Apple reportedly tweaked the iPhone to work better on AT&T

Since the original iPhone launch, AT&T has put in motion a number of upgrades to its wireless network to accommodate the pounding it received at the collective fists of millions of iPhone users. But according to AT&T CTO John Donovan, Apple has also done its part to adjust the iPhone to work better on AT&T's network.

Donovan told the Wall Street Journal that, even as the company worked to convince Apple that it was improving its network, AT&T engineers went to Apple to give Apple's engineers a "crash course" in wireless networking. Apple modified how the iPhone communicates with towers to reduce the overhead for making connections or sending texts.

"They're well past networking 101, 201 or 301," Donovan told WSJ. Apple is now "in a Master's class."

Ars contacted both AT&T and Apple for further details about what was changed, but neither company offered any specific information. We do know, however, that the way the iPhone—as well as smartphones that came after it—use certain techniques for saving battery power that can bog down signaling channels on cell towers that aren't configured to handle signaling loads dynamically. The last we heard about significant changes in the 3G networking capabilities of the iPhone OS was in late 2008, though it's sure that Apple since tweaked the the network stack whenever needed.

AT&T learned that hard way that iPhone users didn't add network traffic in the same predictable patterns as users of other phones did. The company "is managing volumes that no one else has experienced," Donovan said. The growing pains that AT&T experienced as the iPhone skyrocketed to the top of the smartphone market in the US have left a number of users frustrated, with many willing to jump to another carrier if it could offer service for the iPhone. Half of Ars readers using an iPhone said they would switch to Verizon if a rumored CDMA-compatible iPhone materialized soon.

Verizon CTO Anthony Melone bragged late last year that the company was more than ready to handle the onslaught that iPhone users would bring to the network. "We are prepared to support that traffic," Melone told BusinessWeek.

That's easy to say, AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom told Ars, "but the truth is no one knows what their network would look like if they had the iPhone." "Of course, it's true that others have been able to watch what we've done to handle a 5,000 percent surge in data traffic," Bloom added. "But watching is quite different from doing."

Bloom said that the upgrade to HSPA 7.2 and the added backhaul—"enough to also support our LTE buildout"—will keep AT&T ahead of the competition, which may be enough to keep iPhone users from looking at other carriers. "More and more people are going to get the benefits of 7.2 speeds this year on our network," he said.

Source: Arstechnica.com

More on next-gen iPhone and Verizon iPhone dreams

Apple plans to release new iPhone hardware this summer—this is widely accepted among the Apple community despite the lack of any announcement from Apple. But more rumored details about the hardware and its expected launch date supports Steve Jobs' promise that it will be an "A+ update." This new hardware will supposedly launch on AT&T in the US, but yesterday we heard from the Wall Street Journal that a CDMA-based version was destined for Verizon sometime this year. Several analysts are less certain than WSJ's sources, but Apple may be ready to make the CDMA leap to stave heated competition from Android.

After WSJ's story mentioned the obvious—that a new iPhone was coming this summer—Daring Fireball posted a number of expected features of the upcoming iPhone refresh. The device will likely be powered by a version (perhaps the exact same one) of the A4 processor inside the iPad. It may also have a 960 x 640 pixel display, a front facing camera, and iPhone OS 4.0 is expected to enable some form of third-party multitasking.

All of those prognostications are fairly safe. Jobs long ago said that PA Semi would be designing chips to power its mobile products, and if the A4 can get up to 10 hours of runtime for an iPad with its 9.7" LCD screen, it could likely give a big boost to the runtime for the iPhone in addition to snappy performance.

A 960 x 640 pixel display will help keep the iPhone in the running with some newer mobile devices with screen resolutions that exceed the current model's 480 x 320 display. The higher resolution also jibes with the "iPhone HD" moniker that Engadget sources suggest the new model will wear. The screen would still have the same 3:2 screen ratio with a doubling of pixel dimensions, meaning existing iPhone apps could easily be scaled to fit the new screen without much apparent difference in quality. However, apps updated for the higher resolution should look absolutely stunning.

