AT&T says iPhone activation problems largely solved
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AT&T Inc said on Monday delays in  activating service for customers of Apple Inc iPhone had been  mostly resolved after the wireless company worked out the  problems on a case-by-case basis.
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Blog: The good news is that my iPhone is finally activated and it's definitely worth the money. The bad news is that it took AT&T 39 hours to get it done.
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Apple warned that iPhone owners who have used unauthorized programs to unlock the cellular service feature of their handsets may end up with a phone that does not work.
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As of 7 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, AT&T had isolated the problem and was still working on it, a spokesman said.
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(InfoWorld) - Users are reporting that a new update to Apple's iPhone is making previously unlocked iPhones unusable. The iPhone 1.1.1 update , released Thursday, breaks phones that have been hacked so that they work with providers other than AT&T, the only U.S. provider Apple has allowed to carry its mobile phones. In recent months, a number of software tools have been developed whichÂ allow iPhone users to break free of Apple's AT&T-only restriction, but Apple has said that it would fight any attempts to unlock the iPhone. Earlier this week the company released a warning that unlocked iPhones "will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed." Shortly after the Thursday update was released, users of unlocked iPhones began reporting problems. Security researcher Tom Ferris said the new software disabled a phone that had been unlocked using the open-source anySIM software in order to work on T-Mobile's wireless network. After the update, the iPhone was stuck with an error message and apparently unusable. "It kept saying 'unsupported SIM card,' even with the AT&T SIM card in it," he said. "You can turn the phone off or on, but we just can't figure out how to get past this 'SIM card not supported'," he said. SIM cards contain account information and are used to authenticate devices on certain types of mobile networks. Unlocked iPhones can use SIM cards from non-AT&T networks. Others were reporting similar problems on Thursday. The update also appears to disable the 'Jailbreak' hack which allows users to install unsupported software on the iPhone, Ferris said. After the 1.1.1 patch was installed, it wiped out all of the third-party applications he had installed on a second iPhone, he said. The new software is Apple's biggest iPhone update to date, andÂ it fixes a number of security flaws in the iPhone's browser, mail client, and Bluetooth networking server. The majority of the flaws do not appear to be critical, but the update fixes a larger number of bugs than the first iPhone update, released July 31. Hackers have said that the iPhone's browser and mail clients are the most likely sources of software flaws and this release bears that out. Apple fixed seven flaws in the Safari browser, two in the iPhone's mail client, and one Bluetooth bug with the release. The Bluetooth flaw could be the most serious -- Apple said that it could allow an attacker to run unauthorized code on the iPhone -- but because Bluetooth works over a range of just a few feet, the attacker would have to be standing near the victim for any exploit to work, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle Network Security. Noted hacker HD Moore agreed that the Bluetooth flaw was serious. "The only bad issue here is the Bluetooth [flaw]," he said. "I will start working on this tonight." Though there may be some technical limitations to what an attacker could do by exploiting this bug, it "could be a nasty remote exploit," he added. Earlier this week,Â Moore added iPhone hacking capabilities to the Metasploit hacking toolÂ that he develops. The patch also fixes some cross-site scripting and JavaScript flaws in the browser that could also be serious, Storms said. These flaws could be exploited to make the browser run unauthorized JavaScript code, he said. Mobile phone users typically cannot update their own software, but Apple introduced this capability in the iPhone, which uses the update mechanism in the phone's iTunes music player. iTunes checks for these updates once per week, so it may take up to seven days for all iPhone users to see these updates. Apple advises users to install the update immediately.
