Prototype iPhone 4 being auctioned on eBay for US $999,999

An iPhone 4 prototype has found its way into someone’s hands who wasted no time in putting it up for auction on eBay. Although initially the phone was going for around $810, the price has now shot to an unbelievable $999,999 the last time we checked.

The device is similar to the one that was leaked last year by Gizmodo. In the pictures you can see that it has seen some wear with scruff marks on the metal band. The volume control buttons don’t have the '+' and '–' symbols just like the previous prototype we have seen. On the front and back panels are the letters ‘DF1692’ printed, which corresponds to an Apple employee who would ideally be in charge of this phone. On the back the device has XXXXX printed instead of the model number and other details.

The seller mentions that the device cannot be activated with iTunes nor can it be used with an AT&T SIM. The only parts about the phone that work are the display, vibration and all the buttons. The device cannot be used for calls or for anything for that matter and is permanently stuck on the connect to iTunes screen. Whoever buys this will only have the bragging rights of owning a prototype iPhone.

Now it remains to be seen how long this goes on before Apple steps in and claims the device. Then again it’s an old device so they probably won’t be in any hurry to do so.

CNG closure in Punjab region irks citizens

LAHORE: The CNG stations would remain closed for three days in various cities of the Punjab province from today, following the load management schedule, Geo News reported. The closure is creating panic among public.

According to Sui Southern Gas Company notice, CNG stations in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sahiwal and Multan regions have been closed from Monday morning at 6 am, while gas supply would be halted in Islamabad, Muree, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur on Thursday, Friday and Staurday.

The locals expressed their concerns over the suspension of gas as they were expecting relief from gas loadshedding from July 1 but the government disappointed them. The CNG sector consumes less gas as compared to power plants and industrial units and gas closure is equivalent to posing threat to the jobs for those working on daily wages.

According to the report, long queues of vehicles were witnessed in Lahore, Multan and Gujranwala as the CNG would not be available from today till Wednesday (from July 04 to July 06).

CNG Association strongly criticised the decision of 2-day and 3-day gas loadshedding for Sindh and Punjab respectively and convened the emergency meeting in Rawalpindi to decide the future course of action.

Fox News hacked Twitter account claims Obama dead

WASHINGTON: Hackers broke into an official Twitter account operated by Fox News early Monday and posted a series of tweets that claimed President Barack Obama had been assassinated.

The Twitter feed for Fox News' political news -- @FoxNewspolitics -- sent out a series of "malicious and false tweets," starting around 2:00 am, Fox News confirmed in a statement. The posts had not been taken down hours later.

"@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead," read the first of the Obama-related tweets.

Just before false posts began, the hackers apparently announced their control to the account, with the post: "Just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th."

The updates, which were "retweeted" by thousands on the micro-blogging site and prompted headlines around the world, said Obama had been "shot twice at a Ross' restaurant in Iowa" during a campaign spot.

The US leader is in fact in Washington, not Iowa, and was planning to celebrate the July 4 holiday with his family and military families later Monday.

"President @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much. It's a sad 4th for #america. #obamadead RIP," continued the tweets.

Fox News said the hacking was being investigated, and that it "regrets any distress the false tweets may have created."

Afridi Signed with Melbourne Stars?

Rumours of ex pakistani captain joining Melbourne stars for big bash league 2011 . Afridi has previously played for South Australia.

World's oldest person dies in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO: A Brazilian woman recognized as the oldest person in the world has died at the age of 114, local media reported Tuesday.

Maria Gomes Valentim was certified in May as the world's oldest person, edging past US woman Besse Cooper, who is 48 days younger, according to Guinness World Records.

Valentim, who had been a widow since 1946 and confined to a wheelchair, was hospitalized on Sunday with pneumonia and died later from infection, according to the Globo news site G1.

Born July 9, 1896, she had credited a healthy diet with giving her a long life.

Valentim had one son, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

The World's fastest jet: New York to Sydney in 5 hours

Plans have been unveiled for the Hypermach SonicStar, a business jet which will be capable of a top speed of 2,664 mph, making it twice as fast as Concorde. The jet will fly at 62,000ft allowing passengers to see the curvature of the earth. Hypermach claims its SonicStar aircraft will be so quick that travelling from London to New York will take just two hours. A trip from New York to Sydney which takes 20 hours on a commercial airliner will take just 5 hours on the SonicStar.