The iPhone HD name may also refer to the camera hardware. Intel previously suggested that Apple would adopt a 5 megapixel OmniVision sensor that was effectively a drop-in replacement for the current iPhone's 3.2 megapixel sensor. The new sensor uses backside illumination for increased light sensitivity, but can also shoot HD video in 720p or 1080p HD resolution, trumping the current iPhone's limit of 640 x 480 SD video.

The front-facing camera has long been rumored as a hardware upgrade ever since the first iPhone launched in 2007. Such a camera would enable video calling or conferencing à la iChat AV or Skype. Several of the iPhone OS 3.2 betas contained resources necessary for video calling, and the feature may finally make an official appearance via a front-facing camera and iPhone OS 4.0. iPhone OS 4.0 is also expected to bring a "full-on solution" for running multiple third-party iPhone apps simultaneously.

Engadget's sources expect the new iPhone to launch on June 22. Daring Fireball suggests that date could be likely if WWDC is in early June. The new model would likely be announced during the WWDC keynote, giving developers a few weeks to update apps to take advantage of new features in time for its launch.

Despite what may prove to be a very compelling upgrade for current iPhone owners, what about those on non-GSM carriers? Apple has called CDMA a dead-end technology in the past, but an update to WSJ's report from yesterday about a likely Verizon-ready iPhone notes that Apple may have "changed its mind" given that LTE won't likely be widespread even on Verizon until sometime in 2011, and on AT&T until sometime in 2012 or later.

Several analysts expressed doubt that Apple would make the CDMA plunge this year, if at all. Sources for Morgan Keegan analyst Travis McCourt said that Qualcomm is working on a CDMA radio chip that could work with the iPhone, but that it won't be a dual mode CDMA-GSM chip that Apple wanted. Even if Apple could build a CDMA-capable iPhone, there's still the matter of Apple and Verizon being able to come to an agreement to provide service for the device. For instance, AT&T's $30 per month data plan includes unlimited data, while Verizon's similar plan for smartphones is capped at 5GB. Verizon would also have to implement the necessary back-end to support the iPhone's Visual Voicemail feature.

UBS analyst Maynard Um also agreed that a Verizon launch this year would be unlikely. However, both analysts suggested that a CDMA iPhone could launch with other carriers, especially those that have far less immediate plans to transition to 4G LTE. Possible alternate options include China Telecom (which doesn't used UTMS/HSPA for 3G), KDDI in Japan, SK Telecom in Korea, or even Sprint in the US.

Still, several metrics suggest that Google's Android platform is growing much faster than the iPhone, especially in the US, even though the iPhone has still outsold Android devices by a large margin. Part of the reason that Android is able to grow so fast is that it's available on multiple devices from multiple carriers. AT&T only has so many customers willing to go for the iPhone, and there are only so many willing to switch carriers to get one.

Our reader poll from Monday suggests that half of current Ars iPhone users would defect to Verizon if the iPhone was launched on that network, and plenty of current Verizon customers would be interested in an iPhone if it were available. A CDMA iPhone might not mean much for worldwide growth, given that there is still plenty of growth opportunity with GSM-based carriers. However, if Apple wants to maintain US smartphone market dominance, going CDMA might be the only option for the next few years.

Source: Arstechnica.com

IE8, Safari 4, Firefox 3, iPhone fall on day 1 of Pwn2Own

The first day of the annual Pwn2Own contest in which security researchers can win cash and hardware if they successfully compromise machines using zero-day exploits is finished. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7, Firefox 3 on Windows 7, Safari 4 on Mac OS X 10.6, and iPhone OS 3 were all compromised during the competition. Google's Chrome was the only browser left standing—and in fact, was completely untested. None of the researchers at the competition even tried to attack Chrome.

So far, little is known about the successful exploits. Until vendors have been informed of the flaws and those flaws have been patched, details will not be made public.

The iPhone was not successfully hacked in 2009's competition, but was predicted to fall this year, and those predictions have come true. A zero-day Safari flaw was used to gain access to text messages stored on the device by Vincenzo Iozzo from German security firm Zynamics and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg. Notable in the exploit was that it bypassed both iPhone's Data Execution Protection as well as its requirements that all code be signed.

