In a couple of weeks time it’ll be 12 months since I switched to o2 Broadband. I was reminded of this today when I received a letter from my old provider, BT Broadband, begging me to go back to them and in return they’ll offer me some perks like the BT Home Hub and £7.95 for the first three months. What? And leave reliable o2 that I pay £7.50 to per month all the time? “No!” would be the short and polite answer to that.

During my 12 months with o2 Broadband I have been asked about the service and reliability from a lot of people who wanted to jump ship from their current ISP. Given that o2 is a broadband newcomer at barely 12 months old itself (I joined a week after it was introduced) people were naturally curious about whether it could deliver the goods given it’s low price (£7.50 per month to existing Pay Monthly and PAYG customers for the Standard 8MB unlimited package). So, after 12 months I thought I could give my thoughts and opinions.

I can’t fault o2 Broadband at all. It certainly hasn’t experienced any teething troubles. In 12 months the only time I can remember a significant downtime was earlier in the year when service was down for a few hours. I called customer support and after getting through extremely quickly I didn’t even have to explain what the issue was - they already knew and assured me they were working on it. This isn’t customer support I’m used to. My experiences with BT Broadband were abysmal and the support would have liked me to think the issue was with my own computer - yeeees, my computer was causing the broadband to be completely out at the exchange

In the past year I have recommended o2 to a good few people - some joined, some didn’t. Those who didn’t decided to stay with their current ISP after they were promised better speeds, but are now mostly regretting their decision because their service has continued to decline. Of those that did join on my recommendation, the last time I spoke to some of them they’d just been turned on by o2 and were thrilled to be whizzing through the intertubes at a vast rate. To avoid repeating what I’ve already said, you can read my other posts on o2 Broadband here and here. Everything still stands.

So, to briefly sum things up…

Reliability of Service: I have had no connection issues. I get around 3Mbps which is double the speed I got with BT (which I was paying three times more for, incidentally). Unfortunately my line isn’t capable of much more than that and it does the job, until all the horrid old copper lines are finally replaced with fancy new ones by British Telecom!

Customer Support: Excellent, 10/10, outstanding…you get the idea. Call Centres based in the UK, swift answer, friendly, speedy resolution of any issues since they have full control of my o2 Wireless Box from their end. Brilliant support for Mac users. Faultless.

Router: I have the “old” o2 wireless box, a Thomson 780. I call it the ugly one since the new ones are smaller and white - much prettier. But, I haven’t had any problems with this and the Admin interface is very user-friendly and detailed.

If you’re thinking of switching to o2 Broadband and have any queries that I haven’t already covered then shoot me a question in the comments

…the iPhone 3G.

Since buying the iPhone last week I’ve been asked a few questions by people who are considering purchasing but want to know my thoughts on it. I thought the best way to answer these was to put together a collection of these questions along with my answers so I can point them in this direction and hope that my experience and opinions will help them make up their minds.

What’s so different, physically, about the iPhone compared to the iPod touch?
I had never played with an iPhone before but I always expected it was very physically like an iPod touch, only with more features. I didn’t expect the feel of it to be that much different to the ‘touch’. However, I couldn’t ignore some of the things I’d read in Mac magazines over the past year where the article writer would remark how the screen had more clarity on the iPhone and just felt so very different to the iPod touch. I wanted to cover my eyes when I read that as I wanted to believe that the iPod touch was an iPhone without the ‘extras’. But, it most definitely is not just an iPod touch with more features. It’s probably the hardest thing to put into words, but when you hold one and use it then you can feel and see the quality of this. It feels much more robust than an iPod touch.

Why did you go for the 8GB and not the 16GB?
This is just a personal preference, I guess. I’ve never been into listening to music on a portable device and had very few songs on my iPod touch. I have even fewer on my iPhone - 0 to be precise and the earbuds are still wrapped up and untouched in the box! My iPhone will most definitely primarily be a phone to me, aswell as a web browsing/e-mail device and a camera. I don’t have the need for a huge amount of space for music/videos but if you listen to music on the move and like to carry your library around with you then 16GB is probably for you.

Do you wish you’d bought one earlier?
In all honesty, no I don’t. I think I picked a great time to buy when the iPhone software update 2.1 was a mere 24 hours away. I’ve been reading the many comments on how the iPhone was prone to dropped calls, huge back-up and sync times, aswell as causing people to completely restore it on more than one occasion. Those are the very reasons I held off as long as I did. I wanted my first iPhone experience to be as smooth as my Mac experiences and this didn’t disappoint.

What is the battery life like?
On Thursday before the 2.1 update arrived I noticed my battery falling after hardly extreme usage. On Friday when I installed 2.1 I noticed a significant improvement. I made a good few calls, sent text messages, checked e-mail, took photos and generally played around with it and the battery indicator was still on full.

Is 3G signal strong?
This will all depend on your location, but every time I’ve been out and about I have been pretty much on the full 5 bars. At home I have full 3G signal. I first put 3G to good use on Saturday evening when my o2 Broadband was briefly unavailable. The iPhone couldn’t have come at a better time.

