iPhone Firmware Hints at New Apps, Widgets

July 30th, 2007 - The guys at iPhoneology has discovered several applications listed in the iPhone's firmware but are missing from the phone itself.



The ones found were:

* com.apple.unitconverter
* com.apple.widget.phonebook
* com.apple.widget.translation
* com.apple.widget.worldclock (potentially different from the Clock application)
* com.apple.mobile.radio

While all of these have lots of potential, most seem like they could just be direct ports from the Tiger Dashboard equivalents. The most exciting of these seems to be the mobile.radio, as it suggests the possibility that Apple may be looking forward to supporting streaming radio or hopefully, an FM tuner on the device.

Full details at iPhoneology.

Exploiting the iPhone

A group of security researchers at Security Evaluators have developed a toolchain for working with the iPhone's architecture (which also includes some tools from the #iphone-dev community), and created a proof-of-concept exploit capable of delivering files from the user's iPhone to a remote attacker. They have notified Apple of the vulnerability and proposed a patch.

A member of the team, Dr. Charlie Miller, will be presenting the full details of discovering the vulnerability and creating the exploit at BlackHat on August 2nd. Their site will be updated to reflect those details. In the meantime they have decided only to release general information about exploiting the iPhone.

Details at their Security Evaluators site.

How I put my old Cingular SIM in my iPhone and made it work.

For those who don't want to use AT&T to make voice calls on their phones, the HacktheiPhone site has step-by-step instructions on how to use an old Cingular SIM on the iPhone.

iPhone Calculator and BRAUN ET66 Similarities

Side-by-Side Comparison of iPhone Calculator and BRAUN ET66 (circa 1970s)

As shown in the photo above, the iPhone's UI is a definitive tribute to Dieter Rams and Lubs Dietrich circa 1977 Braun ET44 and ET66 (ET stands for “electronic calculator” or “elektronischer Taschenrechner” in German).

From Oyayubizoku.

iPhone v1.0 Bugs

Applehound has compiled a lengthy list of 68 software bugs they have discovered on the iPhone. The bugs range from minor display issues to application crashes and are reproducible by every iPhone users.

Complete list at Applehound.

Apple plans cheaper, Nano-based phone: JP Morgan

Mon Jul 9, 2007 6:01PM EDT -

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple plans to launch a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter that could be based on the ultra-slim iPod Nano music player, according to a JP Morgan report.

Kevin Chang, a JP Morgan analyst based in Taiwan, cited people in the supply channel he did not name and an application with the U.S Patent and Trademark office for his report dated July 8.

Apple filed a patent application document dated July 5 that refers to a multifunctional handheld device with a circular touch pad control, similar to the Nano's scroll wheel.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined comment.

Full details at Reuters.

Inside the iPhone field test mode

From Wirelessinfo -

Want to take a look at what's going on inside your iPhone? Dial *3001#12345#* and hit Call and you'll get access to the special field test mode of the iPhone. This mode is designed to allow technicians and Apple reps to get information on the inner workings of the iPhone and the cell phone network it talks to.

NOTE: Although it seems that most of the information is read-only (so you can't change anything), field modes like this have the potential to damage your phone and possibly interfere with the phone network. We are providing this information as-is; we cannot be held responsible if anything you do in this field mode damages your phone or the phone network.

Main Screen

The first screen that you see is the main menu for the field mode. This presents you with the following choices: Network Information, Cell Information, GPRS Information, PDP information, Call Information and Versions. The article explores these info further.

iPhone File System Hacked, Custom Ringtones to Come Soon

From Gizmodo 11:22 AM ON TUE JUL 10 2007 -



The iPhone's file system has been compromised and you can access it using iPhoneInterface. Full access to the file system means custom ringtones and all kinds of fun stuff.

One them you can see in the image: They moved the Safari application from the dashboard to the iPhone space. This also opens the door to running custom applications as soon as someone figures out how to program without an SDK or adapt normal Cocoa apps to the iPhone. And the unlocking feels so close now that you can almost touch it.

The version of the tool has not been posted yet but, according to the iPhone wizards at IRC channel #iPhone, it will be out soon.

SoonR Talk Brings VoIP to the iPhone

For those worried about no Skype support on the iPhone, SoonR has created an AJAX application that enables Skype usage on mobile devices. By installing their application on your computer and logging into the SoonR site with thier iPhones, users have a VoIP-capable device that helps cut down on monthly minutes. While not the most convenient way to make VoIP calls (it also uses SkypeOut credits), it's a nice addition until a true Skype iPhone app arrives.

More details at Gizmodo.

