'WSJ', 'NYT' reviews say iPhone features overcome slow network
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Blog: Walt Mossberg and David Pogue have posted their iPhone reviews after two weeks with the gadget, and despite reservations about the network speed, they like it.
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Apple Inc. sharply cut the price of its iPhone on Wednesday and rolled out an iPod with a touch screen that can browse the Internet wirelessly, as well as improvements to its iTunes Web store.
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(InfoWorld) - New technical details about Apple's iPhone leaked to the Web by a University of Washington technology group but since yanked from the school's site confirmed that the device will not support Adobe's Flash, will rely on QuickTime to display audio and video, and can keep only eight Safari-displayed Web pages in memory at one time. The University of Washington's emerging technology team posted information gleaned from an iPhone session at last week's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference). The nitty-gritty details spelled out during the "Designing Web Content for the iPhone" presentation, according to the team, include: * No support for Flash, Adobe's multimedia Web content format. * No Java. * JavaScript runtime limited to five seconds. * QuickTime used for audio and video. * A maximum of eight documents loaded in Safari on the iPhone. * Links to video on a Web page take users directly to full-screen playback. * Support for PDF through Apple's own DisplayPDF code, not Adobe. * Multiple gestures automatically available to Web sites viewed through iPhone without any additional coding, including pinching content to shrink, double-tapping to zoom, and two-fingered scrolling. Although the blog entry has disappeared -- replaced by a message that reads "The topic you are looking for have been deleted" -- the page was still viewable in Google's cache late Tuesday with a text-only version also available. Oren Sreebny, director of emerging technology at the school, said it wasn't Apple that called for the deletion. "Someone else in our organization who had [also] gone to WWDC, pointed out that it was probably in violation of a nondisclosure agreement. We didn't want to get into any trouble, so we removed it," said Sreebny. Apple requires all developers attending WWDC to sign an NDA that bars them from revealing any conference content except for CEO Steve Jobs' keynote. Earlier this week, the owner of a Web site that provides gas prices at local stations said his server logs showed several iPhone-equipped users had visited the URL using a browser identified as Safari Version 419.3. "[That's] the 'old' Safari, not the 3.0 beta," said the unidentified site owner. That information matches what Sreebny's group had posted; according to the WWDC session notes, the iPhone version of Safari IDs itself to sites as Version 419.3. The GasApp.com site owner also reported that Safari on the iPhone was running in 320 x 396 resolution for the Web viewing area. "But I don't know if that includes the controls at the bottom or not," said the site operator. The iPhone goes on sale June 29 in the U.S.
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BURLINGTON, Vt. - There&#39;s a digital ax hanging over John Canning&#39;s head, but he doesn&#39;t much care. He&#39;s too busy surfing the Internet, perusing his e-mail, compiling driving directions and keeping track of the stock market - all on what amounts to a portable computer he cradles in the palm of his hand: his iPhone.
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Hackers have found a way to use  Apple Inc&#39;s iPhone on networks other than AT&T Inc&#39;s, opening  up the coveted device to rival carriers and overseas customers,  according to a Web report on Friday.
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A high-speed wireless technology that  is still in development promises to make mobile Web surfing  about four times faster, but its impact on the embattled  network equipment industry will be much less dramatic,  according to industry executives.
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(InfoWorld) - Complaints about the speed of the network thatÂ Apple's new iPhoneÂ connects to points to the need for a new broadband wireless network in the U.S., said a businessman proposing one. The iPhone uses AT&T's EDGE network, which AT&T says averages speeds of 100 kilobits to 150 kilobits per second. But one review in the Wall Street Journal called the network "pokey," and a review in the New York Times called the network "excruciatingly slow," saying users may "almost ache for a dial-up modem." With new wireless spectrum scheduled to be auctioned by early next year, the launch of the iPhone demonstrates the need for a faster new network, said Reed Hundt, a former chairman at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and vice chairman of Frontline Wireless. Frontline has asked the FCC to set aside 22MHz of spectrum out of 84MHz available for a national wireless broadband network, to be built by the highest bidder for the spectrum. "The connection service is a bridge back to the 20th century," Hundt said Monday. "The iPhone is like the guy who invented the Ferrari and found out he was selling into a country of dirt roads." Apple selected the AT&T network in part because it covers 90 percent of the U.S. AT&T has been pleased with the iPhone launch, said spokesman Todd Smith. There are faster networks in the U.S., but they do not have the geographic coverage that EDGE provides. "We believe the EDGE network was designed for a product like the iPhone," Smith added. "We're confident with its ability to support the device." Hundt doesn't blame AT&T for the network speeds, he said. Instead, the U.S. government has so far failed to provide spectrum available for faster new networks, he said. "It's not AT&T, its not Apple, it's the government that arranged things so there'd be only one national network," he said. The FCC has a chance to change that when it sets the rules for the auctions in the 700MHz band being abandoned by U.S. television stations, Hundt said. "There's one last chance for the government to take a new course, and create an open, truly national ... wireless broadband network," he said. Frontline and other supporters of an open-access broadband network say the 700MHz spectrum auctions represent the last chance for the U.S. to create a new broadband network to compete with cable modem and DSL (digital subscriber line) providers. In late 2005, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that requires U.S. television stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon spectrum in the 700MHz band by February 2009. That spectrum allows broadband signals to travel three to four times farther than signals transmitted in higher bands. The Frontline plan would require the winning bidder of one chunk of spectrum to build a dual-use commercial and emergency response network, with priority network use for police and fire departments. Frontline is asking the FCC to require "open access" rules, allowing wireless and broadband providers across the country to buy wholesale access to the network. CTIA, a trade group representing wireless phone providers, and the Hands Off the Internet coalition, representing AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent,Â and other groups, have opposed open-access rules, saying consumers already have many choices in the wireless market. FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group, said in a paper released last week that too many questions about the Frontline proposal still exist, such as who will finance the network and how much public safety agencies will have to pay for access. "Frontline asks both U.S. taxpayers and public safety agencies to become its business partners, its first and largest investors," wrote study author Jeffrey Eisenach.