Hypermach chief executive Richard Lugg wants the plane in the skies within ten years and has already secured funding from the Department of Trade and Industry, which has agreed to support the company in Britain.

Zafar Gill Pakistani Ear lifter in Guiness World Record !:D

Who's the ICC fooling?

It's laughable that cricket's global body asks its member boards to democratise when it is itself politically manipulated by the BCCI to make confusing compromises

In the sixties, Australian writer Hugh Lunn produced a lively story set in Hong Kong called Spies Like Us. The ICC's directors must have heard of it. The recently concluded board meeting in Hong Kong was full of moves a secretive spook would have been proud of: a furtive dart in this direction and then quickly doubling back to see who might be following.

So who is the ICC trying to throw off the scent?

Their original plan to hold a ten-team World Cup in 2015 had already ridden out formidable flak from the Associate members. Why did they need to do an about-turn and return it to a 14-team event, the same as it was for the overly long 2011 World Cup? All they needed to do was add a qualifying tournament to decide the last two teams so that all 10 spots didn't automatically go to the Test-playing nations.

Then in the classic double-back move they teach at spy school, the ICC decided to reduce the World Twenty20 from 16 to 12 teams in both the 2012 and 2014 tournaments. The Twenty20 format is the sport's best opportunity to globalise the game and extend the reach of cricket. It's also the one that can be completed in an acceptable time span, so the players aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs for long intervals. Twenty20 is also the one chance cricket has to escape the suffocating effect of total dependence on India's wealth to finance the game.

And what did the ICC do? They effectively stifled those opportunities, at least in the short term. This is the classic case of a spy who becomes so paranoid he reaches the point of only fooling himself.

Not satisfied, they then, in an act of unbelievable hubris, asked all the member boards to free themselves from political interference by the end of 2012. It's not that this move isn't welcome; on the contrary, it's long overdue. It's just that the previous day the ICC had conjured up conclusions on both the Decision Review System (DRS) and the Future Tour Programme (FTP) that were classics of expedient compromise, the favourite tool of politicians everywhere.

Instead of insisting on important changes to the DRS, like the ICC having full control over operating the system, and also placing the reviews totally in the hands of the umpires, the BCCI opted for an ineffective and confusing compromise. Why? Presumably to avoid being forced to play one-sided and financially draining Test series against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the new FTP.

Neither of those two nations should be playing Test matches against any country. Instead, they should be competing on a second-tier level with other Associate nations and the stronger A teams in order to improve and provide ample proof they deserve to be elevated to Test status.

And finally there was the important issue of the ICC presidency. Instead of voting to eradicate the public-service-style system of rotating presidents in favour of choosing the best person for the job, this issue has been put on hold for a few more months. Why? Presumably to give the members a chance to hammer out another confusing compromise.

In part of an ICC statement issued following the resolution to de-politicise the individual boards, the CEO, Haroon Lorgat, said: "[…] that through a democratic election process you get the right people to run the sport in the country." Why then wouldn't the ICC set an example and do exactly that when appointing their president?

What with all the efforts to placate India and the obsession with power-broking, the ICC has become the most politicised of all cricketing bodies. Too bad more people aren't actually spying on the ICC in an effort to make them more accountable.

A tribute to Shoaib Akhtar the WORLD FASTEST BOWLER!

CNG price expected to cross Rs 100/kg

Latest News Business: CNG price expected to cross Rs 100/kg > The Ministry of Petroleum has sent a summery of Gas prices to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousaf Raza Gilani on Saturday, Reported on July 3, 2011.According to the story, CNG prices expected to cross Rs. 100 per KG, if the summery will be accepted by Prime Minister Gilani. The Government expects the price of CNG to Petrol Prices.After the Approval of the New CNG Price summery, prices go in Punjab and Sindh 96.2 while Rs. 100.70 in KP, Potohaar and Balochistan.