Meet Joe Hewitt, iPhone Web App Interface Guru

From Wired Blog - July 07, 2007 | 5:00:45 PM



Many of the developers I'm talking to at today's iPhoneDevCamp keep dropping the same name: Joe Hewitt who has also hacked together a set of templates that greatly improves the presentation and usability of any iPhone web application.

Joe's template set, which he has just posted to his site, includes a native-looking iPhone skin -- a set of PNG files and some stylesheets to give pages the "iPhone chrome" look and feel. There's also a JavaScript component that iPhonifies the navigation. It gets rid of the Safari toolbar, forces the pages to flip like a native app and adjusts the page elements to look consistent when the phone is spun between the portrait and landscape modes. You can read more about Joe's templates at Ajaxian. A good number of developers have adopted Joe's skin, so it's well on its way to becoming the "default" look for iPhone web apps.

The disappearing toolbar makes perfect sense -- when loading pages into the iPhone's Safari browser, the toolbar takes up a large chunk of real estate at the top of the screen. By inserting one line of JavaScript, you can force the browser to automatically scroll just beyond the bottom of the toolbar, letting your app take over the entire screen. Joe has posted details about this simple hack on his blog.

iPhoneInterface starts to crack open iPhone

From Tuaw -

iPhone enthusiasts over at the #iphone-talk and #iphone-mac channels on irc.osx86.hu have developed iPhoneInterface, a new Windows and Mac tool that allows you to manipulate the iPhone's state, launch services, and interact with the iPhone filesystem.

With it, you'll be able to scan the iPhone file structure, create and remove folders, start iPhone services, and more. It's still in its early days so don't expect too much from this first release. A public subversion server should be up overnight. Pop over to the irc channel for more information.

The iPhone Period Trick

From Gizmodo -



Some iPhone users have been complaining about the period key not being available on the main keyoard lay-out, making it a pain to access it in the numbers and symbols lay-out. W

There is actuall a quick and easy way to get around that. All you have to do is press and hold the numbers key, and without lifting your finger slide it over to the period (or any other punctuation mark) and let go. Ba-da-bing you've got yourself a period and the keyboard has automatically switched back to letters again.

iPhone's Missing Killer App - Social Networking

In his blog Peter S. Magnusson, gives a long and interesting analysis on Apple's iPhone. In particular he touches on its missing feature - social networking. Summary follows:

Steve Jobs is positioning the iPhone as the third leg of their strategy chair. He is saying that the iPhone will reinvent the notion of a cell phone in the way that the Mac reinvented the notion of a computer. I disagree. I don’t think the iPhone fundamentally innovates over and above the existing offerings, in the manner that the iPod, the Macintosh, and the Apple II all did in their day.

The iPhone is AWESOME

Before I start slamming the iPhone, let me make one thing clear up front. It is a fantastic device. I am in love with it. And as far as I’m concerned, I love it. I’m already buying more music and videos. And I’m busy discovering all sort of nifty things. The YouTube integration is excellent. It’s an excellent night digital book reader. Web pages that are specially designed for the iPhone are popping up all over. The web browser works great; I can actually read news extensively on this device. The photo album function is the first one in a portable device that I have used to show other people pictures of my kids. The battery behavior is incredible - I can watch hours of video and the battery is still over half full.

I even did a few hours of “operate with one hand while driving” testing. With a little practice it was straight forward to bring up Google Maps to where I was, enter a search for some nearby business keyword, select a business, and hit the “dial” button on the contact info. All with one hand, and all while at the same time the iPod part was dishing out great music.

Apple Doesn’t Get Social Networking

But here’s my theory. Apple can only do really interesting products if Steve Jobs understands the end user. And Jobs does not understand the 21st century computer usage paradigm. In this century, people don’t send memos to each other. And that’s what email is - electronic memos.

Today, people chat; they blog; they share multimedia like pictures, video, and audio; they flame each other on forums; they link with each other in intricate webs; they swap effortlessly between different electronic personae and avatars; they listen to internet radio; they vote on this that and the other; they argue on wiki discussion groups.

At its heart, the iPhone is a projection of the original vision of bringing clunky desktop applications like email, contact databases, to-do lists, telephones, note taking, and web browsing to the palm of your hand. Because that is essentially Steve Job’s generation - transitioning from the mainframe office environment to the PC-based office. Jobs can’t quite get rid of the notion that a mobile device is nothing but a really small personal computer.

For example, there is an ENTIRE distinct widget (or whatever it’s called) for tracking stocks! The internet generation really spend a lot of time checking their stocks.

Meanwhile, outside Apple’s reality distortion field …

There are a couple of Big New Things going on in the tech space that Apple (and Microsoft and many others for that matter) have by and large not understood. First there’s grid computing and related things like virtualization. Then there’s this whole web 2.0 thing. Then there’s mobile platforms. And lastly there’s the whole digital entertainment thing, which is sort of half old news and half new news.

