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ChangeWave is back with trends in intended smartphone buying for June 2008. The good? The iPhone has soared from 29% to 56% from a low this time last year of 18%. The bad? Rim has tumbled from 29% to 23% from a high of 33% last July. The ugly? Palm has held steady at 3%, having free fallen from 24% way back in late 2006.

The iPhone dominated almost all rounds, causing an overall increase in planned smartphone purchases to 10%. Satisfaction levels were through the roof at 78% (way above RIM's 54% and trouncing Palm's 29%)

Blackberry held on to the title of reigning email monster, with a holding-steady 42% ownership of that space, but Apple is making inroads even there, up to 11%.

With the second coming of the iPhone at our doorsteps (3G for those of you living in a cave), there has been an intriguing amount of comparison between the "old" iPhone 2G and the shiny new 3G Wonder.  The coming of 2.0 and the App Store has everyone a-twitter, but lest we forget, there are still a plethora of web-based apps out there that are just darn good and useful.  This week's Tip, courtesy of Fiona King and currencytrading.net (a BIG thanks, Fiona!), is all about helpful financial apps for the iPhone.  Read on, friends!

The response to our iPhone 3G givaway has been tremendous. We love all the new action in our forums and we fully expect it to continue after this week -- which is to say that The iPhone Blog adores you and will continue to treat you right, stay tuned for future contests in the coming weeks.

I shouldn't blog this. It'll only make the lines longer. But, dagnabit, it's just too... well... not unlimited good... but better and somewhat less cr@ppy!

Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.

It's a start!

Sure, the iPhone 3G launch is tomorrow. Consider this an amuse bouche. Or the opposite of that, an annoy bouche. Whatever. Something salty to make Friday taste all the more sweet!

The subject of today's battle royal? Nope, not iPhone vs. Blackberry. That's old. This time it's Blackberry vs. Blackberry, Blog vs. Blog, over the iClone to end all iClones: the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder!

Says our sister site Crackberry.com, 10th degree Blackberry belts and reigning world champions:

Touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder Keyboard To Utilize Haptic Technology... AMAZING Implementation! [...] Leave it to RIM to CRACK the touchscreen keyboard nut.

Says Boy Genius Report, craftiest of all mobile blogsphere Ninja:

The keyboard is incredibly annoying to type on, and the screen actually shows ripples even when pressed ever-so-lightly. [...] Most of the people who have handled it thinks it’s a joke.

Read on for round 2!

Rene already mentioned that Apple stores are also in on the 8am sharp sell time, but we have a few more of the nitty-gritty deets direct from Apple's Retail Chief Ron Johnson by way of an interview with Bloomberg [via]. Here's the news:

This is it. We're in the home stretch. Golden goal, all or nothing, and Steve Jobs kicking it high and to the side. In 2 days we find out if Apple gets the world cup, the two-peat for smartphone (even gadget) championship, or if they send it flying over the post with their mostly evolutionary, not so much revolutionary, next generation handset.

Saturday we mentioned one big change: the fast 3G data chip. Sunday it was GPS. Monday we tackled the 2.0 Firmware update. Tuesday we detailed the rebirth of .Mac: MobileMe. Today we're looking at the mother load, App Store.

Why should you want Apps? Of course you want Apps, read on to find out just how much!

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Ready for iPhone 3G yet? Mike and Dieter run down the run-up to the iPhone 3G as of our recording on Monday. Plenty to mull over -- plus your comments and forum posts!