A iphone, yesterday. We could have illustrated the story with a Nexus One or a Blackberry but we didn't.

The BBC have announced they’ll be launching free, official mobile apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Google’s Android later in the year, in a move that is certain to annoy other news-carrying organisations. Especially Rupert Murdoch’s News International – which we’re sure you’ll agree is an enormous boon. And we’re always on the look out for enormous boons.

As traditional newspapers struggle to get to grips with a paper-less future, apps are being seen as a new way to direct traffic to their floundering websites, but only if there’s money in it. The Telegraph and Sky already have free apps but with limited content, while The Guardian have launched a paid-for iPhone app, but it costs £2.39 and is somewhat lacking when it comes to usability. The BBC News app could well be a significant kick in the chops for other newspapers with similar paid-for plans.

The News app, due in April will contain content from the BBC News website, including written stories, correspondent blogs as well as audio and video. It’ll be followed up by a BBC Sport app in time for the World Cup, which has got our app glands leaking all over the place.

The Beeb say it’ll focus on football from its launch, with content from the BBC Sport website and 5 Live radio, including live commentary, and, if events are screened live on the BBC Sport site, they’ll also be available to watch through the app.  No plans have been announced for the apps to be available on the most-popular Symbian platforms as yet.

You’ve gotta love Microsoft. They’ve come up with a very exciting mobile OS in Windows Phone 7, which was launched at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday. It’s bright, contemporary (three years in, the iPhone interface is beginning to look a little dated, don’t you think?) and it features the current Emperor’s New Clothes of mobile – multi-tasking.

So Microsoft have done it, they’ve got something that potentially puts them back in the game; if they can tie up some key handware deals, they’ll probably give the smartphone market a run for its money. And by smartphone we mean, iPhone, obviously – because that’s all Microsoft cares about. They introduced Windows Phone 7 with a promotional trailer that showed off the competition more than what their own OS can do:

Ignore that fact that Android and Palm Pre handsets multi-task, and gun for Apple. It’s a shame so any time at all is spent slating the iPhone, because the trailer doesn’t give you a sense of how great the new mobile OS looks. Apple are advertising the iPhone during Corrie for crying out loud – their target market really doesn’t care about multi-tasking, it’s not a deal breaker.

Microsoft have a real chance to be a big player in mobile once more. Windows Phone 7 looks the shizzle, so hopefully we’ll see adverts like the trailer below, instead of seeing Steve ‘Crazy Horse’ Ballmer spending his money trying to run down the iPhone like a piss-drinking slag:

Tomorrow is the day the world expects to see exactly how much of a blinder Google has pulled, when it’s likely to reveal the Nexus One handset to the world. Reports from those who have fingered the device, which escaped into the wild the week before Christmas, are ambrosial. Google seem to be taking the fight to Apple, but perhaps it won’t stop at smartphones. There are reports that handset manufacturer HTC has been working on a new product for Google – tablet PC. [Note - if you're already bored or reading about tablets, 2010 is going too be the longest, most tedious year of your life. Kill yourself now.] According to Australian tech website Smarthouse:

“HTC, which been working closely with Google for the past 18 months, has several working models of a touch tablet, including one model based on the new Google Chrome Operating System, say sources.”

2010 may be the year Google attempts to dominate the OS landscape, not only on mobiles with its open-source Android PS, but on PCs and laptops with the Chrome operating system. Launching a low cost tablet that undercuts whatever Apple has to offer would be one way to push Chrome into the marketplace.

The problem is that marketplace doesn’t yet exist – for all the talk of manufacturers developing tablet PCs, every single one of them is waiting for Apple to create and define the market. If Google are working on a tablet, would they ever be brave enough to announce the fact before Apple? Computer says no.

More videos are cropping up of Google’s new Nexus One handset, including this rather crisp demonstration video – the screen quality and user interface look very shiny indeed. Will it provide the first serious competition for the iPhone? It’s expected to be revealed to the world at a press conference taking place at Google HQ in five days time. We still haven’t received our invite, oddly:

What do you get if you cross the iPhone with mid 1990’s rap fad G-Funk? You get the FunkPhone of course. Or the gPhone, which is what we’re calling the new handset that is due from Google in 2010.

Other sources claim that the phone is being developed by HTC and that it will run an improved version of Android once it arrives in a few month’s time.

Google haven’t officially unveiled the thing yet, but The Register are reporting that device has been shown off to selected Google employees, with one of them, Les Hawthorn, quickly blab-blogging about the thing all over Twitter.

