Speculation on the follow-up, the “3G iPhone”, has been building ever since the first generation model was revealed — but things really started getting a bit uproarious over the past few months. Case makers began leaking dimensions for the upcoming phone, supposed “leaked” pictures of the phone were drooled over by nearly ever gadget site on the web, and leaked firmware was picked over with a fine-tooth comb.

Apple today finally announced its next generation crowd pleaser. Apple is looking to address the shortcoming of its first effort this time around and further expand its popularity (Jobs previously stated that he wants 10 million iPhones sold within the first 18 months – it already surpassed the 6 million mark during its first year).

First things firsts – the worse kept secret about the second generation iPhone is its 3G capabilities. The first gen model was widely criticized for its slow EDGE cellular broadband capabilities. Apple is now matching the competition with the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3G has tapered look with thinner edges, solid metal buttons, a black plastic backing, flush headphone jack, and vastly improved audio.

The faster cellular connectivity of the iPhone 3G allow for download speeds nearly as quick as WiFi and speeds that are 2.5 times as fast as EDGE. The iPhone 3G also sports better battery life than its predecessor. The iPhone 3G now supports 2G talk time of 10 hours, 3G talk time of 5 hours, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio, and 5-6 hours of high-speed web browsing.

Apple also confirmed early speculation that price breaks would be in store for the new lineup of iPhones. The Cupertino, California-based company confirmed today that the new 8GB iPhone will be priced at $199 with a new two-year contract when it launches July 11, while the 16GB iPhone (which will be available in white at a later date) will set you back $299 under the same terms.

The iPhone 3G will be rolled out in 22 countries on July 11 (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the U.S.).

On Monday, Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel) and Bharti Airtel Ltd. announced in a joint statement that they had reached agreement with Apple Inc. to sell the iPhone in Australia and India, respectively. Last week, U.K.-based Vodafone Group PLC said it had signed with Apple to sell the iPhone in both of those countries.

SingTel’s Optus subsidiary, which has an estimated 7 million subscribers, will handle the iPhone in Australia; Bharti Airtel currently has about 64 million mobile customers in India.

Last Tuesday, Vodafone and Telecom Italia — Italy’s telecommunications company — both said that they had signed deals with Apple to sell the iPhone in Italy, the first time that the U.S. company had made nonexclusive arrangements. Until then, Apple had partnered with a single mobile service provider in each market. In the U.S., for example, the only authorized network is AT&T, while in France, Germany and the U.K. it’s Orange, T-Mobile and O2, respectively.

Neither Apple’s U.S. or U.K. online stores have iPhones available for sale, according to their Web sites. At both, the message “Currently Unavailable” appears beside “Ships,” which last week was noting a delay of five to seven business days. The company’s German and French e-stores, however, still show 8GB and 16GB iPhones available.

Sales representatives at four major Apple retail stores contacted by Computerworld today said that the iPhone is unavailable, not only at their own stores but across Apple. Most had no explanation why the smart phone is out of stock.

“The iPhone is sold out, companywide,” said a salesman who answered the phone at the Apple store in Braintree, Mass., just south of Boston.

“It’s out of stock, Applewide,” said a saleswoman at the Apple store in downtown Portland, Ore. “No, I don’t know why,” she said when asked why the iPhone was unavailable online and at retail. “All we’ve been told is that it’s Applewide.”

China Mobile’s chief executive, Wang Jianzhou, told reporters Saturday that Apple’s current model, which requires operators to share monthly subscriber revenues with the iPhone maker, has prevented the two companies from engaging in formal talks.

Wang, however, said China Mobile hadn’t completely dismissed the idea of some sort of deal. “Our door will remain open as long as there is customer demand,” he said at an economic development conference in southern China, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.

Earlier reports claimed that China Mobile and Apple have held informal talks, but that the Chinese company broke off the discussions in January because it balked at Apple’s insistence that it receive 20% to 30% of iPhone customers’ monthly fees.

Apple has said several times that it will introduce the iPhone to an Asian market this year, but it has not specified in which country or countries it will launch the smart phone during 2008.

Verizon and AT&T will both use the spectrum for high-speed, fourth-generation wireless services.

Qualcomm won eight spectrum licenses in the 6-MHz E block, including spectrum covering the Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia areas. The company will use the spectrum it bought for $554.6 million to expand its FLO TV service, which offers video over mobile devices. Qualcomm now offers FLO TV to areas containing 68 million people, and the new spectrum will allow the service to reach 130 million people in the U.S., Qualcomm said.

The E block licenses will allow Qualcomm to deliver more video content over FLO TV, Qualcomm said. Qualcomm also won three 12-MHz B block licenses, at a cost of $3.5 million, near three Qualcomm research and development centers in California and New Jersey.

The FCC auction of spectrum in the 700-MHz band raised more than $19 billion for the 1,090 spectrum licenses sold. The spectrum will be available to winning bidders in February 2009, when U.S. television stations must abandon the spectrum and move to all-digital broadcasts.

Today, the reports were confirmed when BestBuy.com launched a product page for the Eee PC 4G-X. As expected, the 4G-X includes a 4GB SSD, 900MHz Intel Celeron M processor, 512MB of DDR2 memory, 7″ (800×480) display, and Windows XP Home.

Likewise, the price is listed at $399.99. With a price tag that is identical to its Xandros Linux-equipped counterpart, one wonders exactly how much Microsoft is subsidizing the cost of the operating system on the Eee PC.

Sources close to Microsoft are now stating that the company is expected to extend the availability of Windows XP specifically for low-cost notebooks (i.e., Eee PC, CloudBook, etc.). Although Microsoft declined to comment on the report, the sources said that the announcement could come as early as this week during the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) which is taking place in Shanghai.

An announcement at IDF would make perfect sense as the show is a showcase for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and notebooks using Intel’s new Atom processors. Intel’s Atom processors are targeted at MIDs, sub-notebooks and even low-end desktop machines.

Everex is looking to tackle those problems head-on with the new CloudBook Max. The CloudBook Max, like the new Eee PC 900, makes use of an 8.9″ display running at a generous 1024×600 resolution. The poor system performance will hopefully be resolved with the faster 1.6GHz VIA C7-M processor and VIA VX800 digital media IGP chipset (2GB of memory is now standard). The HDD has been boosted to 80GB, but it’s likely that the drive still spins at a leisurely 4,200 RPM.

In addition to the already standard 802.11a/b/g WiFi, the CloudBook Max adds integrated GPS, Bluetooth and WiMAX. Everex also wisely added a traditional trackpad to the CloudBook Max to replace the torturous input mechanism of its predecessor.

Everex promises four-hour run times with the new CloudBook Max.

That’s the promise of Java, sadly, the reality isn’t always the same. Java Virtual Machines on different platforms often require special code (which kind of defeats the purpose) and most damning of all (especially on the Mac) is that Java has its own library of UI elements. Unless a Java programmer goes out of their way to make sure their app looks like a native app, it often has an unmistakable ‘Java look’ to it.

Sun now wants you to have all that Java fun on the iPhone. Shortly after the launch of the iPhone SDK, Sun started looking into the possibility of making a Java VM for the iPhone. After some investigating, they are sure that Java ME (that’s the version of Java optimized for mobile devices) on the iPhone is possible and Sun wants to bring it to you. I’m sure there are many Java developers out there are very happy to hear this news.

This is exactly what owners of some HTC smartphones are claiming. A website has been setup called HTCClassAction.org to try and force HTC and the cellular carriers that sell affected HTC devices to remedy alleged problems with certain devices and video acceleration.

The website claims that the HTC TyTn II, HTC Touch Dual, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Wings, HTC Titan, HTC Vogue, HTC Libra, and HTC Iris as well as all the other names these phones go by are affected with the same problem. All of these phones are based on the MSM7200 and MSM7500 chipsets. These same chipsets are used by other manufactures whose devices don’t experience the same slowdowns with multimedia content according to some HTC owners.