Original iPhone owners can also keep their unlimited data with iPhone 4

Remember the original iPhone and its wicked-fast EDGE connection? Turns out being an early adopter has some value after all.

Original iPhone users have been paying $20/month for unlimited 2G data and 200 text messages per month. Since AT&T is no longer offering new unlimited plans, I assumed that I would not be able to keep the unlimited data option when we upgraded my wife’s original iPhone. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I upgraded her phone today and was presented with the option of keeping an unlimited data plan for $30/month.

[This is also an option for 3G and 3GS owners who are grandfathered on the $30 unlimited data plan; however, you cannot add tethering to the $30 plan, only the $25 2GB plan. New iPhone purchases are only offered the $15 or $25 data plans. -Ed.]


As an aside: you still have to choose a text message plan, which is a reminder that — like the iPad — AT&T very quickly changed the great data package for the original iPhone for a worse deal when the iPhone 3G came out ($30/month for 3G, but no included text messages).

That said: if you don’t use more than 2GB per month, you can save $5/month by using the new $25/month 2GB data plan, or the $15/month 200MB plan if you don’t use much data at all. My wife and I don’t send or receive many SMS/MMS messages, so I’m dropping both of those from our plans and going to a per-use plan. AT&T’s Apple’s iTunes page, the new version 9.2 of the used-to-be-a-music-player, then-a-media-manager, now-a-software-store, gosh-we-should-probably-change-the-name multitasker supreme is now available for download. Both the Mac and Windows versions are live and ready.

iOS 4 devices) include:

• Sync and read books with iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 and iBooks 1.1
• Organize and sync PDF documents as books. Read PDFs with iBooks 1.1 on iPad and any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Organize your apps on your iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes
• Faster back-ups while syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Album artwork improvements make artwork appear more quickly when exploring your library

Security fixes aren’t published yet, but when the list is ready you’ll find it A few weeks ago inadvertently leaked and then announced to an audience of press and developers, be too successful for its own good? If you’re talking about the iPhone 4, the answer is “What? I couldn’t hear you over the commotion of all these people pre-ordering a phone they’ve never touched or seen in person.”

Now that
“Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.”