I covered the iPhone just after its announcement and haven't dedicated an article or felt the need to since. This was until my current mobile broke a few weeks ago and I was kindly given a incredibly girly pink clam style phone by my long term girl friends younger sister, whilst my precious phone was repaired.

The fact I'm now using a handset which I'm afraid to use in public for fear of ridicule has somehow made me appreciate how much of a statement your mobile phone makes about you; similar to the watch on your wrist or the shoes on your feet. Whilst I have never considered such things particularly important and would never advocate living your life by third party perspective, I doubt I would ever go out wearing a watch won from an arcade grab machine or a pair of plastic sandals on my feet.

I fear that having to carry around a pink handset which even a twelve year old schoolgirl would be ashamed of may have actually turned me insane and now owning an Apple iPhone now seems like quite an appealing proposition; even if nothing else, at least the newly sparked rumours surrounding my sexuality would be quashed.

A few mates have recently invested in the second generation of the iPhone and whilst there is no excusing the smug look that darts across their face whenever given the excuse to get the phone out in public, there is no denying that it would appear to be a desirable piece of kit. If by any chance you haven't ever seen one, the iPhone is a mobile phone handset which instead of having the conventional screen and key combination, it simply has one large touch screen and you navigate your way around by pointing, tapping and dragging your fingers across the intuitive menu system.

Whilst the first was very much groundbreaking the 3G version released a couple of months back does add a number of improvements to the original. Whilst just as beautiful and slim, the new model features:

- 3G support to provide the phone with considerably faster data transfer speeds if in a 3G covered area

- Updated software providing a variety of fixes for bugs and new third party applications

- Revised headphone socket; a big issue for those who purchased the 1st gen iPhone was that numerous standard headphones wouldn't fit into its lower-level headphone socket; this caused severe problems since the phone is aimed at those that appreciate a convergence of a traditional mobile phone and an iPod music player.

- An GPS receiver has also been integrated so your current position and surrounding area can be seen on screen and directions given to a desired location without the need for additional hardware or software.

There are a variety of other tweaks and fixes that Apple have implemented for this version which (in my opinion) do not give sufficient reason for those with an original iPhone to upgrade straight away, does make the idea more attractive to those that don't already have one. Regrettably it will still costs you a fortune on a pay as you go tariff but the 8GB version is free on several O2 exclusive contracts. I could never warrant recommending that a pay as you go customer spend £350 on this handset but if you're on a contract anyway and can get the unit either discounted or free then you will get a lot of technology for your money.

I'm approaching my 27th birthday and so far have gone my entire life without ever having purchased an Apple product so personally I think I'm going to wait to see what the recently announced Nokia Tube and Google G1 touch screen handsets have to offer.