The start of the Apple iPhone might be traced to Apple founder and chief executive officer Steve Jobs decision to do more investigation on touch senstive displays, leading to more interactive tablet computers.

Many have noted the iPhone’s similarity to its predecessor the Newton MessagePad. Although hailed for its groundbreaking handwriting recognition, the Newton was seen by many analysts as one of the leaders in tablet technology, but perhaps it was ahead of its time to find sufficient market acceptance. Nonetheless, there are still Apple enthusiasts still using their Newton tablets to this day.

The Newton was nearly all screen, lacking a keyboard, a similar trait which is to be found in the iPhone. This design feature has been attributed to Apple design head Jonathan Ive.

But Apple did not immediately focus on developing the iPhone, after the launch of the Newton and its successful iMac series of desktop and laptop computers. Instead, it focused its energies on developing the iPod digital music player and the iTunes online music store and community site.

It was only in late 2005 that Apple collaborated with telecom giant Motorola to release the ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes.

However, industry insiders say that Steve Jobs felt that the ROKR did not turn out the way he expected. As a result, the Apple and Motorola joint product development did not continue.

Apple meanwhile focused its energies on creating a telecoms device which would play both pictures and video.

Subsequently, it was only at the Macworld convention in early January 2007 that Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, a move that would create an uproar and much expectation in the technology world.

Since then, hundreds of bloggers have posted close to 300,000 blog posts related to the Apple iPhone, which gives an indication of the expected excitment regarding the iPhone’s launch.

Starting with Apple’s memorable “1984? commercial during that year’s Super Bowl, Apple’s products have continued to hold the public captivated and keep them entertained with its unique brand of marketing.

The iPhone looks set to wow on the world stage, just as it has at Apple’s developer conference.

Can the iPhone create a revolution in the cellphone arena?

Apple’s approach has always been to create products from a user’s perspective, rather than from an engineer or a computer programmers perspective.

That approach clearly pays off for the computer industry’s powerhouse, with products like the Macintosh, the iMac, the PowerBook and the iPod under its belt.

The fact that its iPod digital music player is the dominant MP3 player in the market, with more than 90% of auctions at sites like eBay is testament to Apple’s design prowess.

One might say that the iPhone is the smartphone especially designed for people who hate to use cellphones.

The iPhone’s user interface is intuitive, giving users the ability to use most of the iPhone’s functions without reference to a user manual.

Apple which was among the pioneers of the graphical user interface in its Mac line of computers has done for the smartphone, what it has already done for the desktop, laptop and its iconic iPod digital music player.

While you might sit back and feel that the iPhone’s features are so user friendly that anyone could have done it, you might see some of the irony in that statement.

If the iPhone was so simple to use, why hadn’t one of the other major telco’s already instituted features like an intelligent keypad, computing intelligence smart enough to adjust the LCD display’s brightness in response to environmental lighting, or the disabling of the keypad when it is brought close to your face already?

While it’s competitors seem to be constantly struggling to add more features to its digital music players and computers, trying to outdo each other, this seems like an exercise in significantly upping the whizz-bang factor of its devices.

Instead Apple goes the opposite route and looks for the simplest solution to any design or technical challenge.

There is an elegance in simple solutions, and its the user friendly nature of the Apple iPod and soon the Apple iPhone which will likely bring this category of smartphones into the mass market.

Many complain that existing smartphones are perhaps a little too smart for their own good, with menus buried under more menus, and users struggling to make simple changes to their phones.

The iPhone looks set to change that trend and if it succeeds in doing so, it would have blazed yet another trail on the technology landscape.

Well now I can. To get delivery confirmation reports sent to your iPhone simply add *0# to the beginning of your text message and once the SMS message has been delivered you will get a text message back saying:

Message for +(number) has been delivered on (date and time).

The recipient of your text message won’t see the *0# part of your message as this is stripped out by the network.

This is confirmed working on O2 and T Mobile in the UK.

Let us know if it works for you.

Update

It appears that different networks

use different codes.

