora)? Where’s the ability to listen to actual music?

2. It only works with songs sold in the iTunes store.

If you want to use any of the “social” features of ping, such as “liking” or commenting on a piece of music, it has to be done within the limitations of music in the iTunes store. That cool unsigned artist you’ve been listening to on repeat? If they aren’t on iTunes they may as well not exist. Oh, the same goes for The Beatles, AC/DC, or any other artist that refuses to sell their wares on iTunes. I bet those guys were nobodies anyway.

Let’s take this one step further. How many people do you know purchased their entire music collection on the iTunes store? I don’t know about you, but I barely know anyone who’s bought more than a handful of tracks lifetime on the iTunes store. These are what most Ping profiles are going to be populated with: handfuls of novelty singles.

Sounds like a great way to discover new music, huh?

3. It requires client software.

Despite the huge install base of iTunes across the globe, it’s still a fraction of music lovers with internet access. Without a browser-based implementation of Ping, the growth potential of the network will be severely stunted. Let’s also not forget that it’s a pain in the ass to share links to profiles or content when an external application is required to view them.

I own multiple Apple products and even I find iTunes a necessary evil to transfer content to them. Having to run a separate piece of software just to access a website is both insulting to its users and a crippling annoyance.

Sure, you can argue that it’s a business decision by Apple to get people to use their products. But a social network is not an iPhone 4. It’s only as useful as the people using it. And it certainly isn’t doing any favors for me or many of the people already “in the Apple family.”

4. It’s already full of spam and noise.

Within a day after its launch, I was already seeing multiple spam accounts commenting on artist pages and featured profiles with links to “free iPhone 4! click here!!!.” Not exactly the scintillating music discussion I was looking for.

Now, let’s give Apple the benefit of the doubt and say that they’ll figure out how to filter out the spam effectively. There’s still the problem of profile noise.

Right now, every piece of activity on the site constitutes its own “post” on your profile. So whether you follow someone, like a song, purchase an album, write a comment or review, it’s all jumbled together into one cluster of spam. There’s no easy way to separate out the important activities (writing a detailed comment) from the mundane (following 134 individual bands). Why bother adding to a conversation if it’s just going to be buried under an avalanche of irrelevancy?

5. There’s nothing to do on the service.

Seriously, there’s nothing to do right now on Ping once you’ve set up your profile. Since listening to or discovering music isn’t in the cards, what about starting a conversation about it?

You could, but it’s a bit kludgy. You can’t make a post or a comment without doing it from a piece of content being sold on the iTunes store. You can’t post pictures or video from that time you met limp bizkit, nor can you write up a concert review of that great Staind show in Biloxi last night. Well, I guess you could write a comment under the iTunes page for “Outside”, but it’d be akin to writing your memoirs as a Youtube comment. In other words, not possible.

I suppose you could put down that you’re attending an upcoming show, but whats the point? There’s no incentive to do so other than to notify the world that you could be robbed more easily that night.

Where’s the interesting stuff like shared playlists? Hell, just include that one feature and you already have enough music discovery/sharing activity to warrant signing up for the service!

6. It’s a restrictive way for artists to interact with fans.

Artist Profiles are a little more useful than “normal” profiles in that they can post videos, pictures, and text without referencing a potential iTunes sale. However, other than posting content and a listing of upcoming tour dates, they’re not much better than a normal profile. Artist Profiles are still limited by the same spam and feed noise pitfalls in engaging with their fans.

In fact, once the initial hubbub of Ping dies down, I can’t think of a good reason why a band would want to regularly update its Ping profile once it’s up. Without a way to import content in from other outlets, I can’t see bands devoting the resources to provide original content on Ping when they could do it so much better on Facebook, Twitter, their own sites, or even Myspace.

7. It does nothing better than any other existing service.

Artists can disseminate media and tour dates better on their own website. Fans can interact with each other and their favorite artists better through twitter or tumblr. Music lovers can see what their friends are listening to better on last.fm. They can discover music through listening to full songs on Pandora or even FM radio. Concert goers can meet up through message boards, Facebook, or even last.fm with greater ease.

So tell me, what exactly is Ping good for, other than act as an interactive advertisement for $1.29 iTunes songs?

