Before anything else, let me remind you that I strongly believe the iPhone doesn't stand a chance to conquer most Asian markets, especially Japan and China. There are plenty of reasons to say this, but I won't talk about them, because today we're going to be on the other side of the wall. To be more accurate, we'll talk about the (utopic, for me) situation where iPhone 3G, in Japan, will be sold out! Yeah, I know it sounds strange to say that now, but this is it - iPhone 3G, Japan, sold out!

Why am I getting into this? Well, I have no sales data at my disposal every morning, but I know one thing for sure - sometimes, and that is pretty often, analysts are right. Almost every time, when talking about something that already happened, analysts are right, but that depends a lot on the source of the data they are using...<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->

...since a widely publicized report suggested iPhone 3G sales in Japan below half of the initial expectations, but independent data recently gathered and put together shows sales matching initial expectations.

First, the Wall Street Journal claimed the million unit goal in Japan was more than twice the real sales figure, especially because the high price tag and the fear Japanese users have of online commerce. The interesting part is that data came from MM Research Institute, without any confirmation from Softbank, Apple's exclusive iPhone carrier in Japan.

According to an independent market research, things are looking better - "Gerhard Fasol, of telecoms consultancy Eurotechnology Japan, estimates they [Softbank] shifted between 75,000 and 125,000 units in July. At that rate, he thinks 2008 sales could total between 645,000 and 1 million."

Anyway, there's still enough time until the end of the year, and it all depends on the behaviour of the terminal in Japan. I am sure there won't be any problems with the 3G network there, so if the iPhone 3G proves to be a capable device, it may sell as well as expected, or close. If not, then Apple may have one more problem...

A lot of people praise the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G for their Internet browsing capabilities, but there are still some of problems to be solved, and I am not talking about the "Copy and Paste" ability missing in action since the early days of the smartphone from Apple(http://www.apple.com/), a feature nobody knows why they've been avoiding to introduce. Well, we'll leave this and those other iPhone 3G problems aside, and have a little chat about Safari...

As you surely know already, Safari was initially developed for Mac OS X, but now there's also a (pretty capable, I must say) Windows version available, and the mobile one used by the iPhone, of course.<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right-> That's exactly where I wanted to arrive, since it seems that Safari got a few interface tweaks with the latest iPhone firmware 2.2 Beta 1, as reported by iPhoneAtlas.

Here's what they say, so I spare you the effort of jumping to that page - "The new iteration of MobileSafari eschews the magnifying glass and refresh buttons at the top of the screen, instead displaying the URL bar and search fields side-by-side, much like the desktop version of Safari. Page refreshes are now accomplished via a tiny icon located inside the URL bar."

If this is going to be present in the final 2.2 firmware release, I am sure there's going to be one less of those Safari iPhone problems not many people talk about, but we must admit they exist, since ease of use is extremely important when talking about mobile applications.

This is it for now, but if you had any Safari iPhone problems, like program crashes, please step forward and let us hear what you have to say, we're all curious about the experience others are having with the Apple iPhone and the software tools coming with it!

One of the things I always say is that hardware is nothing without proper software to help it. At a lower level, it gets down to this - take some awesome piece of hardware with flawed firmware, and you only have 60-70% of what you could get, sometimes even worse. If you don't believe this, just read about my experience the MSI NEO-F v3, and you should understand better what I am talking about. Anyway, today is not about mainboards, since a new version of the iPhone firmware has been seeded to developers...

...as the first Beta version of the upcoming 2.2 release, of course! It seems a lot of things are going to be fixed, brought back from the dead, or introduced for the first time, since the rumors say the background push notification returned, after being pulled out from 2.1 Beta 4, and left aside from the official 2.1 release,<-125x125 Button - right-> while slow performance, crashing software and connectivity issues were the main concerns of that firmware update, its only new feature being the Genius playlist creation system.

According to some anonymous sources, the latest email from Steve says "We’re running a bit late. We want to get it 100% right the first time." After all the trouble had by Apple lately with MobileMe, the jailbroken 2.1 firmware, or the lack of Copy and Paste functionality...they surely need to get it right! Unfortunately, I don't think Copy and Paste is something Steve had in mind this time...

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What does a search engine need to be the world’s most popular having over 1 trillion web pages indexed after 10 years since its activity began? –The answer is not that simple. It needs lots and lots of features to satisfy everyone’s needs, starting with a cool friendly logo that attracts at the first glance and continuing with multiple language support, AdSense, Image Search, Toolbar for your web browser, a large official blog, Maps with traffic information, Search for mobile including the iPhone, SMS service, Desktop Search, Finance utilities, and why not, a brand new and advanced Internet browser that has to be called Chrome.

Today is Google’s birthday, when it celebrates 10 years of activity, and we all want to congratulate it wishing its team many hugs and a friendly “Happy Birthday, Google!”. Ten years and counting...

Having problems with your iPhone? Maybe the 3G problems everyone is talking about, or even some Wi-Fi connectivity issues? I know it may sound strange, but you should be glad that you are able to have such iPhone 3G problems! How could such a thing be possible? Well, throw these into the pot - Apple, China Mobile, and a crippled iPhone exclusively available with them as carrier, without any chance to use the unlocked device! Why "crippled?" That's one of the future iPhone problems in China, and we're going to get into details right away!

The whole story may create a whole new wave of iPhone problems, but this time we'll talk about iPhone with disabilities and, even worse - intentional ones. While some analysts claim that Beijing hasn't approved yet the use of Wi-Fi and 3G-enabled phones, I wouldn't bet on that. Anyway, the speculations go as far as to say that Foxconn is waiting for authorization to start shipping iPhones to China Mobile, iPhones having the W-CDMA and Wi-Fi chips disabled!<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->

While blaming the Chinese authorities for not allowing Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities to be used on the country's territory by its own citizens is a good way to cover a monopolist behavior, the truth may be that China Telecom's network supports W-CDMA, and China Mobile's uses the local TD-SCDMA format.

Anyway, the Chinese market is already flooded with black market iPhones from Apple, as well as a lot of clones, and - no matter if Apple decides to take out 3G and Wi-Fi - I firmly believe their "wonder phone" won't behave as well as expected on that market. In the end, remains to be seen, but this is what I think, and it's surely going to be extremely interesting to watch it happening...or not!