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For some, it may be boring hearing about iPhone statistics again, and again, and again, but while I am not crazy about such things, either, today there's something you have to hear. After all, you don't see such reports being posted in the "Hot News" area of Apple.com, right? OK, so we know "why," and now let's check exactly "what," shall we?

First of the iPhone statistics pushed forward by Apple says the iPhone became the top handset in the US, leaving Motorola's RAZR in the dust. When talking about numbers, it is interesting to mention that the mobile phones market, overall, is cooling down rapidly, and the iPhone could also feel the impact of that, probably in early 2009. For now, things are still looking incredibly nice for Apple, despite the general tendency.

Next, we have a report that's a bit older, but it's surely worth being mentioned - Apple is second global smartphone producer! While the economy is going down the drain, the smarthpone market is going up, with a total of 39.9 million smartphones shipped during the third calendar quarter of the year, for a 28 percent increase over last year's totals. Amazing, isn't it? And Apple managed to climb into second position, leaving behind companies with decades of experience in the field!

Just as a final hint, it seems over 70% of those who want to get a new laptop in the coming months are thinking to grab a MacBook, at least in the US, where the study that came up with these results has been conducted. That's no big surprise, considering that most new laptops now come with Vista, and lack support for Windows XP... and I don't have to tell you anything about the customer satisfaction provided by Microsoft's latest OS, do I?

About a week ago, we were talking about IBM vs Apple for the first time, and back then, it was more about a rumor, than something certain. Shortly, Mark Papermaster got a full year's salary promised by IBM for a very simple task - do nothing, simply stay away from Apple. That's a very tempting offer, but it seems Mr' Papermaster had other plans already, and now this entire story becomes really interesting...

...since on the 4th of November, Apple issued a press release announcing that "Mark Papermaster Joins Apple as Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering." If you don't like reading press releases, here's the interesting part of it all:

"Apple® today announced that Mark Papermaster is joining the Company as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Papermaster, who comes to Apple from IBM, will lead Apple’s iPod® and iPhone™ hardware engineering teams. Papermaster has 25 years of product and technology experience, and was previously a vice president at IBM.

Apple also announced that Tony Fadell, Apple’s senior vice president of the iPod Division, and his wife Danielle Lambert, vice president of Human Resources, are reducing their roles within the company as they devote more time to their young family. Fadell will remain at Apple as an advisor to the CEO. Lambert will depart the company at the end of this year after a successor is in place."

OK, so what about IBM and that lawsuit they had in store for Mark? Just this - Friday evening, Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains ordered that Mark Papermaster "immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court," and that's it.

For now, Apple's response is "We will comply with the court's order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles," and I must confess this story is pretty strange to me. Anyway, sooner or later, "his Steveness" will grab Mark Papermaster to join Apple, I am sure of that!

OK, so you got the iPhone 3G you've been waiting for ages... Congratulations, what else could I say? If you were also lucky enough to stay away from those iPhone 3G problems so far, that doesn't mean you won't have to tear apart your beloved phone one day and replace the battery... or the screen... or who knows what else! I know, I know - most people would say they will go to some Apple authorized service center, but why spend more than you have to? Today, I won't show you how to replace iPhone and iPhone 3G parts, but I will tell you about the best priced iPhone 3G replacement parts you can find on the Web(no, don't even think about some local store!).

When looking for iPhone or iPhone 3G replacement parts, there is one thing you should always do, regardless the part you need, and that is to search for broken iPhones for sale. The reason is obvious - no matter how broken one phone could be, there must remain some salvageable parts in it. My suggestion would be to start with your local newspaper, eBay, or some similar local online store.

Now, let's get to the parts you will probably need, once your iPhone starts having more problems than usual, shall we?

1. Battery - officially, there's no internal iPhone battery to be bought, but things look a bit different in reality, as it happens in most similar cases.

