Although we’re all waiting to hear more news and more details about the deal and the exact pricing options, Orange have confirmed that they will be selling the Apple iPhone 3GS “later this year”.  This ends the “multi-year agreement” that O2 have had in place since 2007 (which for some while has been rumoured to have only been 2 years).  Little more has been announced by Orange, except that you can pre-register your interest by accessing this web page.

With a lot of people coming to the end of their 18-month contract for the original iPhone 3G in the next few months, it will be interesting to see how many remain on O2, and how many jump across (or back) to Orange to get the latest version of the phone.  For existing Orange customers, it will be interesting to see how supportive of keeping their own customers Orange is; traditionally most of the UK networks offer worse “upgrade” deals than the deals they offer to “new” customers, forcing many to move away from their preferred network.

Of course, if you are an Orange customer, and want the new iPhone 3GS, and Orange don’t offer you a good upgrade deal; one option is to port your number to another network and take out a 1 month rolling contract, then cancel that after 1 month, and port back to Orange as a “new” customer.  Isn’t it daft how we have to go through these hoops; I wonder if Orange will just offer their existing customers the same deals; I also wonder whether any other network will be selling the iPhone in the coming months too…

AllAboutSymbian are reporting that Nokia is slowly rolling out a re-download facility for Ovi Store sales.  This is nice to finally see; there are a number of scenarios where there was a need to re-download, that Nokia and the Ovi Store simply didn’t support until this week.

If you get half way through the initial download, and it fails, you could not re-download the app you had just paid for, but not even got the chance to install!

If your phone didn’t support UDP, then a firwmare update would wipe the phone, and again, you would lose the app.

Finally, even for those phones with UDP, occasionally you may need to perform a full hard reset of the device, and yet again, you would lose the app.

Well, it’s nice to see this function finally being rolled out.  We’re also hearing that the re-download facility is based on the Nokia Account, not on the IMEI of the device, and hence it may allow the app to be transferred to a new device (please don’t rely upon this until it’s confirmed).

This will also be appreciated for applications, such as ShoZu (which used to be free, but now has a one-off charge for the initial download).  Also, for Symbian users, ShoZu have confirmed that they have increased the video upload limit from 10MB to 50MB.  For S60 v3 Handsets, this change has automatically happened in the background for you.

Here’s a new and interesting phone; the new LG GW520.  It’s not a top end phone, but it has added a range of Social Networking features directly into the device.  As well as the 2.8″ touchscreen, you can see it’s got a QWERTY slide out keyboard, and it’s even got high spec features such as HSDPA support.  A 3.15 megapixel camera allows video and camera pictures to be taken, and finally there is an MP3 player and an FM radio.

So, those Social Networking features…?  For a start it offers threaded messages, but for those contacts you speak to the most, they will appear on the homecreen as avatars.  If you get a text from them, the avatar will tell you, and if you click on the avatar, it will take you straight to the message.

Well, to us, a phone needs more than the ability to link texts to contacts to be classed as having Social Networking, but we hope to have one of these phones to review in the near future to confirm either way.

Of course, if it’s like the previous LG QWERTY phone, it’ll be available on PAYG for a lot less than people would expect for a QWERTY phone, and we’ll report on where the phone is available from soon.

What’s Vodafone 360 I hear you ask… Well, it’s a new, revolutionary set of services from Vodafone, which claims to gather up all of your friends, communities, entertainment and personal favourites into one single place.  From the intial press release, it looks like Vodafone is attempting to achieve across a broad range of phones what companies like INQ and LG have attempted with single phone models…

So what does the service comprise, what phones does it work on? Read on…

Firstly, the service is designed to be embedded within the phone, and Vodafone are using the LiMo operating system to help achieve this.  At launch, there is 1 phone, developed by Samsung, which will be labelled as the Vodafone 360 H1, which will support the capabilities natively on the device.  A second device is due from Samsung soon, which will offer customers a range of “colours” and models.

