I’m back from a long lunch with St. Patrick (or just some old guy in green clothes, I’m not sure which) and just catching up on the Apple iPhone 3.0 Software event. By now, you’ve probably seen that cut, copy and paste made the cut. So did MMS support (for 3G models), stereo Bluetooth, universal search in the form of Spotlight, and Push notifications, which apparently got pushed into this year. Actually there’s plenty more good stuff in there, as you can see from Engadget’s live blog, which was my first stop. No news on new hardware, which semi-surprises me: I figured that some new features might work better on beefier hardware and therefore, we’d hear about a new handset for summer availability. No such luck.

After all is said and done, my first impression rates all this as “satisfactory” from where I stand, and now I’m leaning more towards a Palm Pre when my iPhone contract is up in July. I really wanted to see video recording as well as background applications, but perhaps Apple’s push notifications are a more optimal solution in that area. Time will tell. What do you think?

Quick: How much did you spend on smartphone applications last year? We’re halfway through tax season here in the U.S., so I have this info at the tip of my fingertips right now. I actually didn’t spend much: under $20 in 2008. I tend to use free apps when I can on my phone and I generally use a netbook for heavier lifting.

ABI Research recently took a very small sample of people who installed apps on their smartphones last year and queried them as to their total expense. Out of the 235 respondents, nearly 17% reported an expense between $100 and $499, which shocked me for two reasons.

First, I’d think that the many 99-cent applications for Apple’s platform would offset higher-costing software on other operating systems. Second, some of these folks could actually be spending more on software than their hardware cost them. I’ve bought plenty of smartphone software over the past half dozen years, but I don’t think I ever spent more than the hardware cost me. Perhaps I’m in the minority?

Have at it in the below poll, in which I break the expense brackets down in a more granular and lower level, as my guess is that most folks spent under $200 on smartphone software in 2008.

With all of the “app store” models, however, this has me thinking. Is the smartphone market making a bigger move towards the “Gillette” business model? Gillette, of course, famously makes relatively inexpensive razors, but makes money hand-over-fist on relatively expensive replacement razor blades.

Yikes! The vast majority of our recent poll participants fell into either the “Not Impressed” or “OK, but not enough progress” categories. Only 19% of you figuratively had your socks knocked off by the incremental upgrade. I’m using the word incremental for a reason here, because it underlies a large part of the challenge that Microsoft is facing. I also believe it has much to do with how folks voted. I think folks are disappointed by what amounts to minimal improvements relative to the time between releases.

Sadly, none of us are going to see new devices running Windows Mobile 6.5 until late this year. That could be nine months from now and yes, it will only be on new devices, which is just silly. Many of the new devices won’t offer much more (if anything) different in terms of hardware capabilities. In cases like that, it sounds like a business decision to sell more Windows Mobile handsets and thus, gain more Windows Mobile license revenue.

So what will we see from the more nimble players in the market between now and then? Even if we saw nothing new from them (highly unlikely), the bar has been raised some time ago and the reaction from Redmond has been slower than an oil tanker making a turn.

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Our podcasting co-hort co-host isn’t that impressed with the Microsoft Windows 6.5 news out of Mobile World Congress. Matt asks: where’s the beef? He thinks that some of the custom shells from SPB, HTC, Sony Ericsson and Samsung out there already on 6.1 are better. It’s interesting to me because Windows Mobile was always designed with a desktop paradigm, even with its predecessor, Pocket PC. Microsoft wanted a familiar interface way back then. Might have been a good idea when we were less mobile, but since we’re more mobile, it’s less of a good idea. Follow?

I agree with Matt that the lack of support for capacitive touchscreens is a gap. I realize that in some areas, a stylus and resistive touchscreen are the norm. But why not support both resistive and capacitive at this point? That would give carriers and handset OEMs good options for their local clientele.

Matt rightly points out that the Exchange / ActiveSync experience on a Windows Mobile, er Windows Phone, is second to none. No argument there either, but that strength is getting licensed away to Apple, Google, Nokia and others. Overall, I see the new Windows Mobile version as a very incremental update based on what we’ve seen so far. More concerning to me is what we’ll see from other platforms between now and when Windows Mobile 7 hits.Thoughts?

