iPhone News Updated

It was announced recently that the iPhone will be released in Ireland the 14th of this month. However, although that is exciting news for them, they won’t be getting quite as many of the perks that we all know and love.

The iPhone will be sold through O2 and the Carphone Warehouse stores. The 8GB are apparently going to go for about $800 and the 16GB for $900. They will have three different plans available the cheapest being $90 per month.
They sadly won’t include free Wi-Fi and have a 1GB data cap (unlike the US and UK which have unlimited). On the cheapest plan the buyers will only receive 175 minutes and 100 texts, to give you an idea the lowest rate in the UK gets you 600 minutes and 500 texts.

[via digitaltrends]

When purchasing the iPhone, many were thinking about the luxury of all the convenience it offered. However, it seems one of those conveniences might be taken away. PayPal has begun to warn its users against using Safari when checking their accounts.

Which is no big deal for those with iMacs or MacBooks, they can just download a different program and not have to worry about it. Yet those of us with the iPod or iPhones are stuck with Safari. According to PayPal Safari lacks the Extended Validation Certificate, a technology that helps warn you against unsafe sites.

Therefore preventing any nasty issues that those might bring. Now, there is the argument that you can use your own common sense. However, we all have our weak moments when we click on a bad link. In which case, maybe it is best to heed PayPal’s advice and wait until we’re on a computer with something besides Safari to check in on our accounts.

[via crunchgear]

Plus: More on the iPhone; Some good, but mostly bad economic news

iFund for the iPhone: Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers is creating a new $100 million fund targetted at iPhone software developers. Didn't know there were such things? Well, KPCB is expecting them to start coming out of the woodwork after Apple today opened the iPhone to programmers, rolling out new tools to help them create applications for the device. KPCB is already funding one iPhone developer and is looking at funding another.

iPhone gets pushy: In other news from the Apple event, company officials announced that the iPhone will soon be able to get so-called push e-mail from Microsoft Exchange servers. The company has licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync technology, which will allow iPhone users to sync not only their mail, but their calendars and address books, and will allow IT managers to remotely delete data from iPhones. The new service, which will be included in a software update the company plans to release in June, goes a long way toward addressing concerns of enterprise customers - and is a direct shot at Research in Motion's rival BlackBerry devices.

Sales up, consumer confidence down: Mixed economic news today. On the whole, February retail sales were better than expected, according to a preliminary survey of chain stores. Such sales rose 1.9 percent, compared to a mere 0.5 percent increase in January. But home foreclosures rose to an all-time high in the fourth quarter last year, according to a separate report, and consumer confidence plunged last month. On the jobs front, weekly filings for unemployment insurance declined, but they're still up significantly from last year.

Anyone want a mortgage? Anyone? Interest rates on various types of mortgages dropped this week, amid growing concerns about the economy. The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.03 percent from 6.24 percent last week. For a five-year adjustable-rate loan, the rate fell to 5.34 percent from 5.43 percent.

Enter the bear: The three major stock indices - the Dow Jones industrials, the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 - each fell about 2 percent on the cheery economic news. Each index is now within spitting distance of it 52-week low.

Silicon Valley tech stocks:

Up: Oracle, Adobe, Yahoo. Down: AMD, Google, Apple, eBay, Electronic Arts, Sun Microsystems, Intel, Applied Materials.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 52.31 points or 2.30 percent, closing at 2,220.50

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 214.60 points or 1.75 percent, closing at 12,040.39

And the Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 29.36 points or 2.20 percent, closing at 1,304.34

[Source: http://origin.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_8478730?nclick_check=1]

As most of the tech industry knows, Apple launched its long-awaited iPhone SDK on Thursday.

With the move Apple has gone more corporate with its iPhone (Techmeme) and talked a good security game by offering features like remote wipe. Here’s a snippet via Tom Krazit from the Q&A with the press that’s almost begging for a hacker contest:

Q: What sort of safeguards did you use to make sure the applications will be secure?
A: This is a big concern, (Apple CEO Steve) Jobs says. “We’ve tried to strike a really good path here. On one side, you’ve got a closed device like the iPhone, and on the other side you’ve got a Windows PC, where people spend a lot of time just getting it up to speed.” Apple has done that through a developer registration program, which is mandatory. Apple is using the electronic certificate method, where developers can be tracked when they release an application. If it’s a malicious one, Apple can “shut off the spigot” if need be, turning off the App Store.

You can almost see where this is headed. The challenge will be to create malicious software that won’t be detected to get through Apple’s spigot.

[Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=930]

Apple also bolsters the iPhone's enterprise chops with ActiveSync, remote data wiping and better VPN support

Apple's iPhone SDK offers far more than many developers expected, according to developers that InfoWorld spoke with after the long-awaited SDK unveiled today. "It looks like this is what everybody wanted," said Tony Meadow, principal at Bear River Associates, a mobile application development vendor. "Apple is doing it the right way."

Forrester Research analyst Simon Yates, concurred, saying that the Apple SDK should please three core constituencies: Developers, enterprise IT and consumers.

"This is direct competition for RIM BlackBerry, and it gives Apple access to millions of Exchange and Outlook users, said Yates.

