Withdrawal Symptoms - Life without an iPhone

In an effort to be thrifty I decided to recycle my iPhone and use the proceeds to finance the new iPhone 4, all in advance of the launch of the new phone.

I did my homework, I watched the decreasing prices for recycled iPhone's and took the plunge.

The company in question that I used to recycle the phone was (as suggested by Matt, thanks) Fonebak. They kindly sent me an envelope and labels and I dutifully wiped the iPhone of data and apps.

I added some postal insurance and popped it in the post.

Oh and the SIM was removed and popped into a.... hmm... well..... it must be a 5 year old Sony Ericsson K800i.

All good I hear you say. Well yes and no. I hope I get the cheque for the amount I struck at, as the phone was immaculate. But the biggest problem is life without an iPhone.

Call me an addict but I am sitting at a desk or lying in bed or sitting at the sofa and I find myself reaching out for the iPhone. Sad I know.

But I want to see what the latest news is, see what people I follow on Twitter are saying. Look at GIST for a complete social media mashup. Even check how my fantasy World Cup 2010 team are doing. Even simple things like checking the weather I cannot do. Let alone do testing of our app ParentHelper.

Arrrrrrgghhhh. I cannot believe how integrated the iPhone has become to my life.

So I am now counting down the days until June 24, checking daily online to see if the 4 UK mobile networks revise their costs or data caps.

On that note, scum buckets. On one hand they givith us a nice phone, on the otherhand they take away functionality and value that we had for the same price in the previous contract. What the hell are they thinking. I wonder if O2 will see a huge wave of iPhone customers leaving them over the next 6-12 months.

If data usage is going to get higher why put road blocks in the way. Surely they want to encourage us to use the data networks. Surely capping the data usage means stifling of great apps and innovation. By putting caps in place it is surely discouraging us to use lots of data intensive apps over the month which defeats the use of the smart phone. Or are they hoping we will all make expensive mistakes.

How about showing us the investment you are putting into your network for high speed data transfer first and then perhaps I might be willing to pay for that privilege and the data.

So I have a trouble some 6 days before having the chance to lay my hands on a new phone. Choices to make though is O2 or Vodafone? Black or White?

What do you think?

Meanwhile we are testing ParentHelper ready for iOS4 release.

Catch you soon.