As revealed on Ars Technica’s live blog and a billion other places, Steve Jobs’s friend and servant Tim Cook and Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Vee’s moustache have revealed that the iPhone 4 will soon be available on Verizon for money!

This is good, because it will—like in the UK for bloody ages now—enable American consumers to bitch about how rubbish iPhone carriers are, rather than just how rubbish the exclusive iPhone carrier is. This is an important distinction for reasons.

Well done, America! *sings national anthem*

Issue 2 of the super soaraway Tap! (the iPhone & iPad magazine) is arriving with subscribers and available in shops nowish.

Again, you get 132 pages of personality-infused awesomeness for a fiver, including my chunky games section (slightly chunkier this month, clocking in at 19 pages, written by yours truly and Mr Andy Dyer). Elsewhere: loads of app reviews, a feature where the magazine forced some poor bugger out into the winter cold to test fitness apps (although he deserved it, since he didn’t include RunKeeper Pro in his essentials list, the bounder), how to tune a ukulele, an iPhone battery cases group test, and a fab new columnist in the shape of the wonderful Caitlin Moran.

BUY IT NOW! (Or, you know, when it’s out.)

EXCITING UPDATE: Apparently, the ‘three issues for a fiver’ deal’s up again, although that’ll likely kick in for Tap! issue 3 if you grabbed it now.

People rattle on about the Steve Jobs/Apple ‘reality distortion field’, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that companies battling Apple in the handheld gaming space are also living inside their own little bubbles and firing out distortion of their own. Sony last year cunningly decided to take on iOS by saying all iPhone/iPod touch games were rubbish, using an irritating little shit as their advertising campaign’s figurehead (nice one, Sony—I’m sure you can tell from marketshare figures how that idea worked out for you). Nintendo has fared better, but is losing serious ground to iOS across all age groups, especially in the USA.

But now, Nintendo’s going to fight back, and Gamespot has revealed the launch of the Nintendo 3DS will take place in Japan on February 26. The line-up for games is the usual mix of remakes, remakes and remakes, and as someone fully immersed in iOS gaming’s diversity, the 3DS offerings don’t look terribly exciting to me, especially since I own the previous versions of many of the launch games on the DS. (“Oooh, prettier graphics” is no longer a selling point, as Nintendo itself largely proved with the Wii.)

The biggest problem though is the crazy price-points. The console’s expected to come in at over $300, which in Brit-land will no doubt mean at least £200 being stamped on the box—in other words, more than an iPod touch. Even better, the games are expected to sell between 4800 yen ($57/£38) and 6090 yen ($73/£50). Even with some serious discounting (and Japanese games often being more expensive than in the US and Europe), these prices are obliterated by the App Store, which usually ranges from $1 (59p) to $9.99 (£5.99) per item.

I’m sure Nintendo fans will lap up the new console, but I fear it’ll—like its predecessor—eventually (and all too rapidly) find itself largely bereft of decent games, relying on shovelware to keep it going. More importantly, the core market of kids is rapidly vanishing. Time was that market at least was Nintendo’s, but kids increasingly want iThings rather than expensive Nintendo kit (and Nintendo itself has warned that the main USP of its new handheld may not be safe for kids). Perhaps Nintendo’s aiming to seriously ramp up its download offerings, or tempt buyers with pack-ins. If not, it’s going to have even more of a fight on its hands than over the past couple of years, and Apple has a real chance to take the lead in the handheld gaming space.

Update: As Lukas points out in the comments, some of the launch line-up comprises new titles in existing series, with “exactly zero to do with” earlier titles. However, having been a Nintendo fan since the NES, and having owned quite a few Nintendo consoles, it’s clear that many titles will involve more than a little recycling, unless the company really has changed its ways.

I’ve long thought it an odd criticism about Apple products that people’s preference for them is in part driven by emotional response. Andy Ihnatko for Chicago Sun-Times makes an astute observation in this area regarding the iPad:

Of course people have an emotional response to this iPad. Why is that considered a negative thing? An emotional response that lasts more than five seconds is a sign that something actually works.

Sharon Machlis on a Pioneer announcement about its new dashboard system that aims to keep drivers connected to their social networks… while driving:

I have a simple rule when it comes to what’s OK to do while driving: If you wouldn’t want your surgeon doing it while operating on your brain, don’t do it behind the wheel.

Pioneer’s take:

By providing a larger touchscreen unit installed in the dash that features a user interface specifically designed for the automotive environment and complemented by voice control features, we reduce the risk of distraction while driving.

People are already distracted enough when driving, with in-car radios, sat-navs, and hands-free kits for mobile phones (when they bother to use them), let alone other activities, such as eating and putting on make-up. But, hey, I’m sure Pioneer must have done plenty of work on this, rather than irresponsibly shoving a piece of unnecessary and dangerous technology on to the market. Because, clearly, people won’t be further distracted from not hitting things on or near the road when they’re being piped the latest Facebook and Twitter updates that couldn’t possibly wait until they’ve finished guiding several tons of metal at high speed. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

(Hat tip: Ian Betteridge.)