The world holds its breath for 3G iPhone while Nvidia makes a move on mobile

In the final week before iPhone 2.0 is inevitably unveiled at Apple's forthcoming WWDC event, it was a predictably iPhone-heavy week over on our beloved sister site Pocket Picks. But even against such a seasoned attention seeker, several other companies managed to kick up a decent enough fuss of their own.

Perhaps the most notable came courtesy of Nvidia, which started the week in mobile news by unveiling more about its plans to turn mobile technology up to 11 with its new Tegra chip. Later in the week some YouTube videos of the chip in action filtered through, proving its might with some fancy graphical flourishes, gaming muscle and ability to output HD video to an external monitor.

Other handsets were doing their best to hold back Apple's news and rumours tidal wave, too, though Sony Ericsson's leaked video of the forthcoming-but-as-of-yet-unannounced BeiBei handset was less than deliberate. More determined efforts came from Nokia with news of two new handsets aimed at women, as well as word that a successor to the Nokia N93 is well underway.

And so, on with Apple's headline hogging handset. Of the 'less official' variety news-wise was the appearance of a Palm OS emulator for the iPhone/iPod touch, complete with the ability to run any Palm OS application (of which there are some 20,000, making this a pretty handy little application).

Then the 3G iPhone rumours really started pouring in. First there were whispers about the new iPhone's pricing in the UK, with estimates as low as £100 grabbing our attention. That was based on conjecture that Apple may be relaxing its strict 'one carrier to rule them all' policy but then slightly undone by yet more pricing rumours, this time concerning O2's (supposed) plans to shift the device for £100 on a 18-month contract.

Then we moved from pricing rumours to spec rumours, those being that the new iPhone will apparently sport 22 per cent better battery life, double the memory of the previous iPhone, a thinner form factor and of course 3G and GPS.

There was yet more speculation about the specifics of the device later in the week when two different supposed iPhone 2.0 faceplates emerged, one of them considerably smaller than the other, prompting calls of 'iPhone nano, iPhone nano!' from just about every corner of the internet. Later, the focus shifted to speculating about the WWDC and what it may bring besides the new iPhone. One thing that we know for certain is that it will herald the launch of the App Store, which has prompted some to speculate on what its impact might be on the iPhone's gaming credentials and in turn, the DS's vulnerability in the market.

But it wasn't all Apple news. Fring released a slew of updates for the Windows Mobile version of its mobile VoIP application, O2 committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2020 and Vodafone got into hot water after being accused of spying on its own board members.

We'll leave it there. And if you think that was an iPhone-heavy week, just wait until the next, post 3G iPhone Pocket Picks round-up rolls around in seven days. Click 'Track It!' to make sure you don't miss it.