Older geeks listen up. Do you miss all the fun of using a good old fashioned rotary dialler? You know, back when just entering seven digits took forever, accompanied by that sound of the dial turning back in place with each number.

The iDial is an application for your iPhone that might just bring back memories. Those days were pretty damn inconvenient, but on some levels you might say that we actually had more interaction with our devices. I guess that’s because we did half the work. The iDial is just a download away.

Apple has put out an official announcement that Steve Jobs and a number of other suits from Apple will be kicking off the Worldwide Developers Conference this year in San Francisco. The press release says that this years conference will showcase both the OS X Leopard and the OS X iPhone, but we’re thinking there will be a new iPhone announcement, too.

The event meets the expected timeline for the launch of the 3G iPhone, the UK has run out of iPhone stock and we wouldn’t believe that Jobs would launch the 3G version overseas before launching it stateside first. WWDC 2008 runs for five days from June 9th to June 13th with the keynote from Jobs and crew on the 9th starting at 10am; we’ll be listening.

We had already seen some iPhone price cuts overseas for what many felt was to help clear out the non-3G inventory of phones in Europe, but now it appears that O2 has complete run out of stock with the 8GB and 16GB iPhones. We’ve still seen no official word on the release date, price or specs of a 3G iPhone but we can’t imagine it could be far off now that the inventory in the UK is depleted.

O2

Apple has recently announced the beta release of the 5th version of the iPhone SDK, which contains the framework, tools and compilers for making your own custom applications for Apple’s iPhone operating system. It provides also provides a simulator to run your apps on, which represents both the iPhone and the iPod touch. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of changes to this kit other than bringing it up to the latest OS version, but the download is free and there’s no sense working with the older version.

iPhone Developers

Good news for more Apple fans around the world as Vodafone announced today that it has made an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to ten new markets sometime yet this year. Vodafone says it will offer the iPhone to its customers for purchase and use on the Vodafone network in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.

Vodafone

The first “official” photos and specs for the HTC Diamond have now been leaked and it looks pretty sexy. It sports a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 pixel screen (that’s twice the lines of the iPhone in a smaller surface,) Windows Mobile 6.1 and 3G connectivity. Could this be the most important product of the year for HTC? Maybe so.

It seems like a pretty sweet cellphone, judging from the specs: Large 2.8 inch VGA display (640×480 pixel resolution), Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Quadband GSM/GPRS/Edge and UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, 3.2megapixel camera with autofocus, Extra VGA camera in the front for video telephony, QWERTY keyboard, Qualcomm 528 Mhz CPU, 4 GB of internal memory plus a MicroSD slot, FM Radio, An accelerometer sensor like the iPhone has.

We’ve all seen our share of fake knock-offs, especially with the iPhone. Some are just straight clone attempts, while others are a bit strange. This one is just plain F@%#ing weird. The Toggolino Phone shames itself quite nicely, right there in the packaging.

Apparently the device comes packaged with a German kit that teaches German rugrats how to associate words with animals or…something. You could very well be looking at the next Speak and Spell toy. Looks pretty fun actually.

I can understand wanting some tunes while riding your bike. But watching movies while you pedal away is probably not a great idea. The up side is, you’ll have something to do while the EMTs are trying to untangle your legs from your bike spokes.

Obviously, the iPhone Bike Mount is not going to improve your life. All it can really do is foreshadow your asphalt demise as your eyes are always drawn to your beautiful gadget. This particular form of assisted suicide will only cost you $14.99. And when you reach those pearly gates and they ask you what the last thing you saw was, you can tell them it was Desperate Housewives. It’s so pathetic that you might actually get a second chance. Maybe.

Goldstriker knows a thing or two about making devices more beautiful, the iPhone is no exception and the Solar Star edition is their latest attempt. It features 24 carat gold plating on both the front bezel and Apple’s rear logo, while the rest of the case is the ultra luxurious Balloon White paint found on a Lamborghini Gallardo.

