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what would determine the related topics? if it's just stuff in the same category you can do that easily
im pretty sure you could just include headlines in the full news template - but just to be safe let's make an actual mod for it
find:
CODE if(!$found){
echo("
Can not find an article with id: ". @(int) htmlspecialchars($id)."
");
$CN_HALT = TRUE;
break 1;
}
add after:
CODEecho "";
obviously you can change the attributes of the iframe, or the show_news.php
if you need it to be certain colors or something make a file in the cute news folder called headlines.php (or something) and tell it to include show_news.php with those variables (see readme) then apply coloring and it'll show up
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7effects Headline Animator
Monday, March 17, 2008
Software protection: security's last stand?
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Given that application software protection is necessary, what form and function should it take? There are three principal forms of protection: watermarking, obfuscation, and application performance degradation. These techniques perform three main functions: detection of attempts to pirate, misuse, or tamper with software, protection of software against those attempts, and alteration of the software to ensure that its functionality degrades in an undetectable manner if protection fails. These defenses are required on hardware ranging from single processors to small computer clusters to traditional supercomputers to wide-area distributed computing.
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Given that application software protection is necessary, what form and function should it take? There are three principal forms of protection: watermarking, obfuscation, and application performance degradation. These techniques perform three main functions: detection of attempts to pirate, misuse, or tamper with software, protection of software against those attempts, and alteration of the software to ensure that its functionality degrades in an undetectable manner if protection fails. These defenses are required on hardware ranging from single processors to small computer clusters to traditional supercomputers to wide-area distributed computing.
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Ethical Hacking - A Fullstop on E-system
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A Hacking Awareness Announcement By Kalpesh Sharma
Takeaways
Truth behind "Ethical Hacking".
Fact behind "Ankit Fadia".
Be Aware while choosing.
Passion or Madness: Now days, it has become a passion to learn about hacking and information security. Sometimes I do not understand that whether it is a passion or a kind of madness. This passion has resulted due to several news articles, media stories and the excitement showing hacking related thrills in films. But, on the other hand there is a fact also that very few peoples know anything in-depth about the topic of hacking and information security. So, I would suggest that without adequate knowledge please do not get mad behind passion. Sometimes this passion may become dangerous from the legal point of view. There is nothing wrong to gain expertise, but there is need to realize a fact about incorrect issues behind hacking. I will come to this topic in depth, later in the same chapter.
Be Alert and Aware: Do you think that hacking is an expert level work? Do you think that information security and hacking are one and same things? If yes! Then you are absolutely wrong. Many children in the age group of 14-16 years are having sufficient knowledge to hack any website or collect important data facts from the internet. So, internet being the big source of information it's a child game to perform hacking related activities. Many hackers whose aim is to just earn money from you, they give seminars and workshops along with misguide you that, "learn hacking in an ethical way for a brilliant career". But, I am not going to explain in this way, to any of you. Instead, I would like to explain the fact in a positive way with a positive attitude. A teacher's task is to show right path to students and not misguide them for gaining their personal benefits. So I would suggest that instead of going for the knowledge of hacking, gain the knowledge by learning something, which is said to be an expert level job. And this expert level job is known as information security expertise in technical terms. Hope you might have understood the difference between hacking (not expert level job) and information security (expert level job) from this topic. So, be alert from such misguidance.
Other then passion, one more side of coin also exists. Many institutes and independent peoples call themselves hacker and/or information security experts. But the reality behind their expertise and skills gets displayed in front of non-technical peoples and the victims who undergo for training, courses, certifications, seminars and workshop with such types of self-claimed hackers or institutes, when such victims and non-technical peoples realize that they are not satisfied for which they have spent time and money. The actual reality behind fooling is that the peoples who undergo for such seminars, workshops, courses, etc. most probably undergo through a psychology that, "the person or institute from which we will receive knowledge during the training sessions is an expert or is providing quality education as he was published by media agencies or that it's a branded name in market for related subject talent or that he is an author of any book". I believe in practical, official and those tasks or actions for which evidence lies in front of my eyes. Thus, I am trying to explain to everyone that always be alert and aware, so that your hardly earned income does not get spend in such unnecessary waste of time.
