Apple employees will be getting free 8GB iPhones.

Jealousy in people named eD! runs rampant.

Some reviews from tech columnists I have great respect for have hit the web: David Pogue of the New York Times says it lives up to the hype (mostly), and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal says basically the same thing.

Also, MacRumors has posted Sprint and Verizon’s counterpoints to people asking about the iPhone, some of which are blatantly false, which is always reassuring.

Well, it’s about time: Apple and AT&T have announced the plans available for the iPhone.  And, frankly, they’re equal parts suck and swank.

Each of the plans include 200 SMS messages, visual voicemail, unlimited data, rollover minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling.  All of that is awesome, save for the 200 SMS’s, which is close to half of what I use a month.  Fortunately, you can upgrade to unlimited SMS’s for $20 more a month, which isn’t all that bad.

In the way of cost, $59.99 gets you 450 minutes with 5000 night and weekend minutes, $79.99 has 900 minutes with unlimited night and weekend, and $99.99 gives you 1350 minutes with unlimited night and weekend.  There is also a $36 activation fee.

Speaking of activation, one of the concerns people had was that they didn’t want someone else opening their iPhone and getting it all scratched up; Apple took care of that by letting you buy the iPhone all wrapped up at either an AT&T or Apple store, taking it home, and activating it yourself on iTunes.

If you want to get more details, you can watch Apple’s activation video here.

I’m starting to work on a tech column, and need some topics to discuss.  Send me your ideas using the contact form or leave ‘em as a comment to this post.

Thanks.

I’m willing to admit that I’m a techno-freak; however, this loser makes me look downright normal.

Oh, and no rate plans announced through AT&T, although there are rumors.  And those rumors are for more stuff for $20 less than my current plan, which would be swank come April when I switch.

We’re down to the wire on the iPhone, and the good folks in Cupertino have posted a video giving us a lowdown on all the crap it can do.

Now, guys, seriously, finding out about the price plans would be nice…

[Post rewritten to add link to the referenced article and make it more coherent.]

I read a bit on Mac Rumors this morning from April 25th that featured a recap of Apple’s second quarter 2007 financial results, and the corresponding conference call. The interesting part about the post is that Apple announced that they will not post profits made from the sale of the upcoming iPhone for 24 months, as to allow for feature updates via software at no cost to users.

For those of you who may not remember, when the Core2 Duo iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros hit the market, they secretly had 802.11N cards built in that were locked to 802.11G specifications via the firmware (not too difficult, since Draft-N is backwards compatible to Wireless-G, anyway). Apple had intended to release the update as a free bonus to users, but discovered that doing so would be a violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a federal law that prohibits posting of profits before a complete product has been delivered to customers to prevent the improper accounting that had brought down Enron and the like. Because they didn’t disclose the 802.11N functionality and instead advertised it as a Wireless-G card built in, Apple couldn’t make that a free update, thus forcing them to charge users $1.99 for the firmware to unlock the full potential of the card.

Apple clearly learned from this, hence the lack of profit reporting for a full two years. But the question remains: What functionality could Apple be hiding inside their phone?

Well, there’s one complaint a lot of people have about the iPhone, and that’s the lack of 3G support. 3G is the wireless broadband connection that is widely used in Europe, and is available in parts of the U.S. through GSM carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T. However, because 3G coverage is spotty across the U.S., Apple put an EDGE card in to do all their on-network web browsing. EDGE is the red-headed stepchild of 3G, with slower connection speeds and nowhere near the reliability of 3G.

Now, consider that Europe uses 3G almost exclusively; as far as I know, EDGE doesn’t really exist over there. Also consider that the European iPhone is due to hit in 2008, 12 months after the U.S. launch. Finally, consider that 3G cards can work on EDGE networks, just like Draft-N cards can work on Wireless-G networks.

My guess? Every iPhone will be packing a 3G card inside, ready to be unlocked sometime after the first year of service. Factor in the cost of having to make an EDGE version for the U.S. and a 3G version for Europe, and it all comes together.

I don’t know if anyone else has guessed this, but I’m going to assume I’m the first. Because, you know, that’s how someone with an ego as large as mine works.

Not due to hit shelves until October, OS X 10.5 (’Leopard’) is the number-one selling title on Amazon.com.

If you’d like to get in on the bandwagon, you can order the single-license copy here or the five-license copy here.  And, if you do, you’re guaranteed the lowest price that is offered from now until it’s released, so you might wanna do that.

Everyone in the Apple universe is talking about how the iPhone has gotten an optical glass screen (great for preventing scratches and better visual quality) and better battery life (eight hours of talk, six hours of internet use, seven hours of video playback, twenty-four hours of audio and two-hundred fifty hours of standby).

Now, if we could just find out what the freakin’ monthly charges would be, life would be good.

I almost accidentally killed Joe Quesada, as he tripped over my laptop power cord.

This might make interviewing him later difficult.