Today, we have no less than 3 pretty interesting rumors, so I decided to write a single article about them. The reason is that, as it usually happens with Apple-related rumors, there are no big details about them, just "something may happen", so here we go...


First, it's the iTunes price drops, since some people that used the UK iTunes Store claim to have been charged only 73p for a song, while the iTunes Store UK website still shows the price to be 79p...

Second, we have some reports about BBC Worldwide showing up on the iTunes Store, but nothing is official yet.

At last, there's the pretty strange rumor related to the next iPhone update. Since the current version is 1.1.3, logical would be to expect 1.1.4 sometime in the near future, but latest rumor says the next version of software for Apple's iPhone will be labeled 2.0. Well, if this happens, at least I hope they'll add a serious amount of new and useful features, because otherwise, it would be a pity...

These being said, I close the "Apple rumors" chapter of today, but I'll get back to it in the not-so-far future, you can be sure of that!

Watersports allow you having extreme fun, while keeping fit at the same time, but not all your gadgets are waterproof, and if they are going to have a close & personal contact with water, it may not end up well for them... While most watches are (more or less) waterproof "out of the box", the iPhones are not waterproof at all, so finding out about a waterproof case for it is something that I must share with you, especially since we're talking about fresh news here...


<-234x60 Half Banner - left->Aquapac is a company from the United States which designs and manufactures waterproof cases for a pretty wide range of products, and they just announced not one, not two, but three protective cases that work without any problem with Apple's iPhone.

The Aquapac waterproof cases have an "Aquaclip" hermetic seal, combined with a shatter-resistant polycarbonate seal, which has a pair of sliding levers, and these cases are guaranteed to be waterproof to 15 feet below the surface, and if you happen to drop your iPhone in water while encased, the Aquapac case will help it stay afloat.

The models available are the action-sport ready Small Armband Case ($35), the Mini Phone/GPS Case, and Small PDA Case, both priced at $25. At last, I am sure that if you're not swimming with your iPhone on, you'll be pleased to know that these cases allow you full use of the multi-touch display, as well as the use of the microphone and speaker.

Speech recognition is one area of the software landscape that I checked a few times, but in each of those situations I ended up pretty disappointed. Last time, I remember it was Vista's speech recognition, and despite the fact it didn't work as one would expect, at least I had a good laugh. In fact, I laughed until I almost got sick! Now, getting back to our daily Apple-related topics, today the time has come for MacSpeech Dictate, a great speech recognition for Mac, and its latest version...


MacSpeech Dictate made its entry last month, at the Macworld Conference & Expo, as iListen's replacement. Now, it's already available for pre-order on the MacMall online store, on this page.

If you are wondering about this program, it's enough to say that MacSpeech and Nuance Communications (notorious for Dragon NaturallySpeaking) are now partners, and MacSpeech Dictate, winner of a Macsiumum Macworld Award last month, is the fruit of this collaboration.

According to Andrew Taylor, president and CEO of MacSpeech, "MacSpeech Dictate performs at the highest accuracy level on the market today.Using the new MacSpeech Dictate, user-spoken commands are recognized separately from dictation, liberating the user from the need to tell the software to change modes, simplifying the experience.", and if that's not enough to make you try this program, I rest my case here.

This software requires at least Mac OS X 10.4.11, and it only works on Intel-based Macs. New users will have to pay at least $199 (one headset at your choice, from a bunch of options available, is also included), while crossgrades from iListen start at $79(special price), but those that bought iListen in 2008, will only have to pay $29, if they crossgrade until the 15th of April.

Apple's Safari browser is just another one in the software landscape, and "the browser" for Macs. Lately, they also released a Windows version, and new updates bring it closer and closer to becoming an interesting choice for Windows users, too (I used it on Mac, but I didn't have the courage to try the Windows version yet...). Back in 2006, Yahoo Mail's problems with Safari were pretty big, because users trying to use Yahoo Mail Beta back in the day were "welcomed" with the message "Sorry, Yahoo! Mail Beta does not support your browser. You can either download a compatible browser or proceed to the original Yahoo! Mail.", and now, the incompatibility between Yahoo Mail and Safari has finally come to an end...


This lack of response speed may be one of the weak spots Yahoo has now, and it's good to see they managed to update their Ajax-based email service to work properly with Safari 3 running on Mac OS X. Other than that, there isn't really much to say...

To draw the line, it should be noted that while Safari 3 was released back in June 2007, the "All-New Yahoo Mail" became available in August. Since then, Safari 3 users using Mac OS X couldn't use this service, having to install Firefox or simply switch to Mail Classic...

Now, let's just hope Yahoo will move faster from now on, if they really want to keep floating. Companies that don't look around and learn from the ever evolving medium around them are doomed, and I really hope Yahoo is not one of them!

While the iPhone is matched and sometimes left behind in terms of features by other smart phones, it seems Apple managed to do what they usually do - create a product that goes straight to the heart of more people than anything else. How's that? Well, the iPhone is the most popular mobile in the world at this time, and I am not talking about the number of units sold. One of the best indicators of popularity and ease of use is the frequency of Google searches performed using a mobile handset, and I just found out some interesting things regarding this...


This wouldn't be any special news, but the huge difference between the amount of searches made using the iPhone, compared to any other mobile, made even Google think something is wrong with their system. "We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again.", said Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations, because there were 50 times(!!) more queries coming from iPhones than any other mobile handset.

Just as it happens in the PC market, where desktops are slowly left behind by portables, Google expects that the number of searches performed on mobile phones could go above the "fixed Internet search" in just a few years!

At last, it's also good to notice that Google has its eyes on the mobile searches market, and this may help them maintain their high growth rate in the coming years, too. "We want every phone to be a Google phone. We are ultimately talking about thousands of devices. The best way to do this would be to get Google’s mobile operating system, Android, deployed on as many types of handsets as possible.", concluded Gundotra.