8. You can’t listen to full length songs.

This was touched upon in reason #1, but it bears repeating. Any “music discovery service” that doesn’t allow me to listen to complete songs is useless.

Utter deal-breaker.

9. It’s a pain in the ass to find your friends.

Right now you have to manually put in your friends’ email address to follow them on Ping. Initially, Facebook Connect was enabled, allowing you to import your Facebook friends with a couple of clicks. However, due to some dickswinging on the parts of both Apple and Facebook, that feature was disabled.

It’s 2010. I don’t a) know everyone’s email address by heart and b) have any desire to manually type in emails for any reason whatsoever.

10. It’s a pain in the ass to get set up as an artist.

Mashable brought this up in a recent post, but it makes sense why there’s so few artist pages up on Ping right now. Apple’s going through a laborious process by having artists apply for “artist profile pages” and going through each one approving them.

Come on.

We’re not even talking about curating Apps here. It’s going to take weeks if not months for Apple to get all of the artist profile applications sorted out. And for what? So your band can have a restricted social media network platform for a limited userbase?

Hot off the announcement of their first iOS game (Project Sword – check out the clip at the end of this post!) this morning at Apple’s iPod event, Epic Games (Gears of War, Unreal Tournament) sends word that a playable tech demo of Unreal Engine working on the iPhone is now live on the iTunes store.

Entitled Epic Citadel, the demo gives you a sneak peek as to what kind of graphics you can expect from Project Sword when it releases later this year. As you can see from the screenshots below, the graphics are jaw-droppingly good. It reminded me a little bit of the wonder I experienced when I saw the first Unreal engine fly through way back in the 90′s before the first Unreal game came out.

Now, don’t expect much of a game with Epic Citadel, it’s basically a really pretty graphics tech demo. You can move around using virtual dual analog sticks or you can let the software take over and provide a “Guided Tour”, which is basically an autopilot demo. You can also navigate by tapping anywhere on the screen and the character will automatically walk there.

I gave it a short test drive and the frame rate was locked in at about 30fps for the most part, but dipped below during a flyby or when a lot of the environment was in view. Nevertheless, it’s a real impressive piece of software and might be worth keeping on your iPhone/iPad just to show off to your friends. Plus, at “free”, its the right price.

We’ve already got a cool gyroscope control proof of concept with ngmoco’s Gun Range. Epic’s Epic Citadel shows us what the graphics capability of the iPhone/iPad is. Come on devs, enough with the demos. Let’s get a real game out now, eh?

Download Epic Citadel for free on iTunes

Right now, radio stations only pay royalties to the original songwriters for the music that goes out over the air, not to whoever owns the actual performance of the song. (This is a key distinction because usually the record labels own the performance recording rights, not the artist.) If the labels have their way, radio will be forced by Congress to start paying up.

The interesting thing is that the compromise isn’t exactly between just radio and the record labels. Broadcasters want Congress to mandate consumer electronics manufacturers to include an FM radio chip in every portable device sold in the US.

(cue to a shot of tech companies going “whaaa?” with a surprised look)

“The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity,” thundered CEA president Gary Shapiro. Such a move is “not in our national interest.”

“Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do.”

Now, it’s quite obvious with declining record sales and radio ratings that the NAB and RIAA are on sinking ships. I get that it’s a patently absurd mandate to place on tech firms who shouldn’t have to worry about bailing out the flailing radio and records industries.

But from a consumer perspective, would you really mind having access to an FM radio on your iPod or cell phone? I mean let’s put aside the fact that most terrestrial radio stations put out some poor product. (With a larger audience, maybe more programming chances could be taken. Playlists could widen. Songs could repeat less in a given time period.) Sometimes it’s just easier to put on a radio station and just start listening to music than it is to create a playlist on your own.

Say you’re bored waiting somewhere where there’s no cell reception. Chances are that you’ll still get FM radio reception at the least. It’s old technology, but it’s still probably more reliable than AT&T’s network. Entertainment problem solved.

Of course, this all goes out the window if our iPods and cell phones are suddenly $20 more to buy. But how much can an FM tuner chip cost these days?

All things being equal as a consumer, I feel that it’s a “why not” option for mobile devices. I haven’t had a portable radio since high school. Sometimes I wish I had one, especially when there’s a ball game to listen to and I’m not home. As long as our devices look, function, and cost the same, sure, put an FM tuner in there. We got nothing to lose, right?