Sez Les: “Stuck in mass of traffic leaving work post last all hands of 2009. ZOMG we had fireworks and we all got the new Google phone. It’s beautiful.” We’re choosing to ignore the fact that most of her tweet is complete and utter gibberish and are concentrating on the phone stuff instead.

Some dog food, yesterday

More nonsense flowed later from Google’s own blog – see if you can decipher THIS, crimefighters…

“At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test these products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding (from “eating your own dogfood”). Well this holiday season, we are taking dogfooding to a new level.

Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.”

So there you have it. gPhone for 2010. Totally nailed on. Either that or the good folk at Winalot had better start quaking in their boots.

Mucky films and pictures are something that our dirty minded species can’t help but embrace. Before we had electricity, people used to fumble in their trousers to the nudie statues in galleries and museums. This makes art-critics a bunch of filth pedlars.

These days, we don’t need Brian Sewell dribbling over some marble arse because we’ve got a dizzying array of ways we can pump porn directly into our crotches.

The latest is that Android-based smartphones now have access to a porn app… something you don’t get on the iPhone App Store.

MiKandi, a Seattle, Washington start-up, is offering its eponymous app not through Google’s own Android Market, but from its own website, downloadable free when accessed through the Android browser.

Google and Apple vet applications that are offered through their respective online stores. However, unlike Apple, Google allows you to install non-vetted apps at your discretion. This is how MiKandi are playing it, allowing you to get skin-flicks when and wherever you like.

Of course, the adult movie industry has to move with the times like anyone else. Illegal downloads are shafting the industry, not to mention that, thanks to everyone having a digital camera and access to filming videos, everyone is making their own.

It’s not like porn hasn’t jumped the bones of each new technological advancement anyway… porn was well onto VHS tapes, DVDs and the web without much hesitation. Gadgets can be judged a success on the fact that porno gets involved with it.

So can we assume that the mucky app will propel Android phones ahead of the iPhone in the market place?

Probably not. That’s because you can still view adult films and images through the Safari browser on your iPhone. Not that Apple users would debase themselves to do some one-handed browsing… oh no.

[Register]

Sony Ericsson have unveiled their first phone to run on Google’s Android operating system, and it will be on sale in early 2010.

It’s called the Xperia X10, which is a shit name and nowhere near as lovely as the handset’s working title, which was Rachel. Ahhh…..

The phone will work with second and third generation mobile networks, including HSPA, as well as Wi-fi. It will run version 1.6 of Android and will be packing a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor from US chip firm Qualcomm. No pricing information has been revealed just yet.

Following the announcement, the Bitterwallet team travelled to London’s bustling Kings Cross area to get a reaction from the tramps that frequent the locale. However, the first one we approached spat tea in our faces. We made our excuses and left.

What place has a review of the Spotify iPhone app got on a consumer(ish) website? Well, if it holds to its promise, for your £10 monthly subscription you’ll never buy another track of music again. Maybe you’ve been bit-torrenting for years and so haven’t paid for music in as long – in which case there isn’t going to be a whole lot of music around in the future. The Spotify iPhone app (which is also released today for Android handsets) could be the model that gives both consumers and record labels what they want.

So first things first – the Spotify iPhone app downloads in seconds over 3G. Downloading the app is free, but you’ll need to pay for a premium monthly subscription (which is possibly one of the simplest sign-ups ever if you’re already a member) to use it. As soon as you sign in, the app will automatically open and sync with your desktop account. There’s no need to refresh the app if you make changes to playlists on your desktop – the app updates in real-time.

You can listen to your playlists over 3G, but the first thing you notice is the enormous “offline playlists” button – the reason most of us thought this app would never see the light of day. Perhaps all isn’t rosy in the iTunes garden, because the ability to cache all your desktop playlists offline is here. Selecting which playlists to cache takes two taps – it’s dazzlingly easy to use.

The big selling point of Spotify is that, with a few very notable exceptions (The Beatles and Oasis being two) you have access to millions of tracks. Search is well thought out – tap in any phrase and flick between the returned results for tracks, albums and artists. Editing playlists is simple for anybody who’s used an iPhone before; adding tracks from Search isn’t quite as intuitive – you’ve got to tap the information icon, rather than select a more obvious “add to playlist” option – it keeps the interface clean but it’s not immediately obvious.

