The iPhone app that shows climate change

The iPhone is a great commercial success for Apple. The phone has mesmerized users all over the world, and become the corner-store for a smartphone that is well designed, provides what users want, and most noticeably, provides a platform for 3rd party apps that can extend the various functions available to users. The App Store allows developers to create apps and have them in front of users, whether these Apps be free or purchasable, and the number of apps that have been downloaded is an ever increasing number. The Apps cover a huge gamut of areas, whether these be news, business usage, games, cool gadgets, useless stuff, sports, and so on.
A different topic; that of global warming. Global warming is a phenomenon that is progressing at a rapid pace, and human efforts to put a brake on emissions are really not up to the mark; developed countries that have contributed to the problems in the most significant ways do not want to take measures that will harm their economies, unless developing countries take similar steps. Developing countries want to make sure that the contributor pays the maximum, and do not want to get strung by tough climate norms without exacting all the possible help they can (even though it is developing countries that will be hit harder by the impacts of global warming).
Some of the impacts of global warming are:
- Glaciers receding and carrying less water
- Water levels rising due to melting of polar and Greenland ice caps
- Atmospheric temperatures rising
These are just an indicative list.
Well, visitors to the Swiss Alps can now get to evaluate the results of global warming on an iPhone (link to article):

As these rivers of ice retreat back up the valleys they carved out, so scientists' knowledge of climate change advances, in turn helping us recognize the signs of a warming world. Now a new iPhone app is helping visitors to the Swiss Alps understand how climate change is altering the landscape. Developed by the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern in Switzerland and Swiss software company, Texetera, the Jungfrau Climate Guide is an interactive guide to glaciers and climate change.
For a fee of 20 CHF (around $19) visitors to the Jungfrau Alpine region can hire an iPhone loaded with the app. "For example," Meuli explained, "if you are standing in front of a glacier you will be told why it is no longer as big and provided with images of what it looked like 100 years ago, and what it might look like in the future."

Such an App can be very interesting to the user. They provide information that a tourist seeks in terms of tourists tracks, information about flora and fauna, and also provides information about how global warming has changed the levels of glaciers. As you get more Apps that cover changes in weather patters, track storm patterns and sea levels, people will be more aware.

Apple responds to FCC enquiry about rejection of Google Voice

The Apple iPhone is such a popular device that it has encouraged a huge number of 3rd party developers to write applications for the iPhone, and Apple makes a large number of them available on the iTunes store (Apple claims that around 20% of the 500 apps that it receives per week are not approved - either directly rejected, or they need some modifications). However, it is apparent that one area where Apple is most concerned about is apps that either affect Apple's or AT&T's data plans or the money they make from voice calls. There was a lot of controversy in the month of July when Apple rejected the Google Voice (learn more) application, a software that could enable people to save money in making calls (even if Google Voice is not a VOIP application). The FCC was concerned about this apparent rejection, since it would seem that customers were being denied an alternative, and asked Apple for an explanation.
Apple has finally replied to the FCC, giving multiple reasons for the rejection, including privacy issues, and an apparent change of the basic call making flow inside the app (link to article):

"The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail," Apple said in a statement posted on its Web site. Apple also said Google Voice's importation of the Contacts database represented a privacy concern. "[T]he iPhone user's entire Contacts database is transferred to Google's servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways," Apple said.
Separately, Apple acknowledged that its agreement with AT&T obligates it "not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T's cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T's permission.

However, Apple is stating that the application is still under review, and not rejected; an apparent subterfuge to ensure more time, and maybe hope that back-channel contacts ensure that the issue goes away.
At some time in the future however, Apple will find that the platform that it has built in the form of the iPhone and the app store will be broken open, that Apple will find that the rights it has to deny an application will need more openness. This could happen through a mix of consumer reaction and pressure from regulators.

