Unlocked iPhone handsets finally hit Apple Store

With its annual smartphone refresh creeping ever forward, Apple has moved to maintain interest in the iPhone 4 by unveiling an unlocked version through the official Apple online store.

The GSM handset in question hit virtual shelves on Tuesday and will allow prospective buyers to select between AT&T and T-Mobile USA when it comes to choosing a host telecommunications network (but no Verizon Wireless).

The 16GB and 32GB versions of the ‘unlocked’ smartphone are being offered in chassis colours of either black or white for $649 USD and $749 USD respectively.

It’s worth noting that those buyers selecting T-Mobile to meet their connectivity needs will be restricted to the slug-worthy EDGE network as T-Mobile’s more nimble 3G platform is not compatible with the iPhone. Nice.

This, of course, leaves only AT&T—not exactly the nation’s favourite telecoms provider—which therefore only enables customers to sidestep a mandatory two-year service plan but not the company’s patchy reputation.

Given the choice (or lack thereof), we’d recommend sticking with a subsidised version of Apple’s market leading iPhone 4, or perhaps holding off on any kind of purchase until the upgraded iPhone 4S (or iPhone 5) arrives in September.

Google embraces voice search

"The next big thing is definitely speech and voice recognition," Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently told the Daily Mail. Voice recognition is a key feature of Microsoft's popular interactive Kinect for Xbox 360.

In a June 14 blog post, Google noted that "mobile search traffic growth over the past three years is comparable to overall Google search traffic growth ... earlier in our history." Due to this exponential growth, including a  six-fold increase in mobile voice search traffic during the past year, Google has added voice recognition to the desktop.

Microsoft's Bing is Google's chief search engine rival in the U.S.  Google currently has 65 percent of the U.S. market. Bing controls most of the rest.

Google  also introduced a desktop Search by Image feature and increased the speed of searches with Instant Pages. Google provides an overview of its new features in its Inside Search blog.