This year, toast the new year on your own [virtual] Waterford champagne flute with Waterford’s Clink-Clink iPhone application. It’s free, and features a picture of a champagne glass that “clinks” when you tip your phone.

If you “clink” with an iPhone of a stranger with the application, you will exchange contact information.

It certainly is a fun idea, but how many of you will be carrying around a virtual glass of champagne in place of a real one?

What do you think about the iPhone? Is it what it is all cracked up to be? Would you prefer an iPhone or a Blackberry? Those are a few questions I think about when I look at the current trend and the intentions of both Research in Motion and Apple’s iPhone. Apple is trying to bust in on Blackberry lovers, but do you think they will be successful? Maybe.

I currently own an iPhone, and honestly because I love Apple products. They are well made, easy to use, and a joy to have. The iPhone is not the most functional phone when you think about it, but it does what I need it to do, and does it well. Beforehand, I owned a Blackberry. Quite functional if you ask me, but Blackberrys’ just don’t give me that wow-factor that the iPhone has and that is what I like in addition to functionality for my needs/wants.

Make no mistake that the iPhone has shaken up the industry. In just the last three months of 2007, smartphone shipments shot up 60 percent from a year ago, according to industry research firm IDC. And RIM doubled sales of the Blackberry, adding 6.5 million subscribers in its last fiscal year, double the previous year. As the market has grown, the Blackberry’s market share has dropped from 45 percent to 40 percent while the iPhone took 17.5 percent in the second half of 2007.

To compete, RIM is working on a so-called “Apple killer” — a device with a touchscreen and lines suggestive of the iPhone. But AT&T is said to have delayed its introduction of the new phone because of problems with call quality — and delays hurt RIM as a new 3G iPhone is rumored for release this year.

I think it is not so much if it is a better phone, but the fact of the matter remains who offers more. I think RIM will have to offer applications and other things to stay in the game. Apple’s appeal to third-party developers could easily overwhelm RIM. Apple has said it will launch a new version of the iPhone software to enable third-party applications on the iPhone and the iPod touch. Apple also says more than 200,000 developers are working on applications for the iPhone.  

It is still clear that the Blackberry wins the hearts of many, but RIM is shaking in their boots and they know their comfortable position is about to be compromised unless the step up. Regardless, both phones are amazing and I think each one will have their chance to be at the top. Take a look all over the web, and you’ll noticed the issue of which is best is highly prevalent. Don’t get too worked up about the issue because, inevitably, the competition is here to stay – at least for a little while.

Buxfer is an online application that allows you to maintain and manage your financial stability, along with monitoring any debts that you owe or are owed. The layout is appealing and Buxfer’s competition could soon be struggling. Following a recent alliance with the Apple iPhone, you can take advantage of what Buxfer has to offer, straight from your iPhone. This will allow you to access all of your transactions, tags, charts and even report transactions while you are on the go. Yes, you can access your bank account from your iPhone as well, but Buxfer offers more and has a simple, iPhone compatible layout enabling a more readable text size.

Venturebeat recently released a favorable article, claiming that Buxfer is giving Mint a run for its money. That is a strong statement considering that Mint was part of the Techcrunch 40 startup companies. However, I agree that Buxfer is an excellent new money management tools and seems to offer everything that its competitors offer, plus more. In addition, its super-fresh interface has much to do usability. Signing up is a breeze and importing bank information is as simple (and safe) as logging in.

TechCrunch calls Buxfer the “half brother of Billmonk” because of the product similarities. However, Buxfer does offer much more than Billmonk. TechCrunch explains that, “Buxfer is deeper than Billmonk, letting you track and tag out your expenses with friends and groups over time. Buxfer goes further, letting you analyze you expenses over time through a Google finance-style pie chart with adjustable time frame.” In my opinion, Buxfer does offer quite a lot of flexibility and even offers a peer to peer payment service. Backed by Amazon, you can collaborate with Buxfer to get the money back that your friends owe you in easy, flexible payments. While other private services are beginning to offer this, Buxfer is a well-rounded site that focuses on managing your money, income and debts as a whole.

Buxfer users are enabled to setup automatic bill reminders and repeating transactions. This is helpful for those who bookmark several bill paying sites in order to manually check bill due dates each month. Buxfer will keep track for the individual every bill that is entered into the private Buxfer account; reoccurring bills such as mortgage payments, electric bills and automobile payments.

NetBanker points out a weakness of Buxfer, claiming it has “no support for transactions”. When I signed up for the service, I did notice that I had to do a lot of manual data entering. NetBanker explains, “Other than being able to import transaction files that have been previously downloaded from banks and card issuers, it’s all manual data entry. Helper tools such as “copy”, “repeat entry” and “auto-tagging” help a bit, but to be an effective tool the service needs to integrate more closely with the actual bill and the payment.” I know that if the service is too cumbersome, then it will slowly decrease individual usage.

Overall, Buxfer made an excellent choice by making itself compatible with the iPhone. With the world’s current economic status, it is about time to take responsibility for our finances.

iPhone Fully Loaded

Debt Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About

No question as to the gadget that got the most attention. Stand up and take a bow – the iPhone.

14U News have a fairly spectacular photo spread of their iPhone girl wearing very few clothes and playing with an iPhone. Although I do wish they wouldn’t overexpose (sic) her like that.

Here is a sample and the full spread can be seen here.

Apple have, of course, come in for a lot of flak for being just plain greedy this year and in Europe, at least it is now illegal to sell an iPhone that cannot be unlocked, but the suppliers are charging accordingly.

All in all a good year for Apple’s iPhone, but you could be forgiven for thinking that’s all they sell if you take a trip to their website lately and it’s almost unforgivable how badly prepared they were with the Leopard release, with some people still reporting problems.

If they’re not careful, they will start losing the mainstay of their business – people like me. In fact, I am considering a linux based machine next time. So wake up and spend the money Mr. Jobs – hire some more developers.

Many people have been keeping track of the launch of the iPhone over in Europe and today that wait is finally over. As of 6:02 pm GMT the iPhone will be released in the UK. Along with this luanch also comes the release of Apples firmware 1.1.2 which early reports claim shut down any third party applications. It is estimated that well over 10,000 iPhones will be sold in the first twenty four hours and hackers all over have announced that they will have a jailbreak application (a third party app that can get past the iPhones proprietary systems) ready within hours of its release. However many questions have been asked about if the iPhone will truly have the success in Europe as it has in the US. The iPhone in Europe is more expensive, also the service agreements are more expensive as well. Yet both of these factors are not what many people point too as the major drawback.

Europe has been using the G3 network for a while now, and the iPhone runs on the slower Edge, so many people have speculated that people may not be willing to give up their current phone speed simply to buy a feature rich product such as the iPhone. Whatever the case, lines are growing and the launch is immanent.