Another iPhone attacker: BlackBerry Storm from RIM

Ever since Apple came out with the iPhone, and made it a tremendously hot selling gadget, most of the other providers of smartphones have been jealous of the success of the iPhone, and have been casting around for a successful product that could appeal to people. At the same time, it has been difficult going for them, there have been a number of phones that have been launched that have been advertised unofficially as iPhone-killers, but none of them have managed to stand upto the marketing might of the iPhone.
Here comes another of these devices. At some point, RIM realized that its safe world of selling gadgets to office workers was under threat; the iPhone has started acquiring acceptance among office IT administrators over the world; this is threatening the sale of devices of RIM:

Research In Motion is taking on Apple's iPhone 3G head on with the introduction of the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm. The much-awaited smartphone sports many of the features of Apple's handsets, and even outshines it in certain categories. The touch-screen smartphone may give Verizon Wireless a legitimate rival to the iPhone 3G, and it may help stem the loss of subscribers to AT&T.
The Storm has 3.25-inch touch screen that has a 360 by 480 resolution. Like the iPhone, the Storm has support for multi-touch interface, but RIM's device will have haptic feedback for its virtual keyboard, and it will be capable of cut and paste. The keyboard will have RIM's SureType layout in portrait mode, and it will be a full QWERTY layout in landscape orientation.

It will be a tough call. Getting consumers to switch from the ultra cool iPhone to the dull RIM Blackberry phones (most Blackberries have the reputation of being thick, wide and very boring). It does have several advantages over the iPhone, but will not likely appeal to normal consumers. That is a big killer, with trying to compete on the office platform / business user only. Does not give it the volume to compete with a phone that is spread over the entire consumer buying span.

Apple willing to let BestBuy sell iPhones

Apple has a gold mine in the shape of it's iPhone, a device that continues to generate significant customer demand, and in fact so much demand, that if a customer wants to buy an iPhone in a AT & T store, there is a waiting time of around a week. Outrageous, some people would say, it's a device after all. But the iPhone has turned out to be such a hot device that people queue up to buy the iPhone, and Apple has sold millions of them so far. However, Apple hasn't exposed the phone in the retail market outside of the Apple and AT&T stores, and this restriction must still be limiting the number of phones they are able to sell. Well, it looks like they have re-considered; there seems to be an agreement to allow BestBuy to stock iPhones in BestBuy stores. Given that BestBuy is the largest electronics goods retailer, seems like Apple could expect a bump in the sales:

In a move that will significantly expand its retail presence in time for the holiday season, Apple has agreed to let retailing giant Best Buy sell the new iPhone 3G through its nationwide chain of Best Buy Mobile outlets starting early next month. Best Buy markets cell phones in the United States through 970 full-size stores and 16 stand-alone Best Buy Mobile shops. All U.S. Best Buy stores will carry the iPhone except for a handful of outlets located in areas where AT&T does not provide cell phone coverage.
For Best Buy, which has been angling for the iPhone business for more than a year, the deal will add Apple’s cachet to its expanding smartphone offerings and help drive traffic to new Best Buy Mobile departments within its stores. Best Buy is aggressively marketing a variety of smartphones, from RIM BlackBerry Curves to Palm Treos, and is the exclusive reseller, with Sprint (S), of the Samsung Instinct, one of the iPhone’s nearest competitors.

This will push the iPhones into the hands of a larger number of consumers, and given impulse purchases, may lead to a bump up in sales for the iPhone. After all, a consumer going to buy some other phone may come across the iPhone and decide to buy. What is not yet clear is about how the activation will be handled for these iPhones.

A leading retailer drops Microsoft's Zune

Microsoft a few years decided to step into the field of consumer electronics in a limited way, with efforts for both gaming consoles and MP3 / Media players. Both of these are fast moving items, with fierce competition, an extreme focus on features, and ability to turn users into die-hard fans. In both these areas, there were entrenched players in the field when Microsoft made its entry - in gaming consoles, Sony's Playstation and Playstation 2 (and Nintendo in a smaller way), as well as Apple's iPod in the field of MP3/ Media player were both established players with very strong market shares.
Microsoft on the other hand has a very strong marketing strength, as well as presence in the customer software segment; however, Microsoft had to build up a mind and market presence in the actual consumer devices retail positions. This takes time and effort, and you need to show increasing market share. This has now suffered a setback, with one of the leading retailers, GameStop deciding to stop stocking the Zune (Microsoft's personal media player) due to inadequate sales:

Microsoft's entry into the consumer electronics space came with a thorny channel problem. To succeed in capturing a broader audience, Microsoft had to broaden its retail channel. The Xbox business helped take care of that problem: once Microsoft proved that it was serious about developing and promoting the first Xbox, and once it began to show reasonable sales figures, a new class of retailers--including game-specialty stores like GameStop--were happy to make shelf space for Microsoft's consoles and games, right alongside Sony and Nintendo.
Apparently, after giving it a year and a half, GameStop has found that's not the case. Looking at recent NPD figures, it's easy to see why--compared with the first Xbox, the product just isn't moving nearly as many units (2 million in 18 months) or capturing enough market share.

