Bad chip makes iPhone 3G slow; Apple trying software fix ... and iPhone coming to Best Buy

Reports have been swirling around the Web in the past few days about a problem with poor chip design that makes the iPhone 3G sluggish when connected to the very 3G data network for which it's being so highly touted.

Rather than a recall (you try replacing a chip in a portable device; it pretty much can't be done; and replacing the many thousand already sold is ... not an option), Apple thinks it can fix the problem with a software update. The company reportedly will try to do so by the end of the month.

Meanwhile ... people with iPhone lust are still waiting in lines at Apple Store locations around the country. Now Best Buy has been christened as an official iPhone sales outlet, bringing the technological-lust-object-of-the-fortnight-and-then-some to bergs, hamlets and other non-Apple Store gifted areas.