i Phone BUY

If you have a short memory or didn’t have time to catch up on Crave this week (editor’s note: for shame!), no worries, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a look back at some of the truly interesting, strange, and wonderfully silly stories we Craved.

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Update 11:57 a.m. PDT: Added a paragraph on iTunes 8 and iPhone 2.1.

Tuesday’s Apple event can’t come soon enough for the gazillions of people eager to find out what the company has in store.

Could this be the iPod Nano that everyone's been expecting?

(Credit: MacNN)

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The LG Prada II

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

Last month, we showed you a sneak peek of the LG Prada II, which will supposedly have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard as well as touch-screen controls. Well, the Boy Genius Report has dug up some supposed specs of the Prada II, and …

Touching Lenovo's new concept external hard drive shows its capacity.

(Credit: DesignLaunches.com)

I reviewed the WD My Passport external hard drive recently and thought it was really cool with the storage gauge that lights up when plugged in to show how much storage space has been used. …

Is Yanko's concept design for a Zune smartphone intriguing, or frightening?

(Credit: Yanko Design)

It’s a fake, folks. The “Zune Contact” phone dreamed up by Adam Huffman from Yanko Design is pure fantasy, and it’s not the first.

If you like what you see, don’t …

The LG gets approval from the Feds.

(Credit: LG)

Last week, Nicole Lee told you about the rumored LG LX600 for Sprint, and this week we see that it has received the official nod from the Federal Communications Commission.

Only the most passionate cell phone geeks know that the FCC …

Find your way around the Big Apple.

When my colleague Josh Lowensohn wrote his original and well-received 10 Absurd iPhone Apps blog, I agreed with most of his picks. Yet there was one application with which I rather sheepishly had to take issue. I love maps of all kinds so I was dismayed when I found “public transit maps” in the No. 8 slot. Yes, Josh makes good arguments that transit maps are free online, and that you can plan your route before you leave the house, but I thought it sounded like a cool idea. So, during a trip to New York City last week, I packed CNET’s iPhone armed with the CityTransit NYC Subway Guide by Magnetism Studios. I put it to heavy use during my stay and definitely thought it was worth the $2.99 price. Here’s why.

Don’t look like a tourist
I know New York somewhat well, but if I need to get from 39th Avenue in Long Island City to 14th Street in Manhattan, I’ll need to look at a subway map to do so. While I can plan out the route before hand, my short-term memory seems to vanish while on vacation. With the complete subway maps on my iPhone, however, I can check my route while on the train (remember that you can’t get the Internet while underground), but I can do so on the sly. I can avoid being the gawking tourist, craning my neck around seated riders to read the map on the side of the car. For all they know, I’m just reading my e-mail.

You also can look at a list of all stops on each line–very useful if you get on an express train accidentally. My only suggestion is that you can’t zoom in on the maps very far. And even when you can zoom in, the maps can be blurry.

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Motorola U9

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Though Motorola has succeeded in making a series of reliable, practical cell phones this year, the company hasn’t been working the style angle that hard. Sure, the Z9 and Rokr E8 are attractive, but even those handsets put function over form.

The …

(Credit: Universal Remote Control)

Don’t expect to see Universal
Remote Control’s MX-6000 on the shelf at Circuit City or Best Buy–it’s strictly intended as part of a custom solution that a professional installer would set up. Thankfully, the $1,500 touch-screen unit does offer quite a few …

QGet Ultility's Mac interface.

(Credit: Qnap)

QNAP Systems announced on Thursday its QGet Utility application for Mac. The software, which used to be available only to PC users, allows for managing the Download Station features of its Turbo NAS series from a computer.

The Download Station is a …