So I bought an iPhone 3G...

When the iPhone 3G was announced, I was excited and looking forward to getting it. I knew that by the time it was released, my Sprint contract would be expired so there would be no early termination fee. However, I was concerned about joing AT&T because I really can't stand their customer service. I went through a bad experience with them late last year where I had the original iPhone temporarily until I just couldn't tolerate the extremely poor customer service and decided to cancel our account.

This time around I've avoided AT&T as much as possible. I went and bought my iPhone 3G from the Apple store instead of an AT&T retail outlet. I first attempted to purchase the phone a week after it was released; that was a bad idea. I waited in line for 2 hours only to get nothing, the store ran out of phones. Afterwards, I started reading more and more about negative experiences people had with their new iPhones, so that made my doubt whether I really wanted this cool, new device.

Well, despite the iPhone 3G criticism and complaints on the Internet, I went to the mall early this past Sunday and picked up the phone. I decided that I just couldn't resist the urge of this shiny new gadget and I was tired of having terrible cell service at home with Sprint. I figured that between my wife and I that at least one of us should be able to consistently make a call.

With my new iPhone 3G, I've already installed a variety of free apps from Apple's AppStore, but last night I went ahead and jailbroke the phone as well. There are a lot of other cool apps you just can't get through Apple and you have the ability to further customize the appearance of the interface as well. These other apps are installed via the Cydia application.

I downloaded the PwnageTool v2.0.2 from here. I also found reviewing this step-by-step helpful even though the PwnageTool is straighforward to use: http://lifehacker.com/398906/jailbreak-iphone-20-with-pwnagetool.

Using the Winterboard app (which requires a jailbroken iPhone), I can change the "theme" of the UI, including background and icons. It's nice to add a personal touch to things, which I typically do to my cars as well. I currently have several themes downloaded to the phone and I still have to go through all of them to figure out which ones to keep and which to delete.

Another app I've installed after jailbreaking is BossPrefs, which provides direct access to enabling or disabling 3G, EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more without having to go through Settings > General > Network, etc.

The BossPrefs also allows me to quickly turn on or off SSH access to the phone. SSH access is another side benefit of jailbreaking your iPhone. You just need to install the OpenSSH application, which I think is actually installed by default, then you can SSH into your iPhone! This is great because you can then easily browse the files on your iPhone from a computer and do a lot of other cool stuff. I have yet to really play with this capability, but I hope it becomes an easy way to transfer data back and forth from the iPhone if necessary using something like WinSCP or similar.

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase. It's a fun little gadget, essentially a mini-computer in your hands. What I like the most about the iPhone (original and 3G versions) is that web browsing is so much easier compared to any other phone on the market. The user interface is just so much better than anything else available. However, I still have had the phone freeze up on me a few times where a manual reboot was necessary to get it working again. These "freezes" have occured when trying to run apps from Apple's AppStore! So the iPhone 2.0 (now 2.0.1) software is a little buggy, but it's not enough to keep me from enjoying my new toy.