"This is a giant step toward the business market," concurred Rado Kotorov, technical director of strategic product management at business intelligence vendor Information Builders.

[ Get the whole scoop on the iPhone SDK, how to make the iPhone fit in the enterprise, and the latest security issues that the popular smartphone raises in InfoWorld's special report. ]

Developers get a solid database and a familiar API tool set
What pleased Meadow and other developers was a set of functionality that will let them write native iPhone applications through access to the iPhone APIs.

In addition, Meadow thought Apple hit the right note by offering SQL Lite as the built-in database layer. SQL Lite, an open-source database, is widely used by the mobile developer community and runs well on small devices. "It will make it easy to store data," he said.

Cocoa Touch, the built-in set of APIs that re-creates the Cocoa tool set used to handle the user-interface-generated events in Mac OS X is targeted at the iPhone's and iPod Touch's unique touchscreen as well as their gesture-based UI. "It's an elegant way to deal with the interface paradigm," said Meadow.

IT gets better, more secure connections
Also garnering praise from mobile industry watchers is the planned inclusion of Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the technology required to synchronize mail, calendar, and other data directly with Microsoft Exchange rather than use third-party gateways or synchronization services. Apple licensed the technology from Microsoft and will include it in the iPhone 2.0 software planned for release this June. (All the additional features described here will be released with that software update, Apple said.)

The iPhone also will gain remote wipe and lock and on-device data encryption, two features that caused much IT criticism. Plus, Apple will enhance the VPN capabilities it added to the iPhone in late 2007, adding support for Cisco IPsec and two-factor authentication, certificates, and identities. Information Builders' Kotorov said he was particularly enthusiastic about iPhone's deepened support for VPNs. Apple will also provide a way for IT to enforce security policies on the iPhone, though the mechanism was not described at the Apple press conference.

Users get push messaging and desktop equivalency
The licensing of ActiveSync benefits not just IT but users in Microsoft Exchange-based environments. They not only can access the same calendar, contacts, e-mail, and other data as they can from their desktop, but they also gain push e-mail. In push e-mail, the iPhone gets a new message almost as soon as it is sent -- a feature beloved by users of the BlackBerry, which pioneered the concept. Previously, the iPhone had to poll the server periodically, typically at 15-minute intervals, so unless users manually polled the server, an urgent message might not be seen for some time.

Still, IT won't be completely happy
As welcome as the SDK and enhanced business-oriented features are, people still have more they want Apple to offer.

A common request is availability from more than one carrier. Currently, the iPhone only works on the AT&T network. "Companies don't want a single carrier for voice and data," said Forrester's Yates.

Second, the iPhone isn't supported by management tools like LanDesk and lacks a consistent set of management tools like those from Credant Technologies and LanDesk, which support BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS devices. This means that IT has to manage the iPhone separately from other devices as well as separately from PCs. "What [Apple] needs to do is natively integrate into management tools that companies already use for their other mobile devices," Yates said.

Perhaps worse, the iPhone requires IT and developers to push applications to users through the Apple iPhone store. Apple says it is doing so in a way that will be IT-friendly, though it did not specify any details: "We're working on a model for enterprises for them to distribute applications to their end-users, specifically with a program for them to target their end-users. We have a model we're building for that," said Phil Schiller, a product marketing exec at Apple.

Ephraim Schwartz is editor at large at InfoWorld. He also writes the Reality Check blog.

[Source: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/03/iphone-users-th.html]

iPhone "clones" are big business with lots of Apple-esque mobiles turning up since the device's launch last year but some companies are more obvious about it than others.

Chinese company Meizu have openly courted publicity for their iPhone-esque M8 Mini One handset that is in fairly early development stages, but shown off at CeBIT in order to sign up distributors.

It seems as if Meizu have managed to get the attention of the German authorities at the very least, as their CeBIT stand at the Hanover exhibition centre has just been shut down.

With passer-bys being told "the venue is closed until further notice" reports states that the police confiscated equipment and literature and will be making a more detailed statement about the matter later in the week.

Provided by:

In comments made at Apple's recent shareholder meeting, CEO Steve Jobs said that the iPhone doesn't support Flash because it runs too slowly on the device to be useful. The iPhone's lack of Flash has been one of the major complaints levied against it. He also said we won't see iPhone apps until "summer."

Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE)'s Flash Player is used to play videos and other content on the Internet. Users have complained that the iPhone's lack of Flash support makes the browsing experience less rich than it should be. According to Jobs, Flash Lite doesn't go far enough, but the full-fledged Flash Player, which is designed to run on laptops, performs sluggishly on the iPhone. He said, "There's this missing product in the middle." He didn't go so far as to say that Adobe was working on such a product for the iPhone or any other product, and neither did Adobe.

In an Internet post last month, Ryan Stewart, Adobe's chief spokesman for its Internet-based applications, said, "No one aside from [Apple Chief Executive] Steve Jobs has any idea if or when it's coming. Everyone I talk to doesn't know anything."

Apple is introducing the road map for its iPhone SDK at an event tomorrow. Developers were likely hoping to find ways to support Flash on their own through the SDK. After Jobs' comments, that seems less likely. At the shareholders meeting, Jobs said that users will "see a lot of apps out there this summer." This lends more credence to the belief that the actual SDK will be not be made available tomorrow, but some time in the future. If Jobs believes that applications for the iPhone won't be available until this summer, that means developers are going to continue to be frustrated for a while.