Still a bit early to write off the Zune, but it just is not capturing any imagination, and in the meantime Apple has moved ahead with the iPod Touch / iPhone, capturing the wow effect.

Apples doubles capacity of iPhone and iPod Touch for $100

The iPhone and iPod Touch (and earlier the iPod) have done wonders for Apple, given the massive customer demand and the can't get enough of iPhone need of customers. I was watching a couple of iPhone users give a demo of the phone to friends who did not have the iPhone, and you literally see these people (admittedly geeks) were positively in love with the gadget; you really don't see that happen to people having other phones and gadgets.
Now Apple has decided to try and squeeze more money from people. Given that a lot of the buying of the iPhone used to happen for the higher-capacity 8 GB phone, it was natural for Apple to add more storage, and in the process, charge an additional $100. After all, why not make money when people are willing to give.

Apple doubled the capacity of the iPhone and the iPod Touch on Tuesday for an additional $100. The iPhone once again comes in two capacities: 8GB for $399 and now 16GB for $499. Apple sold 8GB and 4GB varieties on iPhone Day, but it discontinued the 4GB model after it cut the price of the 8GB model to $399. Something like 90 percent of all early iPhone buyers opted for the 8GB version.
And the iPod Touch can also store more music and videos now, with 32GB of capacity for $499. That device is now available in three versions, with Apple also selling a 16GB model for $399 and an 8GB model for $299.

There was a slight reduction in the sales figures for the previous quarter, something that should scare Apple to some degree. So the announcement of these new models should be a good answer to industry analysts, since there will be a number of users who will buy the highest capacity device, netting Apple an extra $100 in the process. The question however remains as to when Apple will overcome some of the shortcomings in the device, such as addressing 3G connectivity, and providing an inbuilt GPS solution.

Apple starts disabling hacked iPhones

After the release of the iPhone, there was some consternation over the non-release of the iPhone outside the United States; it was speculated that hacked copies of the iPhone would be available outside the United States and that this was a natural occurrence. Apple would not be able to do anything about this. Well, looks like the design of Apple's engineers had actually planned for this. So, the latest firmware update to the iPhone has actually disabled the iPhone, apparently permanently for those people who have hacked iPhones. But is this the last statement on this matter ?

The iPhone 1.1.1 update, released Thursday, breaks phones that have been hacked so that they work with providers other than AT&T Inc., the only U.S. provider Apple has allowed to carry its mobile phones. 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."
The new software is Apple's biggest iPhone update to date, and it fixes a number of security flaws in the mobile phone'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.
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.

Now, while this patch fixes bugs in the iPhone and should be installed by users, it is unlikely that the hacker community will accept this matter as a fait accompli. It's a gauntlet that Apple has thrown to the hacker community, and with the hacks spawning a new business, there is a major commercial angle to it. Thus, it is likely that hackers will now start to put their creative thoughts on how to defeat this latest attempt by Apple.

iPhone in Europe

After much hand-wringing and puzzlement over the US only release of the iPhone, Apple is slowly releasing the iPhone in European markets, although, not as attractive to users as it was for the US market. The plan is to release in the UK sometime in October 2007, and then go onto Germany on November 9, 2007. Although one can expects some amount of anticipation, there will not be the same buzz about the release as there was in the US market near its release. Many reasons for this lack of a buzz:
1. The industry to release a patched version of the iPhone that is not carrier restricted is in full swing, so a number of users would already have the iPhone in use with European networks.
2. Europe is far ahead of the US in terms of speed of telecom networks, with 3G being common, and the iPhone currently only supports EDGE which is a lot slower. For people already using 3G or planning to buy a phone to use 3G and get the high speed, the iPhone is a non-starter unless it gets a 3G version
3. Pricing is a major issue. The phone in the US sells for $399, and will sell for a converted value of around $540 in Europe which is a significant premium. Not sure how many people will buy the device at these prices.
4. Apple in the US has gone with a 2-year contract with AT&T for the service plan, but a long service plan is not par for the course in European countries. For customers used to paying on a regular basis and not getting locked into a contract, especially when the contract does not lead to a cheaper device, the iPhone will not seem so attractive.
will all these factors, one will just have to wait and see whether the buzz factor of the iPhone as a must have device is enough to overcome all these.

