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The iPhone Blog Week in Review August 15, 2008

Every week I will be bringing you what I think are the week’s biggest stories and articles. Let's get started!

Here we go!

It's been a month since the iPhone 3G launched, and unlike the US and a few other countries, not every country -- or every user -- got unlimited data with their shiny new wonder toy. Some, like Canada and Sweden gave eleventh hour reprieves, but others remain bass akwards and incredibly stingy/gouging with their data rates to this day.

But regardless of your cap (or even if you have no cap), how much data are you using?

Apple's newly appointed vice president of Internet Services (iTunes, and now App Store and MobileMe), Eddy Cue wastes little time getting his name in the press (at least compared to how long it took Big Media and Apple to get the service in place!). Says Cue, via Apple PR:

Before we say anything about the app, Simplify Media, go download it. Like right now. The first 100,000 iPhone users who download Simplify Media will receive it for free. After that, they'll be charged a cool $3.99. Who doesn't like a deal? Okay, good.

So Dieter wrote up a review of Google Translate's shiny new, iPhone optimized WebApp, and it intrigued me enough to check it out. Since I live in Montreal, French was the first language I decided to try out. Since I'm damaged and have issues that would make Lucy jack her price up to 50 cents, the very first thing I tried to translate was: "leave me alone."

And what did Google Translate's WebApp say "leave me alone" was in French? "leave me alone". Oui-mais-wha?

Box Office is back. Only it's been rebranded as Now Playing. Only you can't find Now Playing in the App Store. But you can find Box Office. In iTunes. But not on the iPhone. Sorta.

Confusing much? We're right there with you. We figure the name change is messing with the search systems, which will hopefully sort themselves out shortly. In any event...

Ever miss the good old days of buying an iPhone? Well, you can get one step closer if you're an AT&T Premier member since you can now order the iPhone 3G online and wait for it to ship to you! The process takes 7-10 business days while a Direct Fulfillment Order made in the brick and mortar stores take around 2 weeks. Combining this method with the recent Best Buy Mobile news, it looks the iPhone 3G is going to be available to a lot more people now.

Update: Daring Fireball points out that: "The 3G networking glitches may well be real, but it’s worth pointing out that Richard Windsor is the same jackass who issued a report a year ago about the supposedly faulty “film” on the iPhone touchscreen, when in fact there was no such film."

So add that to the "grain of salt" heap...

You've probably heard the joke - "Hey, I'm in shape. ROUND is a shape." Although we revel in our technology and invent machines to do more so we can do less, there are still opportunities to use technology to help us stay active and fit. Thanks to a heads-up from Kelly Sonora, keep reading for this week's Tip on how your iPhone can help you get or stay in shape!

"Hello, Apple? HSBC here. World's largest company, maybe you've heard of us? Good, yeah, we'd like to place an order for the iPhone... How many? How about 200,000 for starters, b'okay?"

Sure, maybe the call won't go exactly like that, but ZDNet Australia (via MacRumors) is claiming the call may just be coming. Says HSBC's Australia and New Zealand chief information officer, Brenton Hush: