According to a recent find, the latest beta firmware release for the iPhone may reveal a new iPod Touch in the works, presumably nearing completion. Deduced from an extremely brief text string found by someone with entirely too much time on his or her hands, a new iPod Touch would make sense in light of the fact that Apple is currently doing everything it can to unload the current model. According to reports, Apple had been denoting the current iPod Touch model with “iPod 1,1″ while the iPhone had previously been referred to as “iPhone 1,1″. In the current firmware references to the current iPhone are shown as “iPhone 1,2″, illustrating the minor internal differentiation between iPhone and iPhone 3G. The iPod Touch on the other hand is denoted as “iPod 2,1″ which may in fact indicate that a rather major overhaul is in the works. Perhaps Apple will attempt to mix up the pot a bit by building a new iPod Touch that is more than merely an iPhone minus the phone. As we near September 15th, the date that the current free iPod Touch offer will come to an end, the timing might be just right for something new to come our way.
UPDATE: While there are probably updated iPod Touchs coming soon, one of our Apple informants hit us up to let us know the following: “There have been references to iPod2,1 since the first firmware 2.0 beta. In the lockdownd file there is a method to check if the device is A) an iPod Touch 2 (iPod2,1), or B) an iPhone 3G (iPhone1,2), so they aren’t new. The guy that keeps ‘discovering’ this stuff is a n00b, most have been around since the 2.0 betas.”
iPhone/iPod
touch only: Yahoo OneConnect is a free application that brings a
handful of communication and social networking tools to your iPhone or
iPod touch. Off the bat, the most notable thing about OneConnect is
that it supports sending SMS messages to contacts in your Yahoo Address
Book (provided you have a phone number in their contact card). That
means you can text all day long from your iPhone (or iPod touch, if you
have a Wi-Fi connection) without taking any texts away from your meager
AT&T SMS plan.
iPhone/iPod
touch only: Free iPhone app Wikipanion searches Wikipedia through a
fast, native interface. Complete with autosuggest, landscape mode, and
large, readable text, Wikipanion offers a fantastic way to browse
Wikipedia on-the-go. The application's bottom row of buttons provide
simple navigation (back and forward), links to sections for quick
navigation of large articles, and access to every link on the page,
including Wikipedia category links or external links. The free
Wikipanion is simple, but does exactly what it promises.


iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application GrandDialer integrates with 


iPhone/iPod
touch only: Free application 1Password makes logging into secure sites
much easier on the iPhone's mobile Safari browser by creating a
double-protected mini-database of your passwords. The app won't
auto-fill login forms in Safari, but provides its own mini-browser that
plugs in your credentials into any site's login form. Great for
checking your bank accounts or secure work data, but the big drawback
is lack of a keyboard inside the mini-browser—so no further typing once
you're in. Of course, you can just use 1Password as a memory-booster
for your user/password combos, for which it works just fine. 1Password
is a free download for iPhones and iPod touch devices only.