Also, at launch, the service will be pre-loaded on 4 Symbian handsets in Vodafone’s current phone catalogue, and the full service will be available for download on another 10 Symbian devices.  However, “part or all of the service” will also be available for download onto “over 100 popular phones”.  No word as to whether this is still limited to Symbian phones, or whether it is using Java / mobile web browser technology to allow them to support wider than just Symbian; however, Vodafone have stated they plan to support more handsets (from multiple manufacturers) and operating systems over the coming months.

So, the service itself:

• The main key element is Vodafone People (and this function will be available across all 100 phone models) automtically syncs all contacts from your phone, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Google Talk.  Soon, that list will be enhanced with Twitter, Hyves and studiVZ (the last two are leading Dutch and German social networks).
• This address book should also sync with your PC and Mac, although it’s not clear if these platforms will sync with the same internet server, or whether that will be direct to the device (the latter is hinted at).
• The internet services is said to include “apps, games, music and mapping services”.

Vodafone have stated that “Customers will have integrated contacts, music, photos, and mapping services and can share their favourite music choices and even their physical location, how and when they choose, with their chosen group of friends”.

If all of this is not enough, Vodafone are opening up the website that manages all of this to non-Vodafone users too, to allow the system to be used by all, although you’ll need to be a Vodafone customer to benefit from the mobile side of things.

A little more on the Vodafone 360 H1 (as pictured above); all we know right now is that it has “a 3.5 inch multitouch, high definition OLED screen, 16GB memory, WiFi, a maximum talk time of over 400 minutes (3G) and a 5 megapixel camera.”  It also has integrated GPS, as will the Vodafone 360 M1 to follow, although that has a smaller 3.2 inch TFT screen, 1GB memory, no Wi-Fi, and only a 3 megapixel camera.

However, Andrew Grill from London Calling, has provided info on some of the apps involved, including a Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes application providing news and live telemetry from their F1 cars, and Tube Exits (a popular iPhone app which gives you advice on where to board London Underground trains for the most efficient exit).

More information is now available at www.vodafone360.com.  Screenshot courtesy of Andrew Grill.

Since the release of the new OS, v3.1, a number of applications have had some “issues”.  Well, some of them are now fixed, so we thought we’d lay out some of the updates that application vendors have informed us of…

Skype have released v1.2, which has the following new features:

• You can set up call forwarding from your iPhone – forward Skype calls to a phone number when you’re not signed in, so you can pick up calls even when the Skype app isn’t running on your device
• Improved performance and better audio quality when making Skype-to-Skype calls
• It’s even easier to send text messages (SMS) – you can now send SMSs from the Call tab

Devicescape have confirmed, that after their earlier problems, their Easy Wi-Fi client is now fully functional again, and have stated:

• First of all, Apple’s special support only applies to the original Easy Wi-Fi multi-network application (the one with the white icon).  If you’re using any of the other Easy Wi-Fi apps, like the AT&T or T-Mobile version, you’ll need to install the original version too.  It’s free in the AppStore.  You don’t need to use it: just the act of installing it has the effect of telling the iPhone OS not to do “smart” stuff with your Wi-Fi connection in hotspots.
• Previously, we recommended installing Boingo because we knew it had the same effect.  You don’t need Boingo anymore (unless of course you’re a user, and maybe you should think about becoming a user, it’s a great service!)
• Finally, if you’re one of the many iPod touch users who never upgraded from 2.x firmware, ignore all of this.  You’re fine.  The issue only occurs with iPhone OS 3.0, and if you upgrade you’ll be jumping past that version from now on.

Navigon have updated their Navigation application too (although not specificially for the new OS).   As well as recently adding text-to-speech and iPod controls, they have now launched lifetime traffic (it needs a one time fee to activate).

TruPhone have addressed their problems with the latest OS, and they have confirmed that v3.0.3 of their iPhone client now works fully with the new OS.

This is the Linutop 3, a small form factor PC running Linux.  Linutop promote these PCs for various usages; kiosks, digital signage, standalone usage, but we think these PCs also work well in a couple of other scenarios too; as fanless PCs, they can serve well in bedrooms, or in the lounge to act as a quiet PC for various internet tasks.

