Yes, yes, I know - it's the iPhone, once again! For those already having it, this may not be a big deal, but since there are millions of tech addicts waiting for it all over the world, I am sure those in Singapore will be very pleased to hear the news I heard today, although no official source confirmed or denied the facts...


What facts? Well, unconfirmed reports say that the iPhone will be officially released in Singapore this September! Channel News Asia, a local broadcaster, claims a deal has been signed between Singapore Telecommunications, also known as SingTel, and Apple, so SingTel will be the local carrier for those buying the iPhone.

For now, no official comments have been made, but if this rumor proves to be true, the city-state of Singapore may become the first in Asia to have the iPhone on the market, ahead of China, Thailand, or even Japan!

At last, it should be noted that about 10,000 foreign iPhones have been bought by the 4,6 million people in Singapore, for over 700 USD a piece...

A few months ago, mobile searches originating on Apple's iPhone made Google check the system to see if everything is all right, because the statistics shown an incredible lead over other mobile phones used to access the search engine. That was some time ago, but it seems more and more people are using the iPhone and iPod touch to surf the web, and the latest reports look excellent for Apple, and not so encouraging for other manufacturers, as we're going to see right away...


Unfortunately, these last statistics from StatCounter only show iPhone's usage on the Web by American users, but since the iPhone sold most units there, I guess it's also the most relevant result to get for it. Between December and March, the iPhone and iPod touch were used on the Web 64 percent more frequently than before, bringing the figures up to 0.23 percent of all surfers, from only 0.14 percent!

I know, I know - we're talking about a tiny percentage, but think about the fact that these figures are way higher than those showing the usage of smart Nokia phones on the Web, for example.

Anyway, Nokia gets its revenge on the global statistics, where Nokia mobiles lead with 0.25 to 0.08, but since Apple's iPhone and iPod touch didn't manage to become really popular all over the world yet, I think the results in US can become reality all over the world in the long run.

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...