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Apple sent out an email yesterday to developers formalizing the 2008 Design Awards set to take place at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) this June. And this year, continuing their dual bridge/landmark theme, Apple has opened the awards up to the iPhone!

iPhone categories include:

• iPhone Developer Showcase, for native apps built using the iPhone SDK, feature-complete, ready to run on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or the Sim. (Apple may pick multiple winners in this category.)
• Best iPhone Web Application, for specifically MobileSafari based Web 2.0 apps. (No word addendum on multi-picks here.)

And to the victorious will go quite the swag bag:

Your plane's landing in the middle of nowhere. Scratch that. WAY past the middle of nowhere -- that little state on the other coast you've never been to, where the people have funny accents and McDonald's has menu items you've never seen before.

The pilot flips off the seatbelt light, you whip out your iPhone to make a quick call, and before the bars come up you're greeted with a screen that lists off all the local service providers complete with up-to-the-minute rate information. You flick-scroll to the cheapest one, tap to select, the bars pop up, the network springs to life, and you start your call.

What? Your iPhone doesn't do that? You don't get to pick your service provider? You don't get to choose just-in-time data rates? You're stuck with AT&T 24/7?!

Yeah. That's because you're in the real world, not the world of what might-have-been. Not the world Apple could have created had they gone ahead with a little patent just recently brought to public attention...

NBC done gone lost their rainbow peacock'd minds? Maybe, if Gizmodo is properly quoting their Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff:

Amidst all of the 3G Rumor Bonanza, an interesting nugget of thought popped up over at Macenstein. No, they didn’t jump on the blogwagon and predict the release date of the 3G iPhone. Instead, they predicted that an iPhone Shuffle would be released.

According to their tipster, the “engineering and development is basically done” and that it comes in a slimmer and thinner form factor, but get this, no video playback. I'm not so sure of an iPhone without video, it kind of steps away from what Steve Jobs envisioned the iPhone to be--a multi-tool for the future. No video? That's too 2004 for my taste.

Every week, we'll be bringing you a tip, trick, or quick how-to on how to keep your iPhone ship-shape. You'll be able to see them all in our tip archive.

The young lady that cuts my hair told me a horror story today. I just about broke into a sweat listening to her tale of terror. A recent iPhone convert, she was at home in her bathroom (hostile environment for all things electronic), putting her make-up on, and with a careless sweep of her arm, her iPhone scored a perfect "10" from the high dive straight into the commode.

Panicked (as you can imagine), she fished out her iPhone, immediately turned it off, and dried it as best she could. Waiting a day, she tried turning it on, but no dice -- it seemed to have given up the ghost in the machine. Still filled with hope, she carried her iPhone in her pocket the rest of the day and, amazingly, it came to life.

All was not well, though. Having made it through a drowning and near-death experience, her iPhone's "Home" button no longer worked -- her iPhone was useless; a mere night-light.

If your iPhone encounters water (or falls in your mug of ale), retrieve it immediately, power it off, dry it as best you can with a cloth, and click the bookmark you just made for this article. You did that, right?

Read on for the deets on how to save your precious iPhone!

Following on a veritable flood of previous "OMG 3G!!11" news and rumors, it now looks confirmed that O2 in the UK has knocked 100 quid off the price of an 8G current generation (2.5G) iPhone 8GB.

Mega-blog Engadget handed -- er... posted -- out their 2007 Readers and Editors Choice Awards this week, and Steve Jobs' revolutionary little mobile phone was the big winner with a grand total of 6 Engadget'ies, including the 4 biggest!

• Readers' Gadget of the Year
• Editors' Gadget of the Year
• Readers' Most Anticipated Gadget for 2008 (iPhone 3G)
• Editors' Most Anticipated Gadget for 2008 (iPhone 3G)
• Readers' Smartphone of the Year
• Editors' Smartphone of the Year

Apple also took home honors for desktop (iMac), laptop (MacBook Pro), MP3 player (iPod Touch), and peripheral (keyboard).

Congrats!

Man, the wait for the iPhone 2.0 software update is getting rough for those of us who aren't keen to jailbreak our iPhones. The latest: Voice over IP from IM-maker Fring. Go on and check out their instructions page. Fring is actually a way to use all sorts of different Instant Messenger clients like Yahoo, AIM, etc. Another client it's compatible with: Skype. It will also work with a standard SIP for VOIP as well.

Avast ye scurvy 2.0 firmware -- prepare to be pwned! Erica Sadun of TUAW tells us the cartoon Jobs'ing, Russian slang'ing, custom firmware making, iTunes loading unlock solution has hit version 1.1:

The new tool allows you to add custom packages, logos and fixes EDGE settings under 1.1.4. Either pop over to iPhone-dev.org or choose PwnageTool > Check for Updates (Command-U) directly from the app.

But don't raise the Jolly Roger too soon, rumors are also circulating that Cap'n Jobs is coming about hard, cannon's loaded, and may just be upping the ante soon in the great unloack cat'n'mouse game.