The Linutop 3 has a Via C7 1GHz processor (compared to the Geode 500MHz in the Linutop 2), and features 1GB DDR2 RAM (up from 512KB) and 2GB of Flash (up from 1GB).

In fact, we’ve had a Linutop 2 in for review for some while, and really accpreciate the additional effort Linutop has taken with the OS; as well as providing a customised Ubuntu install (based on Ubunto v8.04), it also features additional controls, such as locking the whole OS so nothing is preserved between boots (very useful for kiosk environments).  On top of that, Linutop update their OS image every few months, incorporating the latest software updates into the core Flash image, allowing valuable space that the software updates take up to be reclaimed.  You can also backup to a USB key, or boot and restore the device from a key (providing a nice easy upgrade path when they release the new OS images, although you do lose all data).

Within that OS image, Linutop include Firefox (with Flash support), OpenOffice, VLC Media Player, and even Pidgin Instant Messaging.

The Linutop 3 is larger than the Linutop 2 (9.3 x 9.3 x 2.2 inches, compared to 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.4), is a little heavier, and now draws 20 Watts instead of a more average 8 Watts from the Linutop 2.  This low power consumption makes these devices very good for leaving permanently on all the time, without the normal overhead of a full PC.  However, these devices will never compete on speed of tasks, so be prepared for a slightly slower experience.

In other areas, the Linutop 3 offers DVI support and a higher resolution that than the Linutop 2 (now 1920 x 1080), more USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet (up from Fast Ethernet), and an internal PCIe expansion option.

Our biggest issue with the Linutop 2 is the difficulty in getting BBC iPlayer working on the device, which would make it a lot more useful…

The Linutop 3 sells for €340, and the Linutop 2 is still available at €280 (both require an additional €28 for delivery) direct from the manufacturer here.  By the way, if you think the Linutop 2 is the same as other manufacturer’s devices in the same form factor (eg the Viglen unit), think again; the Linutop 2 is a higher spec device, both in terms of memory, flash and processor.

Here’s an interesting campaign by LG; as part of promoting the newly launched LG Chocolate BL40 (our Review here), they are looking for 5 of the original LG Chocolate phones with the serial numbers below:

• 802KPAE821224
• 803KPBF578597
• 803KPXV578330
• 803KPVH578503
• 803KPJP923836

LG are going to provide a fairly large reward (US $10,000 and a new LG Chocolate BL40 phone) to anyone who has any of these phones, and the phone will need to be handed in person into an LG office (for verification of the serial number within the hardware, so no attempts at just doctoring the serial number on the sticker!) before 8th October to qualify.  LG have stated these phones could be anywhere in the world!

If you want to know more (and read the T&Cs) then head to LG’s website here.

After the release of the touchscreen based Revo IKON last month, PURE Digital have announced their first touchscreen based DAB radio.  The PURE Sensia will sell for £249, and is a DAB radio, Internet (Wi-Fi) radio, as well as supporting that 5.7″ 640×480 touchscreen display, which will feature additional applications too.

In terms of the music options, as well as the DAB radio (DAB and FM with RDS are both available), it features support for Internet radio and podcasts, access to your local media (via Wi-Fi), and “unique broadcast material”; and if you don’t want to have the unit by your bedside, you can add an optional ChargePAK battery for listening around the house, and make use of the colour coded RF remote control too.  In terms of colour options, you can go for Black, White, Red or Yellow.  If none of those music options appeal, you can connect an iPod / mp3 player directly via a 3.5mm socket, or you ca add the optional i-10 iPod dock.

However, it’s those “online apps” which interest us; so lets look at those.  So far, PURE have stated it will include Facebook support, Twitter support, and weather and news feeds.  It appears it will be possible to either have the application appear full screen, or just in the top right hand area, so you can still see the radio station list, the time, and access the other menus.