Shahid Afridi Bowling in County Cricket

Some Beautiful Facts about Pakistan: A drop from the sea

Swanny vs Murali 50p challenge

Acer Ferrari Smartphone Special Edition

Acer for fans of brand Ferrari created a mobilephone based on Liquid E. The device is in daring bright red corporate colors of the Italian brand and with a powerful filling. The phone has a large touch screen 3.5-inch, 5-megapixel camera, and “under the hood” of novelty lies one of the most powerful mobile processors Snapdragon. Special edition features a bright red corp with the familiar shield of Ferrari, surrounded by a strip of carbon fiber; a microphone, designed in the style of the air intake of “Formula 1″ car, as well as special screensavers, wallpapers and ringtones. There was nothing reported about the price of the device, but you can be sure logo of Ferrari on the corp will cost you enough.

Most Wanted Facebook Profile

Facebook’s Mark Zukerberg Comic Book Has Arrived

The biographical comic portraying the life of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg hits shelves today.

Canadian comic production company Bluewater Productions released the “giant-sized” 48-page issue, which freelance journalist Jerome Maida wrote Sal Field illustrated.

“Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire on the planet and created something that has already had a profound impact on the world. Yet hardly anyone knows much about him. It’s amazing,” said Maida, adding that he’s trying to give context to a complex public figure in his portrayal of Zuckerberg.

“Rightly or wrongly, Mark dealt harshly with some people on his way to where he is today. As we see, he left many people feeling betrayed. I try my best to be fair here,” Maida said.

Thanks to his billionaire status and the many lawsuits surrounding Facebook, Zuckerberg was already an (unwilling) star of David Fincher’s movie The Social Network, which is the up for several Academy Awards. And thanks to the comic, Zuckerberg also may become an animated character, as the production company Hayden 5 Media optioned the script to create an animated film based on it.

The comic costs $6.99 and is available at comic book stores.

Ullu Day Pathay Politician!

Nokia says sayonara to Japan, one last time

Nokia has finally decided to pull out of the Japanese market entirely once and for all। Although Nokia stopped supplying handsets to Japanese carriers in 2008, Nokia’s luxury brand of handsets – Vertu – still had some presence in Japan.

However, now Nokia will be shutting down the Vertu stores in the Shibuya and Ginza districts of Japan by the end of July. As for their phone service, run on network infrastructure leased from NTT DoCoMo Inc. it will be discontinued when its contract expires at the end of August.

Meanwhile, Nokia’s Tokyo office will remain open till the end of the year to handle fee refunds and other matters but then that too will be shut down, thus ending Nokia’s presence in Japan completely.

Microsoft Makes Windows Phone More Social

NEW YORK — Microsoft previewed new features in its upcoming software update for Windows Phone 7 here Tuesday. Code-named “Mango,” the update focuses on streamlining different forms of wireless communication.

Microsoft highlighted the “People” hub in Mango, an all-in-one contacts list with tight Facebook integration that allows users to text, call, e-mail, IM or tweet at people on their contacts list.

Microsoft’s sales pitch: By making it easier to contact friends and family in the People hub, customers can spend less time fiddling with apps and get straight to communicating. In other words, it’s the less-antisocial smartphone.

“We wanted to provide the customer with less clutter, more clarity,” said Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s mobile-communications business at a press conference. “This builds upon our mission to make the smartphone smarter and easier. With Windows Phone Mango, we’re taking a people-centric approach to communications.”

Other new features Microsoft previously announced for Mango were multitasking, copy-and-paste and multimedia messaging.

Microsoft has been searching for a path forward in the mobile space, lest it fall further behind Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system, which have surged to a lead in the booming smartphone market. The company originally launched Windows Phone 7 in November 2010 on handsets built by manufacturers including HTC, Samsung and LG.

In order to differentiate itself from the likes of Apple and Google, Microsoft officials said the company is pursuing a strategy that seeks to integrate mobile applications with the operating system.

The new software emphasizes tight integration with Facebook, of which Microsoft is a minority owner; Bing, Redmond’s search engine; and Skype, the web-telephony pioneer Microsoft recently purchased for $8.5 billion.

“Think of your applications as musical instruments,” Lees said. “With Mango, they finally become part of an orchestra, with a conductor. With Windows Phone 7, applications are alive as part of the total experience.”

Mango will be available for Windows Phone 7 customers as a free update beginning this fall, Lees said, adding that the software is already live on not-yet-public handsets built by Nokia.

Microsoft is releasing the API immediately, to allow developers to create applications for the software.

Amazing !

usb made phanka :D

world first playing motorbike

50 Quotes to Inspire the Dreamers of 2011

1. "Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein." ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

2. "You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own and you know what you know.
And you are the one who'll decide where to go." ~Dr. Seuss

3. "Dedicate your life to a cause greater than yourself, and your life will become a glorious romance and adventure." ~Mack Douglas

4. "The future is sending back good wishes and waiting arms." ~Kobi Yamada

5. "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." ~B.J. Marshall

6. "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon seem inevitable." ~Christopher Reeve

7. "One of my best moves is to surround myself with friends who, instead of asking, "Why?" are quick to say, "Why not?" That attitude is contagious." ~Oprah Winfrey

8. "Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure." ~Maya Angelou

9. "It's easy to come up with big ideas. Just think of something that everyone agrees would be "wonderful" if it were only "possible"… and then set out to make it possible."
~Armand Hammer

10. "Thousands of perceptions, hunches, ideas and intuitions race through our brains every day. Some are pure genius. Give them the red light for at least long enough to write them down." ~Ralph Ford

11. "Your resources are always far greater than you imagine them to be. Never ask, "Can I do this?" Ask instead, "How can I do this?" ~Dan Zadra

14. "I would rather be ashes than dust; I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot; I would rather be in a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow than in a sleepy and permanent planet; the proper function of man is to live, not to exist; I should not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I shall USE my time." ~Jack London

15. "Never retire! Do what you do and keep doing it. But don't do it on Friday. Take Friday off. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, go fishing…Then Monday to Thursday, do what you've been doing all your life. My point is: Live full and don't retreat."
~Mel Brooks

16. "We are here on earth to good for others. What the others are here for I do not know." ~W. H. Auden

17. "To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world." ~Josephine Billings

18. "I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have on hell of a good time. Sometimes this make planning the day difficult." ~E.B. White

19. "If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of twenty million full-time volunteers."
~Whoopi Goldberg

20. "If success is not not on your terms–if it looks good to the world but doesn't not feel good in your own heart–it is no success at all." ~Anna Quindlen

21. "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." ~Diane Ackerman

22. "Remember that life is short and death is long."
~Fritz Shoulder

23. "The best thing about the future is that is comes only one day at a time." ~Abraham Lincoln

24. "Once social change begins, It cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours." ~Cesar Chavez

25. "There are fish in the sea better than any that have ever been caught." ~Irish Saying

26. "Whatever your past has been, you have a spotless future." ~Author Unknown

27. "The greatest pain comes from not believing there is a future, not being able to dream about something better." ~Author Unknown.

28. "Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire…you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away." ~Denis Waitley

29. "Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. ~Anais Nin

30. "The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking." ~Robert H. Schuller

31. "The inability to open to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams."
~Elizabeth Gilbert

32. "People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams."
~Norman Cousins

33. "No person has the right to rain on your dreams."
~Marian Wright Edelman

34. "Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one." ~John Lennon

35. "The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle." ~Anais Nin

36. "Dreams come in a size too big so we can grow into them." ~Josie Bisset

37. "A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown."
~Denis Waitley

38. "Always remember that the future comes one day at a time." ~Dean Acheson

39. "One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.” ~Dale Carnegie

40. "The secret of making dreams come true can be summarized in four C's. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy; and the greatest of these is Confidence." ~Walt Disney

41. "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." ~Robert F. Kennedy

42. "Just remember…when you think all is lost, the future remains." ~Bob Goddard

43. "Being fully present is the best guarantee for a bright future." ~Guy Finley

44. "If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad." ~Denis Waitley

45. "The future depends on what we do in the present." ~Mahatma Gandhi

46. "To the youngsters of today, I say "Believe in the future, the world is getting better; there still is plenty of opportunity." Why, would you believe it, when I was a kid I thought it was already too late for me to make good at anything."
~Walt Disney