I will give you my own example here! I have several articles about me in various newspapers and media agencies, but this doesn't mean that I am showing you the right path or that I am an expert. For example may be possible that I am a hacker, but this does not prove that I am an expert. So, expert level job is a totally different matter. The explanation about difference between hacking and expertise will come in next chapters So, first check out the level of my knowledge, how much practically I am able to prove my expertise, whether I am official & legal while undergoing for such tasks and finally the evidence part that whatever actions I undertake are proved right in front of eyes, instead of just talking theoretically. Always confirm yourself first, that you are learning with right person or institute or just wasting your time and money. May be possible that peoples might be receiving fees from you and in turn give you the knowledge of something(any other subject or topic about information technology field), which is not even single percent part of hacking or information security related topics. This happens most probably with non-technical peoples or fresher in information technology field.
False Publicity: Secondly, confirm that you are at least gaining the knowledge up to a level for which you have paid a particular amount. Don't just go behind false publicities before you confirm yourself and your inner feelings say that you are moving on right path. As concerns to book publishers, media agencies and films, I would like to confirm that none of them might be having full and fledge technical knowledge about information security field as concerns to my knowledge. It's similar to following examples on me:
A person comes and tells me that you are an expert please suggest me some medicines which can eradicate my serious disease of cancer. I am a technical professional and not a biological professional who is going to solve this problem.
A person comes and tells me that suggest a good lawyer who can defend my case in court. Now tell me how do I give suggestion as to which lawyer can prove this person innocent in court of law.
Thus, I can't do anything or have any knowledge about any field which is not my subject or area of work. Similarly, even media peoples, book publishers and film makers does not have adequate or complete knowledge and they believe the statement to be true which is explained to them by many misguiding self-claimed hackers and/or reputed institutes. So, these peoples are also not responsible for some of these kinds of activities published by them on any medium.
Language Troubling: There is one more part of cheating called use of useless and complicated language in order to misguide students and especially technically sound professionals. This is a very intelligent part of stunt used by many self claimed security peoples to misguide others. Usually when any self claimed hacker or institute doesn't know anything about complicated or expert level topic, and in such situation they want to include expert level topics in their study material without having any expert level knowledge; such peoples use very complicated words of English and prepare the contents in such a manner that it becomes very difficult to understand even for the persons who are fluent in English. A very complicated coding and useless technical terms are used in their study material, so that the victims cannot understand or claim against such self claimed hackers and so called specialized institutes, in a legal way. When any victim (user of such material) goes through such study materials and courses as well as certifications, they become helpless to understand such complicated and misguiding language, filled up of useless and non-understandable technical terms. Now, when they don't understand anything the common psychology of such victims understands that, "it's a part of expert level work and that's why they are unable to understand the matter or that he won't be able to complete this job successfully as he is not talented" and so on. In this way, the victims think themselves responsible for not understanding the expert level work. But they do not know that they have never been taught anything, which can be called an expert level education or job. This is what I am trying to explain you that it is not your fault, instead it is a stunt used by such self claimed hackers and institutes who tries to sell their services and materials by misguiding others with the help of language troubling. So here also there is a need to be aware and alert of any services or material offered by any self claimed hacker and specialized institutions. They just have an intention of earning a huge amount from you and do not have any feelings for the information security field, students or the nation in any way. This is the reason they use difficult word, complicated terms and technical coding in order misguide others so that no one knows about their level of their knowledge.
Finally: Thus, finally the topics should be very clear that
Don't get mad behind passion and be serious about legal activities.
Be alert that you are receiving right knowledge for which you have paid.
Be aware of what you are undergoing for is the right one for which you have paid and that too join after checking out.
Be practical, official and believe only that which happens only in front of your eyes. You should have the guts to demand for evidence.
Check the simplification of language used in the study material whether you can go through it and understand it or not, before purchasing any services or materials from self claimed hackers or so called expert level institutes which claims to be specialized in information security area.
Try to understand the difference between a truth and a false, correct and incorrect, etc. by going in depth about every fact related to services, products or materials you are offered by any self claimed hacker or so called specialized institutes.