So given the close price to the Revo IKON, which should you choose? Well, the IKON seems to have a greater range of music options built in (with last.fm streaming support and a iPod / iPhone dock included as standard), whereas the PURE Sensia is closer to a Chumby-like device, offering access to other applications whilst the music is playing.  Of course, were PURE to add Spotify or last.fm support into their device, it might tip the balance in the their favour…

Both companies are known for producing devices capable of firmware updates, and both companies have produced firmware updates for various devices; it’s not yet clear whether adding more applications to the Sensia needs a full firmware update, but it will be worthwhile keeping an eye on how well PURE support this device in terms of new features.

You should find the PURE Sensia available at the end of October at £249.

We’ve been talking about these two devices for a while now, but what exactly are they, and what’s the difference, and, possibly more importantly, which is the “flagship” device for the Nokia N-Series?

Well, the Nokia N900 is a Maemo based Internet Tablet (following on from the Nokia N810, N800 and 770 Internet Tablets), but it adds phone capabilities, and not just to improve data access, but to also act as a phone.  Having said that, there does appear to be an element of just bolting the phone software on top of the existing platform; the phone application is pretty much the only application that supports the portrait mode (at launch). We make the point about “at launch” because many of the apps included on the device are by third party developers, who may well provide portrait support in their apps faster than Nokia and Maemo can achieve the same for the core applications.

The device includes a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5″ 800 x 480 touchscreen display, 32GB onboard storage, plus microSD support, A-GPS with Ovi Maps, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM transmitter, TV-Out, Bluetooth, and DivX Support.

Now, the Nokia N97 Mini is another key device launched at Nokia World.  It is basically a slightly cutdown Nokia N97, although it still features many of the high technical specs of the Nokia N97;

• It has 8GB storage, as against the Nokia N97 32GB
• It has a 1200mAh battery, compared to the N97’s 1500mAh
• The screen drops from 3.5″ to 3.2″, but retains the resolution

The main other difference is the removal of the D-pad on the keyboard, which is replaced by a set of four cursors keys to the right.  Of course, it will retail at a slightly lower price too.

So, which is the flagship device; well, that’s for you to decide; the Nokia N97 Mini is a smaller, lighter, lower spec device than the Nokia N97, but that slight size reduction may make it more popular at time goes on; as for the Nokia N900, it is lacking some of the all round features of Symbian S60 (and application support), and so right now, we reckon the Nokia N97 remains the top device, but whether it can retain this crown throughout 2010 as Maemo apps improve is another question…

Yesterday O2 launched a very specific application called “My O2 App”.  This is a simple (and free) application to access various information about your O2 account.  The app is PIN protected, which needs to be entered on each app load.

It provides information on remaining minutes, next bill summary and other information, and is available for Personal Contract and PAYG customers (Business and Corporate customers can’t currently access this information via this app).

The app can be access from this web link.

I’ve had access to one of these devices since yesterday, and I am quietly impressed by the device, and it’s capabilities; it’s not perfect (more later), but it certainly is a very useful device…

Although it costs a little more than a standard 3 Mobile Broadband USB Modem, the extra facilities it offers may make it worthwhile for many.  Basically, it shares it’s 3G connection over Wi-Fi to upto 5 devices at the same time.  Now, the 3G network speed is not enough for all 5 devices to be streaming audio or video, but would cope with all 5 checking mail and web surfing.  In fact, I’ve been sat here with 2 laptops connected to it, with one streaming Spotify music for over 2 hours now without any glitches or problems.

One problem with the device is that it is 3G / HSPA only; it will not fallback onto the Orange 2G data network (like a 3UK Handset would), so if you are out of coverage of 3UK’s own 3G network, it will not work at all.  3UK claim to be at 70% population with 3G, which is still one of the highest (if not the highest) for pure 3G connectivity, but the lack of fallback may leave you stranded in the short term.  Last night, 3UK showed their plans for a “monster” 3G network for 2010, which fills in a lot of gaps in their current coverage, so as this better network comes online, this problem will fade to some degree.

