UPDATE: Some folks are telling is that this is an iPhone 2.2.1 exploit already patched in 3.0. We’ll wait for an update from Black Hat before we exhale, however…
Thanks to some last minute mediaattention, however, the general iPhone user base seems to be getting a tad nervous. And rightly so. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, in an ideal world, NSA expert come iHacker Charlie, who’s claim to current fame is using Mac exploits to win Pwn2own contests and free laptops, would work with companies like Apple and Microsoft (yes, it looks like Windows Mobile has an exploit as well), and those companies would patch the exploits as immediately as possible, before any “research” was publicly disclosed and any bad guys decided to use them as attack vectors.
TiPb will update post-Miller’s Black Hack disclosure, and hopefully Apple will roll the security fix into a quick 3.0.2 firmware release, or hurry 3.1 out of the gate.
UPDATE: Ryan Block returns to Engadget to smash this rumor.
At no point did Gary even remotely imply that Apple would be present at a future CES — let alone state flatly that Apple “will be there” in 2010.
Oh, WSJ…
ORIGINAL. The Wall Street Journal is reporting, almost off-handedly, that Apple is planning to attend CES 2010, a trade show it has avoided up until now, and arguably eclipsed in 2007 when it announced the original iPhone at the then similarly timed Macworld Expo.
Apple pulled out of future Macworlds, causing the expo to change focus and time slots for 2010, but the idea of Apple actually showing up at CES instead? To quoth Dieter: Cats and dogs — living together!
The meat of the WSJ’s story is actually that Steve Jobs has been invited to Keynote at CES but isn’t returning their phone calls. While Jobs owned the spotlight at Macworld before handing the final show over to Phil Schiller in 2009, Jobs would be one of several Keynotes at CES, including lovable competitor Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.
Would Jobs settle for “one of”? Would Apple, after leaving Macworld and saying they prefer to set their own schedule for special events, and that they reach more people via the Apple Stores every week anyway, really want to return to almost exactly the same formula with CES?
We doubted it, and still don’t believe what our eyes are reading.
Techcrunch asks the impertinent question: can AT&T handle the iPhone. The pertinent answer thus far is: no. The iPhone is a consumer success the likes of which no smartphone has experienced before. There are more users using more features that consumer more bandwidth that likely even Apple or AT&T ever estimated, and it’s put an extreme hurt not only on existing infrastructure, but a hurt that’s growing faster than infrastructure expansion can handle.
The answer to many is simply to have the iPhone on Verizon, which is believed to offer a better network. While obviously splitting the iPhone between AT&T and Verizon would lesson the individual demand on both — load balancing the user pool, so to speak — we’re curious as to whether or not Verizon could have, or could still, handle the iPhone all by itself.
It’s largely reported that Verizon was the first US carrier offered the iPhone after all. If they’d said yes, and if the iPhone grew on Verizon as fast (or faster, given their reach) than AT&T, would Verizon have suffered the same problems — and bad reputation — AT&T is suffering now? CDMA towers, while serving more with less, still have their limits, after all. (TiPb’s heard that some feel BlackBerry hits CDMA networks hard — they ain’t seen anything like the freight-train of hurt the iPhone is bringing.)
iPhone Live! comes to you tonight (Wednesday, July 29 ) at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT.
As always, pre-show will start about 10 min. before if you want to drop by early and reserve a space in our all new, all roomier chat room. See you then!
Just downloaded the new Apple MobileMe iDisk app [Free - iTunes link] to your iPhone or iPod touch and eager to know it better? Apple wants to show you how, literally. MobileMe News covers Apple’s latest App Store app, and Apple.com has a video tutorial available to get you started.
For example, it explains that documents get downloaded to your iPhone, and recent documents remain stored for offline viewing. Nice.
If you pick up any other tricks, or have any pro tips for iDisk on iPhone, let us know in the comments!
The Jabra SP200 Speakerphone for iPhone 3G/3GS [$59-95 - TiPb Store link] is a great Bluetooth headset alternative that you really have to try yourself to fully appreciate. I can not recommend it enough.
I’ve been using the Jabra SP200 for about a month now and I can honestly say that I’ve stopped using every single Bluetooth headset I own while driving my car. Simply connect the SP200 to your cars visor, flip the power switch and you are good to go. And go you will – Jabra claims the battery life comes in at 10 hours of talk time and 23 days of standby time. I am happy to report that these claims are dead on accurate.
Now to get to the most important part of a Bluetooth device, sound quality. I was pleasantly surprised on how well not only the person I would speak to sounded, but how well I came across to them as well. Volume is definitely not an issue with the SP200 as not once have I had to turn it up to it’s full capability.
Apple has released MobileMe iDisk [Free - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch. Announced during WWDC 2009 back in June, with nary a peep — though lots of questions and conjecture — heard since then, MobileMe iDisk showing up in the App Store today should be the kind of surprise that no longer comes as one.
Using the app, similar to how 3rd party solutions worked previously, you can log into MobileMe, see the contents of your iDisk, view any supported file formats (the typical jpg, png, Microsoft Office, iWork, and audio/video files), swipe to delete, and otherwise move through the file system.
When you tap on a file, you can also choose to share it or trash it. Sharing opens up an Email Link window where you can forward on access information via email. Shared files show up with a green Shared label and icon in list view there after. (Expired shared items show up with orange labels and grayed-out icons.)
Like Remote (and unlike Keynote Remote and Texas Hold’em), Apple’s fourth App Store entry is free. If you try it out, let us know how it works for you. If you already use a 3rd party iDisk utility, let us know how it compares.
Yahoo! and Microsoft have just announced a 10-year search deal where Microsoft’s newly re-branded Bing service will take over web searches for the venerable Yahoo! For its part, Yahoo! will get 88% of ad-based search revenue for 5 years and the ability to sell ads to some Microsoft search sites as well and limited access to user data.
Um, okay. Is that a good deal? Even if it doesn’t face any regulatory or approval problems, the deal won’t close until next year and then will take up to a couple of years to get up and running.
So, impact on the iPhone and iPhone users in the short term is likely nothing. Although, like Jacob’s nemesis on Lost, it could mean Microsoft has finally found a loophole to get their Bing search service onto the iPhone…
Currently the iPhone offers too search options via Settings > Safari: Google and Yahoo. Will Apple be switching that to Google and Bing?
Apple Insider is reporting that iPhone developers have been contacted by Apple and asked:
enter up to 255 characters worth of keywords, separated by commas, which will be used for search in the App Store on the iPhone and iPod touch.
They’re told this must be completed via iTunes Connect “as soon as possible so your application can continue to be successfully located on the App Store”. What, if any measures are in place to prevent more ethically challenged developers from misappropriating key words (i.e. using names of competing products or unrelated yet popular terms) remains to be revealed.
Additionally, Apple Insider says search results have improved in general, a query for “EA” now returning 18 results for Electronic Arts games rather than previous results that included unrelated games using an abbreviation for “each”.
UPDATE: AT&T tweets (yes, really), that service has been restored as of 8:20am. Is that true for everyone?
ORGINAL: Business Insider is reporting an AT&T data network outage in the US Northeast and Midwest. If you’re having trouble connecting to EDGE/3G with your iPhone, let us know where and when in the comments, and if it comes back up, let us know that as well.
