Apple’s iPhone has been hailed as a category-killer in the mobile handset market. But as one influential US technology journalist recently found out, this year’s must-have gadget can also kill your bank balance when abroad – even if it barely leaves your pocket.

Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired, the US technology magazine, has revealed he was hit with $2,100 in charges for using his iPhone on a recent foreign trip, thanks to a glitch that led him to be charged each time the mobile handset automatically refreshed his e-mail inbox.