Wireless iTunes arrives while the Foleo exits stage left
It's the Pocket Picks round-up
After last week's Nokia blow out over on our sister site, Pocket Picks, mobile news has receded back to a steady and dependable flow.
The week began with the discovery of a Google patent for an SMS payment system dubbed Gpay. Coming on the back of fresh rumours about Google's much talked about GPhone, it is surely only a matter of time before an official announcement is made.
Perhaps the week's least surprising news gambit was that Palm has officially ditched the Foleo smartphone companion in favour of redoubling its efforts in turning out a completely new next-gen smartphone.
Similarly unsurprising were the leaks from Sony Ericsson (who seems to be consistently bad at keeping secrets) with shots of the new Japanese Cyber-shot and Bravia branded handsets turning up.
Something Nokia would probably rather keep a secret is the report that an Indian woman was recently injured by yet another exploding battery, though not one that was on the recall list.
Sticking with Nokia, the company also enjoyed a brief flirtation with homebrew gaming (which may be an omen of things to come) with the release of a ported version of Quake for S60 handsets.
And also getting its homebrew on was the iPhone, with the release of version 1.00 of its NES emulator.
Though not making the sort of waves that Nokia achieved last week, Apple nevertheless made a play for the limelight with the release of its new networked iPhone-alike iPod touch. Looking to capitalize on the Wi-Fi functionality of all of its new portable devices, Apple also announced the forthcoming launch of a wireless version of iTunes, so that customers can finally take advantage of over-the-air downloads. In addition, there was news that the iPhone is to finally get custom ringtones, coming in at $0.99 a pop.
Not only that, but Steve Jobs also saw fit to knock $200 off the 8GB iPhone's retail tag, putting several noses out of joint amongst early adopters of the must-have device (which he later apologised for).
In other news, some existing VoIP services updated their offerings, with Fring adding a new Auto-roam feature and Vyke launching a lite version of its Pro software for VoIP barred phones. There was noise over at Ericsson, too, who launched the Me-On-TV user generated video site for mobile phones.
And lastly, in less business-like news, Scientists continued to disagree about the harmful effects of mobiles, a man altered his Motorola E6 into a Transformers toy and, for reasons best known to themselves, a group of Japanese designers turned a phone into a rocket (sort of).
That's it for the time being. Click 'Track It!' for another dose of mobile happenings next week.