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While this technically isn't directly about the iPhone, we thought that some of you might find this to be interesting, especially with all the speculation flying around of an Apple-made multitouch Mac tablet of some kind. Microsoft released their answer to the iPhone with their multi-touch computer, Surface. Now, Christian Moore has created a similar framework for the Mac.

There has been rumor after rumor about this or that country finally getting the iPhone, but don't think that the lack of an official presence is standing in the way of international consumers. The iPhone grey market is alive and well, and spreading the iPhone around the globe faster than Apple can get it launched, according to AdMob Mobile Metrics, a recent survey from AdMob.

Apple has been awarded two of the creative industry's most respected and desired awards, the D&AD Black Pencil Awards, for the design of the iPhone and aluminum iMac. The announcement makes for a total of six of the awards since 1999, making Apple the most successful firm in the 45-year history of the awards.

Google is joining the ranks as one software developer that's highly anticipating the opening of Apple's iPhone/iPod touch App Store. Features provided by Google have been available on the iPhone since the beginning with the Google Maps app, followed by Youtube. Great as those are, don't think they're stopping there. Along with the numerous web apps they have planned, the web giant has several native apps patiently waiting. Said Vic Gundotra, Google VP of engineering, "we expect to have applications at Day One."

Yesterday Ecamm Network released version 2.0 of their iPhone interface software, now called PhoneView. Previously called MegaPhone, PhoneView allows iPhone users full access to the media portion of the phone. PhoneView doesn't require any hacks and immediately allows access to your music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, camera roll, and photo albums. Additionally, PhoneView also provides access to notes, contacts, recents, SMS message history, and much more.

Early Friday, France-Telecom owned wireless carrier Orange confirmed that it will be offering Apple's iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets in 2008.

The move adds to Orange's portfolio, which includes the French market.

Singer John Mayer, who's been closely tied in with Apple for years (and hauled out after numerous Macworld Expo keynotes to play in a style not entirely unlike the Johnny Fontaine character from the first "Godfather" movie) was sighted with a Blackberry Bold unit. This comes after Mayer received a MacBook Air earlier than it was made available to the consumer market.

Apple has posted the complete schedule for the conferences and labs at WWDC 2008. The events are broken down into four categories: iPhone, Mac, iPhone and Mac, and IT. If you're signed up to participate, be sure to plan your schedule using their site, available here. They have yet to post iCal calendars with the events.
[via TUAW]

The boys over at CrunchGear have received word that AT&T has decided to put the planned free WiFi for iPhone users on hold. An internal memo sent out to AT&T's employees states that,

"The iPhone Wi-Fi offer that was scheduled to launch today has been canceled. Nothing has been announced by the company to our customers and will not impact existing customers. Additional communication will be provided if the status the project changes."

On Thursday, Rene Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, announced that subsidiary T-Mobile had solver over 100,000 iPhones in Germany. The figure follows up a declared figure of 70,000 iPhones sold since the handset's November, 2007 in Germany.