Apple reduces price of iPhone by $200

This was not something that anybody would have expected. There was the usual sense of expectation regarding what would be new products introduced by Apple, but nobody would have expected the price of the iPhone to drop by a third, to $399. This is good for the people who were thinking of buying the iPhone but the price of $599 was too expensive for them, or maybe they just did not want to spend so much on the iPhone.
It sure looks like Apple felt that the sales figures for the iPhone were not meeting the desired levels, and the cost is a significant factor, and hence the reduction in the price. This price will make the iPhone more attractive for the holiday season and should spur sales. However, there is a very vocal group of uses who feel extremely dissatisfied with this decision, and it is quite expected. After all, to buy a new gadget is good, and then to find out after you buy it that the price has dropped by $200 would make you look like somewhat of a fool. The users were fairly vocal on the Apple website, and the company decided to give all of them $100 as compensation.

Apple on Thursday offered a $100 store credit and an apology to early adopters of its iPhone mobile handset after they reacted angrily to a large price cut within 10 weeks of its launch. The move, designed to boost sales during the holiday season in the US, was an unusual one for the company. It commands premium prices for its products and tends to add features to them to justify maintaining existing prices.
IPhone owners, some of whom queued for days to buy the handset before it went on sale on June 29, had by Thursday besieged Apple with complaints that they had been taken advantage of and overcharged. Apple’s price cut had also disappointed the market. The company’s shares fell 5 per cent on Wednesday on concerns about the effect on profitability and the decision to cut the price so soon. Apple shares closed a further 1.3 per cent lower on Thursday at $135.01.

This may actually be the first time that Apple has to had face the backlash of customers in such a way, and would not have been pleasant for them. However, it must have been necessary for Apple to make such a move in order to avoid getting a bad backlash from customers; at the same time, given the need to increase sales, the price cut would have been necessary.

iPhones sales top that of Smartphones

The iPhone is not a Smartphone as per many analysts, but industry specialists, grabbing at sales data proclaimed that when compared to other Smartphones, the iPhone was the market leader; and in the general handset category, it sold approx 1.8% of all handsets sold. These were based on figures from July, although I would doubt whether the first few months of sales should be an indicator for future trend. After all, the iPhone was one of the most publicized devices, with a halo like aura around it, and proclaimed as the new revolutionary device. It would not be surprising that so many people wanted to be the among the ones to carry the device as it would seem like a major new gadget, a cool thing.
The sales figure from iSuppli for iPhone sales till now have been used to project for sales figures for the next few years:

Apple's iPhone was the top-selling smartphone in July, research firm iSuppli reported Tuesday. On the basis of sales figures so far, iSupply predicted that 2007 iPhone sales would reach 4.5 million, would triple in 2008, and would hit 30 million in 2011. "This is a remarkable accomplishment for Apple," iSuppli said in a statement. It's "likely," the firm said, that iPhone sales so far represent the strongest start for a handset in history.
Greg Sheppard, chief development officer for iSuppli and the author of the study, said that there "was a lot of pent-up demand" for the phone. "The follow-up months will be the real proof of the pudding," he said in a telephone interview. Still, he said, it is a data point that iPhone "popped out ahead" of BlackBerrys, Palms, and other leaders in the smart phone category.
Steve Jobs' latest device tends to be seen as straddling two market segments -- smartphones, which allow users to install applications, and feature phones, which allow users to play multimedia. The iPhone matched sales of the leading feature phone, the LG Chocolate, Sheppard said, noting that some people probably wouldn't put the iPhone directly in competition with smartphones. "But," he said, "if you really look at it, it's a smartphone."

The advantage of the iPhone is that it is seen as having multiple advantages, being a very must-have gadget kind of appeal, being a iPod in terms of playing audio and video, and also having the features of a smartphone. This is a great combination and if Apple can maintain that, it will continue to surge ahead in market share.