47. "Love is the time and space where "I" give myself the right to be extraordinary." ~Julia Kristev

48. "We don't have an eternity to realize our dreams – only the time we are here." ~Susan L. Taylor

49. "You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through." ~Rosalynn Carter 50. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

50. "Action is the antidote to despair." ~Joan Baez

Although when it comes to Apple versus Microsoft in the digital music market, most of the fight is believed to be between the iPod and Zune, there is more to the market than just the player, and content is just as important, if not more. So far, Microsoft's music service, the Zune Marketplace, has gone largely unnoticed; it is, however, quite interesting. Unlike the iTunes Store, which offers one clicking , microsoft has different plans to make things as complicated as possible.

Because currency is too simple an affair, Microsoft has gone the other way and has opted for a system called Microsoft points. In the United States, points are available in denominations of $5 for 400 points, $15 for 1,200, $25 for 2,000 and $50 for 4,000. That makes $1 worth 80 points. A song will cost 79 points, making a song about the same price as on iTunes; however, there is more than just a price comparison here.From a marketing point of view, this is a good idea. The psychological price of 79 points is less than that of 99 cents, which could lead to more sales. Also, since an average album that would normally cost $9.99, would be approximately 790 points, Microsoft can keep your money for you. Looking at the point packs, one notices that there is no 800 point package, meaning that you either have to buy two 400 point packs or buy a 1200 one and not use it all. This means that you provide an interest free loan to Microsoft, a company that has $40 billion in the bank.Once again, it is quite obvious that Microsoft is very up to date on how to make more money out of their customers and quite out of touch with what customers actually need. All the hassle of having to keep converting money into 'Microsoft Money' every time you want to buy a song is sure to discourage a lot of potential users.

iPhone vs. Android Showdown: Which Phone Is Best for Power Users?

out in two weeks; the Android OS continues to deploy on better and better hardware; and both operating systems roll out exciting new features and innovations with each release. So which deserves your hard-earned cash?

A Starting Point

You can evaluate iPhone and Android devices from countless angles,^[1] so rather than pretend that we've got the One True Comparison, it only seems appropriate to highlight that we're not necessarily your average user. For more specifics on how we judge these devices, read this footnote.

For our purposes, we're measuring each phone OS against 20 features we care about most, declaring a winner (or a tie) for each category, and adding it all up. The extent to which our measurements match up with what you most care about may vary, but we suspect that many of you share similar values when it comes to your smartphone.

Note: The table below indicates the device we think "wins" each category. A happy Android means we think Android is better in that category; an Apple means iPhone outperforms Android; categories with both an Android and Apple are ties.

Artwork by Adam Dachis

Below, we've broken down the categories above and explained whey we chose the winners as we did.

Ease of Use; Winner: iPhone

Android has come a long way in a short time, but from an ease-of-use perspective, the iPhone wins out. You can pick up any iPhone and quickly, easily understand what's going on. It's got one main button on the front of the device, and everything you do consists of tapping app icons from the home screen. Android devices have several buttons on the front of the device that perform a variety of functions, and once you unlock the screen (and depending on which Android device you have), you're confronted with many different possible home screens and ways of doing things from those home screens.

Openness; Winner: Android

We really like that the Android operating system is open source, but what's more important to most end users is openness in terms of what you can run on these devices. The operating systems themselves are clearly important, but one thing's abundantly clear: the applications make the phone. And while Google has yet to get in hot water for rejecting apps based on anti-competitive fear or censorship, Apple has. A lot.

Battery Life; Winner: iPhone

Apple has taken battery life extremely seriously in their careful development of the iPhone, and it's shown. While Android devices get a kitchen-sink's worth of features that you may consider to be a fair tradeoff for battery life, there's little question that the iPhone's battery life outlasts that of most Android devices. Battery performance definitely varies from Android handset to Android handset (the recently released EVO is taking big hits for its poor battery performance), but the iPhone's battery performance—particularly the new iPhone's performance—generally outlasts Android's.

Multitasking; Tie

It's a big deal that the iPhone is finally getting some multitasking support in iOS4, and while it's still not as true of multitasking as Android users enjoy, the tradeoff in terms off battery life improvements is important enough that, overall, we'd consider multitasking to be a wash.

