iPhone News Updated

Spotify - going mobile

For the founders of the streaming music service Spotify - and for those in the music industry who’d like to see it prosper - these are nervous days. They have submitted their mobile application to Apple’s app store, and its success or failure could determine the future of the company.

Spotify has been working on a mobile version of its service for some months, not just for the iPhone but for phones on the Google Android operating system.

I can now reveal - having played with a beta version for a few days - that the version submitted to Apple will allow users to take their existing playlists with them on the phone and to search over wi-fi or a 3G network for new tracks - but there’s another “killer app” to this app. It allows you to download songs or entire playlists so that you can take them with you on the phone - and listen even when you don’t have a signal or a wi-fi connection.

It’s a very clean and simple interface, which launches quickly, showing your playlists - or at least as quickly as your network allows. The beta version was a bit buggy, with occasional crashes, and there’s one major downside - the iPhone doesn’t let you run multiple applications so you can’t do anything else while listening to your music. And streaming over 3G worked pretty well for me, until I hit a network black spot near my home. But being able to download a playlist to your phone over your own network before you go out, then listen to it despite poor or non-existent network coverage is a real bonus.
Read the rest of this entry »

A 24k-gilded iPhone 3G tailormade for Bond villain Goldfinger

Hmm, the Yubz solid gold phone or the gold-wrapped the iPhone 3G with diamonds? Tough choices both. Fortunately, chump change is what I don’t have.

So I won’t be making a dent anytime soon on Sayn Design’s limited offering of 500 Diamond deluxe Gold Edition iPhone 3G handsets in 24k gold, complete with Apple logo studded with 53 diamonds in brilliant cut. Count that.

For the price, it’s legally unlocked so you don’t have to vex yourself with operator contacts. But speaking of price, we didn’t find any on the site, either because it’s just too crass to even consider for serious collectors, or too rich for our taste to publish. Either way, it’s a pity this is just a 16GB iPhone 3G.

[Thanks: http://asia.cnet.com]