That also means that the iPhone hacking community is going to continue to be busy innovating on the sly. Many believe that Apple will maintain rigid control over how iPhone apps are developed, approved, and distributed, with Apple taking a cut. Hackers probably will provide more useful apps in a shorter time frame, as is already evidenced by the services made available to unlocked iPhones.

We will find out more tomorrow...

[Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2008/03/iphone_sdk_preview]

The iPhone has received acclaim as cellphone, personal information organizer, web browser and e-mail client. Now, it's about to become a remote control, a game platform, a photo-editing platform, a device for remotely accessing your desktop files, and maybe much more.

Four months of rumors, speculation and giddy anticipation will come to an end Thursday, as Apple prepares to reveal how it will transform one of the most-hyped devices in tech into a full-fledged platform.

"The iPhone is the richest mobile platform that we've ever had," says Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin.

And yet, that platform has until recently been officially open only to web developers. To date, Apple has forced developers to create iPhone applications through one conduit: the phone's browser. While that approach simplified development, it never gave developers access to the truly alluring bits of the device, like its accelerometer, voice capabilities and touchscreen. It also forced developers who wanted to create more sophisticated apps -- like a utility that lets you remotely control a Mac desktop from an iPhone -- to go around the iPhone's security with jailbreaking hacks.

Steve Jobs caved last October and said Apple would release a full-blown software developer's kit once the company could ensure security on the phone. Presumably, that's been accomplished, and the fancy apps available only on jailbroken iPhones may soon be available legitimately on any iPhone.

At this point, it's still not clear whether Apple intends to officially release the SDK at Thursday's event or just make some announcement. At any rate, the SDK will be in programmers' hands soon, and analysts and developers expect a wide variety of applications to blossom in the coming months -- everything from photo-editing apps to motion-sensing games that take advantage of the device's orientation sensor.

The possibilities, as Mac developer Daniel Jalkut recently noted, will be limited only by developers' imaginations.

Those possibilities will be also influenced by a number of outstanding questions about Apple's planned app-distribution method, the vetting process it will use, and any iPhone access restrictions the company imposes on developers. The company is expected to provide answers to those questions as well on Thursday.

At the very least, Thursday's SDK event will involve an announcement about new enterprise features for the iPhone, according to an invitation circulated last week.

While enterprise software may not be as sexy as movie and game apps, its inclusion could be huge for Apple's ability to meet its goal of 10 million iPhone sales by the end of the year.

By adding features like push e-mail and cultivating relationships with corporate-software vendors, Bajarin says, the iPhone could become one of the major communication platforms in business, making it much more competitive with the corporate-friendly BlackBerry.

"Ultimately, that's why I believe [Apple is] confident it can reach its 10 million goal by the end of the year," he says. "With an SDK and major corporate-software vendors backing it, we'll see the iPhone finally transcend the consumer business this year."

[Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2008/03/iphone_sdk_preview]

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Apple on Thursday is to unveil a "software roadmap" for outside developers interested in making programs for its hip, hot iPhones.

In trademark enigmatic style, Apple provided scant detail regarding what it plans to debut at an invitation-only event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California.

"Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK (software developer kit) and some exciting new enterprise features," an invitation reads.

Apple is apparently following through on a promise its iconic chief executive Steve Jobs made in October to open the zealously guarded inner workings of iPhones to computer programs made by outsiders.

Gartner analyst Van Baker expects Apple to skew opportunities in favor of large, established developers and be wary of letting maverick software savants play unfettered with iPhone software.

"I think Apple is going to keep a pretty tight rein on this because the last thing they want is some fly-by-night guy writing an iPhone program that breaks it," Baker told AFP.

Apple is expected to make iPhones more compatible with business applications, such as receiving email "pushed" from company servers, in a move that would challenge BlackBerry devices made by Research In Motion.

Apple wants to let developers tinker with iPhone software while simultaneously protecting against viruses and other malicious code.

Jobs is on record saying he expects iPhones to be "a highly visible target" for malevolent software wizards.

Applications made for iPhones should also work on the new iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without the mobile phone feature.

Jobs said Apple might take a lesson from Nokia, which is not allowing outside applications onto some of their new mobile telephone models unless the software has a "digital signature" from a known developer.

Hackers began prying open iPhones to insert custom applications, and break the exclusive service tie between the devices and telecom giant AT&T, shortly after the mobile phones made their US debut in June of last year.

Jobs said in February that Apple has sold more than four million iPhones, touch-screen mobile devices combining telephone, video, music, and Internet connectivity.

[Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g0edlEPEt80JMuHGDUyAZUEXIUyw]

What would it take for a prospective iPhone buyer to take the plunge? Matthew Ruiz discusses what could finally push him over the fence.

With the iPhone SDK-related announcement scheduled for this week, we here at infoSync World decided to take a stab at what kinds of programs and applications we'd like to see come of the release of the Software Development Kit.

As a currently iPhone-less AT&T customer, I've wrestled with the decision to buy or not to buy for months, and figure to do so until the second iteration of the iPhone is released. There are a few problems I have with the current iPhone that are deal-breakers, and many of these could possibly be rectified by the release of the SDK.