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So word on the street is that the Palm Pre debut is coming soon: possibly as early as Feb. 15th or more likely March 15th. It’s rather timely that I’ve just read a 22-page report from Forrester on how consumers choose their mobile phones, no?

The report shows various segments of consumers, ranging from those who look at value and services to others that focus more on handset choices. I found it staggering that only 5% of those surveyed switch carriers for a specific phone. I would have thought the number far higher simply given the churn of folks that went to AT&T for an iPhone. Even more amazing was the 39% that have remained loyal to their first carrier. As in, they’ve only been with a single cellular carrier from the time they first got a mobile handset. Clearly, Matt Miller with his two dozen handsets wasn’t part of the survey.

So the potential Pre timing coupled with the report and Sprint’s new Premier customer program got me thinking: how many of you in the U.S. are considering a switch to Sprint simply to get a Palm Pre? Our poll is hardly scientific as the readership base tends to be the geek vote (and I mean that as a complement!), but I’m curious. I can’t affort multiple carrier accounts, so I’m even thinking of moving from AT&T to Sprint myself just for the Pre. How about you?

Just in time for the Mobilize conference, GigaOM has a brief poll regarding Mobile Internet Devices. Who better to offer up their thoughts than the excellent and well informed jkOTR audience, right? If you have a few minutes, consider sharing your thoughts in the poll, which is being conducted by Dr. Phil Hendrix of IMMR. I’ve taken the poll and I’ve also shared my thoughts on the MID space with Dr. Phil (no, not THAT one!) and he’s very interested to see what consumers think of MIDs.Ironically, I was first introduced to him on the very day that I asked if MIDs were dying a slow, painful death. Now’s your chance to tell him & his team what you think. There aren’t too many questions so if you have a few minutes, here’s the poll link.

We asked and you responded. I personally take my WWAN with cream, sugar and a healthy dose of HSDPA over USB, but clearly there’s some folks that tether. USB is great if you use multiple devices while tethering offers the same advantage plus a potential cost savings. There’s quite a few folks that want an integrated 3G connection which is certainly less obtrusive, but won’t help if you do use multiple devices. Thanks for sharing your responses!

We kicked this one off last week and I’ll close it out in a day or two. With so many ways to add speedy WWAN or 3G cellular data functionality, which do you prefer? I’m still sold on a USB modem; yes, it can be bulky and not as elegant as internal solutions, but it allows me to use my data plan on practically every device I own. Maybe you’re happy with a PC Card or ExpressCard, or perhaps you just want to tether your 3G phone… let us know! View the original post and give a vote.

A few months back, we ran a poll asking which integrated radio you’d prefer in your mobile device: cellular wireless WAN or WiFi. Now that James just switched from a PC Card to an ExpressCard for his EV-DO account, I thought I’d pose a similar poll that focuses solely on WWAN. You’ve got several choices, right? There’s integrated WWAN that can only be used with the single device it’s in. There’s the old standby of PC Card for devices with a PCMCIA card slot. The new ExpressCard form factor offers connectivity options for newer devices. Then there’s the near universal approach of USB and of course, in some cases, you can tether a 3G phone to your device via USB cable or wirelessly through Bluetooth.

Pros and cons abound and your choice will obviously vary on your device and your needs. I opted for the USB route with my new 875U AirCard because I want the freedom to use my connection across nearly all of my devices. How about you? What’s the preferred form factor and why? Give a vote and then follow up in the comments.

I took out my trusty abacus and counted all of the votes….there were a few hanging chads too, but we’ve triple-checked the results and here you go. Part of me is surprised that the HTC Touch won out on this particular question, simply because the Apple iPhone offers more touch functionality overall and has that typical sexy Apple design. Then again, I suspect that our reader base is more Windows and Windows Mobile-centric, so perhaps this came as no surprise.

Oh, and for the 15 of you that "like to live large", feel free to send me any of your throwaway devices. Now that I’m a full-time blogger, the gadget fund is waaaaay low.