A little more is known about the IE8 exploit, including an (abridged) video of the browser being taken down. The successful researcher, Peter Vreugdenhil, has published a rough outline of the techniques used to bypass IE8's DEP and ASLR protections.

The Safari hack came from Charlie Miller; this makes three years in a row now that Miller has pwned—and hence owned—a Mac at pwn2own. Thus far, nothing further about either this exploit or the Firefox one appears to have been published.

Neither the iPhone exploit nor the IE8 exploit managed to escape the OS-supplied sandboxes that protect these platforms. Without escaping the sandboxes, the impact that flaws can have is reduced, preventing, for example, writing to hard disk (and hence, preventing installation of malware). Nonetheless, read-only access is still valuable for data theft.

It is this sandboxing that might explain why Google's Chrome was untouched; no researcher even attempted to attack it. It is certainly not the case that Chrome has no security flaws—a couple of days before the Pwn2Own draw was made to decide who got to attack which machine and in what order, Google published an update to Chrome that fixed a range of security flaws, some of which were deemed to be high-risk. Google's sandboxing shouldn't be impenetrable, but it is sufficient to make the standard harmless exploit payload—starting up Windows calculator—harder to do.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Surprise: iPhone app use heaviest at night and on weekends

Apple has made inroads into the professional market with the iPhone—the company has noted that some Fortune 500 companies have deployed them alongside or even replacing BlackBerrys. Despite this, analysis of app usage suggests that it remains a mostly personal device.

Mobile analytic firm Localytics examined logs of use of third-party apps and found that app use during the week typically begins to ramp up around 5am and slowly increases to a peak around 9pm. Weekdays also tend to have a little bump in use right around lunch time.

On weekends, however, use starts picking up around 6am, reaching a steady peak around noon until 11pm. App usage sharply ramps down after 11, but slightly slower than it does on a typical week day.

This usage pattern is typical for a device that is used for personal rather than business reasons. However, it's also possible that business users are either sticking to Apple's supplied apps or are using custom-developed in-house apps for specific business needs. For instance, a business user is more likely to fire up Mail or Calendar than, say, Tweetie or Plants vs Zombies during the work day. Localytics notes that it expects to find similar usage patterns for the iPad, and that developers may want to consider these patterns when designing apps for either platform.

Source: Arstechnica.com

iPhone still second-place US smartphone while Android grows

The latest data from market research firm comScore shows Apple holding on to a quarter of the US smartphone market, which grew roughly 18 percent over the last six months. That makes the iPhone the number two smartphone in the US, though it still lags well behind number one RIM. Android-based devices are still growing rapidly in popularity.

Over the last few months, comScore data shows RIM and Apple holding pretty much steady, with RIM at 43 percent and Apple at 25.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, Palm (which includes webOS and PalmOS) devices and Microsoft-powered devices continued to decline. Android-based devices, however, continued to rise sharply, enough to eclipse Palm to take fourth place in the US market.

Though Apple still lags significantly behind RIM in this category, it's worth noting that Apple has been able to hold a pretty steady share over the last few months. This is in spite the typical cyclical ebb and flow of Apple's market share, which has tended to drop significantly in winter in anticipation of updated iPhone models that are typically released in June or July, followed by a sharp spike in late summer or early fall.

comScore says that an average of 42.7 million Americans were actively using smartphones between November 2009 and January 2010. That's about 18 percent of the overall 234 million Americans using a mobile phone over the same period. Motorola, LG, Samsung, and Nokia continue to lead overall sales of mobile phones in the US.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Android Surges While the iPhone Stalls Out

The latest smartphone subscriber numbers are out, and the last three months have been kind to Google. Android's still a relatively small player, but its usage base more than doubled since October. The iPhone, meanwhile, keeps on treading water.

RIM remains the leader in the smartphone space, with nearly half the market using BlackBerries. Apple's 25.1% share is undeniably impressive, but only growing .3 percentage points (relative to the market) means this summer's impending iPhone 4 release can't come soon enough for Cupertino. Either that or a whole mess of patent lawsuit wins.