UK

T Mobile *0#
O2 *0#
Orange RCT followed by a space
Virgin *0#

US
T-Mobile *noti#

Germany

T-Mobile *T#
Vodafone D2 *N#
O2 *N#
e-plus *N#

Sweden

Telia *KV#
Comviq KV#
Telenor ##

Brasil
Claro *N#

Switzerland
SWISSCOM *N#

Turkey
TURKCELL *N#

Poland
PlusGSM (Polkomtel) XYZ

Croatia
T-Mobile *r*

Portugal
Vodafone *NOT#

Hungary
T-Mobile *A#

India
Voodafone *NOT#

Qatar
Qtel *N#

Belgium
Proximus *R*
Base *N#

Greece
Vodafone *#
Wind *0#

Serbia
MTS *!#
Telenor *!#

Romania
Orange *NM#

Israel
Orange *NM#

If you know of any other working codes for carriers not listed above please leave them in the comments for all to see.

This is basically an abridged version of Office for the iPhone, which could useful for a variety of applications: editing documents, typing out new ones, and doing Excel sheets without dragging open a laptop. Will include copy/paste functionality too. Great for on
the go presentations.

Comments on various forums think the price is too high, but hey, people were clamoring for this functionality months ago, so compared to the full on version of Office, $20 is a bargain, it seems. But the bar seems to have been set rather low for App Store pricing it seems, and many have said they’d rather piece together various free apps to do this sort of work. To each their own, we suppose.

Quickoffice® Mobile Office Suite (Word, Excel & WiFi)

Substractive sound algorithm with classic analog waveforms. Professional 44.1 kHz Stereo CD quality with internal high performance realtime floating point engine.

Sound editing features:

- 2 Oscilators with sine, square, sawtooth and triangle waveforms
- Pulsewidth modulation, frequency modulation and ring modulation
- Noise generator
- Filter with cutoff and resonance control
- 3 Envelope generators
- 2 LFOs
- Rich set of modulation parameter
- Stereo delay with cross-feed

32 factory sounds and 96 user editable sounds

Keyboard:

- sliding octave control
- dynamic velocity from vertical position
- optional after touch modulation

Click the iTunes button to see it in the iTunes app store:

* See all your acquaintances from Facebook, MySpace, imeem, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, MSN and Flickr in one place.
* See who’s online and on hand to chat.
* Update your standing at one go for all your networks (just be partial to we’re with Ping.fm service).
* See the rank of everybody in the equal place.
* Let you choice a photo beginning your iPhone and contribute to it by a acquaintance on IM.  Sounds interesting.

Your quest for a decent and good-looking Bluetooth headset for your iPhone 3G certainly ends here as here comes the latest, amazingly good metal designed Bluetooth headset – thanks to the wonderful duo combination of Contour Design and Bluetrek.

Well, this new Metal Bluetooth headset is hailed as one of the thinnest wireless Bluetooth 2.0 headset till date having round-about similar dimensions to that with a Sony Memory Stick complete with a rubber-tipped in-canal earphone. As you can observe in the picture; the silver aluminum body is bestowed with chrome, as also a trio of tiny buttons located on one edge assist you in controlling the volume along with the on/off button.

While on the other hand, a power connector on the other end side of the headset can juice up your headset when it is used along with included plastic USB connector! Each $80 purchase will fetch you a belt clip, six rubber eartips, two optional clear plastic ear mounts, a car charging bulb and an USB extension cable for use at home or in the car.

The iPhone dev team released the much awaited software solution to unlock iPhone 3G so that users can use any GSM carrier’s SIM, a perfect New Year gift for all those waiting to unlock their iPhone 3G.

Here is a detailed step-by-step guide to unlock iPhone 3G using Dev team’s yellowsn0w application.

Cellphone Review

Some important points to note before we start:

* Hacking your iPhone could void its warranty.
* Dev team’s yellowsn0w application is still in beta and has not worked for all iPhone 3G users but they are working hard to fix the issues and have been releasing new versions of their application.
* Since one of the important requirements to unlock iPhone 3G is to upgrade to iPhone firmware 2.2 (as it exclusivley works with baseband firmware 02.28.00 which comes bundled with firmware 2.2), you need to be aware that iPhone firmware 2.2 breaks Turbo SIM (in case you are using it) – the hardware method to unlock iPhone 3G so if Dev team’s software method which is still in beta does not work you might not be able to use your iPhone 3G.
* This step-by-step guide is exclusively to unlock iPhone 3G. We haven’t tried it with the 1st generation iPhone. We would sugges you use QuickPwn to unlock the 1st gen iPhone.
* The current version of yellowsn0w does not support SIMs with PIN enabled. So please disable any PIN you may have on that SIM before using this guide. The Dev team are currently working to support SIMs with PIN so this is a temporary limitiation.
* If you want to know if Dev team’s unlocking solution has worked for your carrier, please check the Yellowsn0w report.