I got up very early this morning, Melbourne time, to update my iPhone 3GS to the new iOS 4.

How early? Initially 2am, only to find I still had another hour to wait. So, back to bed, playing on my iPad, until 3am.

So 3am came and passed, but the iTunes on my computer still only registered OS 3.1.3. I kept clicking until, finally at 3:05am, iOS 4 was finally available. Download and install.

Half an hour later, my iPhone had this cute little home screen background (shown above) and I was on my way to setting my eight pages of apps down to a mere two...home screen and most of the built-in apps, plus another page of FOLDERS.

Yes, this was a welcome update.

The new folder system is quite easy. You hold an app till it shakes, then move it over another, similar app, which turns it into a folder with both of them, first of all with a suggested name, like Productivity, then, if you want to change it, to anything you want.

The backgrounds operate very much the same as for the iPad. In settings you now have an option for the lock screen and the home screen. Initially it starts with the same background as your lock screen, but I like having something different on each.

As you can tell from the image, iBooks is also now able to be downloaded from the App Store for iOS 4.

Email...the inbox is now combined, though you still have options underneath the "All Email" category to access each individual email address's inbox. So now I can simply go into the combined inbox and read or delete messages from there.

And finally, multi-tasking and fast app switching. Double-click the home button and you can see a row of the current open apps. The multi-tasking itself still needs to wait for those apps which have iOS 4 awareness programmed in, but it's still good having a nice task switcher.

There's more to explore yet, but so far so good. I'm not quite sure if iOS 4 affects my 3G data, though. Initially web pages seem a bit slower. However, this might simply be due to the signal where I tested this.

Of course, when iOS 4.0.1 comes out, we'll see just what's been tightened up then.

In general, the new iteration brings some much-needed features to the iPhone 3GS.

So how are the rest of you going with your own updates to the new OS version?

One of the things that wasn't so easily noted about the iPhone 4 announcement had to do with what sort of sim it used.

Somehow that got missed among all the fun features.

It was a bit of a surprise this week to read one tweet about it having micro sims.

Micro sims? So unless I trim down my old 3GS sim, I have to get a new micro sim if I buy an iPhone 4?

Let's hope the migration to the new sim size doesn't involve extra cost. A migration to a different sim would mean swapping your old number over to the new micro sim, or a new number. So that's either one sim useless after getting the new micro sim, or it means an extra account.

I'm waiting to see just how the telcos are going to go about this.

Grumble!

I'm not so stinky on the idea of the iPad having a micro sim. That makes perfect sense. It's an entire new category of device and having a totally new account, postpaid or prepaid, makes some sense there. It is still an additional device.

On the other hand, an iPhone 4 is an upgrade from your iPhone 3GS. So that's a bit of an imposition, making you change over to an entirely incompatible sim that you can't use (without an adapter) in your old, still-working 3GS.

That aside, I'm also noting that there are people on eBay selling iPhone 4 phones, even though it's only PRE-ORDER stage. I can guess we'll see the usual low-feedback crowd selling a device they don't even have yet, not much differently from what it was like with the iPad.

The prices I've seen so far, though, border on the ridiculous. One person is selling an iPhone 4 for $AUD 1,500. I've also read some people are charging $5,000.

Good thing I'm not in a hurry for an iPhone like I was with the iPad. And even with the iPad, it still required me being picky who I bought from.

Some suggestions for those wanting an early delivery via eBay: make sure you're buying from someone who has one of these physically with him/her. At least make sure it's one you can pick up, so you can see you're not being ripped-off. Very much try to get one from someone with a decent feedback score on eBay...although even with the iPad, it was still possible for a genuine seller with decent feedback and a store to get his whole inventory delisted over an iPad listing glitch.

If you're going to impulse-buy an iPhone 4, practice safe buying. And pray you get an honest seller.

Still, it's a nice piece of telephony/computing, isn't it?