As we predicted yesterday, Apple released sales figures today that calmed some of the uproar over AT&T's lower-than-expected iPhone activation numbers, which AT&T published yesterday. Apple reported that it sold 270,000 iPhones over the first two days that the iPhone was available for purchase.

The misplaced worry that resulted from AT&T's activation numbers for the same two days (146,000) and led to more than an 8% drop in AAPL share prices yesterday has been relieved by the Apple clarified sales figures. Currently, Apple share prices have rebounded are are up almost 6%.

As mentioned here, the discrepancy in the Apple and AT&T numbers most likely results from a lag in iPhone activations caused by technical difficulties experienced by AT&T and Apple during the iPhone launch weekend.

Apple brought more good news to the table, as well. The company confirmed that it will launch the iPhone in Europe during the fourth quater of 2007. According to

When hackers announced that they had compiled, installed, and run the first third party program on the iPhone, the 'Hello World' application, the typical consumer probably didn't get all that excited. After all, what's the big deal about a program that simply prints out "Hello World".

Though not very exciting, it was very significant. The running of that first application signaled the success of iPhone hacker Nightwatch's toolchain and hinted and things to come. Well, here they come.

Using Nightwatch's toolchain, iPhone hackers have now compiled and installed working versions of Python, Vim (a popular terminal text editor), and Apache. That's right, Apache. In other words, you can now run a webserver on your iPhone.

The reality brought forth by these recent developments is that full fledged third party applications are going to happen for the iPhone whether Apple

Mostly because it's relatively not that exciting, we've been a bit lazy in getting this story posted. The other day, via a new third party application called srelay (a SOCKS proxy server), you can now tether your iPhone EDGE connection to your laptop or desktop via WiFi. Yes, it could come in handy in a pinch, but sharing an EDGE connection with a full fledged PC isn't nearly as exciting as it would be if the iPhone were 3G.

Of course, this application and functionality is only available to you if you've hacked your iPhone. Like all other iPhone hacks, you need to start with the jailbreak hack. Once completed, you can then install srelay on your iPhone, set up a direct computer to computer WiFi connection, and off you go. The video below provides a HOWTO and demonstration of the process.

With the iPhone's beautiful and vibrant LCD, the last thing anyone wants to do is risk damaging or negatively affecting it. One of the most typical problems with LCD screens on mobile phones, smartphones, and PDAs is dust and dirt getting behind the screen. In many cases, what users identify as dead pixels is actually dust or dirt.

If you're like us, with the iPhone's two big, wide-open inputs, you might be feeling a little paranoid about dust and dirt getting inside the iPhone itself. If you carry your iPhone in your pocket, chances are every time you pull it out you'll find a bit of dust or pocket lint lingering in the dock connector. More worrisome, perhaps, is the headphone jack. When the LCD screen is illuminated, it's easy to see just how far down inside the iPhone offending particles can travel via the headphone jack.

The good news is that there's a neat and tidy solution to the problem - well, at least part of it. For usually less than $5, you can pick up a rubber dummy plug that protects the dock connector from unwanted particles when in your pocket, a purse, or wherever.

Shares of both AT&T (T) and Apple (AAPL) fell today based on news from AT&T that it activated only 146,000 iPhones in the first two days of the iPhone era, June 29th and June 30th. Though AT&T shares closed down only $0.35, Apple shares slid a whopping $8.81 or 6.13 percent.

Investors were shocked at the low activation total, as some analysts had estimated that Apple sold as many as 700,000 iPhones during it's opening weekend. Despite the lower than expected numbers, AT&T assured investors that all was well with AT&T, Apple, and the iPhone. Still, despite the fact that 40% of the iPhone activations AT&T reported were new customers, AT&T slid for the day.

Most likely, investor worry over AT&T's activation numbers is misplaced. One of the most important details to notice about AT&T's activation report, is that it omits one day of the iPhone's opening weekend - Sunday, July 1st. Many of you will recall that very large numbers of customers who arrived home with their iPhones were unable to activate their phones due to technical issues and backlog experienced by AT&T and Apple.

Chances are high that most of the iPhones purchased on opening weekend were not activated by AT&T until that Sunday, which fail to make the recently report AT&T activation statistic.