Fidelity Takes iPhone Support Call
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Fidelity Investments is gearing up to make its mobile applications available on the iPhone as part of an effort to keep up with the likes of Amazon.com and eBay on support for handhelds.
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(InfoWorld) - A Brooklyn, New York-based charity is using its position as first in line for the iPhone at the SoHo Apple Store to drum up more support for its plans to auction the gadget on eBay and use the money for charitable purposes. In addition to its iPhone plan, Keep a Child Alive, which supplies anti-retroviral medication and treatment for children with AIDS in Africa, has gotten corporate sponsors to donate other items for eBay auctions. What got the ball rolling was a decision by Johnny Vulkan, member of the group's public relations team, to begin standing in line for the iPhone at 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday, said Sarah Stabile from Anomaly, the public relations company that does pro bono work for Keep a Child Alive. Vulkan also works for Anomaly. Since then the campaign has taken a life of its own, she said. During an interview outside the store Thursday, Stabile got an e-mail informing her that ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live television show has offered the charity four tickets to the show and access for four to its green room to auction off on eBay. "Every five minutes more and more people" are pledging support, she said, standing in the brutal summer heat. Other corporate sponsors of Keep a Child Alive's iPhone campaign are Virgin Atlantic Airways, which is giving the nonprofit airline tickets to auction off; Aliph, which has donated Jawbone Bluetooth headsets that work with the iPhone; and the Rachael Ray daytime television show, which also has donated tickets. Six Flags Theme Parks amusement parks and Netflix also are donating items to be auctioned on eBay for Keep a Child Alive. eBay also has said it will match the iPhone's auction price and donate the amount to the charity, Stabile said. Apple, however, has not yet pledged any kind of charitable support for the group's campaign, though she believes the company will eventually donate something for the cause. When contacted by Keep a Child Alive, "they said, 'We love what you're doing,' but not much more," Stabile said. She added that because of all the media attention the iPhone is getting, it's not surprising Apple would choose to stay out of the campaign for now. "They'll probably do something quietly later," she said. Mia Riddle, a Keep a Child Alive staff member, is one of 80 volunteers who is keeping the group's place in line. Sitting on a chair on the hot sidewalk Thursday, she said the staff of the Apple Store has been more than hospitable to the people braving the heat to stand in line, "bringing us water and letting us use the bathroom." Riddle said the nonprofit uses Apple computers at its office, but an interest in the company's technology is not the reason for the iPhone campaign. "It's more about using the media frenzy around the iPhone to communicate things that are a little more important," she said. Keep a Child Alive's eBay auction is expected to begin at 6 p.m. EDT Friday and end at the same time on Tuesday, July 3. Donations to the nonprofit and more information about it can be made on its Web site.
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Federal regulators said in court papers filed yesterday that Fidelity Investments' money management arm "may have, directly or indirectly" defrauded some clients or prospective clients during a two-year period from 2002, actions which may have prevented Fidelity customers from getting the best possible deals on stock trades.
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No opening the handset case, no soldering -- a hacker group has announced that they've come up with a workaround allowing iPhone owners to make calls via networks other than AT&T.
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Fidelity Investments and several brokerages that handle the mutual fund giant's trading have received subpoenas from regulators seeking information about gift-giving practices in the mutual fund industry, according to a published report Tuesday.
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Blog: With patience wearing thin because of iPhone's bugs I consider restoring the iPhone's settings.
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BOSTON -- Fidelity Investments and several brokerages that handle the mutual fund giant&#39;s trading have received subpoenas from regulators seeking information about gift-giving practices in the mutual fund industry, according to a published report Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - A hacker group released a free, open source unlock for Apple's iPhone late Tuesday, just a day after a commercial company started selling something similar for as much as $99 through a network of online resellers. The iPhone Dev Team, a dozen programmers who began their attempts to break the iPhone's reliance on AT&T in early July, have posted their hack on download servers. According to several sites, including Gizmodo and Engadget, the iPhone Dev Team unlock exploits the same iPhone bug as the for-money iPhoneSIMFree hack to do its magic. The two groups, however, came up with their solutions independently. But the process isn't for the faint of heart. "This unlock is not for everybody!" the iPhone Dev Team warned. The procedure involves several separate programs -- some of which must be obtained elsewhere on the Internet -- and requires that iPhone owners execute commands from a shell screen on the Mac or PC. Even so, reports have been posted to the team's site from users in more than 40 countries that the unlock hack works, and after a swap of the iPhone's included SIM card with one from another cellular service provider, that they've been able to access more than 90 different carriers. The iPhone's distinctive Visual Voicemail, which lets users select voice-mail messages rather than listen to them in the order they were received, is missing after an unlock; that feature relies on AT&T's back end. Some users have also reported that the iPhone's connection to YouTube no longer works after the hack is applied. The iPhone Dev Team is already working on a one-click tool sporting a graphical interface that will unlock an iPhone, but it had not been released as of this morning. "A new version of the GUI tool is almost complete," the group said on its site. It's likely, however, that any unlock will be undone by the next iPhone update, which Apple has said will be issued sometime this month to give the device new capabilities, such as Wi-Fi downloading from iTunes. The iPhoneSIMFree group, for example, has hammered the caveat into potential buyers' heads: "We cannot offer any guarantee should Apple Inc. choose to re-lock the phone after a future update," it stated in a FAQ. Resellers of the iPhoneSIMFree hack, who have priced the unlock as low as $45, have repeated the no-guarantee mantra. Apple has repeatedly refused to comment on the various iPhone unlock hacks -- paid versions or free ones.
