On December 26, 2008 I got myself a black iPhone 3G 16Gb, from The Carphone Warehouse. I thought it was an amazing phone and I’ve done so much with it. However recently O2’s pricing got spiked a little, I’m on pay-as-you-go,and was told I would have to pay £10 a month to keep my data service after the initial 12 months; something I was okay with. That price has been recently upped to £20, and I usually spend either £10 or £20 on credit. This would make my monthly phone outgoings up to £40, including internet, 300 free texts and however much credit I put on there, which I found a bit steep. With 3.0, Apple introduced tethering, something most networks in other countries are including for free. O2 contract customers have to pay £30 per 10Gb and is not available to pay-as-you-go customers, like other features such as functional MMS (pay-as-you-go only) and visual voicemail.

When 3.0 was released I tried a hack that someone had said that works on O2, to make the tethering work. Unfortunately, I messed up the 3G connection in the process and wanted to put it back. I knew vaguely what I’d done wrong as you have to switch the 3G network from a contract to a pay-as-you-go one on getting your iPhone. I rang O2, who’s customer service refused to give me any help because I “wasn’t important enough to recieve any advice” (No joke he seriously told me that). I knew I’d messed up, but for no apparent reason I was being told I wasn’t important enough, to get help fixing my £400 phone that I spending £10 to £20 a month on, and come December up to £40. That’s pretty bad, right?

Now my iPhone’s sleep/wake button has always been a little more inset and squishy than my friends iPhones, which stick out and have a really nice firm press to them. This hasn’t really bothered me, it’s how the button has always been and I’m used to it. However in the last couple weeks it’s been becoming harder and harder to press and recessing itself into the iPhone casing, to the point where I can now barely use it at all. I have to use the home button to wake the device, the power cable to turn it on, the battery life expiring to turn it off, and alot of patience to wait for it to sleep before I can put it into my pocket. I took out £50 insurance on my iPhone the day I bought it and the booklet it came with stated that if I had a problem with my phone, to just pop it back to The Carphone Warehouse and they would simply get a new one, out of the box. I went into the Uxbridge branch, where I had originally bought my iPhone. Much to my surprise the member of staff said that “…this branch does not make repair requests or replace iPhones when they’re broken” and recommended that I went to an Apple store. I’m almost adamant Apple stores will completely ignore insurance branded by The Carphone Warehouse. So, I’ve spent £50 on insurance I can’t actually use, Great!

Before I had my iPhone, I had a K800i on T-Mobile. I couldn’t fault the phone or the network anywhere, they were both cheap and reliable (Which is completely the opposite of the iPhone + O2 combo). So, I’ve decided if O2 and The Carphone Warehouse do not start treating me better, I’m going to get either a HTC G1, G2 (Magic) or (what I really would like), the HTC Hero on a T-Mobile contractwhich is better value for money. The prospects of Android also scream out great dividends to me, as I’ve always been very impartial to open source. In comparison to Apples iPhone OS, which is hardlocked down, and even if you jailbreak there’s still limits.