Unlocking the iPhone

Ever since the iPhone was released, there has been a quest among the hacking community to break open the restrictions placed on the iPhone. There would be 3 primary reasons for the hacking effort:
- It's a new device, hence the need for a large section of the hacking community to try and break it; after all, it's a device out there with a major reputation to be made for the first person who successfully is able to demonstrate a break
- The iPhone is locked to the AT & T telecom service for 5 years, and hence there is an effort to break it such that the phone can work with other services inside the US
- There is currently no announced service for the iPhone outside the US, and with a number of people having seen and heard news for months about this great new device, there is a strong factor in trying to get the device to work outside the US.
There have been some news in the past, but no confirmed hack for the iPhone that will break the AT & T activation need. It is of course only a matter of time, and there seem to be some credible news about these breaks:

The iPhone unlocking game heated up considerable over the weekend with no less than three people/groups claiming to have unlocked the coveted Apple device. The first and most impressive iPhone unlock comes from a New Jersey teenager and involves soldering, but most definitely works. Shortly after that came word from Engadget that the somewhat questionable outfit iPhone Sim Free had succeeded with a software only SIM unlock (Engadget claims to have an iPhone that was successfully unlocked).
What about the iPhone Sim Free hack? Engadget is pretty adamant that it works, the iPhone Sim Free folks unlocked one of their iPhones, which led Engadget to throw some bold tags around this statement: “Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.”

Once such a news is confirmed, and hacking of the iPhone becomes easy, it is very likely that there will be a small industry that will grow around the concept of easy hacking of an iPhone so that it can be used outside the country.

iPhone resulting in more trees being felled ?

Sounds a bit strange, does it now. After all, the iPhone is a device like any other (well, maybe somewhat more advanced than other such devices), so what does it specifically have to do with more trees being cut? In fact, if you send more email and messages from the iPhone, it is less likely that you will use less paper, and hence save trees.
However, if you balance that with a telecom company that is bound in hide-bound policies unwilling to be changed, then you will realize as to what the association with AT & T is costing Apple. Well, a long preamble, the actual story is that now that customers have started receiving their bill for usage of the iPhone, the bill displays every login, every message and every call. So if you are a frequent user of the iPhone, you will get a bill that is very big in terms of number of pages:

Unlike most cell phone bills, the statement for the iPhone, which was released at the end of June to unparalleled frenzy from gadget geeks across the country, itemizes every data item -- including every text message, every Internet log in and every e-mail.
"AT&T should get a new tagline -- use AT&T, kill a tree," he said. But to Enderle, the biggest incentive for AT&T to change its itemized billing is financial. "You would hope that a manager at AT&T is looking into this. It's a huge waste of money for them. It's not like this cost of paper is passed through the user. This is straight cost to AT&T," he said. "Not only is this costing more money, but it's pissing off users."

And this is bang on the point. At a point when corporates are trying to become more responsible in terms of their environmental costs and responsibilities, such a billing policy that actually consumes this much paper, even more so because most people are not going to go through the bill in detail, is clearly irresponsible. It is also a very bad business decision by AT & T if they continue, since the cost of paper, printing and postage directly hits their profits and affects their shareholders. Users who are environmentally sensitive will certainly not appreciate this particular policy.

Hacking the iPhone and ease of hacking the Mac

For a long time, Apple and Mac users have disdained the PC and Windows as very bad in security, and instead tom-tommed the relative lower number of hacks on the Mac. Microsoft has always been on the defensive in terms of security, and the large number of cracks and holes available on the OS and apps have always led them to be worried. There have been people who have been saying that Mac has not shown so many cracks just because it has a 5% market share, and people have not found it worth their while to try and break through the Mac OS security:

Though there has yet to be any documented criminal hijacking of the iPhone outside of a lab, Miller says his research shows the relative ease of hacking smart phones, as well as Macs in general. He spoke with Forbes.com about the iPhone's vulnerabilities, Apple's short-lived patch and the company's undeserved reputation for building secure computers.
There are two issues with the iPhone. First, the specific weakness that we found in its Web browser. But there's a more fundamental problem. The iPhone runs everything as "root." In other words, there are no privileges for different users. They should have built layers of security. Instead, if you can find a single crack, any user has the entire phone at their disposal. Last week they basically patched a hole in the wall. But inside, it's still pudding.
Bad guys aren't yet targeting Macs because they want to maximize their time. That means writing viruses that target 95% of computers rather than 5%. Apple currently has around 3.5% of the market, but its market share is growing by around 35% a year. As Mac's numbers creep up to 30% or 40%, cyber-criminals will start asking whether it's better to spend two weeks writing a bug for Windows or just a couple days to write one for Macs.

