I bought an iPhone a couple of weeks ago.

Turns out you can get them working on Prepay after all (even though Vodafone won’t tell you that), and with a new casual data rate of $1 for up to 10MB of data on any given day, I couldn’t resist.

The thing is quite brilliant, really. The touch screen is versatile but intuitive and you don’t need a manual to figure out how to use it. The iTunes service becomes far more appealing and interesting when you can browse it casually wherever you are. The App Store is already home to some very cool pieces of software (and some not so cool). Safari works very well, even if it’s missing the Flash plugin. The touch-screen QWERTY keyboard is brilliant. The camera quality is more than good enough, even with its complete lack of stability correction. Photo browsing is great and so is the iPod.

The phone has quickly become my TV Guide, my weather report, my morning news report reader, my Auckland city map book, my home stereo, my walkman and my car stereo… and - less importantly - my phone!

There has been a pretty dramatic outcry following Vodafone’s iPhone announcement yesterday, and the Vodafone-bashing appears to be becoming a bit of a bandwagon with people suggesting protests, boycotts and so on.

I was too disappointed with the plans, not because comparitively they are genuine “rip offs”, but because there is no entry-level option whatsoever for people like me who really just want to cross-breed an iPod Touch and a cell phone without ruling out the possibility of wanting to use the data features occasionally.

People are complaining that 250MB is not enough for an $80 per month plan because it doesn’t sound like much, but in cell phone terms it should be plenty for anyone who utilises a wifi network whenever possible instead of using the mobile data.

I would have liked to have seen a plan with 100MB of data or less, with the 16GB phone at $699 purchase price plus a contract of $30-40 per month. Then I would’ve been on board.

The sheer hotness-factor of Apple’s iPhone is enough to build up a certain amount of hype for the device’s Friday launch on its own, but Vodafone too has played its part over the last week, teasing the public with promises of “exciting iPhone 3G plans” and going on to say that the phone would start at just $199. Too good to be true, right?

Right. Today the plans were finally announced as follows:

So the promised $199 option is there, but unfortunately you will be paying $250 per month for 24 months for that privilege. The more realistic option is paying $699 for the 16GB phone and then $80 per month; but even that is astronomical for someone like myself who currently spends about $20 per month on prepay.

I was very very eager for an iPhone… no longer. I have no doubt that the iPhone will sell well - it’s not like this is the first time an Apple device has been overpriced - but personally I’m not prepared to spend such a large sum of money and tie myself into a phone contract I don’t need just to keep up with the Joneses.

Bring on the prepay option.

On a side note, Vodafone’s web site took a hammering and was completely inaccessible from 10am through to around 12pm as people flocked to see the pricing. Considering that Vodafone is the largest mobile telecommunications company in the world, this is pretty poor.

What’s more, as of 6pm Vodafone hasn’t emailed me anything about the new plans. Glad I registered my interest early!

Over the last couple of evenings I’ve got my geek on and set up my laptop - an Asus G2S - as an overpriced TV tuner so that I could take a look at the Freeview TV service. The setup basically consists of the following:

• My laptop is running MediaPortal, a decent but so far unstable media player. I have Vista, but Windows Media Center can’t handle the display codec Freeview needs. What a surprise.
• The UHF aerial plugs straight into the laptop
• The HDMI port on the laptop is finally proving useful, as it carries the video and sound to my LCD TV

The whole set up is a bit mickey mouse, really - my HDMI cable is about a metre long, so the laptop has to sit immediately beside the TV thereby rendering it useless for any other activity whilst it’s broadcasting. What’s more, even if it was within reach it wouldn’t be usable because whenever I move focus away from MediaPortal the TV picture vanishes and the program needs to be restarted.

It works though, and getting it working geek-style was fun. Unfortunately, once the novelty wears off, TV still isn’t worth watching.

As an aside, Freeview’s choice of domain name is slightly perplexing. They chose to go with freeviewnz.tv, which freeviewtv.co.nz conveniently redirects to. They also hold the domain that would be everyone’s first guess - freeview.co.nz - but this isn’t set up as a redirect or a virtual host so most people looking for the site will needlessly miss with their first attempt.

This is quite possibly the coolest consumer device I’ve ever seen:

No, it’s not a replica of R2-D2 from the Star Wars films… well, it is… but it’s also a very cleverly disguised audio and video projector. Check out the features:

• Picture by DLP from Texas Instruments
• Project to ceilings and walls up to a 260-inch picture
• Resolution: 1024×768
• Contrast Ratio: 1800:1
• Lumens: 1500
• Built-in CD/DVD player. Also plays MP3/MP4 video
• iPod docking station, memory card and USB slots
• Built-in 20 watt stereo speaker system
• FM wireless audio out (channels 1 through 7)
• Full-function: forward, reverse turn 360 degrees and recline
• Millennium Falcon remote control with removable stand
• Head turns using Millennium Falcon remote control
• Plays the most popular R2-D2 sound effects

That all sounds pretty cool, but if you’re still not sold then watch this video. This thing is made of 100% pure awesome, and I’m not even a Star Wars fan.

It comes at a price, however - $2,995US to be exact. If you’re richer than me you can order yours now from StarWarsShop.