Exchange ActiveSync

As a tech journalist who lives and dies by his smartphone, the most glaring omission from the iPhone's feature set is support for Exchange ActiveSync. Most business users will have at least a fleeting familiarity with this; if you're a paralegal and get pushed an e-mail at 11pm on a Friday night telling you to go back into the office to make photocopies, chances are that email is hosted on an Exchange server.

Why is this important? Because Exchange does more than just push e-mail. It also syncs your contacts, calendar, notes and tasks. This means when you punch in the phone number and e-mail address of company rep you met into your smartphone, it is automatically saved to the server, and appears everywhere you need it. We're hoping that when the kit is released, it will come alongside a way to integrate Exchange support for the iPhones contacts, e-mail and calendar.

Adobe Flash

Probably the most anticipated possible SDK application is a flash player. More than just embedded YouTube videos, countless Web sites use Flash players for showcasing their content, and some Web sites are even completely reliant on Flash. While Apple loves to show you how awesome the New York Times home page looks in Safari, the fact that there are plenty of commonly-used Web sites that rely on Flash makes Apple's claim of "the real Internet" seem a bit silly.

So what's holding the iPhone back from being the be-all-end-all of mobile Web browsing? Well, Mr. Jobs, for one. Dow Jones recently ran a story reporting Jobs' comments on Adobe's versions of Flash player, in which he whines that Adobe hasn't created a new player that is tailored for his device. He says he wants something better than the mobile flash player Adobe currently makes, but the iPhone's hardware isn't fast enough to keep up with the full-featured player. "There's this missing product in the middle," Jobs said.

So, how about an end run around Apple? Opera, a browser that has done well on multiple platforms with full-fledged desktop, mobile and mini versions, could possibly take advantage of Jobs' resistance to Adobe's current player. Were they to release a multi-touch browser with Adobe's mobile flash player before Apple, they could dig a larger foothold into the market and finally become a household name.

BitTorrent

With the increasing speeds of HSDPA and EV-DO wireless data services, file-sharing protocols like BitTorrent are becoming a viable option. Before the RIAA and MPAA start screaming, think of what the implementation of BitTorrent could mean for iPhone customers and developers. BitTorrent is the most efficient and socialistic way to distribute digital content on the Web. Rather than forcing the content distributor to act as the host for all the data and provider of all the bandwidth, BitTorrent shares the burden. This means that small startups can reach millions of users without having to incur massive bandwidth costs. In turn, this means your favorite band can release their latest video online on their home computer and have it on a million iPhones before the day is over. The possibilities are endless, although it benefits the little guy a lot more than large corporations.

Of course, even though the iPhone comes with an unlimited data plan, "unlimited" always means "as much as we think you need." It might take some re-thinking of price models on the carriers' part, but we don't think Bittorrent capabilities are necessarily unreasonable.

File browsing

Something as simple as a file manager would seem to be standard on a phone that is basically a small computer, but currently the iPhone restricts the way you manage files on the device. For example, were you to decide you want to take along a word document (say, your latest term paper or legal document), you would need to e-mail it to your iPhone, and open it from within the Mail app. Considering the iPhone is already a 16GB flash drive, it seems silly to require users to find loopholes to access files they want on their device.

This is especially troubling for two reasons. For one, Windows Mobile has an extremely functional file manager that allows access to anything on the phone's internal and external memory. For another, because Apple's Spotlight and Finder applications on Macintosh OS X are so user-friendly, intuitive and powerful, it seems silly not to incorporate one of the OS' best tools into the new platform.

[Source: http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/9089.html]

If Apple continues to keep a tight rein on the types of applications that can be run on the iPhone, analysts suggest the company will miss a big opportunity.

[Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206901932]

TORONTO -(Dow Jones)- Brian Goldberg was updating the calendar on his BlackBerry smartphone Monday when he accidentally duplicated several hundred calendar entries.

"I screwed up," he said.

Instead of going through the painstaking process of deleting the duplicated entries, Goldberg, president of Pulse Microsystems Ltd., a Toronto software firm, used the "wipe handheld" function, erasing all content from the device. Then he reopened the device, typed in a special password and, presto, all deleted content was restored right down to the device's ringtone and font-size settings.

If Apple Inc. (AAPL) wants its iPhone to take on Research In Motion Ltd.'s ( RIMM) BlackBerry in the corporate smartphone market, it's going to have match that level of functionality and security. According to media reports, Apple could announce new features for the iPhone as early as Thursday that target the corporate market, BlackBerry's traditional fiefdom.

Analysts speculate that Apple could make the iPhone compatible with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows Exchange server and add new business-software applications. Despite the dearth of details, the specter of increased competition from Apple weighed on RIM's shares Wednesday. On Nasdaq, RIM's stock closed down 2.8%, or $2.93, to $101.70. Apple ended down 13 cents to $124.40.

The iPhone has been a resounding success by any measure. Apple has sold 4 million of the devices and captured 28% of the U.S. smartphone market, according to Canalys, a U.K.-based technology-market-research firm. RIM has a 41% share, according to Canalys, but it dominates the corporate market. According to ChangeWave, a Rockville, Md. investment-research firm, RIM has a 73% share of the corporate market, while Apple has a 5% share.

