And in the mobile world today, Steve Job's hobby - the iPhone - has just hit North America's east coast today, at a very prompt 6 p.m. launch as announced by the Cupertino-based company. People have lined up on Apple's retail outlets in New Jersey, Florida, New York, and Philadelphia, among some.
 
And while the west coast nears its launch window, Apple stores in California and Connecticut have already been prepping up for their share of the iPhone purchase craze. There are claims of people whisking past potential iPhone customers lined up, teasing folk with their iPhone.

The first iPhone owners have walked out of the official Apple stores with iPhone in-hand, although not one person has been named as the first official iPhone owner post-launch as of press time. Photo courtesy of Engadget.

 

An official announcement made available recently called out news that the game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has shipped across North America and should also be available in Europe by June 28. The game developed under the watchful eyes of Electronic Arts is now available on almost every current platform imaginable.

Boasting a non-linear gameplay feature, the title will allow players to explore the innards of Hogwarts Academy and uses an intuitive spell-casting gesture system that should please gamers on the Nintendo Wii. The game will boast the authenticity of the movie, from locales to characters, so we won't spill the story details until everyone's comfortable with the motion picture release.

Otherwise, the EA UK-developed game is rated E 10+ for Everyone (10+) and should be available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for a suggested retail price of US$ 59.99, the Nintendo Wii for US$ 49.99, the PlayStation 2 and PSP for US$ 39.99, and the Nintendo DS, GBA, PC and Mac for US$ 29.99. Another ported version for your game-capable mobile phone is also slated for release, although no price has been named as of press time.

It recently came to Apple Inc. that some environmental organizations are criticizing it for not being a good model in terms of removing toxic chemicals from its new products as well as recycling old products.

CEO Steve Jobs came up then with a press release highlighting his company's plans about the matter. Jobs revealed though that these measures aren't exactly new, and that they've been doing this long before the said complaints made mass media. It's just that he felt the need to inform Apple's consumers and stakeholders because the above mentioned allegations are rather serious.

The list is quite long and the Read link should take to Jobs' complete statement. But some of the most important highlights include:

• Apple completely eliminated the use of CRTs in mid-2006. Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo still ship CRT displays today.
• Apple products met both the spirit and letter of the RoHS restrictions on cadmium, hexavalent chromium and brominated flame retardants years before RoHS went into effect.
• Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of arsenic in all of its displays by the end of 2008.
• Apple plans to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of mercury by transitioning to LED backlighting for all displays when technically and economically feasible.
• Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs in its products by the end of 2008.
• Apple recycled 13 million pounds of e-waste in 2006, which is equal to 9.5% of the weight of all products Apple sold seven years earlier.
• We expect this percentage to grow to 13% in 2007, and to 20% in 2008. By 2010, we forecast recycling 19 million pounds of e-waste per year Â? nearly 30% of the product weight we sold seven years earlier.
• All the e-waste we collect in North America is processed in the U.S., and nothing is shipped overseas for disposal.
• Apple products are designed using high quality materials that are in high demand from recyclers.

Goozex is one of the better known online trading communities around. If you're not familiar with this stuff, just think of it like a street market where consumers come to trade-in video game titles. It runs on an internal internal currency dictated by points that are assigned to each game.

Anyway, Goozex would like to inform you that Apple Mac games have been added to its trading service. If we are not mistaken, this is the only online place where Mac users can go and actually trade titles. Anyway, Goozex added that they made this business move because Apple gaming has a very high potential growth.

"Apple has traditionally held a small but vibrant personal computing niche, and it has been gaining market share at such a fast rate that we think Mac games can be a dynamic source of growth for Goozex," commented Goozex, Inc. Founder and COO Jon Dugan.

In case you are interested, you can actually head on to "Goozex.com" and sign up for free. The service is actually peer-to-peer in nature and you have to pay US$ 1 for each successful transaction. As part of the initial offering, Mac users can get a coupon on the site and enter the code "Mac-Trader" to avail of five free trade credits and 100 bonus points.

Goozex's trading service is only available in North America.

In the U.S.A., Cingular would be its exclusive distributor. In Canada, Rogers seems to have secured that exclusive contract which could equate to lotsa profits. Apparently, there has been no public statement made yet by either Rogers or Apple, but the communications giant has already been sending emails to customers. E-mails which contain the following:

• The iPhone will first be introduced in North America
• Cingular is the only wireless carrier to launch the iPhone in the United States
• Rogers is actively working with Apple to launch the iPhone in Canada as soon as possible and will be the exclusive provider of the iPhone in Canada
• Apple is planning to introduce the iPhone in Europe (Q4 2007) and Asia (2008)
• Please be advised that Rogers will be offering the iPhone exclusively in Canada
• Launch date and pricing for Canada are not yet available
• Other Canadian wireless carriers will not launch the iPhone, Rogers will be the only Canadian wireless carrier to offer the iPhone

Since Canada is part of North America, could it be that the iPhone will launch in Canada at the same time as in the U.S.A.? Well, we all know that Apple speculations are a dime a dozen. Anyway, there's no word yet on the iPhone's pricing in Canada or what kind of contract might Rogers have for the iPhone. Rest assured that we'll keep you posted about this matter.