Even if this is in my case, first check out with my study material, then get into the depth of my work background and then only purchase any services, products or material offered by me or on behalf of me.
Don't get misguided behind media hype or false publicity of any person or institute without checking through it.
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A Hacking Awareness Announcement By Kalpesh Sharma
Takeaways
Truth behind "Ethical Hacking".
Fact behind "Ankit Fadia".
Be Aware while choosing.
Passion or Madness: Now days, it has become a passion to learn about hacking and information security. Sometimes I do not understand that whether it is a passion or a kind of madness. This passion has resulted due to several news articles, media stories and the excitement showing hacking related thrills in films. But, on the other hand there is a fact also that very few peoples know anything in-depth about the topic of hacking and information security. So, I would suggest that without adequate knowledge please do not get mad behind passion. Sometimes this passion may become dangerous from the legal point of view. There is nothing wrong to gain expertise, but there is need to realize a fact about incorrect issues behind hacking. I will come to this topic in depth, later in the same chapter.
Be Alert and Aware: Do you think that hacking is an expert level work? Do you think that information security and hacking are one and same things? If yes! Then you are absolutely wrong. Many children in the age group of 14-16 years are having sufficient knowledge to hack any website or collect important data facts from the internet. So, internet being the big source of information it's a child game to perform hacking related activities. Many hackers whose aim is to just earn money from you, they give seminars and workshops along with misguide you that, "learn hacking in an ethical way for a brilliant career". But, I am not going to explain in this way, to any of you. Instead, I would like to explain the fact in a positive way with a positive attitude. A teacher's task is to show right path to students and not misguide them for gaining their personal benefits. So I would suggest that instead of going for the knowledge of hacking, gain the knowledge by learning something, which is said to be an expert level job. And this expert level job is known as information security expertise in technical terms. Hope you might have understood the difference between hacking (not expert level job) and information security (expert level job) from this topic. So, be alert from such misguidance.
Other then passion, one more side of coin also exists. Many institutes and independent peoples call themselves hacker and/or information security experts. But the reality behind their expertise and skills gets displayed in front of non-technical peoples and the victims who undergo for training, courses, certifications, seminars and workshop with such types of self-claimed hackers or institutes, when such victims and non-technical peoples realize that they are not satisfied for which they have spent time and money. The actual reality behind fooling is that the peoples who undergo for such seminars, workshops, courses, etc. most probably undergo through a psychology that, "the person or institute from which we will receive knowledge during the training sessions is an expert or is providing quality education as he was published by media agencies or that it's a branded name in market for related subject talent or that he is an author of any book". I believe in practical, official and those tasks or actions for which evidence lies in front of my eyes. Thus, I am trying to explain to everyone that always be alert and aware, so that your hardly earned income does not get spend in such unnecessary waste of time.
I will give you my own example here! I have several articles about me in various newspapers and media agencies, but this doesn't mean that I am showing you the right path or that I am an expert. For example may be possible that I am a hacker, but this does not prove that I am an expert. So, expert level job is a totally different matter. The explanation about difference between hacking and expertise will come in next chapters So, first check out the level of my knowledge, how much practically I am able to prove my expertise, whether I am official & legal while undergoing for such tasks and finally the evidence part that whatever actions I undertake are proved right in front of eyes, instead of just talking theoretically. Always confirm yourself first, that you are learning with right person or institute or just wasting your time and money. May be possible that peoples might be receiving fees from you and in turn give you the knowledge of something(any other subject or topic about information technology field), which is not even single percent part of hacking or information security related topics. This happens most probably with non-technical peoples or fresher in information technology field.
False Publicity: Secondly, confirm that you are at least gaining the knowledge up to a level for which you have paid a particular amount. Don't just go behind false publicities before you confirm yourself and your inner feelings say that you are moving on right path. As concerns to book publishers, media agencies and films, I would like to confirm that none of them might be having full and fledge technical knowledge about information security field as concerns to my knowledge. It's similar to following examples on me:
A person comes and tells me that you are an expert please suggest me some medicines which can eradicate my serious disease of cancer. I am a technical professional and not a biological professional who is going to solve this problem.
