According to reports, Best Buy will not be the only third-party reseller of the iPhone 3G for long. Wal-Mart may be joining the ranks as early as November 15th, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Does this mean we can look forward to Rollback Savings? Don't count on it.

Currently, prices for the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G at Best Buy are $199 and $299 respectively, the same as they are at AT&T and Apple retail stores. The product is not available on the web, since in-store activation is required.

Just in time for winter comes a new iPhone application delivering real-time snow reports directly to your device. Find snow conditions and depths for your favorite ski and snowboard resorts by region, then store them in a list.

Access the open/closed status of the resort and surface snow conditions immediately, or touch to see more details or a weather report. Over 2,000 resorts are available for tracking, and the software allows 16 locations to be stored for quick viewing. The app was developed by Eddie Wilson and costs $1.99.

Apple has seeded iPhone OS 2.2 beta 1 firmware to developers for "compatibility testing." Along with the new firmware they have also released iPhone SDK build 9M2611 beta. Most of the speculation circles around a few key features that were missed in the 2.1 upgrade. Of course, it seems Apple had its hands full with connectivity issues and a long list of usability problems that had to be addressed first.

Regardless of Apple's NDA it seems that one screenshot was leaked of definite improvements to the MobileSafari browser. The menu bar will more closely resemble the desktop version, placing the URL field and search field next to each other on the same line. The latest Webkits include JavaScript improvements that should also be released with 2.2. No word on whether or not the phishing vulnerabilities in MobileSafari and Mail will be addressed along with this cosmetic change.

Apple is trying to get smart, however the iPhone DevTeam seems to have them beat. iTunes 8.0 has new features that prevent the Pwnage exploit on iPhones and iPod Touch models that have not already been jailbroken. iTunes 8.0 will not allow restores to a hacked IPSW archive on a factory firmware device. Syncing is possible, however, if the device has already been Pwned.

The problem for Apple is that PwnageTool works by exploiting a hardware bug. According to the iPhone DevTeam, this means that Apple can use software to prevent jailbreaking, but only until the DevTeam comes up with new countermeasures in the form of patches. DevTeam has already released a software patch to circumvent iTunes 8.0 when jailbreaking a clean iPod Touch.

The next iPhone firmware update will be released this Friday, according to Steve Jobs at Apple's Let's Rock event in San Francisco. The new version will include fixes for many ongoing problems reported by users in version 2.0.1 and 2.0.2. On the list of fixes is a solution to the application crashing problem, battery life improvement, faster iTunes backup speeds, and other bug fixes.

In addition, firmware 2.1 is purported to solve many connectivity issues and reduce the number of dropped calls. The download will be free for iPhone users, although iPod Touch users who haven't already upgraded to 2.0 will have to shell out $9.95 for the upgrade. Along with the firmware, iTunes has been updated to version 8.0 and is already available for download.