A quick rant, if I may. If such things worry you, come back tomorrow. I'm sure Stephen will have something much calmer to say, although I can't explicitly guarantee that.

Amidst the never-ending hype prior to the Australian launch of the iPhone 4, there's a critical detail that just about every single article I've seen to date has missed out. It's a detail that's crucial not only to iPhone users, but to anyone who uses a smartphone.

As I write this, Telstra and Optus have released their iPhone pricing plans, and to the surprise of almost nobody, they're functionally identical to the old 3GS plans, with only a few quirky bumps around the edges. Vodafone hasn't released plans for its Vodafone and Three brands yet, but having looked over (insert blatant plug here) the basic plans on offer from Telstra and Optus for PC Authority, I've got a pretty good idea where they're likely to go. With the competition playing steady as she goes games, why rock the boat and make things harder and more expensive for yourself?

That annoys me, but nowhere near the quoted "value" of each of the plans. I've been as guilty of this as anyone in the name of getting a quick article out, it should be admitted. Still, when you buy a $49 cap plan, the quoted "value" is apparently around $400-450.

It's utter rubbish. It's not $400, $450 or even $300. In no way is it $450. It's $49 value, because that's the sum of money (at a minimum) that the telco takes out of your pocket each and every month for the privilege of using the service. That $400+ figure is based on value figures that the telcos set themselves, and can depend on flagfalls, the types of services you're using and the location you're contacting. Year by year these values change, not because telephony gets rarer or has to be mined out of the earth at great cost, but essentially because of competitive pressures when and if they exist at all.

It's worse with actual mobile data, too. The "cost" of iPhone data differs from the cost of iPad data which differs from the cost of data for a Blackberry which differs from the cost of data for a feature phone which differs from the cost of data for a USB modem and all of this differs depending on whether you're a business or consumer customer or a postpaid or pre-paid customer. I don't think I've ever used the word "differs" as much in a sentence before, but that aside, it's all the same darned network. Data packets are data packets, but as Orwell might have put it, some packets are more equal than others.

That straight number cost gets even worse with SMS, a service that's of such a marginal cost to telcos that I'm stunned they still even charge for it. It also ignores the other "costs" of the service, like whether you've got to pay to retrieve voicemail that you received only because the network was down wherever you were. Is there a cost for the stress of missing a call through no fault of your own? There should be a rebate.

I attended the launch this week for Livescribe's Echo Pen, and as I write this, I'm waiting for a courier to deliver a review sample, so any actual review will naturally have to wait.

At the launch, company CEO Jim Marggraff demonstrated a number of both simple and complex things that can be done with the pen-based system. The Echo (and its predecessor, the Pulse) are what could be dubbed very smart pens with inbuilt microphones and some potentially complex PC based interactions. Do the right (or is it write?) things on specially printed paper (which you can print yourself, although you'll need a colour laser to do so, and Marggraff was rather evasive when I asked him how much feedback you'd get from improperly printed paper) and you can set up animated PDFs, automated audio playback from a table of contents and, for some reason, draw a working piano keyboard.

Maybe it's just my non-musical talent speaking, but I've never felt the particular desire to draw a piano keyboard and have it come to life. Perhaps later, though, when they perfect the technology, and it can draw a working automatic teller machine. Then I'd be very interested.

Marggraff was very keen to describe the very portable Echo pen as a "pocket computer", and I do somewhat get where he's coming from with that comparison, although it's worth bearing in mind that the Livescribe system is still fundamentally PC/Mac based, and without an actual computer at the moment, there's only a limited function set of the pens open to you. Beyond writing things down, of course, but I can use a 20c Biro for that any time I want to. If I'm spending $200 plus on a pen, I'd want it to do a little bit more.

There's an obvious portability case down the road a bit if battery life could be improved and live streaming was possible directly from the pen itself to a cloud based server. It'd require a data connection as well, which presumably means a micro SIM slot within the pen. The translucent pen that Marggraff showed off was certainly pretty packed with electronics, but if Livescribe can overcome that kind of technical challenge, then I'd say it's definitely a pocket computer. At the moment, I'd strongly argue the case that it's a pocket computer accessory.

I've not played with the Pulse pen that the Echo replaces before, although oddly digging through Marggraff's PR-provided biography, I realised I have tested some of his previous products, back when he ran Leapfrog, an educational technology provider. I didn't think much of the Leapfrog Tag back when I reviewed it, however. Hopefully the Echo will resound (pun not intended) a little better with me.

The release this week of US Consumer Reports (think Choice, but in a US accent) testing into the iPhone 4's reception issues reveals the gulf between what Apple would have liked folks to think -- that iPhone 4 reception woes were software based -- and the reality, which is that they're hardware based, relating to where the antenna is on the band around the phone and how you hold it. Nice try, Apple, but some credibility is shredded by this whole debacle.