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(InfoWorld) - After standing in line for hours on Friday to buy the new Apple iPhone, some users were forced to wait even longer to activate the phones, while others found the store shelves empty and will have to wait another week for their phones to arrive in the mail. On Monday, staff at an AT&T store in Boston said they had run out of iPhones on Friday night while a line of customers still snaked out the door. People at the back of the line purchased their phones through "direct fulfillment" and will receive their phones through the mail in three to seven days, the store said. AT&T declined to release sales figures but said that virtually all of its stores have sold out of iPhones. Over the weekend, AT&T referred disappointed customers to the Apple Web site but now says it plans to begin selling iPhones through its online store as well, said AT&T spokesman Michael Coe. He did not give a date. AT&T downplayed the reported activation delays. "The vast majority of iPhone customers have completed the activation process in just a few minutes as planned," Coe said. "Only a very small number of customers who purchased an iPhone this weekend are experiencing issues with activation, and all our energies are focused on clearing up these difficulties just as quickly as possible." Apple did not return calls for comment. Some analysts blamed the delays on heavy user traffic. "AT&T's servers were slow due to the mass number of sign-ups in the first few hours with credit checks. This may have delayed some purchasing of iPhones," said Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research, in his Monday report to investors. Other customers experienced delays when they tried to switch to AT&T from other carriers, he said. Still, Wu upgraded his stock estimate for the company and predicted that the iPhone would become the fastest-selling product in Apple's history. Within three years, Apple could become one of the top smartphone vendors, changing the competitive landscape of that industry. Even customers who took their iPhones home on Friday faced potential delays in activating them. Users who registered their phones on the iTunes Web site saw a warning that the process could take between 24 and 48 hours, said Craig Henry, a 32-year-old IT administrator at a law firm in Massachusetts. Henry's wait lasted for three hours when he received an e-mail confirmation that his phone was activated. However, he soon faced another challenge when he tried to transfer his address book to the iPhone. "The hardest part for me was transferring my phone numbers because I was on Verizon and didn't have the software to keep the numbers on my PC. So I spent an hour typing in about 150 numbers," he said. He also had to get accustomed to the touchscreen interface, which relies completely on finger drags, flicks, and pinches instead of using hard keys. "It takes a little bit of getting used to. But the typing works fine; I was sending text messages all day on Saturday," Henry said. "When you're in the contacts sheet, you run your finger across the screen -- kind of like flicking a marble -- and it scrolls really fast, or you can drag it and scroll slowly." Many users were concerned about iPhone battery life, an issue that Apple tried to address on June 18 by upgrading the original battery before the product even launched. Still, Henry visited an Apple store on Saturday to buy a second charger so that he could power his iPhone both in his home and his office. Despite the hurdles of learning to use his new gadget, Henry said he suffered no buyer's remorse. "I was out on Saturday night, and everybody knew I had it and wanted to touch it," Henry said. "They made a little fun of me for waiting in line so long, but I don't think the wait was too bad. When people see it, they're amazed by it."
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Cisco and Apple have settled their dispute over rights to use the iPhone name.
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Just how much will the iPhone boost AT&T's business?
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To hear other wireless carriers tell it, the introduction of Apple Inc.'s iPhone on AT&amp;T Inc.'s network is no real threat.
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Hacker Jon Lech Johansen, known widely as &quot;DVD Jon,&quot; has cracked Apple&#39;s iPhone activation, or so he claims, meaning that iPhone buyers will be able to activate and use the new handset without having to commit to an AT&T wireless contract. Johansen announced his feat in a blog post entitled &quot;iPhone Independence Day.&quot;
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Minor update? Apple has posted the anticipated iPhone 1.1.1 update. The release, which adds support for the Wi-Fi connect iTunes Music Store, does indeed, as expected, returns unlocked handsets back to their AT&amp;T-only status.â¦
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AT&T says it activated only 146,000 iPhones in the first two days the device was for sale.
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The price of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and the cost of switching to AT&amp;T Inc.'s wireless service may suppress demand for the device, according to a survey by the research firm IDC.
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User groups said some customers waited nearly 60 hours without getting the iPhone activated, but AT&T and Apple said the problem affects only a small number of customers.
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AT&T Inc  said on Monday delays in activating service for customers of Apple Inc.'s  iPhone had been mostly resolved after the wireless company worked out the problems on a case-by-case basis.
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iPhone buyers who tried to activate their new phones and port telephone numbers from other mobile carriers ran into trouble Friday night and Saturday, with many reporting hours-long delays in getting their phones working.
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Microsoft has fixed a problem with Windows Mobile Device Center that made it difficult for Windows Mobile devices to sync with Vista.