Before I continue, let me first say that car accidents are no laughing matter. People get hurt or worse and they can be very costly on a number of levels.

On the other hand, they can also give further life to the increasingly litigious society in which we now live. A UK-based law firm, Bott & Co has launched an app for the iPhone that on the face of it is for a very noble cause. It gives those who’ve been hurt in an accident instant access to a personal injury lawyer. Nothing wrong with that at all.

That’s all well and good for those who really need it. But what about all the other people walking around with neck braces they bought from eBay, or crutches they’ve nicked from their local hospital? That is, those who quite frankly take the proverbial, take the attention away from genuine accident victims and result in people like me being overly sceptical and scathing of apps that have done nothing wrong.

The free Car Incident Assistant iPhone app does encourage applicants to enter the details of their accident and their injury there and then, so here’s hoping that factor does discourage those who live in a fantasy world of blame and claim from doing so more often without good reason.

Technology is great but it often has a habit of showing up just how stupid, or in this case crafty, some of its users can be.

It’s a fact universally acknowledged that, for some users at least, O2’s network coverage hasn’t been that great of late. Speaking from personal experience, calls now rarely get through to me. Sometimes they go straight through to voicemail even though I’m sitting there staring at my phone with a seemingly full signal strength on display in the top left of my shiny device. Often, that all-important “I’m running late” text will appear several hours after it’s been sent, leaving this poor journalist looking like a sad old woman waiting for a date in a pub that doesn’t turn up. I’m a bit fed up of the sympathetic looks from strangers, to be honest.

So, now that O2’s exclusive hold over the iPhone is soon to be consigned to history in the UK, is Orange turning around and patting it on the back for a job well done? Possibly in private, behind closed doors, that may be the case. For all we know, Orange and O2 could well be living it up in a large shared house like the X-Factor contestants. Publicly enemies, but privately two mobile operators who enjoy each other’s company and like to party? We can dream.

Although Orange’s latest campaign suggest that the rivalry is still present and correct. And just in case we forget, it’s spending four million quid. Yes you read correctly, £4 million, drumming that message home to France Telecom’s child.

The ‘You’re Covered’ campaign is designed to big up the strength of Orange’s 3G network. Hitting O2 when it’s down or just clever marketing? The users will be the one that ultimately decide on this one. Those that don’t hold out until next year when Vodafone joins in the iPhone that is.

According to the blurb accompanying the launch of Orange’s big-money campaign, the mobile giant’s beefy 3G network now covers more than 93 per cent of the UK population. For those not having to stand on their roof to get reception, they clearly don’t need to be told how good the coverage is, so we can only assume the message is mainly targeted at the others who might be non-believers at this stage.

“This campaign was devised to have a fresh and fun appeal to ensure that people see different versions of the adverts wherever they go, keeping the campaign new and intriguing,” said Spencer McHugh, Orange UK’s brand director, in a statement. “At Orange we’re proud of our network and we wanted to remind customers about this great reason to be on Orange.”

You’re Covered will run from this month until the middle of December, spanning print and outdoors, train stations, buses, airports, shopping centres and so on.

Turn around right now. Yes you there. There’s probably an ad staring back at you. Let us know if there is and take a picture of it. Then send it to to us.

TomTom’s arrival on the iPhone was talked about back at Apple’s WWDC a few months ago, but it wasn’t until the middle of last month that it actually turned from talk to action.

The sat nav application, which is available in both UK and international versions, is available to download from iTunes with a starting price tag of around £60 (for the UK version), which isn’t bad when you consider how much you’ll have to shell out for ‘proper’ unit. Talking of sat nav kit, TomTom plans to release a car kit soon, which will make it easier for drivers to make use of the shiny new app. We tested it in the passenger’s seat (would have been a bit dangerous otherwise) and in pedestrian mode, but we’re looking forward to testing it out in more depth once the car kit is in our clutches. Which, according to TomTom, should be around October time.

If you’ve ever got lost on your way to a business meeting and turned up several hours late, looking like a drowned rat because it was raining and you were wandering the streets clutching a soggy map printed from the internet the day before, you’ll like this app a lot. Although a word of warning, if you’ve never used a sat nav device before in any capacity, it takes a tiny bit of getting used to. But a few random button presses and ‘oh, didn’t want that but it’s interesting’ moments later and the training session is complete.

Downloading the app takes a matter of minutes. Once done, fire up the app for the first time and you’re greeted by a very serious, but at the same time amusing, disclaimer that admits no liability for anything at all. If you’re too busy looking at your iPhone and bump into a lamp post, tough. Or if you just try and get directions and the poor app gets them wrong or can’t help, same deal: tough.

We like the honesty. But we’re pleased to report neither of those things happened during our tests.

Navigating to your destination is quite easy. You just simply enter where you need to go. Although be sure to enter the city first, then the address otherwise you may end up somewhere completely random if you’re not paying attention.

You can also easily retrace your steps with recently visited destinations and unleash the nosey person in you by locating points of interest. And, in traditional iPhone style, you can call up these places with the swoosh of a finger.

Switching between views was also a doodle with 2D and 3D modes on offer that you can easily tab between. And, if you’ve got address data saved in your phone book attached to your contacts, the app will guide you there easily too. In super speedy time too if you’ve selected an IQ route.

Although, to state the obvious, don’t expect great results in a poor GPS-signal area.

We were left wandering around Epping Forest for quite some time trying to get out! The car kit is touted as having GPS-boosting strength, although as far as we know you can’t drive a car through the middle of that particular forest, so if it wasn’t for my brilliant ability to search out the road, I may still be there now!

If, for some reason, you still want to use your new sat nav device as a phone too, worry not. If someone calls you, the app will switch off and into call mode, but you can kick off from where you left once you’ve finished chatting, or just hung up!

