Technofile:Three bits of bad news for Apple fans, sorry. The "Jesus Phone" - as the iPhone is now witheringly called given its overblown reception - may not make it to Europe for another two years. And if by then Apple has not added 3G, GPS or any of the other features already present in a lot of the best smart phones, it will look seriously out of date.
In addition, the iPhone could end up costing more than €1,000, according to some early pre-order prices on Amazon Germany. This compares to $499 (€387) for the 4GB model of the iPod and $599 (€464) for the 8GB version in the US, where it will be launched in June.
Lastly, the much talked-about Apple TV box, designed to make your iTunes music and video library appear magically on your TV, will be only have a 40GB hard drive and a comparatively slow 1GHz Pentium-M-based chip.
To cap it all, creative programmers are bringing out backyard-made interfaces for Palm and Windows mobiles that resemble the new iPhones.
Okay, okay, so I'll admit it. It's all just sour grapes. I still want an iPhone!
• If you have a Paypal account - if you use eBay you probably do - then watch out for Paypal's new effort to stop hackers accessing your online cash.
The auction house plans to make a keyring-sized security key available that generates a unique one-time-use password every 30 seconds from a small digital screen. Enter the password along with your user name and regular password and you're in. It costs $5 (€3.87). See paypal.com/ securitykey for details.
• It looks like the battle between the new high-definition DVD formats of Blu-ray and HD-DVD could be about to enter a significant new phase. Why? Because it appears Sony is not issuing licences to content owners who plan to issue adult movies on Blu-ray.
Porn film producers in the US say they will shift business to the Microsoft-backed HD-DVD format because Blu-ray disc manufacturers could lose their licence from Sony. Allegedly. Ironically, there is a long-held belief that adult content tipped the balance in favour of the VHS against the Betamax video format, which later died a death. Who made the ill-fated Betamax? Sony.
• Sandisk, usually better known for portable storage and MP3 players, has launched its first video player, the Sansa View. The flash-memory player has a 4in widescreen display, 8GB of internal storage and a memory extension slot for SD or SDHC cards.
This equates to holding 33 hours of video or 2,000 songs and, shall we say, a lot of photos.
It's pretty thin and, unlike many players, has a built-in speaker. It should be available in the spring for about €270.
• Although Sony and JVC's new hard-disk high definition video camcorders are looking very good, Sanyo's new Xacti HD2 camera is just nosing ahead.
Even with a 10x optical zoom, high-definition recording, better low light performance and a direct input into an HD TV set, the Xacti still manages to cram in a 7.4 megapixel stills camera.