Software Keyboard; Winner: iPhone

If you talk to anyone who's used both the iPhone and Android with some frequency, the general consensus is that the iPhone's software keyboard is a good deal better than Android's default keyboard. That's unfortunate for Android users, but the consolation is that you can install any custom keyboard as your default keyboard on Android, and we've seen some solid keyboard alternatives. Still, the advantage, if only by virtue of being better out of the box, goes to the iPhone.

System-Wide Search; Tie

Apple's implementation of Spotlight on the iPhone searches contacts, media, email, applications, notes, and calendar. Android searches most of that (but notably not email), but also integrates with auto-suggest web searches; it also lets other applications plug into it, so the more supported apps you install, the more robust the universal search becomes.

Notification system; Winner: Android

This may seem like a silly thing to care too much about, but the iPhone's modal notification system is particularly user un-friendly, especially for a device as friendly as the iPhone. You have to act on a notification, and you can only see one notification at a time before the next one dismisses the previous one entirely. Android's brilliant pull-down window shade notification tray, on the other hand, is a beautiful thing that could make any iPhone owner jealous.

Voice-to-Text; Winner: Android

Nearly every text field on an Android device can be filled with a few words from your mouth, and it works surprisingly well. You can respond to emails by voice, send long text messages by voice while you're walking around Target, respond to your editor's IMs while you're at a graduation ceremony, and so on, as long as you're comfortable talking to your phone (it is a phone, so you should be). Apart from voice-to-text in third party apps, iOS doesn't support voice-to-text at all.

Syncing; Winner: Android

iPhones can be incredible standalone devices, but they're surprisingly old-fashioned when it comes to syncing, requiring users to plug into their computers and connect to iTunes to do all sorts of syncing and activating that could be more conveniently done wirelessly. Android phones support pretty great over-the-air syncing with your Google account, so much so that if you were to lose your previous Android phone, simply entering your Google account into a new one can get you up and running with a usable phone in a jiffy.

Non-Google Sync; Winner: iPhone

Android's great at syncing seamlessly with Google's servers, but it's not so keen on syncing with other popular sources of data—like, say, Outlook, Address Book, or iTunes. If you're a heavy user of any of those applications, the iPhone is the easiest option.

Tethering; Winner: Android

The cost of tethering on Android devices varies depending on the provider, but so far the Android tethering situation is better off than what AT&T is offering on the iPhone. In the States, AT&T will charge you $20/month just for the privilege of tethering your iPhone's data connection to a computer—despite the fact that you're already paying for a metered data plan. The situation isn't necessarily much better across the Android-sphere (Sprint is also planning to charge for tethering on the EVO, for example), but currently most Android carriers are sticking with "unlimited" plans, versus AT&T/iPhone's 2GB limit. It's still a close race on this point, but Android edges ahead with the ability to turn your handset into a Wi-Fi hotspot that can deliver wireless to you and seven of your closest friends.

Release and Update Consistency; Winner: iPhone

These days, your mobile OS is just as important (if not more) than mobile hardware, and Apple has set the consumer expectation to expect that their device will receive new feature updates even if it isn't the latest phone. To that end, it's extremely easy to keep track of what's going on in the iPhone ecosystem. Apple releases one new phone a year, and one major update each year. When an update rolls out, every phone receives the update at the same time (unless it's particularly old; the original iPhone won't upgrade to iOS4, for example). In contrast, Android runs on a lot of different devices, and when Google pushes out a new update, there's no telling when or if it's going to make its way to your phone. In the future Google is planning to change to yearly Android updates similar to iPhone OS updates, which will likely help this situation, but in the meantime, it's a source of frustration for Android users.

Apps; Tie

A lot of people may disagree on this assessment, given that Apple's App Store has around four times the number of applications the Android Market does, but there's also a lot of crap in the App Store, and at this point, most popular, mission-critical applications have been developed for both the iPhone and Android. What's more, some potentially very popular applications end up locked out of the App Store for, if we're being generous, arbitrary reasons. At the end of the day, it may be a big deal that your must-have application X is missing from the Android Market/App Store, and those may end up to be dealbreakers for you, but overall we'd call them pretty even.