What are the back-up and sync times like?
Astonishingly quick. Last night was my first back-up and sync since 2.1 on Friday. I had a few new apps to install and some new photos to sync. The entire back-up and sync process took less than 60 seconds. At first I thought it must have only transferred the photos and not bothered with the apps, but it had. The iPod touch used to take well over half an hour to complete this process, bearing in mind that I was using only approximately 2GB space on an 8GB device.

What’s your favourite iPhone feature?
One of the things I’ve done more than making phonecalls is send SMS messages. I don’t send hundreds per month but it’s often the easiest and most discreet way of contacting friends and family who aren’t in a place that they can hold a voice conversation. And I have to say SMS on the iPhone is just so incredibly pleasurable. I love the iChat look and sound. The way the conversations are laid out makes so much more sense than the way I’ve used text messaging on my past phones. I can see myself sending a lot more texts with the iPhone but I think I’d have to really push myself to get anywhere near the 500 inclusive texts on my £35 per month package.

Of course, I can’t just pick one feature. I also love having a camera on my phone that takes decent quality pictures. GPS is so much fun aswell. I tried this out over the weekend when I was out in the car (I wasn’t driving). I was so blown away by it’s speed at locating me after opening Google Maps and it’s accuracy throughout my journey. I didn’t need to find directions to a particular place but that’s the next thing I intend to throw at it to see whether it gets me to my destination in one piece.

Should I get MobileMe when I buy an iPhone?
If you want an e-mail address and much more that you can access on your iPhone, on your computer(s) and on any computer wherever you are then yes, definitely. I wasn’t an old .Mac subscriber but the features in MobileMe were just what I needed. When you have a couple of Macs and an iPhone (or iPod touch) then you want to have all your data on each, as up to date as possible without docking and syncing. MobileMe does this beautifully over “the cloud”. Gone are the days of docking for one piece of new data. I think £59 per year is well worth it. Aside from it being great for the iPhone I also love how my Safari bookmarks are synced across my iMac and PowerBook. That makes life so much easier and is the ideal accompaniment to the iPhone.

Is the iPhone 3G Dock worth the money?
£19 may sound a lot for a little chunk of plastic, but it’s a beautiful bed for the iPhone. It slides in so smooth. It would have been nice for the dock to have been included in the box when you buy the iPhone, but I personally think it’s well worth the money.

I can’t help but be sickeningly positive about everything. The whole upgrade process with o2 was quick and pain-free. It’s the swiftest handset upgrade I’ve been through, as of course no haggling over the handset cost or tariff was necessary Delivery took less than 24 hours, getting the iPhone out of the box and set up with my SIM was speedy so I could do what I’d been so looking forward to doing and that’s have a damn good play with it.

Yesterday, after months of waiting patiently, I finally upgraded to the iPhone 3G. The phone call to o2 took around 5 minutes - simply asking what iPhone I wanted, what tariff I wished to go on and confirming my phone number and personal details. I called them around 2pm yesterday and it arrived this lunchtime, less than 24 hours later. Did I mention I love o2?

I chose the 8GB model and the £35 per month tariff with 600 minutes, 500 texts, all of which of course come with Unlimited Data and Wi-Fi. The handset cost £99.

Shortly after the Apple Event on Tuesday I listed my iPod touch on Amazon Marketplace and sold it within 30 minutes. Since I got the new replacement a couple of weeks back it’s been pretty much redundant. I played games only occasionally and have never really used the iPod touch to listen to music. It seemed the primary uses were e-mail, social networking apps, calendar and general web browsing. I was starting to want much more from my device, much more than the iPod touch could give me. 

I’ve read blog posts in the past about the iPhone 3G and quite often the author will say what everyone else seems to be saying: it’s amazing, it’s beautiful and wondering how they managed without it. If you were looking for me to say something different and unique then I can’t help you. The iPod touch, in my opinion, doesn’t even begin to come close to the iPhone…and I really didn’t expect that. Obviously not just talking about the features but the feel of it in your hand, the clarity of the screen, the everything.

When the iPhone was announced by o2 last year I was a little concerned about the tariff price, considering that I was on a £15 ‘all-you-can-eat’ tariff. I was firmly in the comfort zone. But, since the announcement of the 3G I have been much less concerned about the monthly cost considering that the handset itself is greatly reduced. £35 per month is fairly standard thesedays for a decent tariff on any phone and I consider the iPhone tariff to be exactly that. It has more than enough inclusive minutes and texts for me.

As yet I haven’t made a single phonecall but I have received a couple and it’s crystal clear, not the slightly tinny/echoey sound I used to get on my o2 XDA Mini S. I have sent out a few SMS, mostly just to gush about it as if I’m the only person in the world who has one. Now that I have the internet at my fingertips wherever I am, I just hope I don’t become one of these people walking around Sainsburys taking a photo of the Fish Finger aisle and posting it to Twitter to show where I am. But somehow I think I will

The feature I was looking forward to the most, after the phone/text, is the camera. I don’t always take my camera out with me unless I’m going out specifically on a photo walk. It’s always during these camera-free times that I see something worth snapping. A beautiful sunset, perhaps. Since I’ll have my iPhone with me all the time when I’m out then I can capture any moment at any time. My XDA Mini S had a 1.3MP camera but was decidedly unhappy with storing more than a couple of full res photos - and they weren’t even all that, anyway.

