Some time has passed since the iPhone was launched officially on the US market, as well as in a bunch of other countries, but there are still plenty of places in this world where you can only get it on "the black market", or you have to wait until it arrives the right way. This week, Austria and Ireland are going to join the other countries where the iPhone is officially available, with subscriptions to Apple's preferred local carriers, of course.


Austria and Ireland are the first countries to receive the iPhone in 2008, and the carrier for Austria has just been officially confirmed - T-Mobile, while O2 was already known to be the exclusive carrier in Ireland.

The two service plans available for Apple's phone from T-Mobile are a €39 Classic plan(1,000 minutes calls to any network, Visual Voicemail, up to 3GB data transfer per month, and €0.25/SMS) and the Supreme plan, priced at €55(unlimited calls and text messages, while maximum data transfer per month remains the same). Unfortunately, a 2-year contract is required...

At last, O2's service plans for the iPhone go from €45 to €100 per month, with 175 to 400 minutes call time, 100 to 250 included SMS messages, and 1GB data limit, while you are required to sign for at least 18 months.

The prices of the iPhone models in both countries will be the same - €399 for an 8GB model and €499 for a 16GB version, but there's a little difference here - while Austrians can get it through T-mobile or online stores, Irish customers can only get their iPhones through O2.

Currently, the iPhone is one of the most widely used mobiles when it comes to Internet access and this, no matter if we like or not, also implies accessing adult content. In some cases, you end up on adult Web sites without even having the intention to do that, but I guess this is not a big problem, unless your 10 years old is peaking... and it could get even worse if your kids have their own iPhones, but it seems Apple has something prepared to make everyone's lifes easier!


I won't keep you waiting any longer - as you probably expected to find out, I am talking about parental controls on the iPhone. For now, this seems to be a hidden feature, and probably still under testing, but I wouldn't be amazed to see it fully functional in the next software update for the iPhone.

The list of features that can be turned on or off looks like this:
- Playing explicit songs in iPod
- Website control in Safari
- YouTube control
- iTunes Wi-Fi Store control
- AppStore control

These being said, prepare to see this on your iPhone pretty soon. Unfortunately, this is not official, so it could as well be nothing more than a rumor, although I doubt it.

Since this subject is as ancient as Rome, I will drop the introduction and get straight to the subject - what about the iPhone SDK? Apple's iPhone event just took place, and everyone started to check the conclusions, so here they are...


We'll surely hear about all today's little iPhone-related events a long time from now on, so I won't get into details. There's plenty of time to do that in the future. For now, let's simply browse the main topics Apple people talked about in their SDK Roadmap event, shall we?

First, there's some good news for entrepreneurial developers - venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers announced a $100 million "iFund" for them, and if you want to know more about it, go here.

Next, it's Apple - of course. They just revealed their App Store, accessible via the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as from the iTunes store. Apart from the above, there's no need to add that the SDK was - finally - released. For us, end users, the most important part arrives as soon as we start seeing the first applications build by third parties using this SDK, and that's not going to happen in a day or two...

At last, Apple took a big step in the enterprise area, allowing its iPhone to synchronize mail, contacts, and calendar, directly with Microsoft Exchange servers. That's it for now, but be sure to subscribe to our news by email to get more as soon as we post here...

We all know that spending your money, after working hard for them, can be a really nice thing to do, giving you a very special feeling. Obviously, I am talking about purchasing useful things, or at least gadgets that you've been dreaming for ages, although they won't be of any special use for you... other than make your friends go "WOW!", but what about combining a useful device, like the MacBook Air, with a 24k gold coating and 12,000 Swarovski crystals?


As you can see in the picture above, this thing doesn't look bad at all. Some of you may love its looks, but I don't. Honestly, it's not about the price, but simply because I like the MacBook Air as it is - I am crazy about Silver or Black metallic coatings, and I would really hate to see my laptop like a Christmas tree!

This time, we have 12,000 Swarovski crystals, each of them having a 24k gold coating beneath. You don't get to see such a MacBook Air every day, believe me, and this laptop's value should also shot those mouths saying Apple's latest creation is "too expensive"...

Now...did I say something about the price? Oh, yeah, if you were scared about the "$40k" in the title, cool down - Bling My Thing’s "Golden Age" custom MacBook Air is selling for "only" £20,000 ($39,750), so you'll have enough money to get a bag for this laptop... but what if you want a gold/diamonds bag, too? Well, that's another story, especially since I never heard about such a thing, so far!

The iPhone as we know it has one little big problem - no 3G support. We all have heard rumors that were something like "next software update to the iPhone will bring 3G support", but that didn't happen so far, and it seems it won't happen anytime soon. In fact, it seems the current iPhone models are not capable of such a thing but, according to latest rumors - also confirmed by people inside Apple - the 3G iPhone will arrive later this year, so the only question remaining is "When?"...


<-234x60 Half Banner - left->According to Citigroup, the 3G iPhone could appear in the next four months. Rich Garder's conclusion was based on input from various industry sources, which lead him to be almost sure that the 3G version of Apple's iPhone is scheduled to appear before the end of July, maybe even in late June.

On the other hand, Shelby Seyrafi, from Caris & Co., said the "10 million units sold" goal will be achieved, but that's what remains to be seen, especially since Meizu's iPhone clone, also known as the M8, made its appeareance at the CeBIT expo these days, with better features such as a high-resolution (720x480) 3.4-inch display, a three-megapixel autofocus camera, and the inclusion of a TV-out port, but...

...just as most people, I am definitely intrigued by this, so I ask myself - will Apple's lawyers sit back and watch, or the lawsuit is already a few steps away from being started?