Things are not looking good for the mysteriously absent white iPhone 4. With the Verizon iPhone launch six months after the iPhone 4 first became available and an iPhone 5 announcement looming, will Apple even bother? Since the first white iPhone 4 pre-orders were cancelled, the release date for the white iPhone 4 has been moved forward several times.

The latest we heard from Apple was the white iPhone 4 was coming in Spring. The season officially starts in just two weeks and Apple has been silent on the issue. Another white device has dominated the news, with Apple announcing the iPad 2 will ship in white and black next week.

AT&T will charge $20 per month for iPhone 4 users to take advantage of the iOS 4.3 Personal Hotspot feature. The carrier has confirmed that full support for the Personal Hotspot will debut when Apple released iOS 4.3 firmware on March 11, 2011.

The native Wi-Fi hotspot has been available on Verizon iPhone 4 models since launch in early February. The feature allows up to three devices to simultaneously connect to the iPhone's cellular data connection via Wi-Fi. Additional devices can use the connection via Bluetooth and USB for a total of five at once.

Just in case you haven't heard, Apple announced a little product called the iPad 2 earlier today. Also discussed in the talk was a listing of the new features and software coming to iOS devices with firmware version 4.3. This operating system will be released on the iPad 2 shipping date, currently scheduled for Friday March 11, 2011.

So what comes with the iOS 4.3 update for iPhone owners? Mostly improvements to current features, such as a speed boost for the Safari web browser. Apple has implemented the Nitro JavaScript engine, which should make Safari twice as fast as the current iOS 4.2 browser.

Well it was nice while it lasted. Just like AT&T dropped unlimited data plans in June 2010 for its iPhone customers, Verizon will cap data in the coming months. The switch to tiered data plan offerings is expected to happen this summer, in advance of the iPhone 5 launch.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo announced the plan to move ahead with tiered data plans on the iPhone during an investor conference. Shammo also explained that consumers might not be thrilled when they're stuck with an iPhone 4 contract after the next generation device is launched by Apple.

Screenshots acquired by 9to5 Mac reveal a gesture-based passcode lock screen already in use internally at Apple. The AppleConnect iOS application for employees makes use of the feature.

Much like a similar gesture-based passcode lock found on Android devices, the Apple version allows users to set a private code based on points that are connected by the user on the screen. The iOS version has a progress bar indicating the strength of an individual gesture entered for use as a passcode.