Best Buy signs deal to sell iPhones at their stores throughout the US beginning on September 7. The new product could give Best Buy a boost in revenue.

Shortages of the Apple 3G iPhone are said to be decreasing. Reports say that previous problems with 3Gi inventories are abating.

Bad news for BlackBerry. HSBC will switch to iPhones as its standard mobile device shortly which could mean additional sales of the new 3G iPhone of at least 200,000.

Reports say that the BlackBerry 8350i will include both WiFi and GPS

Apple’s market cap surpassed that of Google’s yesterday (8/13). Apple came in with a MC of $179 billion, vs Apple’s $157 billion.

hitspot.com

Summary: T-Mobile announced it will offer the new BlackBerry Bold to it’s customers in the month of September. The new Bold is a 3G device, with up to 4.5mbs download speeds. It will come with GPS, Maps, wi-fi and quad-band access. Initial memory will be 8GB with 16GB coming later.

T-Mobile is the first mobile phone operator to announce it will be offering the much-anticipated BlackBerry Bold smartphone to UK customers. The handset will go onsale in the UK from September.

The BlackBerry Bold is a 3.5G HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) handset capable of internet access at rates of up to 4.5Mbps (megabits per second) via the T-Mobile network.

A GPS-enabled device, the BlackBerry Bold is a quad-band phone and is the first T-Mobile BlackBerry handset that is being launched across all territories, including the Far East. It will come with BlackBerry Maps and offer Wi-Fi connectivity in addition to HSDPA.

The BlackBerry Bold has a full qwerty keypad, offers mobile web access as well as push email, a 2Mp camera and an onboard media player for viewing and roughly editing photos and playing videos.

Extra storage is offered via the Bold’s miniSD/miniSDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) removable media card slot. These flash memory cards are currently available in capacities of up to 8GB, with 16GB coming later this year.

The device, which is being distributed to UK reviewers this week, was reportedly delayed due to battery issues, which meant it wasn’t able to steal Apple’s thunder when it launched the iPhone 3G in June.

In May, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) announced it would start selling the Bold smartphone worldwide this summer, with initial reports suggesting UK availability as early as late June or early July.

As unlikely as it may seem, COO Dennis Kavelman said today at the launch of the BlackBerry Bold that he’d like to take Apple CEO Steve Jobs for a drink.

The BlackBerry Bold will be in direct competition with the Apple iPhone and will be sold by Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. BlackBerry manufacturer RIM is looking to expand the user base of their product far beyond top management to anyone and everyone.

Kavelman isn’t worried about going head to head with Apple, whose strategy with the iPhone he terms we do music and we’re going to add a phone into it”. In fact, Kavelman welcomes any competition which can get consumers interested in mobile email, web access and video all in a smartphone.

“I want to buy them [competitors] a drink,” he said; remarking that he held the hope that consumers would walk into stores in search of a competing smartphone but instead leave with a BlackBerry Bold.

The Bold is roughly the size of an iPhone but is a little wider and shorter than one. WiFi and GPS capabilities are built in. Both are now nearly standard features on better smartphones.

The Bold features a full QWERTY keyboard rather than a touchscreen and the RIM “pearl” trackball for easy navigation.

Since the BlackBerry is first and foremost used for mobile email, adding a touch screen may have been off-putting to its traditional user base. However, rumor has it that RIM is currently developing its own touch screen smartphone; the BlackBerry Thunder.

The Bold also boasts the advantage (when compared to the iPhone) of faster HSDPA speed capabilities, taking full advantage of new 3G mobile networks and mobile sites like 800buzz mobile.