The issues surrounding the iPhone 4′s antenna have been fodder for one of the biggest product backlashes in recent memory. I’m sure most readers are aware of the fact that the iPhone 4 seems to lose cellular reception if you hold the phone in a “natural way.” Today, Apple addressed those concerns in a 30 minute presentation along with a Q/A session.

Takeaways:

1. Free Cases – Every iPhone 4 owner gets a free case until Sept. 30. You can choose from Apple’s Bumper or other unspecified 3rd party ones. If you bought a bumper already (but not any other case) you’ll get a refund.
2. No Restocking Fee Refunds – If you continue to be dissatisfied, Apple will allow you to refund the iPhone 4 within 30 days of purchase with no restocking fees. You will also get your AT&T contract refunded too.
3. There Is A Reception Problem, “But It Only Affects A Small Percentage of Users” – Though it was obfuscated in the presentation at first, Apple did acknowledge that the iPhone 4 did seem to suffer from a real issue of losing cell reception when gripped. Jobs wasted no time in pointing out that Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile phones also exhibit the same behavior. He then concluded that this issue only affected a small percentage of users.
4. The Stats Support That Conclusion – Lots of statistics were presented to put the problem in Apple’s perspective. Out of the 3 million iPhone 4′s sold, only 0.55% of those reported problems to AppleCare. 1.7% of iPhone 4 users have returned their phone, compared to the 6% return rate of the iPhone 3GS. 5,000 people have emailed Steve Jobs personally saying they have no issue. iPhone 4 drops less than 1% more calls than the iPhone 3GS.

My Take:

Let me start by disclosing that I am indeed an iPhone 4 user and that this antenna issue did affect my phone. I can make the bars go down on the display by covering up the antenna at the right spots. It’s a neat parlor trick that you can do at parties and bars, but honestly hadn’t noticeably affected my real world use of the phone. However, I don’t like the nagging feeling that the way I hold my phone could cause decreased usability. It’s a crappy feeling to be lurking in one’s subconscious. Hence, I bought a bumper not only to prevent reception problems, but also because i liked the gripability of the case and the buffer it creates for putting the phone down on public tables.

Nothing in the presentation was especially surprising. The announcement of free cases to given away (and refunds for previous bumper purchasers) was certainly welcome and a sigh of relief that I didn’t just get jacked $32. The restocking fee waiver seemed like a no-brainer too. I doubt most people would return their iPhone 4′s over this, so it’s an easy bone for Apple to throw.

All the stats Jobs rattled off were a nice way to shift perceptions away from the “overblown” media hype. I mean what looks better: 16,500 people have complained about the issue to AppleCare or that 0.55% of all iPhone 4 users did? (Hint: they’re the same) Can’t blame them for doing this though, the tech bloggers and mainstream media have made this out to be a “doomsday”-like scenario. Even non-techies know about this issue. It’s only fair Apple gets to frame perceptions too.

Troll all you want on the web about principles and Apple apologists, but the antenna is simply not a deal-breaking issue. If you’ve decided that the iPhone 4 is the best phone for you, go ahead and buy it. Yes, it’s an admitted issue. No, you shouldn’t interpret that as the Scarlet Letter and avoid the phone solely because of it. Shit, take advantage of the 30 day grace period Apple is giving you now. You can always return it if the antenna issue bugs you so much.

Ultimately, both the media and Apple can be attributed blame for this mess. Consumer Reports’ “non recommendation based on the antenna issue” was simply a shameless attempt at retrieving relevancy again. Apple’s an easy target now because of their success and prominence. It doesn’t hurt that people love reading this stuff too. We’re a society that delights in schadenfreude, especially when the most successful are involved. While it’s easy to poke fun at Apple’s egomania and hubris, there has to be some sort of journalistic restraint involved.

Apple also fucked up in not addressing this as a problem sooner and by initially blaming the user for “holding it wrong.” It’s one thing to stay silent, but it’s another to dismiss a clearly demonstrated problem by blaming the customer. Had they been more transparent and admitted the issue earlier, the media may not have been able to reach the fever pitch that it has in recent days. The issue may even have been contained and forgotten by now.