One key use of this device is for Wi-Fi only devices, such as the iPod Touch, the Nokia Internet Tablets, PSPs etc. and certainly all these devices gain extra features with connectivity, and it’s very easy to just turn the device on and be able to access the internet anywhere (with signal).  The battery is claimed to last 5 hours, and althougwe haven’t yet got to 5 hours of usage, it’s certainly a plausible figure.  If needed, you can turn off the wireless to limit it to local wired USB connection only, or you can turn off 3G to just give you a local wireless network hub for file sharing.  The network name (SSID) is quite obviously a 3UK device, so you may want to change it (all mangement needs to be performed via a wired cable connection).  You can also change the encryption key, although given this is listed under the battery, it may be easier to leave this alone for convenience.

Other positive points? 3UK are trying to ensure nothing (legal) is blocked by their Internet connection, and certainly everything we accessed worked fine without any issues.  As 3UK have good support for Skype, they are happy for you to run the client on your laptop.  Also interesting to note is that iPhones and iPod Touch can also use a MiFi to allow full access to Skype for calls; whether or not you are allowed to make calls on the Skype client is based on whether the connection is 3G (from the phone) or WiFi (from the phone); the fact that the WiFi access point then uses 3G is not factored in to the switch within the application, so these functions work fine too.

The only other downside we can find is that when you turn it on, you then seem to need to turn on 3G every time; it’s a shame it needs 2 buttons presses, and not just one, but this is a minor point.

The 3 MiFi will be available on Friday in Stores (and available to order online on Thursday)with two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with a rolling 1 month contract), or you can select the PAYG “Ready To Go” option at £99.99, which will include 3GB of data to be used over a 3 month period, and then it will move onto standard Mobile Broadband PAYG pricing.  3UK have indicated that there may be more tariffs in the future, and they will also review the 5GB limit over time too.

If you are worried about “Bill Shock” with this device (you will get warning SMSes, but as these are only available if you have the connection software installed and connect to the device via the wired USB cable, most people will never see these), 3UK have a “hard block” of £25 per month; once you hit this limit (comprised of the original tariff and then the overspend), 3UK will block the SIM for the rest of the month.  This is a nice feature to limit exposure, and you can ring up 3UK to increase or decrease this limit if you wish.  Of course, the My3 portal is accessible from any connected device (even on wireless) which gives you a live data usage figure should you wish to check how much you have used.

All in all, a useful device, and one you should consider if you want to have the capability of easily sharing your Mobile Broadband and have sufficient 3G coverage in the areas you want to use it.

At a briefing last night on the new 3 Mobile Wi-Fi device (the 3UK MiFi), 3UK announced that they will be launching an Android phone on their network in early October, which will be available for Christmas (and will appear in their Christmas Buying Guide).  As this was not the official announcement, 3UK declined to state which phone they were launching, but we have reason to believe it may be an HTC device running their Sense UI.  Coupled with an indication that this was a top end handset, here at UK Gadgeteer we suspect it may well be the HTC Hero [Editor's note: of course, it may be the HTC Tattoo], although we’ll all have to wait 2 weeks to get confirmation of that.

One key point 3UK did state though; they agreed with us over Android liking and in essence “needing” a permanent internet connection, and stated that they will sell Android phones with Internet included in the tariff.  We’ve said “phones” as 3UK stated they expect more Android devices in the future, and if nothing else, would expect to carry the INQ Android devices when released in 2010.  For PAYG Users, the latest 3UK PAYG includes 150Mb of data every time you topup already (see here).

Supporting Android and automatically including an internet connection show 3UK are continuing to key up with the other operators; with their range of Nokia devices, the new INQ Chat and now an Android device, 3UK are returning to a position of having a strong product range.

We did ask 3UK if they were planning to include the new Nokia N900 in their range, and just got the stock answer of “no current plans”, which is a common statement all networks use when they aren’t ready to announce either way, so this doesn’t necessarily rule it out over time.

On a side note, the 3 MiFi device is performing well, and we hope to bring a HandsOn review to you later today or tomorrow (this article was written using the 3 MiFi for connectivity).  This will be available on Friday in Stores (and available to order online on Thursday).  As we stated last week, there will be two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with a rolling 1 month contract), or you can select the PAYG “Ready To Go” option at £99.99, which will include 3GB of data to be used over a 3 month period, and then it will move onto standard Mobile Broadband PAYG pricing.

