The new iPhone 3G goes on sale this Friday at 8 a.m. at any apple or AT&T store nation wide. Don't judge me. I'll be in line, but i'm not going to go get in line till about 6 a.m. and thats because I need the new phone as my old one will hopefully have sold on ebay for enough money to allow me to afford this new iPhone. There are, however, a few issues I'd like to address to the shockingly high number of people that are not fully aware of the games Apple plays and AT&T is renowned for winning.

THE PRICE! If you are an AT&T customer, are eligible for an upgrade or own the old iPhone, then you get to be the lucky person who does actually pay the low price of $199 the Steve Jobs unveiled a few weeks ago on a giant screen in his traditional jeans and black turtleneck. That or be willing to become an AT&T customer to pay that low price, but in all likelihood you'll be forking over a lot more money than you have previously per month to keep the phone on. It was about $70 a month for the old iPhone which included unlimited data and talk plan, and 200 free SMS's. The new one looks to be significantly higher in my view. You'll be paying an additional $10 just to get the data plan, justified by the much quicker new 3G network over the old EDGE network AT&T uses. You also NO LONGER GET 200 FREE SMS's. This, is blasphemy and should be punished with a swift kick in the groin to whoever thought it was a good idea to squeeze and extra $5 out of people. It'll be an extra $5 for 200, $15 for 1500 and $20 for unlimited SMS, this is all per month. Or go for no SMS plan at $0.20 an SMS, I don't understand why the phone business is the only thing that keeps getting MORE expensive as things advance. Also, for new customers its a $36 activation fee, and for old iPhone customers its a $18 activation fee.

If you want to avoid all this plan shit, then your going to pay with a chunk of you life, probably a good 8 years. 8GB goes $599 and 16GB for $699. Enjoy that. If you don't qualify for an upgrade...strangely it seems the only people that don't are AT&T customers who either just bought another fun or haven't had it long enough; hating your own customers is a good way to insight another congressional overhaul on your ass AT&T. $399 and $499 get you the 8GB and 16GB respectively if you don't qualify for the upgrade price.

I'll total this up for ya, you happen to be a nice guy and get the upgrade price, you need a few more than 200 SMS's and you want a decent voice plan that doesn't run out after you call your mother for an hour. We've got: $199 + $18 = $235 w/tax in-store. At the end of the month: $80 + $15 = $100 at least with other fun fees which is a good voice plan and 1500 SMS.

TIME!! While there were long lines and much hype a year ago for the best new thing on the planet... the upgraded version of the best new thing, shall we say BNT 2.0, looks to have fewer people in line, slightly less hype, and a good 5 times as much time lost in getting your hands on one. In an attempt to avoid the unlocking epidemic that occurred with BNT 1.0, you will be forced to sign a 2 year agreement at the above prices if you want the phone for $199 and all activation and paper work must be done in store prior to purchase. So instead of a good 45 seconds to exchange the iPhone and a credit card with a quick pin entry, allowing a fast paced and steady line of people to flow through the store, its going to take 5 to 10 minutes to set things up. Obviously quicker if your already an AT&T customer who doesn't have to undergo a background check (who knows) and can just use their current account to update the information and monthly price, pay and leave. New customers could take even longer. So while there won't be as many people in line, it will take much longer for that line to move through the store and that, just might limit the sales of the BNT 2.0 for the first few days. Me for one, will check the line out in the morning, and if its really long, I'll risk coming back that afternoon because the original iPhone didn't sell out for almost 3 days, and with the last 3 months being iPhone free for stores, Apple has had more than enough time to build up a considerable stock of the item to avoid any angry customers.

FEATURES!!! Glad to see you made it through the muck and negativity of this new iPhone, newly dubbed BNT 2.0. Now for the fun part, what have they added to this device to make it worth going through all the above, why not just keep the BNT 1.0? Well, I've only got a few things to tell you unfortunately; however they are all massive improvements over problems and complaints people had with the first iPhone. The new GPS feature looks to be amazingly accurate, as shown in the key note speech a few weeks ago. While the original google maps feature was not very useful when it came out, over the next 6 months there are numerous patches and upgrades which left it rather useful, saving me from getting lost or being late a number of times. So now that it is not just a map but an actual GPS device, much like the one you may have in your car, you'll be able to find yourself much much MUCH more precisely on a map and then actually have it follow you, making sure you are actually going the correct direction. Obviously this feature will lead to the government tracking you and making life miserable, but what is just one more freedom for such a cool feature on the BNT 2.0!

What might be the best feature though, is the fact that Apple has opened the software up, allowing for exterior companies to develop features (GAMES!) for the new iPhone, something that was disturbingly absent on the old one. Some of the things being developed were shown in the key note address, and while some were very specific, others, were truly amazing feats of technology and creativity. Utilizing every single feature the iPhone has to offer. This feature is called App Store. The worst word they could have used, STORE. Hopefully we're looking at paying $0.99 or no more than $2.99 for some really cool apps. Especially with all the other price hops, charging anything higher for any of these will be a waste of their time. There is also MobileMe support that allows you to push all your information to phone behind the scenes, but without sapping battery and computing power. This is cool if you have a MobileMe account for your computer, but that costs I think $99 a year. They've improved the integration for email attachments, added a scientific calculator when you tilt the phone on its side while using the original calculator, and added a number of new languages to operate in.

Final note, I'd say if you are eligible for an upgrade, don't mind paying an extra $20 or so a month, get the new iPhone, its got a lot of great new features, I'm sure more will be added in months to come, and as far as anyone can tell, its fixed most of its big ticket problems. Still no video recording option and the camera is only average in comparison to some other new phones, but at 2 megapixels you'll get enough detail to be happy with while your snapping pictures of your friends doing shit.