To attract corporate users, Apple will, at a minimum, need to match the security that RIM provides BlackBerry subscribers, Gartner's Ken Dulaney told Dow Jones. That means Apple needs to add a function similar to RIM's "wipe handheld" that can erase content from the iPhone in case the device is lost, he said. Apple also needs to improve the password protection on the device, requiring users to periodically change their password, he said. RIM and Windows Movile-enabled smartphones offer both of these security features, he said.

To compete effectively with BlackBerry, Apple will also need to add over-the- air synchronization, analysts said. BlackBerry users can change the contact list or calendar on their devices and the changes will be reflected automatically on the user's desktop. This feature isn't available to iPhone users.

Another key difference that works in RIM's favor is the keyboard. IPhone users must type emails on the iPhone's touch screen, while BlackBerry users type emails on a Qwerty keyboard. While the touch screen has won many converts in the consumer market, corporate users use email frequently and prefer the Qwerty- keyboard experience, said Bonny Joy, analyst at Strategic Analysis, a technology research firm based in Newton, Mass.

RIM's edge extends beyond design and functionality. Its network of carrier relationships is much larger than Apple's, which is only sold by AT&T Corp. (T) in the U.S. This gives RIM a far larger addressable market and offers corporate users flexibility to change carriers if they choose. "If you're going to go after enterprises, you're going to have to be available under multiple carriers, " Gold said.

   Company Web Site: http://www.rim.com

  -Stuart Weinberg, Dow Jones Newswires; 416-306-2026;
  stuart.weinberg@dowjones.com

Even though iPhone isn't aimed at corporate customers, the Apple iPhone comes out on top of RIM's BlackBerry, according to market research firm ChangeWave.

Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, is the clear leader in business smartphone marketshare, and the Canadian company's dominance will continue throughout the second quarter of this year, according to a recent report. However, Apple and its iPhone wins the top slot in enterprise user satisfaction.

Seventy-three percent of the 2,013 IT decision makers queried by market research firm ChangeWave said their companies currently employ RIM BlackBerry devices. That percentage is unchanged since ChangeWave's last survey, in November, 2007, but RIM's lead over it closest competitor, struggling Treo-maker Palm, grew by a percentage point.
Palm has 18 percent of the market, Motorola has nine percent, Nokia has seven percent, and both Apple and Samsung have five percent, according to ChangeWave. (With the software development kit for the iPhone due this week, which will enable external developers to create business-specific applications, Apple's is sure to see an increase in the number of companies using its smartphones over the coming months and years, analysts say.)
ChangeWave also predicts that RIM's enterprise penetration will continue to increase through second quarter 2008, as 77 percent of respondents said they plan to buy RIM devices for future smartphone deployments. Apple will soon take the second place slot in business smartphone ranking, according to ChangeWave, with 11 percent of respondents saying their companies plan to purchase iPhones. Only eight percent of respondents said they plan to purchase Palm devices.

"What we have here is a huge and still growing market share lead for Research In Motion that for the moment appears near invincible," said ChangeWave Founder Tobin Smith in a release. "However, at the same time, we've picked up an unusual eight-point decline in the percentage of corporate customers who say they are 'Very Satisfied' with their RIM BlackBerry smartphones, which may mean that there's a problem brewing for the Canadian manufacturer."
Though Apple took a small sliver of the business smartphone market pie, its iPhone landed the leading spot in customer satisfaction with nearly 60 percent of respondents saying they are "very satisfied" with their Apple devices. RIM came in second place with 47 percent, which indicates an eight percent drop in user satisfaction since ChangeWave's November, 2007 survey. Nokia took third place with 40 percent, Samsung was fourth with 30 percent, Motorola took fifth place with 25 percent and Palm came in sixth with a mere 10 percent of users saying they were "very satisfied."

A related November, 2007 study from J.D. Power and Associates found that BlackBerry users were the most satisfied business customers due to the devices' ease of operation, operating system (OS), physical design, audio quality, battery life, and utility features.
For the survey, ChangeWave queried 2,013 members of its ChangeWave Alliance who are involved in IT decision making, fielding the research between Feb. 11 and Feb. 15. More information on the report is available on the ChangeWave website.

[Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143118-c,cellphones/article.html]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Despite recent concerns that Apple(AAPL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) may miss its target of 10 million iPhones sold for the year, the company stayed firm on its estimate.

"It's right on track for where we want to be," Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told investors at the Goldman Sachs Investment Symposium in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

In the last few days, two Wall Street analysts have raised concerns that Apple might miss its iPhone sales numbers that it had set for itself.

Cook also played down concerns that Apple may be affected by a slowdown in the U.S. economy and offered an upbeat business outlook.

The company faces an enormous opportunity in its key business segments: Macs and iPod, he said.

In fiscal 2007, Apple sold 7 million Mac computers -- still just a fraction of the 260-million units market estimated by IDC, he pointed out.

"The ceiling for the Macs is nowhere in sight," Cook said, "and frankly even if the market itself isn't growing, for us, switching windows users is an enormous opportunity."

Shares of Apple were up $4.50, or 3.5%, to $127.26 in recent extended-hours trading. The stock had closed up $3.81, or 3.2%, to $122.96.