A person comes and tells me that suggest a good lawyer who can defend my case in court. Now tell me how do I give suggestion as to which lawyer can prove this person innocent in court of law.
Thus, I can't do anything or have any knowledge about any field which is not my subject or area of work. Similarly, even media peoples, book publishers and film makers does not have adequate or complete knowledge and they believe the statement to be true which is explained to them by many misguiding self-claimed hackers and/or reputed institutes. So, these peoples are also not responsible for some of these kinds of activities published by them on any medium.
Language Troubling: There is one more part of cheating called use of useless and complicated language in order to misguide students and especially technically sound professionals. This is a very intelligent part of stunt used by many self claimed security peoples to misguide others. Usually when any self claimed hacker or institute doesn't know anything about complicated or expert level topic, and in such situation they want to include expert level topics in their study material without having any expert level knowledge; such peoples use very complicated words of English and prepare the contents in such a manner that it becomes very difficult to understand even for the persons who are fluent in English. A very complicated coding and useless technical terms are used in their study material, so that the victims cannot understand or claim against such self claimed hackers and so called specialized institutes, in a legal way. When any victim (user of such material) goes through such study materials and courses as well as certifications, they become helpless to understand such complicated and misguiding language, filled up of useless and non-understandable technical terms. Now, when they don't understand anything the common psychology of such victims understands that, "it's a part of expert level work and that's why they are unable to understand the matter or that he won't be able to complete this job successfully as he is not talented" and so on. In this way, the victims think themselves responsible for not understanding the expert level work. But they do not know that they have never been taught anything, which can be called an expert level education or job. This is what I am trying to explain you that it is not your fault, instead it is a stunt used by such self claimed hackers and institutes who tries to sell their services and materials by misguiding others with the help of language troubling. So here also there is a need to be aware and alert of any services or material offered by any self claimed hacker and specialized institutions. They just have an intention of earning a huge amount from you and do not have any feelings for the information security field, students or the nation in any way. This is the reason they use difficult word, complicated terms and technical coding in order misguide others so that no one knows about their level of their knowledge.
Finally: Thus, finally the topics should be very clear that
Don't get mad behind passion and be serious about legal activities.
Be alert that you are receiving right knowledge for which you have paid.
Be aware of what you are undergoing for is the right one for which you have paid and that too join after checking out.
Be practical, official and believe only that which happens only in front of your eyes. You should have the guts to demand for evidence.
Check the simplification of language used in the study material whether you can go through it and understand it or not, before purchasing any services or materials from self claimed hackers or so called expert level institutes which claims to be specialized in information security area.
Try to understand the difference between a truth and a false, correct and incorrect, etc. by going in depth about every fact related to services, products or materials you are offered by any self claimed hacker or so called specialized institutes.
Even if this is in my case, first check out with my study material, then get into the depth of my work background and then only purchase any services, products or material offered by me or on behalf of me.
Don't get misguided behind media hype or false publicity of any person or institute without checking through it.
