New Mobile phone service - 3G

Finally got proper mobile service today. SingTel (or maybe Apple) is dragging their feet with the iPhone 3GS release here in Singapore, and since I have the iPhone 3G, I really wanted to get proper service for it ASAP (at least proper data service).  PrePay data was just way too expensive. I learned today that SingTel actually offers their 3G plans from month to month (no contract) if you don’t buy a subsidized phone (which would lock you in for 24 months!).  See the plans here: https://www.singtelshop.com/superSIM/ This allows me the flexibility (at least on a month by month basis) to decide once the iPhone 3GS FINALLY comes out in Singapore (or any phone for that matter), I’m not locked into any plan and can cancel this any time and get a new contract.  Or, not, if the case may be… I chose the iOne Plus plan for S$25 a month, and it gives me 200 outgoing minutes of voice (should be plenty for me). I added on the Broadband on Mobile Premium (http://home.singtel.com/singtel/iphone/bom.html) which gives me 10GB of data for S$30 a month (ignore the promotional pricing as I didn’t get a 12 or 24 month contract on the data.) Now, the annoying thing about the data package is I wasn’t able to get a month to month plan. I had to lock myself into a 6 month contract. Weird, but oh well, I suppose life isn’t fair all the time. At least I got a month free? So, all in all, my base service at S$25 a month is not locked into any contract, but my 10GB of data at S$30 a month is locked into a 6 month contract. Oh well, better than a S$50-S$100 24-month contract! MobileMe Syncing Since now that I have data, I thought I would try out the 60-day free trial of MobileMe. (http://www.apple.com/mobileme/) I can tell you that Contacts and Calendar (and I guess Bookmarks) syncs perfectly. It is really nice to not have to worry about plugging my phone into the computer every time just to make sure my data is synced (of course, the more I think about it, I need to do that any way to ensure my podcasts are synced… oh well) Mail syncing, however, sucks. I use GMail, and with all my filters and stuff, it just doesn’t play nice.  Yes, the mail is pushed to my iPhone, but as I configured GMail to forward mail to my me.com mail, it’s sending everything! Every piece of email before my GMail filters do anything. That’s not cool. And, I liked how if I am using the iPhone mail application to read my email (I configured it to connect to my GMail over IMAP), it would update my GMail inbox the read status (new or read) and whether or not I replied to that particular email). Using the MobileMe me.com email syncing, it won’t have this functionality, and that’s kind of a no start for me. So, for now, I have turned off the email pushing, but left on the Contacts, Calendar, and Bookmark push. I will be testing out the GMail Push application, to be added to the App Store on Monday Aug. 17, to see how that works. http://gmailpush.com/ourapps.php