However, Apple is down more than 35% since the beginning of the year on fears that a slowdown in the economy could affect sales. When Apple reported its results last quarter, the falloff in iPod sales growth stunned company watchers. The number of iPods sold in the quarter grew 5% from a year ago, although revenue from the iPods business was up 17%.

But the company remains confident of robust growth. "It's an interesting point because it is the highest iPod revenue growth in a year," said Cook.

Apple focused on launching the iPod Touch, the highest priced product in the Apple line that quarter, he said.

The iPod product that didn't do well was the Shuffle, pointed out Cook. "It is our entry-level product and was down globally 17%," he said. "The Shuffle pulled the units down and iPod Touch pulled revenue up. Frankly it was much more important for us to have a great launch on the Touch and launch it successfully.

Cook also dismissed concerns that sales of iPod were flat last quarter in the U.S. because the market for the device is saturated. Nearly 40% of iPod buyers in the previous quarter were people who did not own an iPod before, he said.

Recent growth in Apple's business offers sign that the company may do better than most people expect, said Cook.

"If you look at last quarter as example, GDP growth in the U.S. was less than 1%, while Apple grew 27%," he said. "PC growth was 11% while the company's Mac business grew 44%.

[Source: http://www.thestreet.com/s/apple-stays-course-with-iphone-target/newsanalysis/personal-technology/10405328.html?puc=googlen&cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA]

by Sascha Segan

Top mobile software developer DataViz, Wi-Fi hotspot provider Boingo and other software developers are raring to start writing software for the iPhone when the handheld's software developer's kit comes out on Thursday – as long as Apple doesn't throw a poison pill into the mix.

"We are absolutely interested and currently investigating," said Dataviz spokeswoman Jenn Figueroa. "We started our company 24 years ago around Apple and the Macintosh, and we would love to bring our last ten-plus years of mobile office software expertise to their newest venture."

DataViz produces Documents To Go, the top Microsoft Office document editing suite for Palm OS and Windows Mobile, along with several other popular mobile utilities. Boingo announced its intent to write a native iPhone client last month.

Major mobile games publisher Gameloft isn't committing quite yet, but senior vice president of publishing Gonzague de Vallois sounded enthusiastic.

"We certainly look forward to seeing what Apple has to offer once the SDK opens up," he said.

This Thursday, Apple intends to announce the first official opportunity for third party developers to write true, native applications for the iPhone. The iPhone is a PC-class platform running a PC-class OS, with a 600-megahertz processor and a somewhat stripped-down version of Apple's OS X operating system. But up until now, users have either been restricted to "Web apps" or to hacking their phones in non-Apple-approved ways to get new abilities.

Rumors swirl, of course. Maybe Apple will require that they approve all apps. Maybe they'll ban apps they or AT&T don't like, such as Skype. Maybe they'll require that apps be sold through the iTunes store – or maybe that won't apply if the apps are free. Nobody knows for sure.

Bill Stone, CEO of software store Handango, is hopeful that Apple will let developers follow their dreams. "They've talked about an open Internet ... and have been openly critical of the carriers and their walled-garden approach," he said.

And Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, said at the recent Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium, said developers will "only be limited by imagination."

Ken Ryu, chief executive of GetQuik, which is launching a Web app letting iPhone users order food from local restaurants, warns that a too-rigid authentication system could scare off developers and stifle the market – or simply drive them into the more open world of Web-based apps.

"If Apple were to come out with a very rigorous business requirement approval process, then the sheer cost of getting the app approved may make the SDK's advantages less appealing and make it so we'd just want to continue doing Web apps," he said.

What's coming for the iPhone?

The world of handheld applications is growing, Handango's Stone says, and Apple's presence could raise awareness of the thousands of applications people can install on almost any phone.

The demand for handheld apps is shifting from a very business-oriented set of productivity apps to more consumer-oriented personalization applications, Stone says – things like a Blackberry app that lets you change the color of your track ball.

"These are games, these are ringtones, these are wallpapers ... you're accessorizing your smartphone," Stone said.

De Vallois said the iPhone could be a terrific platform for cutting edge games, as it can run larger, longer games than most handsets. While most phones only support games up to around 2 Mbytes, the iPhone could run 40 MB games, he says.

"The size will really transform the graphic capability and gaming experience for the consumer ... [and] touch-screen gaming will become more predominant this year," he said.

Social networking and messaging apps are sure to come quickly for any new mobile platform, said Ilya Laurs, chief executive of mobile application site GetJar.com.

"If you look at Facebook, NimBuzz, Flurry, eBuddy, Emoze, each of them is a mix of blogging, chatting and social networking," Laurs said.

The social networking apps could be followed quickly by personal productivity apps: "syncs, calendars, contact managers, all that kind of stuff," he said.

Looking at the existing "illegal" native applications at a site like modifyiphone.com could also give clues to what's coming next. Some of the most innovative and ambitious applications there include one that gives the iPhone's camera digital zoom and a burst mode, many games, a personal finance app, a voice recorder, a home screen extender and many more.

The iPhone is well-positioned to be a strong mobile application platform because there's only one model, Laurs said.