Now, Apple seems to be getting it mostly right only in the digital entertainment side. They’re leveraging the Web 2.0 thing mostly as a side effect of simply having the best unix-like development platform. They didn’t plan that, it just sort of happened that way since Apple failed at one attempt after another to do their own OS and finally decided to do yet another Unix. The grid computing side they’ve missed entirely since they insist on being vertically integrated.

The iPhone, of course, is intended as their mobile platform play, leveraging off their strengths on the desktop and in digital entertainment. As quoted above, the “third leg” in their strategy.

The iPod

The original iPod had a couple of key things going for it. Everybody emphasizes “ease of use” to explain the iPod success, but that’s a cop-out. It was more subtle than that. I bought the very first iPod and remember clearly the key technology strengths at the time, namely:

1. It was hard-drive based, 5G, allowing a significant number of songs (on the order of 1000). iPod wasn’t first with a hard drive, but the alternatives were really clunky. At the time, the best flash-best players had 128M. That’s a big difference.
2. The interface was Firewire and not USB. Remember, this was way before USB 2.0. Thanks to Intel and others not wanting to pay Apple $1 in royalties for Firewire, the users were doomed to slow serial interfaces for many years. Firewire was standard on Macs, and FW400 (as it’s now referred to) is MUCH faster than USB 1.x.
3. The software on the “server” side (laptop/desktop) was excellent. Other consumer players like Sony simply did not know how to write software. There was nothing remotely like the rip/mix/burn paradigm as clearly evident in any other app.
4. The iPod had a small number of useful productivity applications as part of it’s OS - a clock, some games, and some other tools; these quickly fleshed out to include contacts and calendar support. Not to mention early FAT32 support. This distinctly added to the value.
5. Yes, a very easy-to-use interface. Most importantly, it was responsive, and was designed to actually help you deal with the notion of 1000 or more songs on your device.
6. Shuffle.

There were all sorts of other aspects as well that helped Apple. For example, Intel was actually one of the strongest contenders for the mp3 market at the time, with products like the Intel Pocket Concert. But the usual corporate screw-ups at always-asleep-at-the-wheel Intel decided around then that that was a good time to shut down the home electronics division.

Plus Apple did lots of small, but important stuff, right, like supporting a wide range of audio formats; and they were reasonably quick with supporting PCs.

And of course, their next big strategic step, the iTunes Store, was very well executed.

The point is, these were Really Significant Advancements. Apple invented the space of the premium portable music playing device. I could do a similar analysis for the Macintosh and, before that, the Apple II.

Social Networking and the Mobile Platform

What struck me already from the early reviews was that Apple seems to fundamentally not understand social networking, and the potential that a brand new mobile platform could have for that.

Unless you’ve been spending time with all the new communication flavors out there - stuff like Flickr, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, last.fm, the RSS universe, etc etc - you won’t notice the egregious strategic blunder that Apple is in the midst of making. The mainstream reviewers certainly haven’t picked up on it.

The thing is, the use of mobile devices for social networking is something that has been forced into the current platforms out there. There are all sorts of obscure ways to leverage text messaging infrastructure to support higher semantic notions like chat rooms, instant messaging, bulletin boards, classifieds, etc.

The new generation doesn’t use the phone. They don’t call somebody to discuss a document. They just change the wiki entry and they know any subscribers to changes will be notified. They chat. They update their emo trackers with mood and location like “wd market, nw” [walking down market, nice weather]; and so forth.

Yeah, they got youtube. But only because Google had bought them. And you can’t post to youtube from the iPhone. Even if you could post, you can’t actually make a video with the iPhone.

You can’t even leave a friggin comment on the youtube service.

So why was the iPod different? Very simple: Steve Jobs actually understands music and related technologies. He’s an artsy guy. He’s even known to have a real good musical ear. That’s why the iPod was awesome. Jobs actually understood the target customer.

What the iPhone would have looked like if I was Steve Jobs

Social networking would have been front and center. It would have been a social networking device from the ground up. One that - can also be used as a “telephone” or a “web browser." And of course as an iPod and a video player etc.

It would have supported dozens of social networking concepts from the get-go. iTunes would have been expanded to take your user name and passwords for major social networking services, and then it would just suck down all the meta data it needs for the corresponding functions to work on your device.

Or, perhaps even better, Apple would roll out its own Web 2.0 alternatives, ones that are fully coordinated with the Mac, with iTunes, with iPods, and with the iPhone.

