The latest battle in the iPhone war is on. The first plans for the new iPhone 4 were announced last night, and while market heavyweight Telstra is attempting to showcase its reliability to gain new customers, rival Optus is continuing with its strategy of delivering cheap prices and higher broadband quotas.

However, both companies have increased their mobile data limits in a move Telsyte research director Foad Fadaghi says is evidence the market is shifting towards an American-style model with “unlimited” plans.

“There are some compelling offers now on hand, and I think it follows very much in line with the trend where telcos are offering consumers more value for their dollar.”

Optus is now offering 1GB of data on its cheapest plan, the $49 cap, while 2GB are included on the $59 and $79 caps. The $89 “unlimited” plan will come with 3GB of mobile data.

Telstra, which traditionally hasn’t seen the iPhone as a major selling point and is wary to hand out mobile data, also upped its previous efforts. The $49 cap will come with 200MB, while the $79 and $99 plans will come with 500MB each.

Telstra’s full range:

Optus’ full range:

Apple also announced in a quick statement overnight it will sell the gadget unlocked for $859, with the 3GS model to drop to $719.

Fadaghi says the market is now heading into a situation where telcos will battle over who can offer the most, for less, in order to take a slice of the huge demand for iPhones.

“You’re seeing Optus provide unlimited access to certain apps like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on, and we’re kind of edging towards unlimited access to certain apps. Particularly the ones integrated with a ‘communication’ experience.”

“I think the telcos have a very good experience now with users and their smartphones, and people are starting to see how much data they’re using. What we’re seeing is a better understanding of that, and they are building data products around that.”

However, while Fadaghi says some unlimited plans are well within the realm of possibility, he highlights key differences between the Australian and American telecommunications markets, where he says telcos are imposing caps due to certain network restrictions.

“The reason they’re bringing down the caps in the US is due to network capacity, in order to provide a good service for consumers. While here we have a scenario where networks have more capacity available to them, and they want to use that on getting new customers.”

Optus and Telstra are certainly keen to highlight the differences between their two offerings.

Optus consumer marketing director Austin Bryan said in a statement the deals would provide the best value for money.

“Optus has developed what we believe are the most compelling plans and offers for consumer and business customers in Australia to make the most out of the feature packed new iPhone 4.”

Telstra, however, opted to promote the speed of its Next G network.

“We know our iPhone 4 customers will love the speed and coverage available on the Next G network as they browse the mobile net, update their social networks and send email on the move,” consumer executive director Rebekah O’Flaherty said in a statement.

Both Optus and Telstra will be hosting midnight launch events at selected stores, with Telstra publishing its full list online. Optus will hold midnight events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

But the fight certainly isn’t over, with VHA set to announce prices for the Vodafone and Three brands tomorrow. Three’s prices will most certainly undercut the other telcos as the brand targets a youth-based market.

All Australian iPhone 4 owners will also be entitled to a free case, after Apple said it would distribute “bumpers” to customers in order to address a faulty antenna issue.

Telstra’s iPhone announcement comes just days after it cut fixed-line prices by nearly 50%. However, those price cuts could put Telstra in a bit of a bind, after rival telcos said the move was anticompetitive.

A complaint has been lodged with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by rival telcos, including iiNet. The complaints state Telstra is abusing its power as a major player in the wholesale market.

During its press conference to announce it would give free cases to iPhone 4 owners to help deal with the phone’s reception issues, Apple also talked about release plans for the phone internationally. Australia was included on a slide with July 30 as the release date.

Apple Australia hasn’t yet issued a press release confirming that information, so we still don’t have any price details. History suggests we won’t see any information on price plans for the new phone until around July 24.

The “iPhone 4.0 will keep them ahead of the game. Is it as easy as last year to stay ahead? No. I think Android has made huge progress,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Only last year, Research in Motion Ltd was seen as Apple’s top rival. While the company’s Blackberry remains the smartphone of choice for many corporations, Apple has made strides in that market as security concerns addressed by the Blackberry have eased.

But the iPhone’s prime target — for now — remains the consumer, in a market where it increasingly goes head-to-head with Android phones from vendors like HTC, Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics.

The phone will likely be faster, have more capacity, a better screen and battery life, and a front-facing camera — all nice additions, but none of which move the competitive needle very much.

“There will be some pretty cool things on stage with Steve, but at the end of the day we know the general functionality,” said Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall.

Some features that iPhone users have long clamored for, such as multi-tasking, will also be added.

How Apple chooses to price its newest iPhone, as well as the older models, will be closely watched, given Apple’s enviable margin profile. The latest model iPhone, the 3GS, starts at $199 with an AT&T subsidy, with the older model 3G priced at $99.

Many doubt there will be any surprise announcements on Monday, but with Apple one never knows. The rumors include a Web-based version of iTunes, and a new version of Apple TV.