"Developers have to write for a few thousand devices; fragamentation is a huge problem," Laurs added. "If you take a look at the iPhone, a big chance for them to succeed is that they have a homogeneous platform. That's a huge competitive advantage."

Check back with PCMag.com for up to-the-minute coverage!

[Source: http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/03/04/apple-no-div-or-buyback-planned-confirms-10m-08-iphone-target-will-sell-phone-in-china-india-sone-day/?mod=googlenews_barrons]

Adam Aftab playing pocketguitar for the apple iphone, check it out by searching for iphone pocket guitar, great program. Im sure theres gonna be some great iphone pickers out there, so show me what you guys got, I cant wait to see what you guys can do with this, Im getting better as I practice but its still no real Gibson or vintage Pre CBS Fender but hell on the iphone this thing is pretty fkin cool.. I will try to post some more videos for you as I get some more time, I want to try to write a song on here but again, whos got the time, I'll probably just mess around with it for fun for now... Enjoy ..



[Source: http://www.nme.com/video/id/T-ztA8jnHB0/search/wes]

Britney Spears has broken up with paparazzi boyfriend Adnan Ghalib after a blazing row, according to today’s Sun newspaper.

The couple apparently argued after was convinced Ghalib was cheating on her, and in the following altercation the pop star ended up throwing a brand new iPhone into her swimming pool.

According to The Sun's insider, Spears discovered texts on the Brummie’s phone.

“She (Spears) was demanding to know who sent the texts and shouting, ‘What’s this about? You’re cheating on me’,” explained the source, "before declaring “‘That’s it. It’s over’,” and then dispatched the brand new gadget to the bottom of the pool.

by: By Bryan Gardiner

As we've said before, China Mobile and its 332 million subscribers (more than the entire population of the U.S.) has to be an incredibly alluring, if not frustrating, market for Apple. A $500 iPhone would be roughly double the average monthly salary in China, and revenue sharing, according to one anonymous mobile executive in China, is literally a foreign concept in the country. That said, coming up with a mutually beneficial business arrangement with China Mobile would undoubtedly mean a huge bump in iPhone sales.

For its own part, Apple has remained tight-lipped about any willingness to return to the negotiating table with the carrier, although Cook did say that the iPhone will debut in Asia sometime this year. The Cupertino company has also reportedly been in talks with China Unicom, China Mobile's closest competitor.

In the end, Apple may simply be waiting to gauge the success of other international iPhone laucnes before deciding what to do about China. If the iPhone proves a spectacular hit in Spain, Ireland or Canada, then keeping negotiations in limbo may be fine. If, on the other hand, Apple finds itself significantly short of its 10 million goal later this summer, talking with China Mobile may be less of an option, and more of a necessity.

[Via Reuters]

[Source: http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/woz-has-pent-up.html]

Don’t settle for just a typical, boring auto charger for your iPhone! Keep your iPhone fully charged in style with the DLO Auto Charger. Featuring sleek curves, a transparent status-light lens and a glass finish, its modern design complements the beauty of your new iPhone.


Auto Charger is as smart as it is good looking. Inside is a replaceable safety fuse, to protect your iPhone against electrical surges in your car. Plus, the Intelligent Status Light will let you know your iPhone charging status at a glance – red when Auto Charger is engaged and ready to charge, amber when iPhone is attached and charging, and green when your iPhone battery is fully charged and ready to go.

Auto Charger's coiled cable stretches to 3 feet in length for added convenience and accessiblity. With most car chargers looking dull and plain, the DLO Auto Charger matches the beauty and design integrity of your iPhone. Get yours today and keep your iPhone charged and ready to go in style.

Bedside to poolside
Enjoy your favorite playlists wherever you go – at home, on the road, in the office, or even your own backyard. iBoom Travel is the first 2-in-1 portable iPod speaker system and travel alarm clock that gives you supreme portability and the convenience of a clock radio all in one sleek take-with-you package. Why buy both when you get everything you need from the iBoom Travel! As an alarm clock, simply place any dockable iPod into iBoom Travel and you can fall asleep or awaken to your favorite iPod playlists, FM radio or “old school” alarm buzzer.

Not just for the nightstand
The iBoom Travel allows you to enjoy your favorite music ‘on-the-go’ without the hassle of headphones. Yet its sleek, portable design, convenient travel pouch, and clock radio make it ideal for even the most discerning road warriors. The iBoom Travel features a soothing blue backlight and programmable sleep settings so you can drift off to your favorite sleep-inducing playlist. And, just like a good night’s sleep gives you power to start your day, your iPod will be charged and ready to go after being docked in the iBoom Travel for the night.

What's in the box
The iBoom Travel includes iPod fit inserts, compact AC adapter, travel pouch with outer pocket, and a manual to get you going in 5 easy steps. Wake up and get moving with your iPod and the DLO iBoom Travel!

A truly portable device that can be disassembled and reassembled in a matter of seconds, these DLO speakers can even be used as a portable entertainment system for watching movies on your iPhone. We did find the lack of charging dock and volume controls a little inconvenient, but that's not a big deal for such great sounding speakers.

Rating: 7.0, very good.

The good: The speakers can be disassembled into a compact and portable form factor. It also has excellent audio quality, without any sound interference from the iPhone.