Now the downside; unlike the iPhone’s (or iPod’s) embedded music player, the app has to remain open to listen to music. This severely restricts your use of the handset – you can’t use any other app or feature without shutting Spotify down. Not great, that. The second sticking point is offline syncing – it takes forever. While changes to playlists are synced between your desktop and handset in near-real time, caching playlists is a slow process – a 28 song playlist took over 20 minutes this morning. And hooking the handset up to your desktop doesn’t change that; connecting the two makes no difference to the speed of the process.

Overall? Great if you spend hours lying in field of wheat staring at blue skies, not so brilliant if you want music as a soundtrack to the rest of your day. £10 a month isn’t a bad price point for unlimited music, but it still has a few limitations – in terms of content and execution – to overcome.

[UPDATE - we’ve just tested it, and another downside is you can only cache your playlists offline using wi-fi; you can have a hard-line broadband connection to your desktop and still not be able to cache your app playlists. So that’s not very good, is it?]

The world has spun slightly off its axis this morning as the Spotify mobile phone app has appeared, sitting there begging for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android platform users to download it for free and access a portable world of six million tracks.

Spotify’s head honcho Daniel Ek has told Sky News how it works, saying: “For example, you can see all tracks by Madonna, which albums she has, which artists match her. You can press any track and it starts playing instantly. You also have playlists, which can be stored on your phone, so they also work on the Tube or anywhere that you can’t get reception.”

Up to 3,333 tracks can be stored for offline play and playlists can be updated through your Spotify account on your computer and then transferred across to your phone at your leisure.

The major snag is that the service is only available to Spotify premium subscribers who pay a tenner a month, but is that really so bad when you look at the range of music you get to choose from?

We’re off to fire it up now. Breakfast, getting dressed and doing toilets can all wait on this day of all days…

[EDIT] To celebrate, we’ve created a Spotify playlist for you lot to stick some of your favourite songs on. Go on, let us into your souls and give us the tunes that make your lives worth living.

Hell yeah, a smartphone story without a single mention of the iPhone. Apart from that one. T-Mobile have launched their third Android handset, and the first available on pay-as-you-go. Rather excitingly, it’s named the T-Mobile Pulse, confirmed by a spokesperson as a reference to the once-popular commercial radio station in Bradford.

The handset is crammed full with what is now standard gear – wi-fi connectivity, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and a 2 GB microSD slot. It’s a lot sleeker and easier on the eye on the Android G1, but T-Mobile have said they’ve had to scrap some features to achieve those sleek lines; there’s no camera flash and the 2.5mm headphone jack requires an adapter for headphones with the standard 3.5mm jack.

It looks altogether decent and data packages are affordable enough at £5 a month or £1 a day. So £5 a month, then. The Pulse will be available in October for £179.99 on pay-as-you-go, a considerable amount less than the iPhone; the Pulse will be £160 less than a 3G and the massive £260 less than the 3GS, although 12 months of data is included with the iPhone. Oh. Damn.

Dell look set to enter the smartphone war, if these pics (below) are to be believed. According to Gizmodo, specs could include a 3.5-inch display (640×360), GPS, MicroSD slot, and 3Mp camera.

It’s rumoured to be called the ‘Ophone mini3i’ (sounds vaguely familiar) and it’ll use the Android OS. Oh, and it will only be available in China. Hold on, what the what’s that? China?

Yup, apparently so. It’s rumoured to be coming out as a Chinese exclusive, so maybe the rest of the world will get a peek if it turns out to be a hit.

Your iPhone might turn into this

Computer security experts have claimed that a whole host of smartphones can be hacked with the delivery of a simple SMS message. iPhones can be affected by the hack along with phones that operate with Google’s Android or Windows Mobile operating systems.

Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner revealed the weakness at the Black Hat conference for IT security experts in Las Vegas and said that hackers could devise a program in a couple of weeks that could disable phones from their networks or even access files stored in the phones themselves.

The duo have already written software to exploit the frailty in Germany and the US, and have approached Microsoft, Apple and Google with their findings. So far, only Google have reacted to the threat.

Mulliner said that he and Miller hoped that publicising the weakness would force the companies to do something about it now before it is too late. He said: “If we don’t talk about it, somebody is going to do it silently. The bad guys are going to do it no matter what.”

Right, we’re off to bury our iPhones in a 20 foot-deep hole until this is all over. See you later.

EDIT: Apple have announced that they will be releasing a software patch to deal with the security flaw through iTunes by Saturday.