The Snark:

• So Steve Jobs rattled on about “working their butts off” over the last 22 days to find solutions and the solution was “show videos of other smartphones dropping bars when gripped”? That’s the best their $100 million testing facilities employing more PHD’s than a full NBA roster could come up with? Come on, at least show us some “hard numbers” as the fruits of your labor. Anandtech has written up two very detailed and articulate reports using less than $100 million of equipment. Tell me why Apple can’t provide us with something similar instead of talking down to us like we’re Luddites (or the New York Times).
• Along those lines, I got why they showed one of each Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile phones, but why the Droid Eris? Why not show something more relevant, like an EVO or Incredible or even a Nexus One? Maybe these phones didn’t exhibit so many dropped bars…


image courtesy of Engadget.com

• Think someone failed on the slide showing the table with the 3 other phones’ “Min” and “Max” bars. Those columns on the table seem to be flipped.
• Gruber asked the Apple execs if they used bumpers or cases for their iPhone4s. Each of them whipped out their phones to show that none of them do. That’s a  pretty telling image.
• Steve Jobs explained the delay in making a public stance by needing to collect “hard data”. It’s understandable, but there’s no reason to let this fester without comment for so long or blaming the customer for “holding it wrong.”
• Steve Jobs gives himself plausible deniability on his public email replies by saying that “some of them are made up!” Great, now we’ll never know which assholic dismissals are real or not.
• On the topic of the iOS 4.0.1 update yesterday that “fixes” the reception display algorithm: Someone brought up the fact that Apple supposedly “fixed” the reception bar display algorithm two years ago. Jobs feigned ignorance at this. Uh huh. I still think two years ago they updated the display to show 5 bars even when reception wasn’t that good and now that it’s bit them in the ass, they’re changing it again. Cell phone reception bars are such a load of crap. Personally, I’d love an option to show real dB readings.

Then again, it kind of is a no-win situation for Lebron isn’t it? Choose to stay at home in Cleveland and he gets railed for running to stand still. Choose to go anywhere else and he becomes Ohio’s Judas for All Eternity.

It’s truly amazing that no one has gotten advance knowledge of his final decision, especially in this day and age of twitter, SMS, and instant broadcast media. In fact, one could say LeBron’s been almost Apple-like in keeping his most valued secret. (Well, prior to this year’s BarPhone scandal anyway.)

Think about it, how much speculation does the internet generate before every Apple keynote nowadays? It’s a goddamn free for all out there. Anything within reason gets blogged, tweeted, shared, much like all the different free agent scenarios thrown about with LeBron the past week. Why do we do this?

Because we love this shit.

We love speculation and we love drama. It’s in our DNA as red-blooded humans. We eat it up. It’s fun to analyze every little clue thrown to us. We’ve even made pseudo stars out of the best “detectives” out there. I’m sure Brian Windhorst over at the Cleveland Plain dealer has massively increased his audience lately, becoming the Jon Gruber of the sports media world.

Do you remember what Apple revealed at keynotes prior to the iPhone announcement in 2007? Yeah, neither do I. How about E3′s before the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii were announced in 2006? Mmmhmm.

Now, we expect the spectacular announcment every year during those shows. We want the circus of rumors, gossip, and speculation to culminate in an orgy of event live tweeting and blogging. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the planned TV announcement special becomes the norm for any superstar free agency decision in the future. As American Idol and reality TV have proven over the years, we’re willing to sit through “results” shows where we watch 59 minutes of fluff to get to content that could be over with in one minute. Why wouldn’t LeBron do what he did? There’s already a precedent for it out there.

Personally, as someone who doesn’t have a particular rooting interest in where LeBron goes, I kind of want him to go somewhere else. I want the NBA landscape to be changed. I want to participate in the avalanche of Twitter posts and comments troll hate. More importantly, I want my fascination over this dog and pony show to have been for something. Because what’s shittier than sitting through an Apple keynote only to find out that they’re just selling faster Macs?

Now, the first thing I noticed on the devices page was this large discrepancy in time between the service’s availability on the Xbox 360 and other set-top devices:

If I were a betting man, I’d certainly put some money down that Sony ponied up something fierce to have Hulu available on their game console first. It’s a big deal. Consumers have been pining for Hulu on consoles for a long time now. Sony should be coming out the huge winner in this. If I was in a monogamous relationship with the Xbox 360, I’d be pissed and wanting a PS3.

