The second coming

The new iPhone 3G went on sale in AT&T and Apple stores today. iPhone Mania is alive and well as the line to get into the Apple store on Chestnut Street stretched down and around the block and the line in front of the AT&T store on Union Street had about 75 people. Reminder: It's a frickin' phone people.

Is it really twice as fast and half the price?

The new iPhone allows you to surf the Internet much faster. It features AT&T’s 3G cellular network, which downloads web pages in less than half the time as the old iPhone and enables you to talk on the iPhone and surf the Internet simultaneously, which you couldn’t do before.

There is, however, a catch: you don’t get that speed or those features unless you’re in one of AT&T’s 3G network areas, and there aren’t many of them. The 3G coverage map reveals that in 16 states, only three cities or fewer are covered; 10 states have no coverage at all.

The other major change is the iPhone’s price: $200 for the 8-gigabyte model, $300 for the 16-gig. But the iPhone 3G is not really “half the price” as Apple claims. The basic AT&T plan, unlimited Internet and 450 minutes of calling, now costs $70 a month instead of $60, and comes with no text messages instead of 200.

So, by the end of a two-year contract, the iPhone 3G will have cost you more than the old iPhone, not less!

I am a HUGE Apple fan, but I am not rushing out to buy the new iPhone just yet as it's more phone than I need or want, and more importantly, it's too big and heavy to carry in the back pocket of my cycling jersey.