Real life, eh? It’s alright, but there’s something missing. For some of us, it’s love and cheap hookers. For others, it’s wealth and a sense of security. That’s where augmented reality steps in. These mobile applications look at the real world through the camera of your smartphone, then display the image with a overlay of details, images and directions. It’s Reality 2.0, but only if you’re a new media marketing wanker that thinks up phrases like that.

These have been in development for several months since the onslaught of the iTunes App Store, but the first big player to launch is in Holland for the G1 Handset. It’s called Layar and it looks not unlike this:

Unfortunately the results you see in the augmented reality appear to be sponsor-led, with Layar securing deals with local companies for their content to appear. That presumably means there are huge gaps in the type and breadth of information available, until further companies pay up at least. What would make the app invaluable work is a version that has both general sightseeing information with information scraped from a database likes Travelwiki and the ability to view a Yellow Pages of nearby businesses and details. Then the app would be useful even when you’re not looking for a house to buy or an ATM.

A UK version launches later in the year, and an iPhone app for the 3GS is also on the cards.

There are a number of price comparison services for your mobile that can help you comparison-shop without driving around or phoning all over the place. Some work with any handset, and others specifically go with certain brands of handsets. Here are a few of the price comparison services that work on mobiles:

1. Twenga: Twenga is a shopping comparison search engine. Available in 13 countries including the UK, it searches through 137 million offers. Twenga means “straight to the goal” in an African dialect.

Twenga offers unique user features like historical price tracking and personalized recommendations. There is no merchant bias because unlike engines that operate on commercial partners, Twenga works through commercial ad placements.

Its ‘natural’ search engine, ranked by user criteria, is still slightly buggy: Twenga grabs eBay listings, and suffers from false sensitivity on searches. The free mobile application is available for download from the iTunes App Store.

2. ShopSavvy: For those with the T-Mobile G1, ShopSavvy is a free app available for the Android platform. It was one of the winners of the Google Challenge, and it helps you find items based on bar codes or title. The built-in Android camera reads the barcode, and searches through its database to find a listing both locally and online based on your GPS location. Each item searched for is saved in history, and you can also move it to a wishlist which helps you organise your searches. You can also email yourself links you find, and it even connects you up with reviews for movies, games, books, and music. You can set a price alert for when the price of whatever you’re coveting drops to within your budget.  Compared to Twenga, its organisational and extra features make it standout, and may give the iPhone a run for the money. Click here to watch a demo.

3. Sccope: For those that prefer SMS, Sccope does price comparisons using text messages with no charge beyond what you pay for texts (although your network operator may charge an “interactive text” fee, typically between 10p and 12p). Text the name or model number of the thing you want to 62555. The service should reply with a list of prices for model number searches, or a list of likely search results for product searches. With product searches, text back the model number associated with the product you want and you’ll get a text back with prices. The Sccope site has an interactive phone emulator you can use to see how it works. Categories in Sccope include games, books, DVDs, electronics, small appliances, large electricals and toys. They do not provide price comparison on financial, travel or insurance products. You can email them and let them know what categories you would like included with the next category expansion.

4. Others: Kelkoo, the price comparison search site most of us have heard of, has a very simple site designed just for your mobile phone that you can access with your mobile phone’s browser. It consists of a simple search box in which you type your search terms. And there’s also PriceRunner, which checks and compares millions of prices on the web and in brick and mortar stores to help you find the best price. PriceRunner also has a free software download for your mobile phone that allows you to compare prices. Download via the PriceRunner Mobile site.

Have you tested any of the above, and have an opinion? Are there any other useful mobile price comparison services you’ve used or come across?  Please share them in the comments box below!

The new Android OS (currently only on the HTC G1) has a very clever login security screen which eschews the traditional alphanumeric password for a gesture based one. The screen has a three-by-three square of dots which you join together in any pattern you want with a single gesture. Considering on the iPhone you already open the screen with a side-swipe this introduces a level of security without increasing the hassle.

However, there appears to be one possible flaw. The oil on your fingers can leave patterns on the screen which means that gesture you use to unlock may be left visible in the trail from your crisp greased finger. The flip argument is that regular gesture movement while operating the handset would smudge that trail often enough to make it invisible.

As they say the best laid plans of mice and men are often undone by greasy digits. On a side-note this real-world hack has been commonly known for years to give away passkeys on those standard metal door locks (just look for which metal buttons are worn or greasier than the rest).

Pic and tip from Techcrunch