If this report over at World of Nokia is correct, it appears that Vodafone have decided not to carry the Nokia E52 after all (although it may be they are limiting the phone to business customers), and instead will be selling the Nokia E72 from October (we’ve heard the 22nd October, although that may change).  The Vodafone Coming Soon certainly lists the Nokia E72 and the Nokia N97 Mini, but has no mention of the Nokia E52.

Also, Dan at World of Nokia is reporting that Vodafone have secured a 2-3 month exclusive of the Nokia E72 (until the end of the year), although whether this is one colour, or all variants, is not clear right now, but if you are looking to upgrade to the Nokia E72, you may need to move to Vodafone, or wait until 2010 for any other network to offer the device.

This may explain why 3UK have stated that they are not going to carry the Nokia E72; in the sense that due to the Vodafone exclusive, they can’t carry the phone for over 3 months, and that’s so far away that’s it’s not worth promoting until much nearer the time.  Only time will tell whether 3UK sell the Nokia E72 in the New Year, although with the Nokia E63 and the INQ Chat already covering them with 2 QWERTY phones they may not need the Nokai E72 at all.  The INQ Chat just has the higher spec (having a GPS too), although it does not have the power of a smartphone OS, something that INQ will be resolving next year with their move to Android.

3UK have supplied us with a full list of phones that they will be supporting with their Skype and Windows Live Messenger clients, and 3UK have provided us with a number of useful updates since we originally mentioned that 3UK were now supplying these clients for use on non-3UK supplied phones.

Firstly, it appears that Windows Live Messenger is getting the same level of treatment as Skype does (under their Skype Free Calls Forever promotion); that is, you don’t even need to TopUp your account for both Skype and Windows Live Messenger to work on your device; even if your credit has expired, it would appear both 3UK-custom app versions will keep working.

How can you obtain these apps; well, if you have a 3UK supplied phone, it should have links or shortcuts to these apps already built into the firmware (although it may involve a download on the first connection).  However, for those who have upgraded their firmware to a generic firmware, or for those who are using a non-3UK-supplied phone, then today, it’s quite simple…

All you need to do is to insert your 3UK sim into your phone, power it on, and go to the Planet 3 link which should automatically appear on the phone (either directly on a shortcut key, or within the Favourites / Bookmarks within the browser, and you may find it’s preset as the homepage within the browser).  Once there, you can select these apps, and then download these apps.

However, and this is a very smart move from 3UK; from 1st October, if you put a 3UK sim into your phone, it will automatically connect and download these apps in the background, and then notify you (via text) when this has completed.  This is a very shrewd move by 3UK, and adds to the user convenience of these apps.

So, for that list of fully supported phones?

• Nokia E65, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N96
• Sony Ericsson C510, Sony Ericsson C902, Sony Ericsson K660i, Sony Ericsson W595

Now, although that’s the formal list of supported phones, there are, of course, many phones that 3UK have supported directly with clients, such as the Nokia E71, so you may find it’s possible to access and download clients for other phones, although we can’t guarantee this at this stage.  We should also point out that the list of phones that can run the Skype client is much longer, so it does potentially seem to be just the Windows Live Messenger client which is shortening that list right now.

In a bold, and hopefully successful move, INQ’s CEO, Frank Meehan, announced yesterday that INQ are planning to move away from BREW as the underlying platform they use to develop their phones, and instead use Android.  The INQ Chat and INQ Mini will ship before Christmas, but we believe they will be INQ’s last phones on the old platform, and their 2010 releases may all feature Android.

This is a good move.  Whilst the BREW platform is a good and easy platform, it has a number of limitations (things like not being able to support cell ID location information for apps, meaning Google Maps either has no location information, or has to have a GPS), which simply don’t exist with Android.

Not just that, but Frank stated they are “looking beyond QWERTY and Touch to wrap around and flex screens”, which shows they are still willing to innovate.  They also stated they will develop a custom Social Networking skin for their Android devices, resulting in greater functionality than they currently have in their INQ range, rather than less.