Photos would automatically sync with your selected photo sharing device. Instant messaging would manage multiple groups and friend lists on top of SMS, hiding control data in SMS messages from you and just showing the socially relevant data.

Location-aware signaling would be built it. The phone would sense if you were in your favorite coffee shop and flag that to friends.

The wifi software would support peer-to-peer; it would let you know what people in your vicinity are listening to; it would include a bunch of multiplayer games that you can play right away with friends (or strangers!) in your vicinity. Or anywhere! In fact, it might include traditional games like chess with direct support for a global iPhone chess ranking.

Calendar would sync with online services, not wait to be connected with a big, ugly PC. It would be extended to support stuff like movies, shows, bands, local events, etc.

Video, of course, with automatic syncing with my own location on the web for storing and editing them.

Messaging would be integrated into a single view, with iconic/font/color indicators to separate news items, blog entries, text messages, chats, etc. You have full control to organize all the streaming sources into one or more distinct “pages”.

Personal podcasting would be seamless. Group (buddy) audio conferencing would be easy, and would be separate from the notion of “calling a phone number”.

There would be an official Apple iPhone wiki that all iPhone owners are immediately subscribed to for communal sorting-out of issues.

There would be official Apple iPhone support forums that are directly accessible from the phone.

The Google Maps function would plot all the iPhone owners with a little red dot; you can click on the dot to send a message to them. Or click on yourself to make a “talk” comment that nearby iPhone owners can “hear”. Or click twice on “yourself” to “shout” to iPhone owners that are within a few miles. A simple “ignore” function would allow you to silence pesky shouters.

Summary

All of the crazy and not-so-crazy ideas above would not make sense to have in a single device; or at least it wouldn’t be practical to figure out how to integrate everything in time for a 1.0 release.

Now, with lots of enterprising people out there, it’s possible the iPhone will be pushed in the right direction. It’s not as if the other cell phone manufacturers are ahead of Apple. At this point, the iPhone is simply an (excellent) embodiment of the desktop computing paradigm, adjusted as well as can be expected to a 3.5 inch touch-sensitive screen with no keyboard.

But, as opposed to iPod, Macintosh, and the Apple II, at this juncture the iPhone is not a vision of the future for mobile devices.

iPhone Adobe Flash Support Coming

According Gizmodo, reviewer Walter Mossberg, Adobe Flash is rumored to be coming to the iPhone. So was the original exclusion a technical decision or a business decision?

Apple had originally announced YouTube support but then suggested that only those videos that had been rolled over to the Apple-favored H.264 codec. While arguably a technical hurdle, the iPhone's ARM processor has sufficient power to use the approach taken by Archos' demonstrated Wi-Fi media player that could easily browse YouTube, and queue up any video on the site, using an Opera browser with Flash plug-in.

Or was a Flash-friendly iPhone not sufficient leverage to convince Google to adopt the codec crucial to the YouTubin' success of the browserless Apple TV platform. By giving YouTube special favoritism in the iPhone launch, Apple got Google to do its codec swaperoo. But users (and developers) have demanded more, because this isn't just about YouTube. People want Flash for non video stuff, too, such as site menus and games.

Often-Asked iPhone Questions

From The New York Times - a useful list of FAQs on the iPhone's features and functionalities.

Unconfirmed: Activate the iPhone with Extra iPhone

From Gizmodo -



The iPhone is essentially a brick without a contract and activation. But a lot of the phone's features don't require phone service at all, like WiFi and music playback. If you have two iPhones handy, here's how to do activate an iPhone using another iPhone:

Procedure:

1.) Obtain 2 iPhones

2.) Plug in iPhone #1 In iTunes select "I am a new AT&T Wireless Customer" and "Activate 2 or more phones on an individual or FamilyTalk Plan."

3.) Follow the steps for the FamilyTalk plan and enter "Cell Number X" to port a number over from another provider (e.g. Sprint)

4.) When the you receive the "Activation Complete" e-mail, plug in iPhone #2.

5.) Select the option "I am an existing AT&T (Cingular) wireless customer" and "Replace a phone on my account with this iPhone"

6.) Fill in the information re-using "Cell Number X." Allow the iPhone #2 to activate using this number. This number will be legit.

7.) Plug in iPhone #2, it will unlock the phone for use, but without a cell phone number assigned or account from AT&T.

Gizmodo has not yet tested the procedure but believes it make sense specially since
Apple is unlikely to de-activate iPhones given the potential risks. But if you're wary, let other people try the procedure first.

Unlocking iPhone Services

Companies have started to offer their iPhone unlocking services. One site, iPhoneunlocking, claims to have unlocked 3459 iPhones at the time of this post. (Click on image to enlarge it.)