The Apple iPhone can now do video conferencing. The people at Mac Daddy World developed some cool software for the iphone that you can download – for free – of course!! Here is a quick video about it.

The app, which is also available on the iPad, emulates the desktop version of the software extremely well. Users can separate their tweets into columns depending on category, and can edit the way these are arranged.

Several types of settings are available, such as how notifications should appear, how often tweets should be updated, what appears in each column, (you can even organise tweets mentioning certain words to appear), and users can also update Facebook at the same time.

Users switch to new columns by swiping back and forth on the screen, and integrate their settings with the desktop version so you don’t need to spend too much time hashing out the details.

Screen gets a little cluttered but its pretty feature rich. Another free app.

Qrank makes you answer 10 random trivia questions everyday.

Qrank, developed by Ricochet Labs, is designed so users can keep up-to-date with current events and learn a little bit of trivia along the way.

To get started, the user must first create an account, sign in, and then pick 10 questions offered from within the app. Various categories can be selected eg music and entertainment, science and politics.

Once you go through the game, your score is calculated and ranked against users in your state, country and then across the world. You can even update your scores to Facebook or Twitter.

A great, free distratction.

Vodafone/3 Mobile are planning to offer a range of mobile broadband plans for the 3G iPad when it launches in May.

Vodafone and 3 “will offer dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in Australia”, VHA says, making it the first Australian carrier to confirm its intentions regarding the iPad. VHA was unable to confirm if these would be pre-paid or contract plans.

Apple has adopted a prepaid and pay as you go model in the US which may not necessarily come to Australia. This doesn’t seem to be the path that Vodafone/3 Mobile are likely to take. Australian carriers may choose to offer the iPad 3G on a contract plan – to subsidise the initial purchase price of the iPad 3G, which is tipped to cost from $800 to $1,100 depending on the device’s storage – alongside pre-paid plans for those who wish to buy the iPad 3G outright.

VHA has announced it will offer “dedicated iPad price plans for all 3G + Wi-Fi iPad models from the end of May in Australia,” but provided no further details.

Telstra and Optus both stated that they would also be offering iPad specific plans but neither carrier has released any other details.

Apple announced today that the worldwide release of the iPad would be delayed for at least a month until the end of May, citing undersupply due to demand for the tablet device in the US.

As reported exclusively on Gizmodo today

While Apple may tinker with the final packaging and design of the final phone, the next-generation iPhone are drastically new and drastically different from what came before. Here’s the detailed list of our findings:

What’s new

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash • Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before – it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute and volume buttons are all metallic

What’s changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminium border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturised and reduced to make room for the larger battery

See the pictures and read the rest.

Apple unveiled a number of new features in their iPhone OS 4.0 update, including multitasking, a slicker email experience and iBooks support amongst other improvements for business users.

When using your iPhone double-clicking the iPhone’s Home button brings up an OS X dock-like window showing all running applications at the bottom of the LCD, tap on an app to switch to it. If you’re playing a game or something with a lot of action, it will automatically enter a ‘pause state’ when you switch, and when returning, the game will continue where you left it.

Apple has made significant improvements to the Mail application in iPhone OS 4.0, importantly for business users the Mail application now supports more than one Exchange server account at a time, as well as supporting a ‘unified inbox’ allowing you to see email from multiple accounts at once.

The iPhone Mail application update also gives users the ability to view email by thread, in much the same way they would when using Gmail on the web. You are also able to interact directly with email attachments, with files in emails able to be opened directly from the mail application, when tapped, the files open in their native application.

Apple will be finally making their iBooks app available to the iPhone. The app, is essentially a shrunken version of the iPad iBooks application, allows you to do everything the iPad app does, including purchasing from the iBookstore (though this may be restricted in Australia). You will also be able to share books between your iPad and iPhone, reading the same book on both devices, picking up where you left off on each device when switching between them.

For business/enterprise users, Apple has made some important changes that will improve the security of your devices in a direct attack on BlackBerry, all e-mail, including attachements, can be encrypted with your PIN code. Apple also plans to release data encryption APIs to third party developers so they can do the same.

Apple also made a number of other smaller announcements, including support for folders on the iPhone’s Home screen, allowing users to group together similar applications (for example, games, or business apps) to make navigation easier when users have many screens of applications installed.

Also launched at the event was what Apple is calling an apps ‘Game Centre’ which is the iPhone equivalent of XBox Live or Playstation Network, allowing games to tie into the system with achievements and leader boards, and offers the possibility of networked play.

Reports show that the next 3.2 iPhone, which is due for release later this year, will have a new feature in video calling. This could be quite an attractive feature for intnernet providers such as Telstra as it will drive bandwidth.