Web browsing; Tie

The iPhone's Mobile Safari browser, while not without its faults, is a very nice, very usable mobile browser. Android's browser, while not as smooth an operator as Safari, supports (orcan support) Flash. The extent to which that matters to you may vary, but it's big enough that we're considering it a tie.

Gaming; Winner: iPhone

We're frugal productivity nerds at Lifehacker, so we don't really care all that much about gaming. And while the number of solid gaming options available in the Android Market continue to grow, it's still not on par with what's available for the iPhone.

Music Player; Winner: iPhone

Android may do a lot of things well, but one arena where its users regularly voice complaint is with its default media player. Where the iPhone comes with a very solid iPod app, most Android users quickly go looking for alternative players. Google is hyping over-the-internet streaming of all your music from your desktop computer eventually, but until we see something great there, the iPhone still wins out.

Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation; Winner: Android

After the Google Voice debacle from last year, it's looking less and less likely that Google will ever develop another new app for the iPhone. Unfortunately, that means that extremely cool applications like Google Maps Navigation, Google's free turn-by-turn GPS application, will never make it to the iPhone, and so far there isn't anything as good for the iPhone that's also free. The iPhone does have its share of solid for-a-price GPS utilities in the App Store (and some decent inexpensive-to-free options), but Maps Navigation is built into Android and outshines the iPhone's free alternatives.

Integration with Google Apps; Winner: Android

If you rely on Google tools like Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and the like, Android just does it better. The iPhone's still no slouch, and can sync over-the-air with Contacts, Calendar, and even does Gmail push for instant new message notifications, but if you're a serious Google or even just Gmail user, the iPhone doesn't stack up to Android.

Google Voice; Winner: Android

It may seem absurd to make this a separate point of comparison from Google Apps, but Voice is a very phone-centric app with potentially huge influence over how you use your phone. Apple had the option to approve a Google Voice app for the iPhone and completely blew it. And since we really love Google Voice, it only makes Android look that much more attractive.

Customizable; Winner: Android

You may be able to add a wallpaper to your iPhone desktop when iOS4 rolls out, but beyond that, there's not much you can do to tweak your iPhone to exactly how you like it—without jailbreaking, that is. In comparison, Android devices are Mr. Potato Heads of customizability.

Overall Score: Android: 13; iPhone: 11

Clearly our scorecard is extremely subjective, so take this evaluation with a grain of salt, and consider how important the features we listed (and maybe those we didn't list) are to you and come up with your own assessment. If your priorities are similar to ours, you're likely looking at an Android for your next purchase. Frankly, it feels a little like a draw overall. (My ideal would be Android running on the iPhone 4, which is actually possible, eventually.)

In fact, in our recent poll on the subject, 66 percent of Lifehacker readers said they prefer Android; 30 percent prefer the iPhone, and 4 percent preferred neither. Whichever end of the spectrum you fall on, we'd love to hear more about what's driving your decision in the comments.

---

Why just Android and iPhone? The iPhone and Android operating systems are not the only mobile OSes on the block, but they're what we're focusing on in this post. It's cool if you're really into Windows Mobile/Phone 7 or webOS. For the purpose of this post, we're focusing on what we consider to be the most popular options among our readers.

How we judge: We consider ourselves power users who care about things like openness, user control, and customizability; we also care about ease of use, high quality design, and quality hardware. For better or worse (usually worse), these qualities often end up at odds with one another in the current smartphone market, but they make up the measuring stick against which we're evaluating these devices.

It's also probably worth noting that, Android OS and hardware aside, we're big fans of several of Google's services, and so some of those play an important role in some of the categories above. It may not seem fair to Apple and the iPhone to do so, but in most instances (like Google Voice), Apple had the opportunity to accept Google-focused applications to the App Store.

Finally, the state of Android devices can be somewhat confusing because they're released by different carriers and on lots of different hardware. We tried to strike a balance between acknowledging faults on some of the worst incarnations of Android hardware while also keeping in mind the best. To the extent that older iPhones aren't up to snuff compared to the new iPhone, we've done the same thing in discussing the iPhone.