Editorial

Welcome to iPhone Analysts vs. the Magic 8-Ball, where we take the often outlandish, sometime surreal predictions of iPhone analysts and pundits, blogeratti and the ‘net elite, and compare them to the potentially equally precise prognostications of a… magic 8-ball (running on an iPhone, of course!)

This edition rounds up some of the mountain of rumors piling up in advance of Tuesday's "Let's Rock" event. Let's get it on!

• Apple Insider/Shaw Wu: Will Apple's "Let's Rock" Event disappoint? Yes
• Apple Insider/Shaw Wu: Will Apple release new MacBooks (Pro/Air)? Very doubtful
• Apple Insider/Shaw Wu: Will Apple unveil a new Apple TV DVR? Ask again later
• Apple Insider/Shaw Wu: Will Apple unveil an iTablet/MacBook Touch? Very Doubtful
• iLounge: Is the thicker, more tapered iPod Touch for realz? Yes
• Ars Technica: Will iPhone 2.1 contain "secret" features? Don't count on it
• MacRumors/Kevin Rose: Is Magnetosphere the new, trippy iTunes Visualizer? It is certain
• Microsoft/Seinfeld: Will the new TV commercial help Vista? Very Doubtful

And for those still keeping score on the last round, the current standings are after the jump!

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

Last week the UK ruled that Apple was misrepresenting the iPhone's provisioning of "just the internet" due to the lack of support for two ubiquitously popular 3rd party plugins: Flash and Java. We've previously covered the will they/won't they drama surrounding development and deployment of Flash and Java pretty much ad nauseum infinitum, as well as some seldom discussed yet surprisingly frightening concerns about Flash and its downright sneaky use of 3rd party advertising cookies.

More recently, however, another issue has come to light. Primarily concerned with Windows Vista security and how it can be circumvented, this issue throws a renewed focus on the danger of 3rd party plugins like Flash and Java, on how they interpret and run code on our machines, and how they provide an increasingly popular attack vector for bad guys (hackers, malware authors, identity thieves, etc.)

How does this all relate to the iPhone, and what about ZOMG! Can has my Flash vidz? Read on to find out!