Rumours are a great thing. When people started over a year ago to mention the possibility of Apple releasing a mobile handset, some laughed, some raised eyebrows and some kept their mouths shut in a hope that that they wouldn’t spoil anything for the future by raising speculation.

Now though it seems that we’re closer and closer to the release of an Apple handset and a few more facts are starting to leak out, including one on the batteries – two batteries in the handset, not just one. The reason being that one battery will power the phone and the majority of its functions while the other one is there to provide juice for MP3 playing so as not to drop your standby/talk rates for battery life.

Cellphones etc (Canada) has a bit more…

Hospitals ban them, airlines ban them (though this is gradually being reduced through improvements in the security of flight navigation equipment) and now it looks like the new celebrity thing to do is ban everyone on a movie set from using mobile phones – this time its Reese Witherspoon, outlawing mobile phone usage to prevent pictures of her being taken with co-star Jake Gyllenhaal in an attempt stop tabloid rumours about her relationship with her co-star following her divorce from Ryan Philliope last month.

No mention of course of what happens if they’re seen using a mobile. Whatever will they think of next….

I was a lover of my iPAQ HW6515 (pic featured) until I ended up having it repaired, the main board swapped out, and then returned with a bunch of sticky keys (which is likely the main reason that stopped me using it). Of course, when I was in Toronto over the last 9 days or so I dropped into a mobile store offering the same model (the 6515) to see if they had any customer complaints – their simple response being that they had more upset customers than happy ones, each experiencing the same problems I had (having to reboot the phone as the keyboard or joystick might stop working, occasional hangs, sticky keys).

Not to let that disappoint you (or me much further), hopefully HP will have learned from any mistakes around that model as they’ve just launched three new GPS iPAQs out in Japan, all offering integrated bluetooth, wifi and Windows Mobile 5 as standard (something the 6515 couldn’t do due to issues with the hardware).

Maybe some day again, if I find myself somewhere warranting a good GPS setup.

If you’re thinking on getting a mobile upgrade around Christmas look no further than the K800i (if it is a camera-based phone you’re after). To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of them – five or so mobiles I’ve used in the past few years (from the Motorola v300/600, Sony Ericsson P900, HP iPAQ 6515w etc) and I’ve never bothered with them to take pictures.

Until now.

While the phone worked a charm in all other aspects (picking up RSS updates while strolling around down town Toronto – I’ve been away there since November 24th, just back today – , no problems with the roaming for calls and texts), it was the camera that impressed most. Not just the fact that you’re getting fine quality images at 3.2mp but the absolute ease of use – slide down the lens cover and the phone jumps to camera mode, snap, close it over and you’re back to your main phone display.

I had even brought along a pocket camera (5mp Konika Minolta dImage X60) but where I took 3-4 shots on the Minolta, I wound up with around 100 on the K800i, just strolling, randomly snapping away. I can’t, honestly can’t, compliment it enough. Now, to try get them on flickr…

VoIP technology just got better with Nokia, the Finnish mobile manufacturer announcing an expansion to their VoIP range of services. Such a serviceis Nokia’s provision of software to allow users of the N80 handset to make VoIP calls over wi-fi networks using Gizmo by SIPphone. Also included will be Skype support for the N73 model.

More here…