The white-and-gold color scheme is sex to the eye and looks nice to touch. It comes with updated firmware 1.1.4 and is unlocked for worldwide GSM use. You’ll get 16GB of flash memory inside. The $1,477 price tag is not for everyone. Some of us would rather save the money for a 3G iPhone, despite how beautiful this one looks.

It’s hard to say how they did it, but it appears that somehow Telecom Italia Mobile has convinced Apple and Steve Jobs to offer the new upcoming 3G version of the iPhone to customers in Italy with quite a bit more leeway than we’ve seen here in the states. Not only will the iPhone not require that two-year service contract along with the purchase, but it will also come unlocked.

This is something that Apple has been very stringent about stateside and has been volleying versions with hackers since the beginning, keeping the iPhone locked and with a single, exclusive carrier. What this means is that in Italy customers can just by the iPhone and use it with any carrier that they choose.

In anticipation of a new iPhone model coming to Germany, T-Mobile has drastically slashed the price of the existing 8GB model from €399 to just €99 for German customers. This lower price equates to approximately $155 USD, where the 8GB iPhone is currently going for $399 with a 2 year contract in the United States.

The €99 iPhone is being offered for a limited time from April 7 through June 30 and comes with a 2 year plan for 89 euros a month. The 16GB model price appears to remain untouched with a price of €499. Apple has been rumored to have a new, faster 3G version of the iPhone in the works and this promotion may be a way to unload some of the older models prior to the launch. Alternatively it could also just be a promotion for Apple and T-Mobile to unload some of their inventory due to poor sales of the iPhone in the area due to the heavy competition of mobile handsets that are 3G enabled.

KICKER is expanding it’s audio lineup with the neat looking iKICK iK500. The portable stereo system features a built-in dock for the iPod (Touch) & iPhone. According to the company, “The iKICK will transform the way people listen to their MP3 players”.

It’s got large “bumping” speakers, 5-inch woofers, and a 40-watt stereo amplifier, so the iKICK iK500 should be loud enough to let everyone know where the party’s at. You also get a credit card-sized infrared remote, so you can adjust things like the stereo system’s bass, treble, and auxiliary-in options, as well as the iPod menu.

iTam, Tam I am…I like my iTam with ham…I do not like my iTam with Sam. Enough nonsense. This iPhone dock looks like it’s just begging for someone to climb on and drop a deuce inside. Of course as we all know, looks can be deceiving. Branex Design’s Eric Berthes shaped it like a tam tam, which is a type of gong from Asia. It’s shape gives it plenty of room for sound. Which is why it’s a shame that there are just 25 watts driving each of its two channels.

For $570, you can get it in black or white, which means that rich guys can play chess with these. Me, I’m not convinced. I mean it’s all well and good, but it seems to me that this design would be out of place outside of the bathroom. I’m torn. Just looking at it, I want to at least wash my hands in the thing.

I really like my iPhone, but man I have a really hard time typing on the phone because the keys are so small. On more than one occasion I have wished for a nice pointy stylus to use for navigation and typing. The problem is that the touch screen is capacitive so it only works with a finger—or does it?

ThinkGeek has a sweet iPhone stylus from Pogo that promises to work with the iPhone. It uses some sort of felt like material on the end that fools the touch screen into thinking your finger is pressing the buttons. The Pogo for iPhone also works with the iPod touch.

Within just 4 days of Apple releasing a beta version of the software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone, the company claims they’ve already had an incredibly positive response with over 100,000 downloads. This is good news for iPhone owners since there will likely be more useful and fun applications available for the iPhone soon from third party developers.

Multiple development shops have already announced plans to offer applications for the iPhone with Gameloft being one of the most hyped with 15 games planned for the iPhone yet this year. Unfortunately, even though the SDK is out and Gameloft can get these games ready quickly, they won’t be available for download until the App Store opens in June.