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It seems that Apple continues to get into hot water over its applications store for the iPhone. The Electronic Frontier Foundation finally managed to get a copy of the developer agreement, which developers have to sign before they can submit applications for approval.

For the average person, the question of the last few years has been, Do I need a smartphone? After all, ten years ago, cellphones were just beginning to penetrate the market. I remember a friend of mine bought one and the first thing I said to her was "Why? Why not save the expense and just use a payphone?" Nowadays, of course, cellphones have become so ubiquitous that payphones have begun disappearing from sidewalks for lack of use. Will smartphones become the new cellphones?

An interesting site has sprung up in the last few days. Please Rob Me is a production of Forthehack, an incubator for new web ideas. The site does one thing, and does it well - it tells you who's not at home, so that you can go and rob them. That's right - rob their empty homes. But it doesn't actually want burglars to go calling, it's just trying to make a point.

Well, better late than never, I suppose. Microsoft now has a new mobile phone platform that it hopes will rival the iPhone, and Google's own Jesus-phone, the Nexus One. It took its own sweet time -- and you won't be able to buy one of these until this Christmas season. But it looks as though it might be worth the wait.

Yesterday I talked about Siri, an iPhone application that serves as a virtual assistant. But there is still only so much that it can do. But I have a real assistant, and her name is Kim, and I've never met her. We use technology to work together, and she makes my professional and personal life much easier.

How often have you wished that you had people? I've always wanted people, so that I could get my people to talk to other people's people, and make important things happen. Like film deals, and book contracts. I bet Brad Pitt has people. And I bet Stephen King has people. That's why they're successful A-list celebrities, while I still have problems getting served at the local dive bar and never even have enough time to manage my woefully overdrawn bank account. It's just not fair, I tell you. Now, though, we might all be able to have people - or at least, a virtual equivalent thereof.

Could the happy marriage between Apple and Google be at an end? A report in BusinessWeek suggests that it might. The rumour is that Apple is negotiating with Microsoft to replace Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on the iPhone.

I’ll admit it openly -- I’m a big fan of being able to charge my devices wirelessly, especially if it means I can reduce the amount of wire clutter in my home. Before the holidays, I got a chance to test out the Powermat, a device that allows you to charge up to three devices simultaneously and wirelessly.

As much as I liked what it could do, I did lament the fact that it wasn’t entirely a “wireless” solution because the mat itself needed to be plugged in and the included PowerCube connected to your device using a very short cable. Granted, there are cases for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Nintendo DSi, but those also cost $40-$50. All told, you’d have to splurge $200 to get the mat and use it to its fullest in charging three things at once.

Something interesting happened in the world of check-in games today. What's a check-in game, you say? It's a social network that revolves around locations. Where ever you are, you can access the network via your mobile phone, and leave feedback about your current location. If you're at a pizzeria, you might leave a message that says 'have the garlic sauce on the New York Deli pizza - it's delicious'. 

Something quite significant happened in the mobile phone industry yesterday: Google launched its own cellphone. It's called the Nexus One, and Google is selling it via its own website. It isn't available in Canada yet, but when it is, it could shake up the way that we buy phones altogether.