The bad: The speakers lack a charging dock, music controls, and is not a very good speakerphone.

The bottom line: A great portable speaker that offers excellent sound quality for its size.

- Nicole Lee, CNET.com

Apple will be announcing some new programs for the iPhone this week. Microsoft has announced an unprecedented price cut. And the XM and Sirius satellite radio outfits still can't announce their hoped-for merger. Get the latest in today's Digital Feed blog.

Here's my video report, a full text version follows:

Listen up, you iPhone users. There will be big news this week for you as Apple holds a big conference Thursday that will finally open up the hugely popular touch-screen phone to third-party developers. That's the day Apple gives those independent programmers what's called an SDK -- for Software Development Kit, which reveals key parts of the special secret computer code that Apple uses to run the iPhone.

Ever since the iPhone went on sale last June, it's been a closely controlled platform that couldn't take third-party programs and applications. There have been a couple of new additions and features but, compared to the huge amount of programs available for other mobile phones, the Apple has been pretty lean.

With the SDK, a lot of folks are speculating that the first thing that will improve is e-mail compatibility with business and corporate mail, making the iPhone more of a rival for BlackBerry than it now is. But for sure, there will be more games, more things like GPS navigation, stand-alone applications for, say, counting calories, reading books and the same kind of programs you can get on other phones.

It's expected that once a developer comes up with a new program for iPhone, users will get it from Apple's iTunes store, just like they do with music, ringtones, TV shows and movies.

Microsoft announces price cut

Here's something you don't see every day from Microsoft: a price cut. Really. On Vista, the latest and much-criticized version of the Windows operating system. Microsoft announced just before the weekend that its home and ultimate versions have dropped from $159 and $299, respectively, to $129 and $219. Analysts say this is unprecedented for Microsoft.

Even though Vista has sold 100 million copies, that's more a reflection of the copies preloaded on new PCs sold worldwide. Think of that as a sort of guaranteed market. Retail wise, Vista hasn't done nearly as well as the previous version, Windows XP, which many critics say is a much better product. Vista retail sales for the first six months were down 60% from what XP sold in its first half-year.

The price cut isn't helping Vista's reputation, so it will be interesting to see what it does to sales.

XM-Sirius merger deal dragging

Finally today, that $4.6-billion deal that would merge XM and Sirius satellite radio is dragging on longer than expected. The FCC hasn't green-lighted the merger, and because of growing critics and red tape, the two companies have extended a deadline in which ether party could have terminated it as of March 1.

Neither party is doing that great, by the way. Both continue to lose money, with Sirius shares off by about 20 percent and XM shares down about 16 percent.

'Big win for Apple' if it happens, says JupiterResearch's Gartenberg

Apple Inc. may announce full Exchange support for the iPhone at an event scheduled for Thursday, an analyst said last week.

"If Apple were to announce Exchange support on the iPhone next week it will be important news for the platform," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with JupiterResearch LLC. "This would be a nice win for Apple and will likely lead to a greater adoption of the iPhone in corporate settings."

Although Gartenberg had no inside information on what Apple meant last week went it said there would be "some exciting new enterprise features" included in the March 6 iPhone event, he theorized it might be related to Exchange, the market-leading mail server sold by Apple's rival, Microsoft Corp.

"If [as] part of the enterprise announcements next week, Apple announces it has licensed the ActiveSync/Exchange protocol from Microsoft, presumably this would mean that the iPhone would at some point sync directly with Exchange," said Gartenberg in a post to his blog last Thursday. "Bottom line if this happens? Big win for Apple."

At the moment, iPhone users can only pull mail from Exchange servers using the IMAP protocol, and sync contacts and calendar with Outlook at the desktop via USB and iTunes. More importantly, corporate IT administrators cannot centrally manage iPhones, as they can, for instance, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

Gartenberg noted that in his post. "Going through a tethered connection for calendar and contacts and using IMAP for e-mail [on the iPhone] is a step backward for anyone using a BlackBerry (with a BlackBerry Exchange server) or a Windows Mobile device."

Talk of Apple licensing the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft goes back to before the iPhone's launch in June 2007, although some analysts dismissed the iPhone as a business tool even then. Gartner, in fact, had advised enterprises to keep the iPhone out of their organizations, citing, among other things, lax security.

Gartenberg, however, thought that the climate may have changed. "There [have] been persistent calls for Apple to support Exchange directly on the iPhone and this might be the time for them to do it," he said.

The current corporate smart phone of choice is Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIM) BlackBerry. According to survey data released by ChangeWave last week, the BlackBerry holds a 73% share of the corporate smart phone market; the iPhone, meanwhile, has only 5% of the business.

However, said ChangeWave, iPhones owners led all others in what they thought of their smart phones: "Nearly three-in-five (59%) of Apple's business customers say their company is Very Satisfied with the iPhone," said ChangeWave in a summary of the survey results posted to its Web site. Fewer say the same about RIM's smart phone: only 47% said they were very satisfied with the BlackBerry.

An Exchange move by Apple could alter the smart phone landscape, Gartenberg said. "This was an issue they've been dinged on since the initial announcement of the iPhone and it changes the game for them in terms of potential corporate adoption."

[Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9066118&intsrc=news_ts_head]