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Hackers and Hacking - Related Topics
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Hackers and Hacking - Outline
Topic Outline - KnowledgeBases - Newsgroups and FAQs - Magazines and Ezines - White Papers - Organizations and User Groups - News - Events - Related Topics - Books - Key Manufacturers - Where to Buy - Key Solutions Providers - Where to get Help - Key Service Providers - Key Training Providers
Hackers and Hacking - Knowledge Bases
AntiOnline - Computer Security - Hacking & Hackers
Hacking Lexicon (Robert Graham)
This document clarifies many of the terms used within the context of information security
interhack
"Hackers build things, crackers break them"
SEE also Related Topics
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Newsgroups and FAQs
alt.comp.virus
comp.virus
FAQS - comp.virus
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Magazines and Ezines
2600: The Hacker Quarterly
Computers & Security
Information Security Magazine
InfoSecurity News
Internet Security Review
Secure Computing Magazine
Security Advisor Magazine
Security Management Online
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - White Papers
Systems Security White Paper links powered by ITpapers
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Organizations and User Groups
If you know of a high quality resource for this sub-category of this topic, please suggest it
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - News
Anti Virus News The Register
Computer Security News
Information Security News
Internet Security News The Register
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Events
Computer Security Events
..........Back to Top
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Hackers and Hacking - Outline
Topic Outline - KnowledgeBases - Newsgroups and FAQs - Magazines and Ezines - White Papers - Organizations and User Groups - News - Events - Related Topics - Books - Key Manufacturers - Where to Buy - Key Solutions Providers - Where to get Help - Key Service Providers - Key Training Providers
Hackers and Hacking - Knowledge Bases
AntiOnline - Computer Security - Hacking & Hackers
Hacking Lexicon (Robert Graham)
This document clarifies many of the terms used within the context of information security
interhack
"Hackers build things, crackers break them"
SEE also Related Topics
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Newsgroups and FAQs
alt.comp.virus
comp.virus
FAQS - comp.virus
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Magazines and Ezines
2600: The Hacker Quarterly
Computers & Security
Information Security Magazine
InfoSecurity News
Internet Security Review
Secure Computing Magazine
Security Advisor Magazine
Security Management Online
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - White Papers
Systems Security White Paper links powered by ITpapers
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Organizations and User Groups
If you know of a high quality resource for this sub-category of this topic, please suggest it
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - News
Anti Virus News The Register
Computer Security News
Information Security News
Internet Security News The Register
..........Back to Top
Hackers and Hacking - Events
Computer Security Events
..........Back to Top
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Hack Cartoons
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You are looking at the "hack" cartoon page from the CartoonStock directory. Follow the links on this page to search on other topics or to purchase reproduction rights for any of these images or merchandise incorporating the cartoons.
This page only includes cartoons from our main archive, see also our NewsCartoon Service and our Vintage Cartoons.
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You are looking at the "hack" cartoon page from the CartoonStock directory. Follow the links on this page to search on other topics or to purchase reproduction rights for any of these images or merchandise incorporating the cartoons.
This page only includes cartoons from our main archive, see also our NewsCartoon Service and our Vintage Cartoons.
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Hacking Roomba: ExtremeTech (Paperback)
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List Price:
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List Price:
$24.99
Price:
$16.49 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:
$8.50 (34%)
Upgrade this book for $4.99 more, and you can read, search, and annotate every page online. See details
Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Thursday, February 7?
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{
FT_hours = (FT_days * 24) + FT_hours;
}
window.setTimeout("FT_getTime()", 1000);
if(FT_CurrentDisplayMin == FT_mins) return;
var ftCountdown = getTimeRemainingString( FT_hours, FT_mins );
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Hacking Exposed VoIP: Voice Over IP Security Secrets and Solutions (Hacking Exposed) (Paperback)
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window.setTimeout("FT_getTime()", 1000);
if(FT_CurrentDisplayMin == FT_mins) return;
var ftCountdown = getTimeRemainingString( FT_hours, FT_mins );
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List Price:
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Price:
$31.49 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:
$18.50 (37%)
Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
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Hacking School
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hi there... i'm no newbie to using event viewer, ... and typically it's an important tool for my daily assesment of what's going on with my XP computer. i realize, occasionally win XP will use the system account to log on and do routine maintenance. but have any of you ever seen win XP cite instances of 'guest' logging in and out? especially when the 'guest' account is disabled? ... upon waking this morning, i noticed all of this log on and log off activity which occurred while i was sleeping which was attributed to the guest account. if i look back in time in the even viewer, there are similar entries throughout, going back about three weeks at which point they are no longer present. it's always the same logon/logon entry and there is generally one other priviledged use entry coinciding with each logon/logoff entry. as said, my guest account is and has been disabled. the only *enabled* user account is my own, 'joel' account. here's a small snapshot of the general event viewer log from last night: ... IMAGE ... and the details for one of the 'guest' logins: ... IMAGE ... and the details for the 'guest' priviledged use instance: ... IMAGE ... anybody have any ideas? why would there be a 'guest' login when the 'guest' account is disabled? is this activity i should consider possibly to be hack related? maybe i should investigate further? ... more system details: - windows xp home: i use one single enabled user account and it is set as admin level. - my machine is one of three on a home network accessing the internet through DSL; connection is shared via a US Robotics Max G - i use latest version of zonealarm for firewall - i use latest version of AVG for virii protection - my machine connects to router/internet via a standard CAT 5 cable; i do not use wireless - at the time of the above incidents file sharing was enabled; i've since disabled - at the time of the above incidents, my computer/remote assistance was enabled; it's now disabled - remote access services are disabled; however, remote connection manager is enabled usb max 4G routher ... thanks in advance for any assistance ..