Almost nothing in this interview is complementary to Mac, but one tends to agree with what he says. Windows is the dominant OS, and most hackers are anyhow biased against Microsoft, in addition people are ready to believe that Windows is inherently insecure, and hence most hackers target Microsoft. Now that the iPhone is a well advertised target, one can expect many more Black Hat hackers to target the iPhone for benefit, and for Apple to be on the backfoot.

Gphone: Google Phone ?

There have been rumours of a Google phone (short form 'Gphone') for some time now. Now Google is a search company, or rather it is a company that is trying to do a lot of things, but which makes most of its money from search. It has tried to enter the mobile world through a tie-up with carriers about placing Google search in the mobile space. Now carriers are typically very hard creatures to work with; they don't allow much freedom.
And there was this revolution that happened. Apple released the iPhone in a tie up with AT & T, but shockingly for the telecom industry, it was Apple that called the shots. This was a new type of device with a lot of hype, and hence AT & T would have allowed this. But any such move does set a precedent that Google could easily try and copy:

The company, which has made billions of dollars in Web advertising on computers, is courting wireless operators to carry handsets customized to Google products, including its search engine, email and a new mobile Web browser, say people familiar with the plans. It wants to capture a big chunk of the fast-growing market for ads on cellphones.
Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the cellphone project, say people who have been briefed on it. It has developed prototype handsets, made overtures to operators such as T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, and talked over technical specifications with phone manufacturers. It hopes multiple manufacturers will make devices based on its specs and multiple carriers will offer them.

For Google, the mobile market is the hottest new emerging market, and must be the focus of a lot of strategy sessions at Google headquarters. Carriers have been not so easy to convince, but Google's might and the precedent of the iPhone could change things. If Google does come out with a cellphone, then one would expect more Wi-Fi integration and other methods of browsing, something uncomfortable to carriers since that is outside of their data plans.
The further advantage of having ads on cell phones is that they can be targeted better, and hence Google can ask for and earn more revenue per ad. One thing is sure, Google will do all they can to get an entry into this business, even if it means buying up spectrum and launching itself as a carrier.

An apple patch that you might want to take

Apple has recently released a patch, 2007-007 update for MacOS X, 10.3 and 10.4. This is a mega patch, fixing over 45 defects, out of which 17 are serious security issues where hackers could compromise systems and are classified as equivalent to 'critical'. Since Apple also uses a number of open-source projects, approx 75% of the patches were in the open-source software that Apple blends in with its own code.
These open-source bug fixed include fixes in the following apps: Kerberos, PHP, Samba, SquirrelMail and Tomcat. Components of MacOS X patched as part of this release were CFNetwork, the Mac OS X library of network protocols; CoreAudio, the API (application programming interface) that handles sound on Macs; the zgrep file compression utility; iChat; and WebCore, the part of the WebKit application framework that handles HTML rendering. Fixes also included fixes in Safari (including a fix for a problem on Safari on iPhone)
One normally hears primarily of Microsoft releasing patches at regular intervals to fix security holes and other bugs, so it would be interesting to evaluate whether this gets an negative publicity for Apple. Microsoft would like to advertise this as claiming that OS X has also a number of flaws, and equally, open source technology has a number of security holes for which there are no clear owners, and the total cost of ownership of open source systems is high, as per the Microsoft argument.

