The iPhone 3G will be released tomorrow and the internet is flooded with early reviews, application reviews, etc. Since the iPhone 3G isn’t really a major upgrade from a hardware or software perspective (the 3G and GPS are extremely nice additions but they don’t really change how you interact with the device), the most interesting addition is the application platform. Both the version 1 iPhone, the new iPhone 3G, and the iPod Touch will be able to use the new Application Store via iTunes and it’s a pretty slick platform for both developers and users. The integration and ease of acquiring new applications is a major improvement over most other smartphone devices. This has really led to some quite lofty expectations which unfortunately always leads to disappointment.

Leading the way in disappointing news is the pricing plans AT&T are offering. While not particularly high by smartphone standards, it’s still an increase over what they offered for the iPhone v1. The lack of any included text messages in the data plan is crazy — apparently a TXT message costs $1310/MB. For perspective, every time I access CNN, I consume 76KB… so by AT & T math, it should cost me about $100 every time I access CNN… excessive, perhaps? For better or for worse, all the cell companies charge outrageous rates for txt messages so this (sadly) isn’t too unusual.

I’m most looking forward to the applications released for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the initial batch available in the Application Store (opened today) have underwhelmed. While I obviously don’t have an iPhone to try them out on, I’ve been perusing what’s available and reading comments on various blogs. So far, I’ve found one, and only one, truly intriguing application – Remote. Remote allows you to remotely control iTunes on your computer using your iPhone/iPod Touch. That’s an instant must-have, especially since it’s free, but shouldn’t this already have been available? The top sellers so far seem to be games (with the excellent Monkey Ball leading the way) but those don’t really interest me as much as applications that take advantage of the wireless/GPS capabilities of the device. Overall, I’ve tempered my enthusiasm a bit on the Application Store but still quite optimistic overall.

All that said, I will be in an Apple store tomorrow picking up a much needed new phone. Let’s just hope they’re not sold out!