Tony’s Tips for iPhone Users Manual, for $2.99 in the App Store, provides helpful tips for using your iPhone with iTunes and MobileMe. It’s better than a manual in your iPhone — a reference that is always up-to-date, easy to search, and organized for quick reading.

Predictions dominate the blogs and columns this month. I also write about Microsoft’s lead in netbooks (One Netbook Per Old Laptop) and the fight against spammers.

Last week’s stupidity by a professional blogger, as well as CNN, was matched only by the gullibility of traders who acted on the rumor.

The iPhone app kill switch makes sense. It is an innovative approach to protecting a platform in this age of criminal conspiracies to steal your personal information.

Will it ever happen? Will Apple one day stop issuing keys to unlock the FairPlay-protected music you purchased from the iTunes Store — iike Yahoo just did with music purchased from Yahoo Music, and Microsoft intends to do in three years with MSN Music?

The new iPhone 3G, iPhone 2 software for iPhone and iPod touch, and MobileMe service all add up to a burgeoning platform for developers to change the world of mobile computing, and it leaves all competitors in the dust.

Studies show that Apple has come closer than any other company to making a truly convergent device used for multiple purposes, and that it is beginning to replace laptops in a big way, especially for the baby boomers.

The iPhone and iPod touch will soon act like the handheld computers they were made to be. Third-party native iPhone and iPod touch applications will flood the market by June.

I’m writing this as Steve Jobs delivers his keynote address at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. With its theme “Something in the air” Apple’s intent is to showcase wireless technology and its uses in media.

With Macworld Expo in San Francisco approaching, the rumor mill is working overtime along with developers feverishly constructing demos and beta versions of new applications.