Duke and iPhone resolve problems

Earlier this week, there was a major issue over the iPhone apparently causing a Denial of Service attacks on the Duke wireless network, and the issue quickly blew up. Apple would have been in the forefront of attempts to make sure that this issue gets resolved due to the potential bad publicity for the iPhone. Well, it's now blown over, and Apple gets a clean chit:

Initial reports of the problem placed the blame for the outages squarely on Apple's iPhones, which flooded the Cisco WAPs (Wireless Access Points) with thousands of address requests per second. However, in a statement released this afternoon, Cisco Systems admitted that the problem was caused by a Cisco glitch.
The problem could be particular to Duke. Other large universities—specifically the University of Wisconsin at Madison—have not experienced problems with its registered iPhones and Cisco-based Wi-Fi network, according to Dave Schroeder, an administrator in UW's Division of Information Technology. "We have seen upwards of 120 unique iPhones since June 30 on our campus-wide wireless infrastructure, which also uses Cisco 802.11b/g access points. To date, we have not encountered or detected any undesirable behavior from iPhones," said Schroeder. "As I have also not heard reports of errant 802.11 iPhone behavior from any other institution or site, it appears that the issue at Duke may be unique. There may be something unique to Duke's particular wireless installation configuration that the iPhone may be exposing," he added.

Of course, that is something that needs to be investigated further. There is something in the Duke network that was causing the problems to happen, and there is no certainty that such issues will not happen again.
There is an additional comment in the bottom of the article quoted above that could also cause certain problems

"My suspicion is that Duke's network requires Cisco's (Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol) security encryption and the iPhone doesn't have that incorporated into it. That could be a source of the problem," said Van Baker, a research vice president at Gartner in San Jose, Calif.
"Cisco's LEAP is an enterprise deployment not seen in the consumer market at all. The iPhone doesn't have a lot of the features you'd normally expect to see in an enterprise class phone," he added.

This was certainly a negative comment by an analyst, and this is something that Apple needs to quickly address. Apple would want this phone to be adapted in the enterprise segment as well, those segments carry a number of phones with them.

iPhone causing denial of service attacks

Could it be too good to be true ? The iPhone is one of the tech marvels that happens once in a few years, and it has shown itself to be a revolution in the designing of phones, although the restriction on carriers and the relatively slow network are acting as hobble-stones.
Well, in the latest news on this area, the iPhones have been caught to be behaving very strangely on the Duke University campus, with around 150 iPhones (a fraction of what would be available once the students come back from holiday) bring several wireless access points to a halt, in an imitation of a Denial of Service attack, probably the last thing that Apple wants to hear at this point:

The iPhone is flooding wireless access points at the US Duke University with MAC address requests, resulting in a denial of service-like attack that is taking out 20 to 30 access points for 10 to 15 minutes at a time – weird! The iPhones are asking for an address that isn’t on Duke University’s network, and when the iPhones don’t get a response, they keep on sending out requests, flooding the available bandwidth.
Help has been sought from Cisco, the maker of the school’s networking equipment, and technical support has been sought from Apple, although there is only speculation online as to precisely what might have caused the problem – Apple isn’t saying anything yet as it no doubt investigates the problem. When the fix inevitably comes, either the iPhone, Cisco’s equipment, or both, will simply be patched with a software update to resolve the problem.

So even though it will probably be a short-lived problem, the fact that such a problem occurred reflects badly on Apple's quality regime. And it is good that it happened at a time when the university was thinly populated, otherwise at peak times and if happening in a number of places at the same time, the problem would have been magnified many times and probably resulted in a loss of face for Apple.

Security company warns against using iPhone's web dialer

The iPhone has a great new feature, and since it is a combination phone and browser, the feature can work really well for most users. But like any other new great feature, there is tremendous capability for misuse, and seeing the ease of misuse, security companies are warning users against using this feature, or to be very careful when using this feature.
What is the feature? Well, the iPhone uses Safari as a web browser. Now, if the web site displays a phone number, all that the user has to do is to click on the phone number in the browser, and the number will get dialed. This is a great feature, but so is the scope for misuse. Imagine the phone in the hand of a neophyte who is viewing some 'interesting' site on the browser, and there is a number displayed along with a catchy slogan. Press the number, and if the number is an international number, or a fraud number, the calls could become very expensive very soon.

Attackers could exploit a bug in this feature to trick a victim into making phone calls to expensive "900" numbers or even keep track of phone calls made by the victim over the Web, said Billy Hoffman, lead researcher with SPI Labs. The iPhone could even be stopped from dialing out, or set to dial out endlessly, he said.
In order for the attack to work, the bad guys would have to either trick iPhone users into visiting a malicious Web site or make a legitimate Web site send untrustworthy information to the iPhone using what's known as a cross-site scripting attack. "Any time someone could control the content that's getting sent to the iPhone [the possibility of an attack] exists," Hoffman said.