Anyway, if you want to play fair and avoid voiding your warranty, you can get a backup battery for iPhone, the good part of the deal being that you can also use it with the iPod Touch. Obviously, it works with both the iPhone and iPhone 3G. Considering that the backup battery available above is priced at $49.95, I consider it a pretty good deal, especially since you won't have to mess with the iPhone's internals...

When it comes to internal iPhone batteries, things are much cheaper, but you need to be a bit of a techie guy (or girl) to install it yourself. Here's a nice 1400mAh iPhone battery I found for you on eBay - OEM NEW Apple iPhone Battery Replacement 1400MAH.

I am sure you can find more than just the above, but I'll stop here with the battery part...

2. Case - my suggestion is to get a protective case, so you won't have to buy some broken iPhone just to replace yours. Here's a nice iPhone aluminum case for the 1st gen iPhone, and since the Web is full of leather, polycarbonate, and even metal cases, all you have to do is find the one that suits your needs.

3. Screen & other internals - best bet would be to simply check for broken iPhones, as I said already, but here's a good iPhone 3G replacement parts source (and 1st gen iPhone, too, of course) - We Love Macs.

As a final suggestion, be sure to check Apple's prices for various replacements, first of all. I say this because sometimes, the time spent to find a cheaper iPhone 3G replacement part may cost you more than grabbing the original in first place and quit wasting time!

The iPhone and Victoria's Secret are one of those two things you wouldn't dream about seeing together, or maybe you could dream about both of them at the same time. Sexy lingerie, and a sexy smartphone - they could go pretty well together, after all, don't you agree? Anyway, the big problem is that we won't get deeper into Victoria's Secret lingerie lines, because there's a different iPhone Victoria we have here today, as you're going to see right away...

Despite the fact I would wish to tell you about sexy lingerie and the iPhone, the iPhone Victoria is a service that was just discovered by the guys from ArsTechnica, who got to the concolusion that iPhone Victoria is more like "iPod Victoria," since it seems to allow the iPod have full support for the new Nike+.

Ask me about Apple, and I'll give you this - I love some of their products, but I hate their secrecy. I know some may say this is being done to protect the brand name and their image, but what if you register some patents, and then say "I am currently working on x, y, and z -" that won't hurt for sure!

Anyway, it seems iPhone Victoria is one of those stories coming right from the iPhone firmware, beta or not, just as the podcast downloads expected from the iPhone 2.2 firmware. Let's hope that, one day, Apple will decide to open itself to the world a bit more - that would make it much easier for everyone, I am sure. Don't you agree?

I hope you enjoyed Star Trek back in its days, or at least the more recent Stargate TV series, because I was crazy about them both. Needless to say it, Mass Effect was one of the best games I played in years, but it's not about games or TV series. So...why did I bother naming them? Well, it's pretty easy to figure it out - today, we're going to talk about the future iPhone, and since those games were heavily based on future events and technologies... there's a pretty tight connection between them and a future iPhone, don't you agree?

The story goes like this - according to AT&T Mobile chief Ralph de la Vega, "Before the iPhone wakes you up in the morning with its alarm clock, it will have already loaded all of your daily news feeds onto the phone. It will also have already sent a wireless message to your coffee maker to get the coffee ready. While you're sitting there drinking your coffee, you might decide that you'd rather read your news on the TV screen; so with a wave of the device toward the TV, you'll send your news feeds wirelessly from the phone to the TV for reading." Pretty different to the iPhone 3G's capabilities, but not light years ahead, don't you think? Even more, maybe some of the iPhone's users don't like coffee...

Taking things a few steps further, de la Vega said the iPhone is going to turn into a universal remote, allowing you to start your car's engine, lock the door behind when you leave home, and so on. I guess I'll keep my old school keys, at least I know the geek next door can't hack his way into my private space!

At last, AT&T's chief said the company is working on improving its 3G signal quality in areas like New York City, intending to begin using a new swath of 850 MHz spectrum to achieve this goal. Well, that's more like it! After all, there are plenty of problems to be solved now, so better look at the present, instead of going too far into the future, right?