Not so if I had only read this statement from Microsoft community evangelist Major Nelson:

We are happy to announce that Hulu will be coming to Xbox LIVE as part of their Hulu Plus experience. In the announcement today, Hulu announced a preview of their Plus service, along with a series of partners of which Xbox LIVE is one of them. We’re working hard on creating customized experience for Xbox LIVE members, which means that Hulu Plus will be coming to Xbox 360 in early 2011. We are taking the time to ensure that the Hulu Plus experience for Xbox 360 is the best on TV and like our other entertainment experiences it will not be a port, but rather a custom experience that leverages the Xbox LIVE community features.

I’d be thinking, “HOLY SHIT!! Hulu coming on my Xbox 360?! And they’re making it special just for me!”

This isn’t an AAA exclusive game, folks. Since when have 3rd party services on a game console been anything but a port? It certainly won’t take over a year of additional development time to get Hulu streaming on an Xbox 360. All signs point to a timed exclusivity deal between Sony and Hulu here.

It’s amazing how effective marketing spin can be in coloring how we react to news.

Like the Wii Motion Plus, all it took was some hands on gameplay experience before I “got” it.

Eliminate: Gun Range is a simple shooting gallery game that requires the iPhone 4. (supposedly a 3GS version is on the way) You’ll earn credits by hitting a certain target number threshold on a given range scenario. Credits can then be used to unlock more guns and challenge levels to play. The game itself not very original, but the method of control is.

Aiming in Gun Range utilizes the iPhone 4′s gyroscope to present a 1:1 movement to graphics representation on the screen ratio. Think about how fluid the screen display is when you use the camera app to take a picture. Now imagine that smooth display in a game. That’s basically how Gun Range feels. The graphics are also very nice, taking advantage of the Retina Display, but the star of this show is the control scheme.

It’s almost more of a tech demo than a fleshed out game, but there’s enough entertainment in this $0.99 package that it’s worth keeping around to play even after you’re done showing off your new iPhone 4 to your friends. I can’t wait to see where this leads iPhone game developers. If nothing else, we’ll have a great way of aiming in iPhone first person shooters.

My initial thoughts on the words and pictures sent forth from WWDC today:

• Design – It looks great. A logical evolution of the “iPhone shape”. I definitely would not be embarrassed to be carrying it around. The one “unknown fact” about the device was that the aluminum siding on the phone is actually the antenna. Hopefully, this will help network usage out. (I’m not holding my breath on AT&T, but will be open to pleasant surprise.)
• Screen - Looks to be the best mobile screen on the market. IPS LCD means the highest consumer quality panel tech, while still being fully readable in direct sunlight. The pixel density of the display is almost unheard of for a device so small. It’s approaching native 720p on a 3.5″ screen! However, all the slides, videos, and words in the world can only convey so much. According to everyone at WWDC who’s handled the device, you have to see this thing with your own eyes to really appreciate it.
• Faster processor(A4 chip, same as in the iPad) – This doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s HUGE if you’re upgrading an older iPhone. If it’s one thing i abhor about my current iPhone, it’s that it takes so damn long to load almost anything. Not to mention sluggish frame rates in games and app animations.
• Gyroscope - Ok, can’t say this excites me greatly. I mean, Sony had SIXAXIS movement 4 years ago and everyone pooh pooh’d that to oblivion. I’d love for there to be awesome new games based on this, but the pragmatist in me worries that this might be a Wii MotionPlus situation where most developers are just going to develop for the lowest common denominator (iPhone 3g tech).
• Camera – 5 megapixels with LED Flash. Finally. This is probably the biggest feature for me. I find myself increasingly unwilling to carry a separate camera around with me to the point of just forgoing photo taking unless I plan in advance. The camera on my iPhone 3G is atrocious in low light conditions and is truly frustrating when I want to take pictures at concerts or dimly lit bars.
• Video Recording- 720p resolution recording at 30 fps. Fuck. Yes. Flip who? We’ll see if the quality is up to snuff, but if the iPhone 4 can really obviate the need for a point and shoot camera and Flip-like video camera, I will be overjoyed. LOVE how you are able to send recorded videos to Youtube/email/mms with 2 taps. Mobile video blogging will also be feasible now with the front facing camera. I may have to try my hand at that.
• iMovie - At first I was like “WHOA!” Then I was like “Ehh, would I really use my phone to edit videos when I already have a Macbook Pro.” But now, I’m thinking that it might actually be a godsend. If it’s one thing I hate about the current iPhone/computer syncing paradigm, it’s the plain annoyance of shuffling content from one to the other. If I can do most edits and production on the phone and publish it, well, that would definitely be worth $4.99.
• iOS4 Stuff – Multitasking, folders, iBooks, iAds, etc. We saw all this stuff in March – it’s needed and will be welcomed.
• Battery/802.11n antenna/dual mics - Longer battery, faster WiFi throughput, and better sound input. Not exactly sexy-sounding, but who wouldn’t want these things?
• FaceTime - This is the “WOW” feature of the new phone. I have to admit, it looks to be the best video conference solution out there in that it “just works.” There’s no account creation, no logins, no setup required. Everything is automagically done via the iPhone. That’s going to be crucial in getting video communication widespread adoption with the mainstream. When Grandma Luddite can video chat with little Timmy, then you’ve got something special. That being said, I can’t see this taking off for a couple more years. Communication methods are only truly compelling once everyone is using them and it’s going to take some time for the required hardware to disseminate. I see myself using it a couple of times for the novelty, but probably not on a regular basis.

