How the iPhone breaks industry rules
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Among consumers, the excitement around Apple Inc.'s iPhone, launching on Friday, centers on its cool looks and innovative interface. In the cell phone industry, the iPhone will be closely watched because it breaks several conventions governing the relationships between handset manufacturers, carriers and consumers. If successful, Apple could end up changing the way phones and the industry work.
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Blog: Apple details rules for iPhone purchasers.
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Apple's economic gains signal Rule Breaker potential.
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The âVar Guyâ at TechIQ Magazine offers âfive reasons why Appleâs retail strategy is crushing the competition this holiday season:â Simplicity, Quality, Integration, Expertise, and Design. As an example, the Var Guy contrasts buying a Windows smartphone with buying an iPhone: âbuy the iPhone (five minute process), link it to your Mac (five minute process), and activate the iPhone online (five minute process), and youâll be wondering why Appleâs approach isnât the norm for the entire cell phone industry.â
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Hackers cash in by targeting gadget freaks that crave an Apple phone but aren't wild about the prospect of an AT&#38;T service contract.
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The controversy around Apple's iPhone price cuts seems suspiciously calculated.
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The secret to unlocking the iPhone may be available, but the legal waters are murky, experts say.
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A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Appleâs iPhone to AT&Tâs wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.
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When Apple's iPhone went on sale late last month, there were no doubt more than a few CEO or C-level execs in line. Now they want their new toy to work with their corporate network. What's a sysadmin to do? Seth Weintraub offers some ideas.
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A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in the Apple iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.
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A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple's popular new iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner, IDC, and 451 Group research analysts, this week warned IT administrators to keep iPhones away from their businesses. "We're telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting [iPhone use in] the enterprise," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities, and it's important that it be recognized as such." As if that will stop people from buying them anyway when they hit the market in the U.S. next week. The reality is that no matter how hard IT administrators try, the iPhone will be snapped up by their employees -- and not just the average Joes either. The device is a status symbol that will likely be snapped up by business leaders as the digital technorati. Try telling your CEO the iPhone doesn't play well with your IT systems. Dulaney and other researchers notwithstanding, this device can be good for the enterprise because of the business needs of smartphone users. It is an iPhone, after all, with an emphasis on phone. It offers e-mail -- currently the most popular means of business communications. There's an address/phone Book for quick access to contacts. It offers SMS, a quick way to contact other mobile phone users, and voicemail -- both useful to road warriors. There's a real Web browser -- by far the most underpowered and underappreciated part of a mobile phone. And it contains a slew of enterprise-worthy apps, including a calendar, access to maps, spreadsheets, and a document reader. All of these things are important -- and all can be done to a greater or lesser extent on most business-focused PDA phones. But in the business world, the mobile Web browser is the key to the future of business apps, and it is becoming a platform unto itself. One thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made abundantly clear at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is that the iPhone would include a full browser. The Symbian and Linux platforms' best browser is Opera Mini -- which isn't that bad -- but it by no means constitutes a full browser. Windows Mobile's browser isn't bad either, but it also falls well short of Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, the iPhone browser has a lot of zooming and panning tricks that make it more usable on the relatively small screen. In that crucial area, advantage: iPhone. Why is the browser crucial? Because most new business applications are being built around it. AJAX and other browser technology innovations over the past few years have turned the browser into a veritable platform. Sure, a lot of legacy applications still require browserless, platform-specific client applications. But those days are numbered. It's not just the isolated applications that are moving to a browser. All of the stalwart office applications are also moving to the Web. With Google Office (which now works with Safari -- the iPhone browser), Soho Office, and even Web-centric versions of Microsoft Office applications, the browser is truly the new business platform. The iPhone is not without its business-use flaws. It doesn't natively sync up with Lotus Notes or Exchange - and Microsoft, at least, will most likely do everything in its power to try to keep it that way to protect its Windows Mobile business. It can, however, hook up to IMAP email, LDAP address books, and WebDav for calendaring; with a bit of tweaking, that will work well for Exchange-based companies. Microsoft SharePoint can also be browsed from the Web interface, but to what extent? Time -- and the work of apps developers -- will tell. A newly anointed relationship with Cisco on all things iPhone should also let the device into the VPN and might even let an iPhone play well with Cisco VoIP solutions. And of course, don't forget the arduous task of getting your conservative IT department to accept the idea of letting loose an Apple phone -- or even MacBook Pro -- into the office. Previews of the phone haven't yet touted an instant messaging client like Apple's iChat or AOL Instant Messenger. It is likely, however, that Apple will include something with instant-messaging functionality in the near future -- there are still four slots left in the iPhone's