Who needs an iPhone ...

... when you have a WAP-flatrate? I have had one for over three years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. Or can you do all of the following things with your phone?

• Read and write e-mails.
  The mobile version of Gmail has gotten so good over the years that sometimes I'll use my phone to check for mails even when I'm in the vicinity of the computer. There is also a Gmail Java application available, which is much more comfortable than the version for mobile browsers, but the latter works really well on its own, too.


• Chat.
  I can use my phone to chat via ICQ, AIM, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger. Not all at the same time, and not as comfortable as on the computer, but it has come in very handy a number of times, and can be a nice way to kill some time.


• Upload photos to – and look at photos on – Flickr (or Picasa).
  I take at least one photo per day with my phone's camera, and being able to upload them directly to Flickr saves me a lot of time and trouble. And Flickr's image search often times yields interesting results that differ from those of a Google image search (which, of course, is available for mobile browsers, as well).


• Read or watch the news.
  Of course I can read any website I want, news or not, through Google's WAP-proxy. But if I want to get up to date on the news or search for a certain topic in multiple sources, there's always Google News for mobile phones. And if that still isn't enough, or if I'm too lazy to read, I can even watch the news, the Tagesschau for example.


• Facebook.
  It's bare-bones only, no external applications or any other fancy stuff, but it does a very good job with what is there. I can update my status, read and write messages and wall posts, search for people, look at my contact's profiles and photos, and groups and events are in there, too.


• Google Maps
  I just recently installed the Google Maps Java app on my phone, and it's amazing. You've got satellite and map view, you can search for places and businesses, and you can get driving directions. Simply amazing.


• Watch videos from YouTube (and MetaCafe, whatever that is).
  No, I'm not talking about the craptacular official YouTube mobile site that lets you stream a few number of selected videos in poor quality (poor even for YouTube's standards). The way to watch (and save) any YouTube video on your phone is ByWiFi, which converts the Flash videos to the 3gp format and lets you download or stream them.


• ... and lots of other cool stuff: Google Reader, train and bus schedules, Wikipedia, Google Calender, movie listings and much, much more.