While I trashed Vodafone NZ's pricing in a previous post, in at least one way it's far ahead of U.S. telco giant AT&T: internet tethering using the iPhone is already possible over Vodafone's network without resorting to lengthy, kludgy, and unsupported hacks. Who knows how long tethering will stay supported here, or how long it will take before Vodafone remembers to charge extra for it, but for now, tethering is go in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tethering works over both USB and Bluetooth. Using USB to tether simply requires enabling internet tethering in the iPhone's settings, then plugging the iPhone into an available USB port on your computer. The Mac will automatically recognize the tethered iPhone, and your connection will be up and running.

Bluetooth tethering obviously requires enabling Bluetooth on both your iPhone and computer, and then selecting "Connect to Network" from the Bluetooth drop-down menu. Once again, the rest of the setup is automatic -- it really doesn't get much simpler than this.

The speed of the internet connection appears to be comparable to the iPhone's standard mobile speed using USB, but Bluetooth was only about half as fast. I didn't remain tethered for long for fear of gulping down my meager monthly data cap, but for the time I used it, tethering worked with no issues whatsoever.

For my money, having tethering available in little ol' New Zealand long before the U.S. will have it puts AT&T in an even less flattering light -- while AT&T has far more users spread over a much larger area than Vodafone NZ, AT&T also has more towers and more money to pour into their infrastructure.

Any other international iPhone users managed to get tethering working on their networks? Sound off in the comments, and be sure to let us know what network you're on.

Read on for a pictorial guide to enabling tethering over Bluetooth.

In a previous post, I discussed some of the shortcomings of New Zealand's broadband infrastructure. A lot of you gave some great responses, which led me to realize that although it's certainly not world-class, NZ's broadband isn't quite as bad overall as I thought - it's just my ISP isn't the greatest in the country, and it doesn't help matters that I don't live in a major city like Auckland or Wellington. When we first got here last July, we were kind of bewildered by pretty much everything (moving to a new country will do that to you), so we signed up for what seemed to be the best value for our money at the time. This turned out to entail a one-year commitment to Vodafone. Well, as it turns out, Vodafone NZ's broadband plans kind of stink compared to some other offerings people brought up, so we'll be ditching them for something better as soon as that commitment is over next month.

With my iPhone, however, I don't have the option of giving Vodafone the heave-ho for at least another 20 months. In fact, right now if you want to buy an iPhone in New Zealand, unless you're willing to jump through a lot of hoops and pay a lot more money, Vodafone is pretty much the only horse in town.

While some Kiwi commenters pointed out that broadband here isn't necessarily as terrible as I made it out to be, one thing they all agreed on was that the mobile phone pricing here is just barely short of criminal. No, let's not mince words: it is criminal. New Zealanders pay some of the highest mobile rates in the world, both for plans and for handsets. What we get for our money down here is pretty astonishing, and not in a good way.

Last year, after years of planning, my wife and I left the United States and moved to New Zealand. Moving to the other side of the world has meant adjusting to an entirely different geography and culture. Driving on the left, the "reversed" seasons, the completely unfamiliar constellations and upside-down face of the moon, and having everything expressed in metric are ever-present reminders of just how much life has changed for us since leaving the U.S.

Another thing that's changed is our internet situation, and some of the changes have been big enough that it's profoundly affected our computing habits.

In the U.S. we had a fairly decent internet connection, especially for the Cleveland market: a 5 Mbps download speed, 768 Kbps upload, all delivered over the same cable line that delivered our television service. That internet connection, plus basic cable and a DVR, cost us a little over US$100 per month.

In New Zealand, the broadband landscape is completely different, and it's forced us to completely adjust our usage patterns.

According to a recent Norton Online Living Report (links to NZ Herald) commissioned by Symantec, New Zealanders spend an average of only 12.7 hours online per week, compared to a global average of 23.6 hours. Analysts are unsure why New Zealand lags so much in internet usage compared to the rest of the developed world, but after nearly a year of sampling the best they have to offer down here, I'm not at all surprised.

They may be first to see the sun, but they've been waiting quite a while for movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store -- now that patience has paid off, as movies have now arrived in a land down under. Aussie and Kiwi iTunes users can purchase and rent movies to their hearts' content. New releases on DVD will premiere day-and-date on the iTunes store at the same time as they're on sale in physical form in the two new countries of service.

iTunes movie purchases in Australia will kick off the price tier at A$9.99 for catalog titles, A$17.99 for recent releases and A$24.99 for new releases; rentals will be A$3.99 for library title rentals and A$5.99 for new releases. iTunes movies in New Zealand start at NZ$9.99 for catalog title purchases, NZ$17.99 for recent releases and NZ$24.99 for new releases, rentals are NZ$4.99 for library titles / NZ$6.99 for new releases. As in the US store, getting the high-def version costs an additional dollar. Rentals can be held for 30 days before you start watching and then you have 48 hours to finish (a whole day longer than US customers? Must be the International Date Line).

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

At the most recent World Wide Developer's Conference, Steve Jobs listed the countries that will see iPhone availability once the 3G model is released. As we approach the big day, more retailers are announcing their plans.

This week, Vodafone announced details of the New Zealand launch. Specifically, three Vodafone branches will host a midnight sale on Friday, July 11. Those branches are

• 171 Queen St., Auckland City
• 358 Lambton Quay, Wellington
• 681 Colombo Street Christchurch

Other stores will open with 3G iPhones on the shelves at 9:00 AM. No details on specific pricing or data plans, but Vodafone says that this page will be updated with those details later in the week.

Mark your calendars. Next Wednesday, 13 December, is the Apple one-day shopping event for New Zealand, the apparent "Black Wednesday" for the new Apple store. Details are still quite sparse, although you can visit the promo page that's been set up to get a rough idea about the event.

It looks like many items will have free shipping and it can only be hoped that prices are reduced enough to make Renaissance blush in shame.

Thanks Graham

After tons of rumors and speculation, the New Zealand iTunes store debuted today. The online store offers over two million songs, with individual tracks priced at NZ$1.79, music videos at NZ$3.59 and many albums at NZ$17.99. Many New Zealand artists are featured exclusively in the New Zealand store, including Fat Freddy's Drop, Brooke Fraser, Tim Finn, The Datsuns and Bic Runga as well as extensive catalogues from New Zealand greats including Shihad, Crowded House, The Black Seeds, Breaks Co-Op, Elemeno P and Dei Hamo.

The New Zealand Herald reports that locals are looking forward to the anticipated opening of iTunes New Zealand. It's been a long time coming. Rumors about iTunesNZ have been floating around for nearly three years without the appearance of an actual storefront. Insiders in the NZ music industry report that local labels are now in active negotiations with Apple and that the new storefront may appear before the end of the year.

Thanks Al.

Like Tim Gaden over at Hawk Wings, I too love Mac OS X's highly underrated Services menu, and Robert Stainsby has released a very handy addition to it: MappingService. This clever service allows you to select an address from any application, say a website, a document or an IM, and simply chose 'Map' from your Services menu to generate a map in any one of three mapping services: Google Maps (of course), ZoomIn Australia or ZoomIn New Zealand.

MappingService is known to work on 10.4.6 and might possibly work on earlier versions of Mac OS X. It is open source software released under the BSD license, and Robert is accepting donations for his fine work.