The losers, predictably: Palm, whose business model is collapsing before our eyes, and Microsoft, whose sitting duck WinMo 6.5 OS is in the process of being totally scrapped.


[ComScore via TechCrunch]

Source: Gizmodo.com

Apple files alt iPhone input, physical "key" login patents

Two recently published patent applications from Apple caught our attention for their craftiness. One shows how to use the iPhone's camera as an alternate gesture input method; the other details a system using a uniquely shaped signet to log in to a computer.

The first patent, "Camera as Input Interface," adds alternate input methods for a touchscreen phone, particularly useful when the touchscreen is pressed against your face during a phone call. The patent describes a method using the built-in camera as a gesture detector, recognizing "swiping" up, down, left, or right using a finger. The gestures could be used to control voicemail, for instance, by swiping "forward" or "back" to skip to the next or previous message. The input could be augmented with accelerometer data to recognize a "tap" as well, according to the patent application.

MacRumors notes that Apple has filed a number of alternate input methods for the iPhone, including a rear surface or an outer bezel that are also touch-sensitive.

The second patent, "Shape Detecting Input Device," describes a system using a touchscreen to recognize uniquely shaped signets, and to perform actions associated with a specific shape. One application would be to log in a unique user based on the recognized shape. This is similar to the now-defunct practice of stamping a seal from a signet ring into sealing wax to verify a document's authenticity or source. If such a signet were indeed on a ring, it could also be used to unlock an iPhone.

Apple's patent suggests that unique signet shapes could be embedded in a ring, a tag, a card, a stamp, or even a key. Other suggested actions initiated by the signet shape recognition include configuring a system to a unique user's needs, launching certain applications, or encrypting or decrypting messages or other content, making the signet like a modern, high-tech decoder ring.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Apple is a "mobile devices" company in post-iPhone world

Apple COO Tim Cook answered a round of questions during the annual Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference Tuesday and ended up discussing various aspects of Apple's business. A major thread throughout Cook's talk was the fact that Apple thinks of itself as a "mobile devices company," echoing Steve Jobs' comments at the recent iPad introduction that Apple competes with the likes of Nokia and Sony when it comes to revenue.

"If you look at Apple's December quarter results, which includes revenues of almost $15.7 billion dollars—which was a staggering result—as we compared ourselves to every other company in the world, including Sony and Nokia and Samsung, which now have huge mobile device businesses, we found out that we were the largest in the world by revenue," Cook said. "So yes, you should definitely look at Apple as a mobile device business."

Those mobile devices include the iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad. Even Apple's Mac business has become dominated by its portable MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, though. "The reality is that the vast majority of Apple's revenue comes from either mobile devices or the content purchased for those mobile devices," Cook explained.

Apple has an advantage in this space due to its experience in vertical integration. In addition to having a operating system that is "hugely scalable" from servers and desktops down to pocketable devices, Apple also has hardware and industrial design chops. "We believe that we are uniquely positioned to do extremely well in a mobile device world, because we have integrated together seamlessly software and hardware," Cook told the conference attendees. "There are very, very few companies in the world that can do that well." He said the traditional model of multiple vendors being responsible separately for hardware, OS, and key applications just doesn't work for mobile devices.

Cook also went on to discuss the advantage that Apple has with the combined platform of the iPhone and iPod touch. The iPod touch alone grew 100 percent year-over-year for 2009, which gives the iPhone OS platform an installed base of over 75 million devices. The iPad will expand that ecosystem further.

Cook also touched briefly on its partnerships with mobile carriers, addressing the fact that AT&T still remains the sole mobile carrier for the iPhone in the US. He said that having a single carrier offers some advantages; it certainly makes working with a carrier to innovate on features that require carrier cooperation easier, such as Visual Voicemail. However, in markets where Apple has added multiple carriers, sales have generally increased. The US is somewhat unique in that the current hardware is essentially only compatible with one carrier, but Cook noted that in the top 10 markets for the iPhone, five of those are single carrier markets. "We look at each on a country-by-country basis," he said.