With the INQ Mini shipping from early October on 3UK, and only being £59.99 on PAYG (it will be free on £15 per month Texter tariff and free on all Mix’n'Match tariffs; although both will carry a minimum 18-month contract term), it should sell well in the meantime.

We’re hoping to get review units of both the INQ Mini and INQ Chat in shortly to see how these INQ BREW Handsets shape up, and we will bring you more news on their Android devices as they become available.

If you want to watch the video of Frank from yesterday, head over to The Really Mobile Project, who have the video available here.

Something that’s never quite so prominently featured is the security vulnerabilities within the iPhone / iPod Touch OS (to be fair, this applies to many phones, and Apple at least release OS updates that can currently be applied to all devices ensuring no one is left behind with an insecure OS; Nokia, I’m looking at you here!).

So, whilst yesterday Apple made a big song and dance about the new features in their iPhone (v3.1) and iPod Touch (v3.1.1) OS updates, they made a lot less mention of the security fixes that are in there too.  Now this information is public, I can reveal some of the vulnerabilities that have been fixed:

• A malicious AAC or MP3 file could be accessed and this could cause application termination or arbitary code execution.
• If connected to Exchange, it was possible to configure the device to allow access to Exchange even after the Exchange Administrator configured timeout period.
• The Spotlight find facility could search and display deleted emails (it looks to me like they have simply fixed Spotlight to no longer display the search entry if it was from a deleted email, as opposed to actually completely removing the contents in the first place, but I may be wrong here).
• It was possible to bypass the the passcode request via the Recovery Mode.
• A maliciously crafted SMS could cause service disruption.
• Passwords when entered could be made to briefly appear on the screen.
• 4 WebKit vulnerabilities were fixed.

That last point is interesting; Nokia use the same underlying WebKit engine for their products, yet we don’t see speedy firmware releases from Nokia addressing these issues, and especially not for phone more than a year or two old, which may well still be vulnerable, but are “out of support”.  It’s good to see Apple addressing vulnerabilities, and with their capability of notifying owners of new versions, at least their devices should be safe against these attacks once the new OS is commonly used (and of course, within a week or so, all owners will have been offered the new update via iTunes).

Oh, and for a large (200MB+) download, it’s surprising to see Apple don’t support resumable downloads, so if the update stops or fails for any reason, you have to download it all again.

HTC have announced another Android phone, the HTC Tattoo, claiming it’s been designed for the masses.  It’s not the highest spec device out there, although it still does pretty well…

• 256MB RAM (512MB ROM)
• 2.8″ Resistive touch display with 240×320 QVGA resolution
• HSPA
• Built in GPS
• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
• 3.5mm audio jack
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• G-Sensor and Digital Compass
• FM radio
• microSD card support
• 1100mAh battery

The phone also features interchangeable covers, the HTC Scenes UI, and other HTC customisations.  Until it’s released in a few weeks, head over to the HTC Product Tour to see more information on the phone.

Although not a big shock to the world, given the rumours, and early released third party cases which gave the game away, Apple have confirmed the 5th Generation of the iPod Nano features some new hardware…

Firstly, it now features a larger 2.2″ screen, and to take advantage of that, it now features a microphone, speaker and a video camera (640×480 resolution), allowing you to record photos and video directly on the device.  You need to sync it with your PC to upload them to places such as YouTube, but that’s mainly due to the lack of direct connectivity on the device itself.  Also, Apple have added an FM radio into the picture.

Along with this, Apple announced a new version of iTunes (v9) with a host of new features (improved syncing, better app management for the iPhone and iPod Touch, iTunes LP, Genius Mixes, and Ringtones), new iPhone and iPod Touch software (v3.1), and has refreshed the iPod Touch line too (with higher capacity devices, but no new camera).  In other news, the iPod Classic receives a larger hard disk (which was interesting, as some rumours indicated it would be dropped), and the iPod Shuffle was refreshed too.  However, with theiPod Nano the only device to gain a camera, this is likely to be one of the more popular iPod models for the foreseeable future.