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âThe phone is so sleek and thin,â reports David Pogue (New York Times) in his review of iPhone, that âit makes Treos and Blackberrys look obese.â And the software transcends. âItâs fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate.â If you need âto answer a call, you can tap Answer on the screen, or pinch the microscopic microphone bulge on the white earbud cord. Either way, music or video playback pauses until you hang up.â As for email, itâs âfantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.â And âthe Web browser,â he points out, âis the real dazzler.â No âstripped down, claustrophobic My First Cellphone Browser; you get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip â much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.â In short, Pogue calls the iPhone, âthe most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years.â
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Faster cellular service for the iPhone is on its way, but Apple may also add high-speed wireless WAN capability to its MacBooks.
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âAppleâs iPhone could emerge as the most successful product introduction of the 21st century, new research suggests.â  Conducted by Lightspeed Research, âthe research findings are staggering,â reports Jonny Evans (Macworld). âNearly 90 percentâ of the respondents had heard about iPhone, and 32% of those who didnât already own one intend to purchase one. In a separate survey, Lightspeed Research also learned that ânearly half of those who would like to own an iPhone stated that the benefits of having music, movie, internet and wireless all in one was the top reason.â
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Banners hanging at&#160;Macworld Expo&#160;on Monday read, &quot;2008: There&#39;s something in the air,&quot; suggesting wireless news to come in CEO Steve Jobs&#39; keynote Tuesday morning.Faster cellular service for the iPhone is already on its way later this year, AT&amp;T&#39;s top executive reportedly said in November, but Apple could go beyond that plan and extend high-speed wireless WAN (wide-area network) capability to its MacBook notebooks and even a rumored &quot;ultramobile&quot; computer.Many consumers have been clamoring for more speed on the iPhone since it was announced a year ago with support only for Wi-Fi and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), a version of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) that generally runs below 200Mbps. U.S. iPhone carrier AT&amp;T Wireless and other operators around the world already have a set of faster systems called HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) that can deliver more than 1Mbps.At the same time, wide-area wireless has been moving into PC notebooks and smaller PC-like devices. The big notebook vendors, including Dell, Lenovo, and Hewlett-Packard, have rolled out products with built-in 3G. And the Asustek Computer Eee PC and some other small UMPC (ultramobile PC) devices are slated to ship with WiMax.Apple hasn&#39;t made the leap. Mobile Mac owners can hook up to Wi-Fi hotspots but have to buy dongles or other add-on devices from third parties to get fast wireless elsewhere. Offering a built-in 3G card would give MacBook users access to broadband in far more locations.However, that leap would take Apple into a market that hasn&#39;t attracted a large percentage of notebook buyers, analysts said.At least in the U.S., 3G radios are associated with a particular carrier and usually sold along with two-year data contracts. Users keep notebooks longer than they do phones and don&#39;t want to lock them down to a particular carrier, said Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. In addition, many notebooks are purchased by enterprise IT departments, which demand more flexibility, Golvin said. He doesn&#39;t expect to see another iPhone phenomenon.&quot;I don&#39;t think that laptop users would be as interested in aligning themselves formally with one particular carrier,&quot; Golvin said. One alternative would be to build in a chip that could handle more than one carrier and 3G technology, he added.Avi Greengart of Current Analysis believes Apple&#39;s proven ability to streamline could change the picture.&quot;They have not been in the forefront of 3G on notebooks. However, it wouldn&#39;t surprise me at all if they came out with a simplified offering that just made a lot of sense and became the catalyst, as the iPhone is,&quot; Greengart said. Apple simplified the iPhone experience for customers by sticking with one carrier and letting subscribers sign up with AT&amp;T through iTunes.Apple could also jump-start the market by offering an alternative to the expensive monthly service model that carriers typically use, said Gartner&#39;s Ken Dulaney. Most consumers don&#39;t travel frequently enough to justify spending US$30 or more per month for cellular service on their notebooks, but they might be willing to buy a system with built-in 3G and pay for service as they need it, he said. Verizon has a little-known offering like this, in which users can pay $15 for 24 hours of service, according to spokesman Jeffrey Nelson.Because of its greater mobility, a rumored Mac that&#39;s smaller than a notebook but bigger than the iPhone would be an ideal candidate for 3G. If the company unveils it on Tuesday, that product could lead Apple&#39;s new wireless charge.But that &quot;something in the air&quot; could be a number of other things, too, analysts said. Apple is expected to make its SDK (software development kit) for third-party applications on the iPhone available next month, Greengart said. And the iPhone could gain GPS (Global Positioning System) capability, or some iPods could get Wi-Fi, he said. As always, it&#39;s all speculation until Jobs speaks.&#160;
