—3G lawsuit: A lawsuit has been filed against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), alleging that the iPhone 3G is defective. The plaintiff hopes the suit will become a class-action complaint, reports ArsTechnica. The story goes that Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith filed the complaint this week, calling out the iPhone 3G’s performance issues, “despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign.” The plaintiff had problems with the iPhone’s data connection, which seemed to only connected to the 3G network 25 percent of the time. She had problems with dropped calls, too.

—Yahoo Search: A Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) developer writes on his blog this week that he has just finished the full Yahoo search for the iPhone’s Safari browser. It includes SearchMonkey, Search Assist, shortcuts, and other features. The post details who was involved and how it even met a developer spending his time in Paris, head-down in front of a computer. If you don’t already know, Search Assist is the nifty technology that completes your queries before you’ve finished typing them; SearchMonkey modules will follow you from your desktop browser to your iPhone (but you have to be logged in to your account); and there’s movie times, weather, local results, breaking news, Flickr photos, and other stuff. If you don’t have an iPhone, they provided screenshots here.

—Russian availability: Apple has agreed to let Mobile TeleSystems, Russia’s largest mobile phone operator, sell iPhones in Russia and retail sales will begin in October, a source told Reuters. There’s no word on how much the devices will cost, or if there will be any special circumstances. A spokeswoman for MTS declined to comment. Apple also declined to comment.

—New apps: Several new apps said they were launching in the Apple App store, including San Francisco-based Stitcher, which creates a personalized news and talk radio application. The download is free, and allows listeners to stream various stations to their phone or iPod Touch. VentureBeat reported that LinkedIn released its iPhone app, which is simple, but features a news feed on the main page to show what your contacts are doing. It’s also easy to contact people, or search for anyone by keyword, name, company or title.