In a dramatic improvement since last spring, AT&T has defeated the three closest competitors in a PCWorld speed and reliability challenge. Carriers Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon were also tested for download and upload speeds in thirteen cities.

AT&T won download speed tests against all competitors everywhere except for Denver and Phoenix, where the carrier lost to T-Mobile by a slight margin. Reliability scores for AT&T were highest in Phoenix, Portland and Seattle, where they topped out at 100%.

Reports have surfaced that Skype and Verizon Wireless have cemented a 2-3 year exclusive deal to develop and run Skype applications on Verizon smartphones. iPhone owners have been waiting for a 3G-enabled version of the Skype app for some time.

Now that AT&T and Apple have lifted the Wi-Fi only restrictions on applications like SlingPlayer, Skype users naturally expected they would be the next to benefit from this change. In fact, Skype already has a 3G-ready app but the company has delayed its release due to concerns over AT&T's network.

A new utility has been developed by iH8Sn0w for users interested in figuring out whether they can jailbreak or unlock their iPhone or iPod Touch. F0recast will check your device using the USB connection and examine the baseband and bootloader versions.

Jailbreaking and downgrading have become more complex as different versions of hardware and software are constantly released by Apple. F0recast will tell you if your iPhone is unlockable, if you can downgrade your software, and if your specific model requires a tethered jailbreak.

Following a crackdown on "overtly sexual" content, Apple has had its censors remove 5,000 applications from the iPhone AppStore. The app purge began on Friday, with over 4,000 apps removed due to their "sexually arousing" or implied sexual language and images.

To date, the Apple cleansing is said to have removed almost three percent of the total number of iPhone applications previously available. In a strange twist, apps representing large media companies but still promoting sexual content remain on the AppStore.

Wireless carrier AT&T's new policy of allowing some bandwidth-heavy iPhone applications to run over its expanded 3G network is now being put to the test. SlingPlayer Mobile allows users to stream video content from their Slingbox to iPhones anywhere 3G or Wi-Fi is available.

The previous version of SlingPlayer Mobile, first released last year, restricted streaming video to Wi-Fi only at the request of AT&T. Video quality is still better over a Wi-Fi connection, as the stream has to be optimized for 3G speeds.