application window. It's also true that the first-generation iPhone isn't the raw specs winner by any stretch. That honor goes to the Symbian/Windows Mobile 6 Phones coming from Toshiba (the G900), Nokia (the N95), Samsung (the F700) and HTC (the Shift). AT&T's EDGE wireless network is slow by today's standards, and while Wifi connectivity will help, there are questions about why Apple has forsaken the HSDPA/UTMS component and when an update might occur. Given that battery life is a factor -- Apple this week released updated specs that go beyond what it touted in January -- EDGE makes sense because it's more energy efficient. Also, the 8GB max on storage is seems low. At a time when you can buy an 8GB SD card for less than $80, Apple likely looked to keep costs down with an eye on upping that storage when it's economically smart. Most users would likely be happy with a micro/mini/SD card slot now standard on most smartphones. There is, of course, the price. The iPhone's hefty $499 and $599 price tags, depending on which model you buy, is a definite disadvantage in business. With relatively comparable gear (from a corporate standpoint), such as the Motorola Q, which is almost free with a service plan, buying an iPhone requires serious justification. We're talking about spending the equivalent of a budget laptop. Of course, something that you spend half your day using should justify the premium that this delicious piece of hardware demands. And then there are at least two intangibles: Usability. Apple's legendary reputation for making painful tasks easy will totally transform the mobile phone industry. And remember, companies love productivity from their workers. Until now, the big players have been Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had successes. But it's the last 10 percent of usability that Apple always manages to squeeze out its products will be the differentiator. Apple did the same in the computer industry until Microsoft caught up. Apple has learned from this and patented every minute detail of the iPhone, making it harder for copycats to appear anytime soon. The few seconds here there that the iPhone saves users will quickly add up. It's the little things that make for big savings across an entire enterprise. Business bling, baby. Everyone knows that this is the phone to have. Just look at the buzz ahead of the June 29 launch. Apple has spent the last few years building up its brand across all channels and is reaping the rewards like no other company in the industry. As much as the enterprise IT guys will want to recite better specs for rival Windows Mobile devices, nobody wants to hear that. I can imagine any number of CEOs saying, "I don't care! Just make the iPhone work on our systems!" And if it works for the CEO, you can bet the sales folk will want in on the action, too. Think they'll want to show up to a meeting with an important client and whip out last year's "hot" phone? They might as well wear parachute pants as well.
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Blog: The Free Software Foundation raises the specter that the iPhone's software will violate its new GPL 3 license.
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According to Saul Hansell at the NY Times, Apple intends to break phones that have been unlocked.  But Francine Hardaway and Patrick Scoble both updated this afternoon, and bad things happened. Hardaway's phone was "fried," she needed a new phone, and Scoble lost all his data. Hardaway: "Trust me, I didn't hack it." Jeff Clavier: "This effing piece of s..t is bricked." Robert Scoble, Patrick's dad, updated successfully, and got the new features. Spaley's iPhone is "a useless piece of crap." Looks like Josh Bancroft's iPhone was hosed too. I would hold off on the update until we find out what's going wrong.  Sugar Attack: "It wasn't until I saw a friend tweet about the new iPhone firmware upgrade that I realized I could now access the iTunes WiFi store."
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(InfoWorld) - Less than a week after CEO Steve Jobs said that Apple wouldÂ fight hacksÂ that unlocked the iPhone, the company said any modification, unlocks included, voids the phone's warranty. Saying it had found that many of the unlocking programs "cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software," Apple spelled out the policy. "Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty," the company said in a statement. "The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing software is not covered under the iPhone's warranty." Several unlock hacks are circulating, including the free open-source anySIM unlock created byÂ iPhone Dev Team,Â andÂ iPhoneSIMFree,Â a commercial unlocking program that sells between $45 and $90 online. The unlocks let users insert a SIM card programmed with account data from another mobile provider so the phone can make calls on that carrier's network, rather than solely over AT&T's. Other mods, or modifications, let iPhone owners install their own ring tones -- Apple charges $0.99 on top of the usual $0.99 tune fee for a ring tone -- and add new software to the Apple-approved applications on the device. Apple also said it would issue an iPhone update this week, and hinted -- as expected -- that it will use firmware updates toÂ cripple unauthorized modifications.Â "Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs ... will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed," the statement said. The coming update has been no secret. Shortly after Jobs unveiled the new iPod line and announced the $200Â iPhone price dropÂ that angered many early buyers, Apple confirmed that it would update the device to add new features, including the ability to buy tracks from the iTunes music store over Wi-Fi. Not surprisingly, Apple's policy didn't scare off those who have modified their iPhones. On the company's iPhone support forum, a user identified as ansuz07 said, "The percentage of iPhones that have become bricked from hacks is very low. Even those that experienced problems could be fixed by a simple restore. Apple is going to make it sound a lot worse than it actually is since they are the ones who don't want you to do it in the first place." ComputerworldÂ is an InfoWorld affiliate. Â
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News has emerged that likely will not be appearing in Apple&#39;s iPhone commercials. The iPhone has a security flaw that allows malicious hackers to turn the smartphone into a remote controlled zombie.
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While most iPhone owners couldn't wait to try out their pricey new gadgets, a few raced to break them apart.