The 8GB version of the iPod Nano is currently on sale at £115 (slightly up on the old iPod Nano 4G), and the 16GB for £135.  If you want to buy one, head over to the Apple Store to see the full tech specs for yourself.

This is the new Garmin nuvi 1690, which launched a few weeks back in the US, but has now been launched in the UK as well.  The important part of this device is the use of a built in mobile phone connection, allowing it to have a whole range of “connected” services, like those of the TomTom LIVE range.

Garmin are providing the following services over that connection:

• Instant Traffic information
• Speed Camera alerts (continually updated apparently)
• Fuel prices
• Ciao! Friend Finder (Garmin’s Social Networking application which also features on the nuviphone range)
• Google Local Search and Telephone Directory
• Flight Status
• Weather Forecast
• Currency Exchange
• White Pages

There are also two other useful services in the range; Send To GPS allows you to “send” your route direct to your GPS, although we believe this will involve a direct connection between your PC and the SatNav unit.  The other is Panoramio, which will allow you to plan ahead and “conveniently go online to set your sat nav’s destination”.  Little detail exists about this function right now, and even on a UK specific page it mentions this service may not be available everywhere.

As a device it features a whole raft of standard features; Bluetooth (for Hands Free phonecalls), Lane assistance, photo navigation, Where Am I?, ecoRoute fuel saving routes, and Park Position Recall.  Also, Garmin will preload the device with Pan European maps, and have stated that the online nuLink services will be available in 15 countries (not all services are available in all countries though), which is better than TomTom managed when they launched their LIVE services, which were limited to the country the device was obtained from.

For example, England (sic), France, Spain and Netherlands all offer all the services mentioned, whereas Italy and Belgium offer all but Fuel Prices, and Germany offers all except Fuel Prices, Safety Cameras and Ciao! location sharing.  Some services (although Garmin do not state which) are also available in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.

In terms of Ciao!, Garmin have stated “Ciao!, is a patentpending social network application that links multiple location-centric social networks onto one application, Ciao! currently aggregates information from GyPSii and uLocate’s Buddy beacon social network services. Ciao! is expandable and additional social network partners are expected in the future.”

The device ships with 12 months nuLink services, and will cost €79 per year to renew (no UK pricing released yet); unfortunately Garmin also failed to provide any indicative pricing for the unit either, but this unit is likely to be the first of many well connected devices from Garmin, and appears to be a good move for Garmin, especially in the run up to Christmas.

Nio is a new Bluetooth based security solution, which launched yesterday.  It works by establishing a Bluetooth connection between your mobile phone (not all devices are supported, and some are supported, but the app must remain in the foreground) and the nio device, and then, should the two become separated, both will sound an alarm.

Ever left your mobile in a taxi / on a train?  Ever lost your keys and wanted to find them?  In both cases, this device can help; as well as both devices sounding an alarm if they go greater than a set distance apart, you can also use the application on the mobile to locate the tag.

If you buy multiple tags, you can track them all within the application (and configure different alert tones for each tag), and even specify times as to when the monitoring should be turned on (eg during your commute by public transport you may want to turn it on automatically to ensure you don’t get separated).  As well as visual and audible alerts, you can even configure a vibration alert.  Tenbu, the comany behind the Nio claim you should get around a 20m connection between the devices.

In terms of the phone ranges supported, they prominently feature BlackBerry devices in their marketing, but also support Nokia N-Series, E-Series, and a whole range of devices via their Java client.  They also list Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.1 as compatible.  No iPhone or Android devices at present though.

The nio features a rechargeable battery, which they say should last a few weeks, although whether this duration is only achievable with only using the connection for a few hours a day isn’t clear.

Each device currently costs £39.95 (RRP £59.95) and is available direct from the manufacturer here (and they accept Paypal if you are nervous of giving them your credit card).  This looks an interesting way of ensuring you don’t lose your valuable gadgets, yet manages to be a gadget in it’s own right too.