So, just a few hours after unboxing the iPhone 3G I am totally smitten and have barely stopped looking at it. Now I realise just why my online contacts have been urging me, for so long, to buy one. All I can say is I am glad I finally did.

That line is directed towards o2. I have £159 happily sitting in my bank account ready to rub itself all over a black 16GB iPhone 3G…only they are in such short supply and I’m not even able to upgrade online or pick one up from a store near me. I’m sure that sounds familiar to a lot of people.

I have been going back and forth over the idea of buying an iPhone for weeks and I even put my head down a little last week when the 3G was released, keen not to get carried away and buy something just because there was a lot of talk about it. I’m sometimes sensible like that, much to my annoyance! Now since the iPhone talk has died down a little I have had time to think more now that it’s here and yes, I want one. One of the reasons (there are many, haha) is just being able to take one device out with me, rather than a phone and iPod. Plus, my current phone (a horribly bulky o2 XDA Mini S) is a couple of years old now so I’d be considering an upgrade to a sexier handset soon anyway, so I may aswell bring that forward. I’m on a £15 per month o2 SIMplicity contract with a 1 month duration, so I’m ready to rock when they get their stock

Since the June 9th announcement of the iPhone 3G I have saved quite a bit of money. Sometimes intentionally, but mostly because there’s nothing else that I really need or want, so it’s just been mounting up waiting for something special. I’d like Apple TV at some stage but to be honest that can wait as right now I’m having way too much fun playing with the apps bought through iTunes on my iPod touch to even think about watching television

The frustrating downside to this newfound “want one” is the lack of them in o2 stores or the online store itself. They have limited stock of the 8GB’s at a couple of o2 stores near me, but I’d much rather hold out for the 16GB as I can really go to town with my music library, videos, apps and info without worrying about the space being eaten up - and since it’s just £60 more for twice the capacity then it’s a no-brainer for me.

So, hopefully in the next few weeks there will be some good stock levels of the 16GB building up at the o2 online store. Their website states that they are expecting considerably more stock in their retail stores including a limited amount of 16GB’s from Friday 25th July (two days after my 35th birthday *shush*) and soon after that they will be opening up their online upgrade shop for existing and new customers.

One thing I am wondering about is this: I have bought around 4 games from the App Store in iTunes and installed them on my iPod touch, so when I get an iPhone does this mean I can simply install them on there or will I have to buy them again?

Yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G at the WWDC08 Keynote in San Francisco. For weeks there have been all kinds of rumours as to what would be announced during the event, but the more solid rumour was the new iPhone.

During the keynote which started at 6pm UK time, I was in an AIM/iChat with a few people from Twitter, including my favourite Apple Geeks. We decided to have a chatroom on the go as we suspected Twitter wouldn’t be able to cope with the extra traffic during that busy time as it’s been falling over for weeks without something as huge as the Stevenote bringing it to it’s knees. Most of us were also listening to the secret keynote audio stream through ustream.tv and getting deafened by the applause and whoops of delight, especially when the new $199 iPhone pricetag was announced! But, that was fun.

o2 were very quick to update their site with information about the iPhone 3G and how existing customers can get their hands on it come July 11th, with a list of the tariffs and prices. The other great news is the new iPhone will be available for business customers. This will please my other half as he is an o2 Business customer and late last year he held off upgrading his phone in the hope that come November/December he would be able to upgrade to the iPhone and slide across keeping his existing number. Sadly that wasn’t possible, and moving to the iPhone and changing his number isn’t an option. So, late December he begrudgingly upgraded his handset from an old and broken one and now won’t be eligible for an upgrade until Springtime next year, but I’m betting the iPhone will be his next phone.

The other exciting news, however, is o2 are going to offer Pay & Go customers the opportunity to get the iPhone without signing any lengthy contracts. I’m on a contract which I can leave at anytime as long as I give a month’s notice. I changed from my £14-99 a month contract last year to the £15 o2 SIMplicity contract which is just 1 month long, as long as I kept my existing handset. What I would like to do is buy the P&G iPhone and put my SIM into that. I have no idea whether that’s possible as there isn’t any details on the o2 website just yet, but I’ll most probably speak to someone soon at o2 about it to find out whether this is indeed a possibility. I really want the new iPhone and am fully prepared to pay up to £300 for the handset if Uncle Steve and o2 allow me to pop in my own SIM and keep going with my £15 a month tariff. My money is ready and waiting in the bank, just hope it gets to spend itself on the gadget of my choice I love o2, been a mobile phone customer for years aswell as an o2 Broadband customer since last November. I will love them even more if I can get in on the iPhone.

Then there’s something else I’ll be throwing my money at come July: MobileMe.

This replaces .Mac and current subscribers will be upgraded for free when the service launches mid-July…and what a fantastic service - well worth the £59 pricetag, in my opinion. Wherever you are, your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac (and/or PC) will always stay in sync via the “cloud”. You can watch the guided tour video here - well worth a look. I didn’t ever get tempted by the .Mac service, but MobileMe blows that out of the water.