There’s very little to complain about with this app. Once you’ve warmed up, it’s easy to use and very pleasant on the eye too. If anything, our only gripes would be the fact that you have to make do with ‘normal’ rather than celebrity voices to guide you (if you turn on that feature) and that the app could only locate actual bank-branded cash machines when we searched for them, meaning if we didn’t know they were there, we’d have missed out on the one attached to the supermarket round the corner and travelled five minutes in the other direction. But, as above, these are more issuettes rather than big problems.

All in all, we found this app rather pleasant and look forward to putting it through its paces in a full review when the car kit’s out.

The video below shows the app being shown off at WWDC.

It would seem even Apple has days where it changes its mind about things seemingly previously set in stone.

Just last week, its next generation, super speedy iPhone launched, dubbed iPhone 3G S. Notice the space between the 3G and S part of the moniker?

Much as it pained us to do so, we respected this branding in everything we’ve written about the device thus far. But from now on, we’re just going to write iPhone 3GS. It looks neater, makes more sense and all that jazz. What’s more, it also appears that that’s how Apple plans to write it from now on too.

The web is awash with news stories focusing on how Apple has done a - very small, granted - u-turn on this new naming convention, but as yet Apple hasn’t released an official statement. Instead, it just didn’t use the extra spacing when it announced that its new device had sold one million units in just three days.

We first assumed this was just a typo. But then we glimpsed at the historical press releases and announcements about the 3G S, sorry 3GS - over the last week or two - all of which used to have an extra space, but now do not.

Is there a spacing shortage somewhere else, which Apple has kindly donated to, or has it just seen sense?

Apple’s Worldwide Developer conference (WWDC) kicks off on Monday and all eyes will be on the computing giant to see if it serves up the sort of announcements that everyone is hoping for.

There’s speculation aplenty that the company will announce updated iPhone software as well as unveiling the next generation version of the popular handset - or maybe even a couple. There’s talk about a higher end 32GB iPhone as well as a smaller-memory lower end, cheaper flavour too.

Names doing the rounds on the rumour mill for the beefier version of the iPhone include the iPhone Video. If this proves to be true, it may well sum up what the device is capable of, but it’s hardly a name that’s going to set the world alight is it?

Moving onto bigger devices such as Apple Macs, the company’s Snow Leopard operating system is also likely to get a bit of time in the spotlight as it’s due for full release later this year.

Dear Jacqui Smith,

I’ve been very well behaved this past year, so I’d very much like it if you could buy me an iPhone at Christmas.

Yours sincerely,
Maggie

Forget letters to Santa to get what you want. Nowadays, it’s probably much easier to talk to MPs. After, all it seems they can expense pretty much anything these days, including, er, a moat.

Jacqui Smith is again under the uncomfortable media spotlight for her expenses claims. This time, it’s all over an iPhone she bought for her husband who manages her constituency. Granted, the iPhone is a great tool for organising business life, but why the hell should tax payers foot the bill?

With governments rising our taxes to pay for education or get us out of debt, why don’t they just do the sensible thing and stop bloody well frittering our taxes away on whatever they please? It would certainly help stop the flow of people leaving this country because the powers that be are bleeding us dry and giving us nothing but column inches in return…

Take That, the rejuvenated 90s boy band, are gearing up to play Wembley again in July…

This news will no doubt excite all the fans from way back when (yes, I was one of them) as well as the new bunch of followers from the second time around, but the concerts also offer a little something for tech heads too.

Solo artist Gary Go plans to go on stage as Take That’s support act armed with nothing but an iPhone as backing for some of his time in the spotlight.

He’s already penned some tunes making use of an app on the device and now, for at least some of his support songs, he’ll ditch musical instruments or a backing band in favour of his shiny iPhone.

“I think it’s pretty amazing that I’m going to be using a mobile phone on stage at Wembley Stadium in front of so many people,” he told the Evening Standard in an interview. “My biggest worry is that my phone will ring mid-song.”

First of all, I’m still deeply in love with the iPhone 3G. It’s as nice to look at as the original, but it has a little more between its ears which is very pleasing indeed.

Keen to ensure the first gen device doesn’t feel too unloved, I decided to jazz it up a little by turning it into a light saber. I’m a big kid at heart and I am having a lot of fun with my new found toy. Granted, this is not a business application, but all business peeps need to relax now and again. What better way to do so than with a light saber?

Had difficultly filming myself enjoying Luke Skywalker-esque fun, so here’s a reconstruction of the event courteousy of a You Tuber.

Fighting Darf Vader is thirsty work so if you need a drink after all that light sabering, developers are one step ahead of you!

This is probably going to be one of the shortest blog posts I ever write, but I just wanted to share my excitement.

As you all know, the iPhone 3G launches today (well, a few hours ago to be precise as stores opened at 8.02am) and I have a briefing with O2 later today where I’ll get the chance to play with the new device and check out the new features.

In a nutshell, I can’t wait. I’ll be posting more information, another in-depth blog and some pics as soon as I’ve had a chance to get to know the handset a little better.

So, what are your thoughts on launch day, then? Worth the build up or a bit of an anti climax?

Another month, another product launch to keep me entertained/busy/excited/bemused/annoyed etc…

But the product we’re all waiting for this month is different. Some are hoping it will be in a league of its own. It hardly needs any introduction, but the product in question is, of course, the new iPhone (iPhone 3G to be precise). It’s going to hit our shores on July 11th and I’m already counting down the day, hours and minutes. My brain keeps losing track though so I won’t show up my poor maths skills by publishing the exact number!

Are you excited or nonchalant about the new arrival and, more importantly, will you be getting one?