The reason being that the phone has been available for pre-orders on at Carphone Warehouse for 3 days now. When the iPhone 3G went on sale for pre order on both CPW and O2′s websites it sold out in a matter of hours. However 3 days on CPW are showing no signs of running out of stock.

Now of course that could simply down to Apple making much more stock available to cover the demand. However I think it’s more likely that the device simply isn’t selling. O2 have over priced it to new customers and alienated their existing customer base by failing to provide a reasonably priced upgrade path. The only people likely to be pre ordering a device which is basically the same as the 3G but a tad faster and with an extremely useful built in compass are the most die hard of Apple fanatics who must have the latest hardware as soon as its released.

Most normal people will simply have realised that it isn’t worth the price tag O2 have placed on it and it certainly isn’t worth locking yourself into a 2 year contract which in all likliness will result in you missing the next iPhone release from Apple which in all likliness will be a much bigger step up in spec than the 3GS is

The new model boasts the following improved features

• A compass so maps knows which way you are facing
• An improved 3MP camera with auto focus and video capabilities
• A faster processor so some tasks and launching apps should be faster
• More storage
• HSDPA
• Voice dialling and commands

All in all it’s not a great improvement over what the iPhone 3G can do once OS 3.0 comes out on June 17th and one of the features is available on a jailbroken iPhone 3G so clearly Apple are blocking current iPhone 3Gs from using it. Much more offputing is O2′s new crazy pricing which means the device will only be free if you agree to a 24 month contract or a £75 a month contract or the device will be approx £450 on PAYG for the 16Gb version and £550 on PAYG for the 32Gb version. Not exactly the cheaper prices making the device available to more mentioned at the keynote.

Even worse is the fact that last time a new model came out customers could upgrade for free. This time customers either have to wait for their upgrade date (for most early adopters this is January 2010) or pay to end their contracts early (again for early adopters that will be approx 7 months at your monthly rate so in my case approx £245), and then agree to a new 18 or more likely 24 month contract.

Madness in my view as given Apple’s habbit of releasing a new model every year who on earth is going to want to agree to a new contract which will likely make the customer miss the model that will be inevitably released in 2010. Not me thats for sure and frankly unless O2 change their upgrade policy and prices fast, I may be looking elsewhere come my contract expiry

EDIT Full details of the ludicrous pricing HERE

• New additions to the app store including the ability to offer new downloadable content to apps and games for a fee (similar to playstation network, xbox live and the like)
• Better communication between devices over bluetooth
• Accessories can now introduce new features to the iPhone such as speaker docks that allow the iPhone to tune into radio stations. Apple even envisage medical devices integrating into and using the iPhone to perform their functions. Examples include blood pressure monitors and blood glucose testers that can transmit their data to the iPhone via the dock or bluetooth
• Ability for applications to embed google maps into their apps
• Turn by turn sat nav now a possibility
• Push notification however no background apps due to battery life issues. Push notification only took a 20% hit on battery life in testing though
• Meebo integrated instant messaging app
• New media player that will adjust video quality depending on available bandwidth
• Cut, copy and paste (will please a lot of people). This can copy within or across apps and will allow SMS forwarding too. It will also work within 3rd party apps
• E-mail multiple photos
• Landscape keyboard option across all apps
• MMS (cheers from loads of people)
• Search in all applications
• New homescreen
• Developer beta available now
• General release sometime in the summer (June possibly)
• Free update to iPhone users. iPod Touch users will be charged

OK I want it….. NOW!!!!

However today, I also had to re-set up how to sync my calendar from the iPhone to Lightning in the Thunderbird mail application as I recently reset both my iPhone and my PC. It’s not easy and is rather convoluted however, as I had to search quite a bit to solve the problem I thought I’d post the solution here to assist anyone else struggling.

Before you beign

Right from the start you will need the following things installed on your PC as well as the following items

• An iPhone or an iPhone 3G… well without them you wouldn’t trying to do this
• Windows…. yep this method only works in windows…. though since Apple basically only let us sync with Outlook I cant say I feel too guilty.
• Outlook…. I’m afraid you still need outlook for this
• A google calendar account…. head to google calendar if you need one
• Thunderbird with the lightning and provider for google calendar plugins installed
• Google calendar sync which you can get here
• Your google calendar’s XML feed location….  get this from your google calendar by going into settings, then calendars, click on the calendars name then right at the bottom there are a load of xml links. Copy the address for the private XML feed

What to do

1. Tell your iPhone to sync the calendar with Outlook in itunes
2. In thunderbird goto file/new/calendar
3. Choose on a network
4. Choose google calendar
5. Put your feed location you got above into this now
6. Put your username and password into Thunderbird for google calendar
7. Install google calendar sync and set it to sync as often as you like (I have 15 minutes)

Now if you create a calendar entry in lightning, it will go straight to google calendar, google calendar sync will sync it to outlook and then itunes will sync it to your iPhone.

Converesly, if you create a new entry on your iPhone, itunes will sync it to outlook, google calendar sync will then send it to your google calendar, and it will show up in lightning

Like I said, convoluted but if apple can’t be bothered to implement this functionality themselves this will have to do for now

Full details:

iPhone 2.2 Software Update

This update contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
• Enhancements to Maps
- Google Street View
- public transit and walking directions
- display address of dropped pins
- share location via email
• Enhancements to Mail
- resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching
of email
- improved formatting of wide HTML email
• Improved stability and performance of Safari
• Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes
application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network)
• Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
• Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes
you to the first Home screen
• Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard
Settings

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone
• iPhone 3G

For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guide for your iPhone at:
<http://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone>

For more information about iPhone, go to:
<http://www.apple.com/iphone>

To troubleshoot your iPhone, or to view additional support information go to:
<http://www.apple.com/support/iphone>

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222>