The UK Mobile Report

iPod smartphone? I'll take two please

Those nice people at Shiny Media are spreading the gossip on Apple's forthcoming iPod that morphs into a phone. Their sources suggest there will be two models; one with Wi-Fi and a keyboard. I don't think Apple will make it in time for Christmas, but expect to see it as the must-have item of 2007.

Someone will get very rich

...when they find a way of providing a service that feeds music to your mobile phone the way www.last.fm does to your PC. I am an an iPod user and it annoys me that you can't listen to more than 15 seconds of a track. But having found Lastfm I'm now a happy bunny - Lastfm allows you to listen to track after track based on selecting a genre. No ads (yet) because according to its founders its a 'social media music site' (think Myspace meets iTunes). If I were Vodafone et al keen to turbo charge 3G I would be looking very closely at this. Downloading is so last year isn't it?