All the talk

INBOX: The long-awaited iPhone from Apple is, much to some people's surprise, still creating a lot of buzz in the technology and mobile world - not least because it seems to be bringing many of the interesting and useful features of the new wave of Web 2.0 technologies to a wider mass market via its delicious looks and interface.

However, since we're going to have to wait for December or even January to see the iPhone in these parts, here are a few ideas to sex-up the average mobile in the meantime.

One of the great features of the iPhone is that it acts just like an iPod, synchronising your iTunes music library with the phone. But what if you want to make your Mac sync music to your ordinary mobile?

Here comes SyncTunes to the rescue. This software synchronises tracks and podcasts from an iTunes playlist with a mounted disk such as an SD card plugged into a Mac via a card reader. Of course most mobiles today carry removable storage like Mini SD Cards and can also play MP3s, which means you can easily turn your mobile into a quasi-iPod.

Because SyncTunes works with the iTunes software and its playlists, it's a lot easier than trying to drag and drop files on to the card.

When transferring music you can optionally shrink the size of the music files, which means you can cram a lot more files into the card, and you don't have to hunt for the original music files in the folders of iTunes. The good news is that SyncTunes is free (from Nesfield.co.uk/synctunes or you can choose to donate to a charity).

If SyncTunes doesn't tick all your boxes, then Nokia/Mac users can download the new free Nokia Media Transfer (see http://tinyurl.com/ 34aplj) software that now officially supports many Nokia mobiles.

Unlike the previous official Nokia plug-in for the Mac's iSync software that allowed transfer of contacts, calendar and to-dos to the phone, you can also transfer music from iTunes, add photos to iPhoto and browse your device.

The iPhone is also being touted as bringing the real mobile internet to the mobile. Well, we can all be a little sceptical about that, but to get a feeling for how the mobile web can really work, try out Google's, Microsoft's and Yahoo's software for mobiles.

If you're a Google e-mail user you can download the free Gmail application (gmail.com/app) for mobiles. All you need is a mobile which runs Java, which covers almost all modern mobiles today, and a data plan from your mobile network. The Gmail application works pretty well for normal e-mail and will even allow you to view view attachments such as photos, Microsoft Word documents and PDF files.

Google also has a mobile version of its Google Maps service (see www.google. co.uk/gmm) which also works for Windows Mobile, Palm OS and the Blackberry.

The Windows Live Mobile application works on Windows based mobiles.

It will display a satellite image of a location and plot a route for you and - hooked up to a Bluetooth GPS receiver - will even give you directions.

Yahoo Go (mobile.yahoo.com/go) is a suite of mobile widgets which afford internet search, e-mail news, maps and so on. It is arguably slicker than both Google and Microsoft's mobile software. Plus it supports many Nokia and Windows-based handsets.

So who needs an iPhone when you've got a few little bits of software?