It is not as difficult as it looks. It is actually as easy as letting the iPhone be used by a child or by somebody else who is not so experienced, and it is not difficult to create a site that will look attractive and feature this kind of mischief. But as of now there is no way to prevent it, so being careful is the only good way of dealing with this problem.

Some Democrats criticize carrier restriction for iPhone

This seems a bit funny. During a Congressional hearing on regulation in the wireless industry, some Democratic leaders lit up on Apple and the iPhone for restricting usage only to AT&T as an exclusive carrier for 5 years. It was sought to be portrayed as a limitation to customers who either had other providers or who were located in areas where AT&T did not provide coverage. Seems a bit strange to be objecting to something that seems so central to how the wireless industry works:

The iPhone "highlights both the promise and the problems of the wireless industry today," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecom and the Internet. "This cutting edge technology breaks new ground … [but] consumers can't use this service with other wireless carriers" and those in areas not reached by AT&T cannot use the iPhone at all, he said.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was less concerned. "Competition spurs carriers to innovate and build a better mousetrap," he said. "The iPhone is the newest mousetrap and now other carriers will be working to top it." Members convened the hearing to debate whether wireless service agreement regulation should be transferred from state public utility commissions (PUCs) to the federal government. The wireless industry has long favored a more national approach, but state PUCs are hesitant to give up control.

This restriction to AT&T has long been sought as a major weakness for the iPhone, since there will be a number of customers who will not be able to switch over to AT&T because of existing contracts. However, the iPhone is not a device that has a major share of the market, and there will be more devices that will come out of a similar nature that will allow people to use these devices. It is not in the nature of an anti-trust deal that requires lawmakers to comment. It would be nice if there was no restriction, but this is a commercial contract.

iPhone: The hacking race begins

In the past, there was a great market for cracking the service linkages of phones. The concept being, SIM based GSM phones in many countries are locked to service providers. They are much cheaper than their cost because of the service conrtract, with a subsidy being provided by the telecom carrier such as AT&T, SPrint, etc. This subsidy is provided because the contract normally locks the user in for a 2 year conract, and the company can recover the subsidy during this period.
The iPhone is a somewhat different model. AT&T does not provide any subsidy for the iPhone, with the full cost of the phone being the amount charged ($499 for a 4 GB one, and $599 for a 8 GB one); but Apple, presumably in a bid to repay AT&T over the allowances allowed to Apple while designing the phone prevents another SIM from being used in the phone. In addition, no functionality of the device such as music playing, video, camera, etc can be used without activation (which can only happen with AT&T in the US - and not yet allowed outside the US).
Thus the cat and mouse game between a company and hackers has now begun. The iPhone is a prime target for hackers and crackers, many seeing it as a game / test; and many seeing it as something worth a great deal of money. When Apple would have designed the phone, it would have been a priority to set the security of the phone such that the protection would have difficult to crack:

Locked phones can only be used with cellular service from one carrier, a move designed to guarantee carriers recover the cost of subsidizing a handset through monthly service charges. But the cost of the iPhone, which is priced at either US$499 or $599 depending on the model, is not subsidized by AT&T. Users must pay full price for the handset and sign a two-year contract, which requires them to pay from $59.99 to $99.99 per month for cellular service.
Unlocking the iPhone will enable the handset to be used with any cellular provider with a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network, not just AT&T's network. That's an attractive proposition for users who already have a cellular contract with another carrier, or users outside the U.S. who can't wait to get their hands on Apple's new handset.
Efforts to unlock the iPhone are being tracked on several Web sites, including Hackint0sh and the iPhone Dev Wiki.

This is also something that is a bit odd. If users are being made to pay the full amount for the phone, then they should be able to use the phone at their discretion. It is understandable if the iPhone was subsidized, in which case the service provider locks the phone until the subsidy has been paid. But to lock the phone till activation and prevent usage of other functions is very strange, and once could argue, an extra charge that a user has to bear for having the iPhone. Especially because the AT&T network has been shown to be a slow one, and limiting the speed of wireless browsing.
It is bound to happen sooner or later that the unlocking scheme will fail, and when that happens, it will be a pretty simple job to do this in mass. That will be time when the world proliferation of the iPhone begins.