If you’ve been following mobile technology at all over the past couple months, none of the iPhone 4 feature announcements should come as a big surprise. That doesn’t mean they should be dismissed though. All of the new features are significant and definitely place the new iPhone on par, if not ahead of other smartphone options out there. However, I think the days of Apple with a 2 year features lead on the competition are over.

It boils down to the following for smartphone users:

• No more $30 “unlimited”(actually 5gb) data plan (if you have one now you can still be on it, even if you buy the new iPhone, but you won’t be able to get it back if you change plans)
• Choice 1: “DataPlus” $15 a month for 200mb of data (Overages: $15 for each additional 200mb)
• Choice 2: “DataPro” $25 a month for 2gb of data (Overages: $10 for each additional 1gb)
• If you want to tether your data, you’ll have to choose the DataPro plan and pay an additional $20. (Shitty, but unsurprising)

Naturally, the first thing that went through my mind when i saw this was, “ZOMG WTF!! FUCK YOU AT&T YOU ARE THE WORST!”

Then, once I was done nerd raging, I thought, “Hmm, how much data do I actually use each month?”

Here’s my last 6 months of usage (You can find your graph by logging into your AT&T wireless page and clicking “Past Data Usage”):

I’ve gone over the hypothetical 200mb plan only twice, and didn’t even come close to a 2gb limit. I can’t remember what I did in November, but I do know that in May I had been streaming more live baseball games using the MLB At Bat app. Using the iPhone for Twitter, Foursquare, and looking random shit up while you are out does not use up a ton of bandwidth. It’s pretty clear streaming media is going to be the deciding factor for a lot of people. Since I’m paying $30 a month for data currently, I could be saving either $15 or $5, depending on how much I want to limit myself to.

That’s the good news. The concerning news is how this will affect rumored features in the new iPhone, such as video calls and a cloud-based iTunes. According to Wired, 200mb is roughly 7 hours of streaming audio. Thats like 2 baseball games, or a few commutes. Live, 2-way video streaming just sounds like it would eat up bandwidth like Brian ate poop in last month’s Family Guy episode. While I don’t see myself using video chat regularly, I’d like the option to, without feeling like I’m wasting precious allocated bits.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking to assume I could save $15 a month on my phone bill. It’s looking pretty tough to get by on only 200mb if you’re looking to stream any sort content. Ideally, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, or whatever music cloud service ends up winning will over a robust caching feature so I can just preload all of my music at home before heading out into the wild.

Another silver lining in all of this is that AT&T will let you figure out which plan you want without much dicking:

The carrier’s going to be very flexible about changing between the DataPlus and DataPro plans — if you’re on DataPlus, for example, and you discover that you’re blowing past your allotment, you can choose either to start DataPro the following billing cycle, pro-rate it, or apply the higher plan retroactively to the beginning of your current billing cycle.

I look at this whole thing as hey, at least I’ll probably be saving $5 a month at the very least.

Read a more detailed breakdown on Engadget.