Other comments reiterated things we have heard before, such as Apple TV remaining a hobby. The device doesn't sell nearly the kind of volume that Apple usually wants to see, but it did see a sales increase of 35 percent in the most recent quarter. "We're continuing to invest in it because our gut tells us there's something there," Cook said, after sharing that he is an avid Apple TV user.

Retail stores continue to perform well for Apple, and the company is on track to open around 50 stores this year, including "jaw-dropping" stores in New York and Paris. Shanghai and London stores are coming soon. (I'm looking forward to the Chicago Lincoln Park location.) Half of all new Mac customers continue to be Windows switchers, and Cook said that this represents the most significant growth opportunity for the Mac platform. He also noted that Mac sales have grown year-over-year for 20 out of the last 21 quarters.

Apple continues to focus its efforts on the consumer over courting enterprise IT. "Enterprise is just 10 percent of the market—consumer is over 50 percent. Our heart and soul and DNA is in the consumer," Cook said. But consumer demand has driven IT departments to in many cases allow individual users to choose a Mac. "If [someone] is making $150,000 a year, and [letting them use a Mac] makes them one percent more productive, you've paid for the Mac in one year," he explained. IT admins "with vision" are looking at integrating the Mac platform much differently than in the past, he said.

Cook also held the line on his opinion of netbooks, which is that they don't offer a very good experience for users. "They are an experience that most people will not want to continue to have," he said. "I think that people were interested in the price, then they got it home and used it and went, 'Why did I buy this?'" Compared to the "magic" of using an iPad, Cook said that he didn't think people would consider a netbook. However, he also indicated that there are plenty of users that aren't looking at netbooks that are likely to consider an iPad as well.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Apple lifts VoIP over cellular restrictions in new iPhone SDK

iCall VoIP services for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch are now available for use over 3G networks such as AT&T wireless.

GREENWICH, Conn., Jan. 27 /World IT News/ -- Apple Computer, Inc. has updated the iPhone developer SDK to allow VoIP over cellular networks. iCall is the first and only VoIP application that functions on the iPhone and iPod Touch over cellular 3G networks.

iCall is a market leader in desktop and mobile-based desktop calling platforms, including its highly popular version for the Apple iPhone. Until today, restrictions imposed on developers prohibited VoIP functionality on any 3G network.

VoIP on the iPhone has been the source of many debates with companies such as Google being denied access to the platform and the FCC inquiring as to the restrictions in the Apple App Store; iCall is one of the few VoIP applications that has been permitted by Apple to operate on the iPhone platform.

With the latest revisions Apple has made to the iPhone developer agreement and Software Development Kit, iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch now enabled unrestricted free local and long distance calling over 3G data networks. iCall with support for VoIP over 3G networks is now available in the App Store for download. iCall is the first and only VoIP application available for the iPhone platform that allows use over 3G networks. iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch may now be downloaded from the App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icall-free-voip/id293837001?mt=8&uo=6

iCall CEO Arlo Gilbert is quoted as saying, "I applaud Apple's decision to allow iCall to extend its functionality beyond Wi-Fi and onto the 3G networks. This heralds a new era for VoIP applications on mobile platforms, especially for iCall and our free calling model. I hope that now more developers will begin using our VoIP as a platform to integrate VoIP into their applications."

About iCall, Inc.:
iCall is a privately held company providing a free and low-cost VoIP calling platform that is currently available for your desktop PC, iPhone and iPod Touch. iCall saves consumers money on phone calling through ad-supported calling.

iCall was founded in 2005 by Arlo Gilbert and Andy Muldowney with the goal of providing low and no-cost calling services to consumers. In January 2006, iCall first released its iCall Free Calling desktop application. iCall's free calling network now boasts over more than 4 million unique downloads.

In addition to consumer products, iCall offers wholesale VoIP solutions and a developer platform through iCall Carrier Services. iCall's private network carries over 350 million minutes of voice traffic per month to destinations around the globe.

To watch a video about iCall for the iPhone click here

Source: PRnewswire.com