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hi there... i'm no newbie to using event viewer, ... and typically it's an important tool for my daily assesment of what's going on with my XP computer. i realize, occasionally win XP will use the system account to log on and do routine maintenance. but have any of you ever seen win XP cite instances of 'guest' logging in and out? especially when the 'guest' account is disabled? ... upon waking this morning, i noticed all of this log on and log off activity which occurred while i was sleeping which was attributed to the guest account. if i look back in time in the even viewer, there are similar entries throughout, going back about three weeks at which point they are no longer present. it's always the same logon/logon entry and there is generally one other priviledged use entry coinciding with each logon/logoff entry. as said, my guest account is and has been disabled. the only *enabled* user account is my own, 'joel' account. here's a small snapshot of the general event viewer log from last night: ... IMAGE ... and the details for one of the 'guest' logins: ... IMAGE ... and the details for the 'guest' priviledged use instance: ... IMAGE ... anybody have any ideas? why would there be a 'guest' login when the 'guest' account is disabled? is this activity i should consider possibly to be hack related? maybe i should investigate further? ... more system details: - windows xp home: i use one single enabled user account and it is set as admin level. - my machine is one of three on a home network accessing the internet through DSL; connection is shared via a US Robotics Max G - i use latest version of zonealarm for firewall - i use latest version of AVG for virii protection - my machine connects to router/internet via a standard CAT 5 cable; i do not use wireless - at the time of the above incidents file sharing was enabled; i've since disabled - at the time of the above incidents, my computer/remote assistance was enabled; it's now disabled - remote access services are disabled; however, remote connection manager is enabled usb max 4G routher ... thanks in advance for any assistance ..
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The Dangers of Virus Writing/Hacking Combined
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Hackers who crossover into virus writing territory present the biggest danger to corporate computer systems as they perfect the 'blended threat' seen in recent virus outbreaks such as Sobig. That's the assertion of Sarah Gordon, senior research fellow at Symantec Security Response, who has worked with the White House and the FBI to research the psychological profile of hackers and virus writers. Gordon told silicon.com that hackers are driven by the motivation to complete a technology challenge and are usually not interested in the basic task of writing viruses and worms. "There are people in the virus writing community who hack and people in the hacking community who write viruses but for the most part they are very separate communities. The virus writers are seen at the lower end of the food chain," she said. But Gordon warned that creating a virus such as Sobig or Bugbear, only with much more damaging payloads, is well within the capabilities of even the most inexperienced hacker. "Many of the threats are the result of the crossover between hackers and virus writers. Erasing a hard drive is a couple of key strokes. It isn't rocket science. A hacker of any skill level could write a self-replicating program but most find it too boring," she said. And it seems the traditional stereotype of a spotty teenager hacking away in a dark bedroom is nothing more than a myth from the ******** "The population is diverse. It just takes the ability to manipulate a computer system. It is not guys sat in a basement with piercings everywhere. It could be the 50-year-old accountant because she is bored, or the boss' 15-year-old daughter, or your 9-year-old nephew," she said. There is also a distinct difference between hackers and virus writers, according to Gordon's research. "Virus writers have normal relationships with peers and families. Hackers tend to be more introverted. Hacking is a very personal thing. One is power and control and the other is letting go." Although Gordon works for a security software company, she says 'ethics' education at an early age would help prevent children and teenagers using their computer knowledge to cause damage. "One thing that is important is introducing ethics in technology at an early age. On the computer there is less context and security. Teaching them that there's a person on the end of that modem is important," she said.