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Wi-Fi enabled phones, like the iPhone, will drive demand  for fast wireless broadband networks like the ones cities want to build using Wi-Fi, say experts.
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1+(smarterThanYou) writes &quot;Forbes.com has an article with updates on the previous Slashdot story on the Motorola/Apple iTunes compatible mobile phone.
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Complaints about the speed of the network that Apple's new iPhone connects to points to the need for a new broadband wireless network in the U.S., said a businessman proposing one.
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Wi-Fi enabled phones, like the iPhone, will drive demand  for fast wireless broadband networks like the ones cities want to build using Wi-Fi.
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(InfoWorld) - The Wi-Fi connection on Apple's recently releasedÂ iPhoneÂ seems to be the source of a big headache for network administrators at Duke University. The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school's pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown. "Because of the time of year for us, it's not a severe problem," says Kevin Miller, assistant director, communications infrastructure, with Duke's Office of Information Technology. "But from late August through May, our wireless net is critical. My concern is how many students will be coming back in August with iPhones? It's a pretty big annoyance, right now, with 20-30 access points signaling they're down, and then coming back up a few minutes later. But in late August, this would be devastating." That's because the misbehaving iPhones flood the access points with up to 18,000 address requests per second, nearly 10Mbps of bandwidth, and monopolizing the AP's airtime. The access points show up as "out of service." For 10-15 minutes, there's no way to communicate with them, Miller says. "When the problem occurs, we see dozens of access points in that condition," Miller says. The network team began capturing wireless traffic for analysis and that's when they discovered that the offending devices were iPhones. Right now, Miller says, there are about 150 of the Apple devices registered on the campus WLAN. The requests are for what is, at least for Duke's network, an invalid router address. Devices use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to request the MAC address of the destination node, for which it already has the IP address. When it doesn't get an answer, the iPhone just keeps asking. "I'm not exactly sure where the 'bad' router address is coming from," Miller says. One possibility: each offending iPhone may have been first connected to a home wireless router or gateway, and it may automatically and repeatedly be trying to reconnect to it again when something happens to the iPhone's initial connection on the Duke WLAN. They're still sorting out what that "something" is. On two occasions, one last Friday and one today, Monday 16 July, both users seemed to be behaving completely normally, yet both iPhones started flooding the net with ARP requests. In both cases, the user first successfully connected to the WLAN at one location, and then moved to another building, where the ARP flood began. "It may have something to do with the iPhone losing connectivity and then trying to reconnect in a new location," Miller says. Most of the W LAN is comprised of Cisco thin access points and controllers. Some older autonomous Cisco Aironet access points tend to uncover the flooding first, since they try to resolve the ARP request themselves. But Miller's team has seen the CPU utilization on the WLAN controllers spiking as they try to process the request flood passed on to them in control traffic from the thin access points. "I don't believe it's a Cisco problem in any way, shape, or form," he says firmly. So far, the communication with Apple has been "one-way," Miller says, with the Duke team filing the problem ticket. He says Apple has told him the problem is being "escalated" but as of mid-afternoon Monday, nothing substantive had been heard Apple.
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After testing the iPhone for two weeks in multiple US cities, Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret consider it âa beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface,â they say, âworks well.â In addition to combining âintelligent voice calling and a full-blown iPod,â iPhone also âoffers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone and robust email software.â It offers âthe largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone weâve seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim.â It is, the two conclude, âa pleasure to use.â