Next Bond film to feature souped-up iPhone

• In the next James Bond film, Daniel Craig will use a high-tech iPhone with features such as 'MMS' and recording of 'videos'.

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Industry sources today said the yet-to-be-named next film in the successful James Bond franchise will feature a high-tech version of Apple’s popular iPhone smartphone.

The film, due to begin filming within months in London and set for a 2010 release, will see the return of M., the perennial favourite gadget guru played by John Cleese, who was absent from the latest Bond instalment. M., early plot details suggest, missed out on Quantum of Solace because he was too busy souping up the iPhone that will replace Daniel Craig’s Sony Ericsson phone.

While plot details are yet to be revealed, the high-tech iPhone is expected to include a number of as-yet-unavailable features.
In one scene, Bond uses one such new feature – which M. has apparently named ‘MMS’, or M.’s Messaging Service – allows Bond to send top-secret spy photos of the enemy camp to his associate, Bond girl Elle MacPherson, who will be able to instantly receive the photo on her similarly-equipped iPhone.

In another scene, Bond uses an experimental new iPhone feature called ‘cut and paste’ to copy the co-ordinates of the enemy hideout and ‘paste’, or insert, them into an email message that is then sent back to Q. to direct MI6 missile strikes. This feature, M. explains early in the film, took months of development alone and is designed to ensure accuracy of the information – something that proves prescient as Bond has to perform the operation while suspended upside-down 40m up a building by nothing but a hotel sheet tied to a bedpost.

Other high-tech features developed by M. apparently include the ability to track associates’ phones on a map using built-in GPS receivers; a computerised voice that gives Bond turn-by-turn directions through a labyrinthine hedge maze; and the ability to use the super-iPhone to record ‘video’ – a sequence of still images that appears to move realistically when played back quickly.

After months of careful hacking, M. has also configured Bond’s iPhone so it is able to run two or more applications at once. This proves essential when Bond finds himself using the iPhone to simultaneously threaten evil genius Dr Whozamathingy, choose the correct playlist to open the door to a subterranean lair, drive his retrofitted Aston Martin, and unlock a hidden message by completing the fourth level of an MI6-hacked version of the popular game Rolando.

The new iPhone isn’t just all about action and whiz-bang technology, however: in one scene, Bond will use his phone to record the phone number of a beautiful double-agent who will – as the film comes to its explosive climax – challenge MacPherson to an SMS duel on their iPhones, with explosive consequences.

Rumours circulating on the Internet suggest the film also includes a scene where Bond is attempting to shut down a nuclear reactor by hacking into it with his super-iPhone, but in which his plans are cut short when the phone crashes and restarts at a crucial moment.

The film’s producers would not confirm or deny specifics of the film’s plot, except to say that the rumoured iPhone capabilities sounded highly complex and that producers weren’t sure if they had the budget to simulate such capabilities on the device.