What really surprises me, though, is that Apple didn't seize on this as an opportunity to make good by simply throwing a few hundred thousand of its bumper cases at iPhone 4 buyers. Tie it in to registering the phone (or if you're particularly control mad, an iTunes software update that identifies the phone) and deliver en masse. Apparently covering the affected area with a case removes the problem entirely. An easy solution, and given a small rubber case purchased in sufficient quantities can't cost Apple more than a few cents each, a particularly cheap one. I doubt the lawyer fees will be quite so affordable, even for a company with Apple's deep pockets.

Accessories for any smartphone are obviously an area where money can be made by the bucketload. After all, it didn't take a day of official iPhone 4 release for cases to be announced. If you want a case, sock, speaker or battery for your smartphone, there are more than enough places willing to sell them to you, even if your smartphone of choice isn't an iPhone at all.

I recently had the chance to buy an iPhone 4 -- or quite probably a fake -- which I've documented at MacTheMag. Leaving aside the fake argument for a second, I didn't buy one anyway. Not because I don't believe in importing, but because I didn't want the fuss of having to stay a step ahead of the curve in jailbreaking terms and the known reception issues in one package, especially when the "real thing" is technically due within two weeks. That's presuming Apple doesn't pull an iPad on us and delay the iPhone 4 launch due to the popularity of the device in the US.

What it does give in the portable space is yet more ammunition to the competing camps, especially Android. I'm awash in Android review phones right now, and it seems not a day passes when a new announcement isn't made. Apple's marketing strategy has long demanded eyeballs by being noteworthy, but I suspect that letting Android handsets shine this bright this wasn't part of the overall game plan.

At a recent printer launch in Hong Kong (quick disclaimer: I travelled there as a "guest" of HP, which means they paid my plane fare and hotel room), HP's Senior Vice President of Imaging and Printer opened up his presentation not talking about printers at all. Well, not directly, anyway.

He talked about smartphone adoption in the Asia Pacific region, which he claimed is growing 31% year on year. Smartphone use is exploding, and a quick walk around Hong Kong's tech markets confirmed this to me without a doubt. Every second phone was a smartphone, every third a dodgy clone of an existing smartphone, and the first phone in line was invariably a "cute" feature phone of the type beloved in South East Asia. I snapped a quick shot of the LG KF350, quite an old phone now, simply on its promise of being made of Ice Cream. A phone made of Ice Cream would have its melting problems, to be sure, but retailers would love all the repeat customers. It was a lonely looking phone amongst its smartphone brethren, however.

Closer to home, Smartphones are getting ridiculously cheap. There's a slew of Android handsets across all vendors available at around $49 a month, including some seriously tempting models such as HTC's Desire. That kind of price point used to score you a very simple phone, or perhaps a feature phone, but no more. Simple phones are becoming harder to buy, to the chagrin of some, and app-centric smartphones are rapidly tumbling in price. I doubt we'll see such generous terms for Apple's iPhone 4 whenever it launches here, and undoubtedly some of this price pressure is in place to pre-load customers onto 24-month plans before iPhone 4 frenzy properly hits.

Smartphones are great if you use them, but there's still a significant proportion of the target marketplace that don't, but will probably end up with a smartphone as their next phone simply because this kind of bargain basement pricing makes it a bit silly to settle on a "standard" phone if a "smart" model is available at the same kind of price.

Like the rest of the Hydrapinion team, I'm back home from a three day conference where the local IT media, PR agencies and vendors get together to shoot the breeze and share what's important to them. Sure, we have some fun, but even the social times had us talking shop.

Out for the conference I wrote a couple of new stories for APC (you'll find them in this listing of all my stories at APC). However, a couple of things came to me that I thought would be interest.

Firstly, Australia's National Broadband Network is already here. Research firm Market Clarity showed conference delegates a preview of their Austrlaian Telco Atlas. It is crystal clear to me that almost all populated parts of Australia have access to the Internet over, at least, a 3G connection. The real problem we have with this service is its ownership.

Secondly, an increasing number of people need to have more than one service provider in order to service their home and mobile needs. Local telco gotalk (www.gotalk.com) announced that they'll be offering a new Internet service where you can use both mobile and ADSL from the one account. Think of it like a bucket of bandwidth. When you use ADSL, a tap at the bottom of the bucket will open and you can use the bandwidth. If you're on the road, the tap opens but you empty the bucket faster. That's because mobile broadband costs more than fixed today. My story on APC can be read here.

For the regular readers and new visitors, this will probably be my last column under the "Carry" banner. After writing about the mobile space since the establishment of Hydrapinion I felt like a change. So, I'll be writing about social media under the banner of "Socialise' - probably from next week.