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Hackers who crossover into virus writing territory present the biggest danger to corporate computer systems as they perfect the 'blended threat' seen in recent virus outbreaks such as Sobig. That's the assertion of Sarah Gordon, senior research fellow at Symantec Security Response, who has worked with the White House and the FBI to research the psychological profile of hackers and virus writers. Gordon told silicon.com that hackers are driven by the motivation to complete a technology challenge and are usually not interested in the basic task of writing viruses and worms. "There are people in the virus writing community who hack and people in the hacking community who write viruses but for the most part they are very separate communities. The virus writers are seen at the lower end of the food chain," she said. But Gordon warned that creating a virus such as Sobig or Bugbear, only with much more damaging payloads, is well within the capabilities of even the most inexperienced hacker. "Many of the threats are the result of the crossover between hackers and virus writers. Erasing a hard drive is a couple of key strokes. It isn't rocket science. A hacker of any skill level could write a self-replicating program but most find it too boring," she said. And it seems the traditional stereotype of a spotty teenager hacking away in a dark bedroom is nothing more than a myth from the ******** "The population is diverse. It just takes the ability to manipulate a computer system. It is not guys sat in a basement with piercings everywhere. It could be the 50-year-old accountant because she is bored, or the boss' 15-year-old daughter, or your 9-year-old nephew," she said. There is also a distinct difference between hackers and virus writers, according to Gordon's research. "Virus writers have normal relationships with peers and families. Hackers tend to be more introverted. Hacking is a very personal thing. One is power and control and the other is letting go." Although Gordon works for a security software company, she says 'ethics' education at an early age would help prevent children and teenagers using their computer knowledge to cause damage. "One thing that is important is introducing ethics in technology at an early age. On the computer there is less context and security. Teaching them that there's a person on the end of that modem is important," she said.
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Criminal mastermind hacker let down by one detail
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"Strolling past a row of user cubes during his lunch break, this IT guy notices something odd: One PC's monitor has a full-screen DOS prompt with lots of commands already entered, reports a pilot fish on the scene.
"Looking at the commands, he realized that somebody was uploading an executable file to another machine," fish says. "The target was a company VIP's notebook, the name of the uploaded executable surely did look ugly, and the file was uploaded successfully. Read the rest of this anecdote...
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"Strolling past a row of user cubes during his lunch break, this IT guy notices something odd: One PC's monitor has a full-screen DOS prompt with lots of commands already entered, reports a pilot fish on the scene.
"Looking at the commands, he realized that somebody was uploading an executable file to another machine," fish says. "The target was a company VIP's notebook, the name of the uploaded executable surely did look ugly, and the file was uploaded successfully. Read the rest of this anecdote...
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Hacked by my host Be Careful
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"So, basically, I got hacked by my own host. No, it wasn't a mistake. No, the server didn't just go down. They hacked it so that they could upsell me on some $2000 security audit and package! So here is the evidence." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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"So, basically, I got hacked by my own host. No, it wasn't a mistake. No, the server didn't just go down. They hacked it so that they could upsell me on some $2000 security audit and package! So here is the evidence." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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QuickBBS and RA 88-92
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"I had 110 echomail feeds coming in from Fidonet and several other mail networks. I remember being among the first SysOps to stumble into the Adam Hudson 20meg limit on a message base (which crashes the system and you lose every message). It still amazes me what we could get done with .BAT files and Frontdoor.
I remember getting a message from a user one day who kindly listed for me the entire contents on the root directory on my C: drive after gaining sysop priviledges and using my hidden menu to drop to DOS on my computer. He said, "if you create a menu option for ALT-254 on the numeric keypad, then when hackers try this they won't get sysop priviledges, they'll just be redirected to whatever that menu option takes them to." I was pretty shocked, went and tried it, and sure enough...
(In the early versions of Remote Access, anyone who hit alt-254 on the numeric keypad received user level 64000 and had access to any menu option.) That was my first lesson in not being able to trust the author of a program. Several months later, Andrew Milner fixed the "bug", but I'd already done away with any drop-to-DOS options." Source: http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=197525&cid=16191797
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"I had 110 echomail feeds coming in from Fidonet and several other mail networks. I remember being among the first SysOps to stumble into the Adam Hudson 20meg limit on a message base (which crashes the system and you lose every message). It still amazes me what we could get done with .BAT files and Frontdoor.