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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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SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 24  â Apple warned on Monday 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 after the companyâs next software update.
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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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Your iPhone must be activated with AT&T, and it had to be purchased before August 22 in order to be eligible for the credit.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner is known for its comprehensive market research, but Wednesday, the firm produced two separate reports that could leave IT managers scratching their heads over whether to support Apple's iPhone. On the one hand, two Gartner analysts issued a research note to their clients that clearly says the iPhone is "not yet an enterprise device" and urges businesses to "resist general requests from users to admit Apple's iPhone into their corporate environment." On the other hand, Gartner issued a separate press release that advises in a headline, "Companies Must Embrace Consumer Technologies as Additional Opportunities to Innovate." The release quotes a third Gartner analyst, Jackie Fenn, about the value of "embracing and leveraging employee experimentation and experience with consumer technologies." The two points of view may seem contradictory, but they have been a discussion point at Gartner and other analyst firms for several years and have been voiced over iPhone specifically by IT managers recently. For example, at media giant ABC last week, one IT manager said he was sure a few top ABC executives would demand iPhone connectivity to corporate e-mail to be able to experiment with the device and learn its value in communications, even though the official policy was not to support the iPhone. The research note, co-authored by analyst Ken Dulaney, seems to recognize the plight faced by ABC and other companies with the title of its research note, "How to Plan for User Interest in the Apple iPhone." But it nonetheless urges that "general requests to support iPhone should not be fulfilled on the basis that the device cannot be fully secured and managed" to levels Gartner has described for smart phones. "IT organizations should refuse to support the iPhone at this time," the research note continues. "If for political reasons this is not an option, then the iPhone should be placed under the concierge support level ... meaning that support will be granted as an exception, with the associated costs for support covered by a monthly billing to pay for the dedicated support staff uniquely trained for this device." The note adds that the resulting total cost of ownership will be double the cost of a normally supported device, such as a Research In Motion BlackBerry or a Palm Treo. But the note also urges IT staffers to familiarize themselves with the iPhone because "broad employee adoption" is expected to occur outside the workplace. The research note lists several obstacles to adoption inside businesses: Lack of support of the iPhone from major mobile management and mobile security software programs; lack of support from major business e-mail systems; an operating system not licensed to alternative hardware suppliers, resulting in no backup hardware suppliers; feature deficiencies that increase support costs, such as no removeable battery; current availability from only one U.S. operator, AT&T; and a high price of $500 when compared with other smartphones on the market. In addition, the note adds that the iPhone is "unproven ... from a vendor that has never built an enterprise-class mobile device" and is seen by Apple as focused on the consumer audience, not the enterprise business. The note further urges IT organizations to request mobile operators supporting the iPhone to remove the requirement that individuals obtain an iTunes account because the agreement should be with the business and not the individual. Some IT managers have expressed concerns that multiple iTunes accounts could flood storage resources and pose questions about whether songs have been properly procured. Dulaney acknowledged that the research note had undergone many drafts in recent days as Apple released more information on the device. "Most of what Apple has for the enterprise is rudimentary," Dulaney said. "It is clear they have not focused on this and are only hoping to have enough [in the technology] so that some enterprises will permit their users to employ the device without being disturbed by IT. I am sure that third parties will fix some of these things, but most of what they hope to do is via rudimentary VPN technology and through Web browsing. There is a huge difference between what RIM does and what Apple will provide." Despite Dulaney's cautionary words, the prevailing view by Gartner and many analysts seemed to be summarized by one of Fenn's comments in the Gartner press release: "The flood of consumer-led technologies into the enterprise is not going to subside," Fenn said. "To fully realize the benefits, IT must embrace these technologies as an ongoing strategy rather than on a case-by-case basis." In a later e-mail, Dulaney took note of Fenn's comments and emphasized that he had urged IT to begin testing the technology. "We have concluded that no IT organization can stop the invasion of consumer technologies," he said. "But IT gets hurt when they get caught off guard. So they should investigate it. Something as powerful as the iPhone will probably make its way into the enterprise. But for now, we recommend that only specialized support be given."
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Apple's unexpected price cut on the iPhone may spur more sales of the mobile device. But it angered many early buyers, who flooded the companys support forums with complaints.
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Fidelity Investments recently slashed fees on several of its index funds, knocking their annual expense ratio from 0.19 to 0.10 percent.
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The last few days have seen an amazing amount of security chatter concerning the iPhone considering that the thing just launched. Jon Espenschied would like to hear a little less hysteria and a little more clarity about the difference between standards and "what's usual."
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Software lets iPhone owners swap out SIM cards so that the device can make calls on cellular networks other than AT&T's.