iPhone Watch: D minus 2

Wired is first out of the gates with a look at the iPhone operating system:

I can't tell you how we got ahold of a first-generation iPhone loaded with version 2.0 of the iPhone operating system. What I can tell you is that if I do reveal this information, homicidal ninjas will come to my house and kill my family. Nevertheless, we do have one — and we were able to take a look inside and find a few minute yet interesting changes. Here's a preview of some of the ways in which iPhone 2.0 differs from iPhone 1.0.

iPhone 2.0, of course, is the operating system that will come preinstalled on iPhone 3G models when those start shipping on Friday, July 11. iPhone 2.0 will also be available as a free software upgrade to people who have first-generation iPhones.

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Contacts Search
The Contacts application now features a long-awaited search function. No more scrolling through endless menus: You can just type the first few letters of a name and the list narrows down to matching entries as you enter each letter. The search applies to fields that aren't visible, too, so you can search on company names, for instance.

Here, we entered the search term "Wired" and Chris Anderson, the magazine's editor in chief, popped up in the search results. Amy Winehouse popped up when we typed in "trainwreck."

The nutbars are apparently also iPhone 3G fans:

iPhones and sustainable agriculture don't have a lot in common, but a bedraggled group of publicity-seekers and iPhone enthusiasts who want the next U.S. president to plant an organic farm on the White House lawn have connected the two as a reason to line up for Friday's iPhone 3G launch.

Led by a fresh-faced sprite called Daniel Bowman Simon — who looks more likely to be driving his father's SUV than getting his hands dirty hoeing a row of seeds — Waiting for Apples' mission is to encourage people to grow their own food while setting a Guinness World Record for the most time spent waiting in line to buy something.

The group also wants to promote The White House Organic Farm Project, which is taking names for a petition to inspire the next president to plant an organic farm at the White House, the official residence of the U.S. president.

A few members of Waiting for Apples have been camped out in front of New York City's flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue since Friday morning, fortified by stacks of organic produce that a friend is delivering to them via bicycle from the Union Square Greenmarket.

An uncharitable person (like, well, me) might say something like "These folks probably don't bathe regularly anyway, so a week of camping out isn't likely to make them smell any worse than they normally would."

And no iPhone round-up would be complete without at least one of my fellow Canadian malcontents whining on about how Rogers is overcharging for iPhone service:

I'm Canadian and proud of it. Despite the fact that Macworld operates out of San Francisco, I still live in Halifax, Nova Scotia with my wife, two kids and our dog. It's a wonderful place to live and bring up a family. However, not everything is peachy up here, north of the border.

Specifically, for the past couple of weeks, I've had an uneasy feeling--the kind of feeling you get when you are walking in a strange city late at night and you notice a gang of thugs behind you. The difference is, these thugs wear suits and work for Rogers. Don't let the suits fool you, they are trying to rob me blind.

I'm referring, of course, to the iPhone plans announced by Rogers Wireless, which is Apple's iPhone partner here in Canada. The plans (all priced in Canadian dollars) are $60 a month for 150 weekday minutes, 400MB of data, and 75 text messages; $75 for 300 weekday minutes, 750MB of data, and 100 text messages; $100 for 600 weekday minutes, 1GB of data, and 200 text messages; and $115 for 800 weekday minutes, 2GB of data, and 300 text messages. Each plan also includes unlimited evening and weekend minutes (9 p.m. to 7 a.m.), visual voicemail, and access to Rogers Wireless and Fido Hotspots. Sending additional text messages will cost 15 cents per message, and additional data is billed at a rate of 50 cents per megabyte for the first 60MB, and then an additional 3 cents per megabyte. The price for extra weekday minutes varies depending on the plan, ranging from 35 cents to 15 cents.

No word on whether Rogers also wants one of my kids and an extra limb or two as well.

Parenthetically, RuinediPhone.com is up to 54 thousand petitioners who may well be upset but a significant proportion of whom are likely to be lined up outside a Rogers outlet at 10 am on Friday morning. I almost wish Rogers was evil enough to note who'd signed and then refuse to sell 'em an iPhone on Friday morning . . .

To restate: Rogers is a corporate entity. Corporations exist to make money. The only way Rogers will be prompted to change their current iPhone offerings is if it becomes clear that their current plans will not yield as much profit as a revised plan. The only way this might happen is if enough people choose not to purchase an iPhone 3G when they become available on Friday. Signatures on a petition are just a moral gesture . . . not an economic one.

Of course, it would help in so many other ways if the Canadian wireless market wasn't a duopoly of Rogers and Bell . . .