Phone different and the iPhone Blog Merge!

It's with a lot of excitement and perhaps just a little pride that we're announcing the merger of the iPhone Blog and Phone different!  Now all new, the iPhone Blog's excellent history of covering the iPhone is now fortified with all of the great content originally found at Phone different. Now and during the run-up to the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software release, the iPhone Blog features the latest iPhone news, accessory reviews, editorial, commentary, and more.

To celebrate this combination of two great sites,  the iPhone Blog will be giving away great prizes to its readers!  We'll be continuing the very popular iPhone 2.0 Wait-a-Thon, wherein anybody who comments on a "Wait-a-thon" tagged post is automatically entered to win a $100 iTunes Gift card, which we will be giving away every week until the release of the iPhone 2.0 software.  Anytime you see a post with "Wait-a-Thon" in the title, comment for your chance to win!  Click here for the full details.

That's not all, we'll also be giving away an iPhone 3G when it becomes available.  We'll announce the contest details later this week, so watch this space.

Most importantly, though, the iPhone Blog is now the premiere site for you to find all of your iPhone news, tips, how-to articles, and reviews.  We have an incredible team of writers - just check out all the posts from Phone different that have been added to the blog to see what we mean.  We'll also feature a bi-weekly iPhone Podcast. Of course, the Phone different iPhone accessory Store isn't going anywhere, it's still your best source for any iPhone accessory you could imagine.

We're still working some bugs out, so please bear with us as we get everything fully operational.  If you find any dead links, site bugs, or other hassles, please email me directly at dieter@smartphoneexperts.com.  In the meantime, keep an eye out for full-featured forums, web-app reviews, hands-on with jailbroken iPhone apps and also with pretenders-to-the-throne, and much, much more.

For those curious about the nuts and bolts of the transition, here's the score:

  • We chose to keep "the iPhone Blog" over "Phone different" as the main site name because, well, that's exactly what we are: the iPhone Blog!
  • The iPhone Blog (tiPB if you're nasty) is proud to bring on the following writers (in alphabetical): Dieter Bohn, Casey Chan, Chad Garrett, Brian Hart, and Rene Ritchie. We bid a fond farewell to Kent Pribbernow, who will be writing for our sister site WMExperts.com.
  • Our podcast will feature Dieter Bohn and Phone different Editor Emeritus Mike Overbo, as well as occasional visits from our team of crack writers.
  • We will be moving the forums from Phone different over to the iPhone blog early this coming week. As a part of this move the forums will be separated from the Treo and Windows Mobile forums. Although we'll do our best to automate everything, you might have to re-register. Our apologies!
  • We'll also be integrating these forums into the front page posts -- so you can follow the latest either from the forums or from the main blog.

Any more questions? Again, please email me at dieter@smartphoneexperts.com