I remember getting a message from a user one day who kindly listed for me the entire contents on the root directory on my C: drive after gaining sysop priviledges and using my hidden menu to drop to DOS on my computer. He said, "if you create a menu option for ALT-254 on the numeric keypad, then when hackers try this they won't get sysop priviledges, they'll just be redirected to whatever that menu option takes them to." I was pretty shocked, went and tried it, and sure enough...
(In the early versions of Remote Access, anyone who hit alt-254 on the numeric keypad received user level 64000 and had access to any menu option.) That was my first lesson in not being able to trust the author of a program. Several months later, Andrew Milner fixed the "bug", but I'd already done away with any drop-to-DOS options." Source: http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=197525&cid=16191797
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How I Learned To Start Worrying and Hate The Bomb
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"Now, any of you who ain't congenital idiots raised in a rain barrel somewhere on the butt-end of nowhere will already have decoded the address to "U.S. Space Command, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base". Yeah, that's right. NORAD; the big tunnel complex under the mountain from which they be plannin' to fight World War III if it ever goes down. Huge walls of blinkenlights, 30-foot-thick blast doors, "We could tell you, sir, but then we'd have to kill you", the whole weird trip. Cornpone accents with their fingers on the pulse of the Apocalypse.
Oh, man, I said to myself. I have to talk to this woman. I haven't forgotten the nationwide media flap after 'War Games' came out. You remember, that silly movie where the kid with the voice-controlled IMSAI (snort) cracks into NORAD's computers and accidentally damn near starts a nuclear war? God damn; I'll bet the plot of that sucker is seared into the collective psyche of every security officer at Cheyenne Mountain, they probably screen the video every couple months just to keep the newbies on their toes." Read the rest of this story...
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"Now, any of you who ain't congenital idiots raised in a rain barrel somewhere on the butt-end of nowhere will already have decoded the address to "U.S. Space Command, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base". Yeah, that's right. NORAD; the big tunnel complex under the mountain from which they be plannin' to fight World War III if it ever goes down. Huge walls of blinkenlights, 30-foot-thick blast doors, "We could tell you, sir, but then we'd have to kill you", the whole weird trip. Cornpone accents with their fingers on the pulse of the Apocalypse.
Oh, man, I said to myself. I have to talk to this woman. I haven't forgotten the nationwide media flap after 'War Games' came out. You remember, that silly movie where the kid with the voice-controlled IMSAI (snort) cracks into NORAD's computers and accidentally damn near starts a nuclear war? God damn; I'll bet the plot of that sucker is seared into the collective psyche of every security officer at Cheyenne Mountain, they probably screen the video every couple months just to keep the newbies on their toes." Read the rest of this story...
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Hacking Wireless Networks With The PSP
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"The other day, I parked my car on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., killing some time before an event I was about to attend further down in D.C. I whipped out my PSP, while sitting in the car, and pleasured myself to a round of Tekken: Dark Ressurection. Mind you, it was nearly dark outside, and the lights in the car were off. Roughly ten minutes into my game, I noticed a certain figure standing outside my car. I quickly shutoff my PSP, turned the lights on, and rolled down the window. To my surprise, it was a police officer. He asked me what I was doing at that very moment. Now, of course, I am an adult, and an adult playing a PSP in the dark, inside his car, on the busiest street in D.C. is pretty awkward, one would think. So I replied and explained my situation, that I was early heading to a nightclub, and wanted to feed my addiction to a new game I had just bought. He didn't buy it. Not one bit at that." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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"The other day, I parked my car on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., killing some time before an event I was about to attend further down in D.C. I whipped out my PSP, while sitting in the car, and pleasured myself to a round of Tekken: Dark Ressurection. Mind you, it was nearly dark outside, and the lights in the car were off. Roughly ten minutes into my game, I noticed a certain figure standing outside my car. I quickly shutoff my PSP, turned the lights on, and rolled down the window. To my surprise, it was a police officer. He asked me what I was doing at that very moment. Now, of course, I am an adult, and an adult playing a PSP in the dark, inside his car, on the busiest street in D.C. is pretty awkward, one would think. So I replied and explained my situation, that I was early heading to a nightclub, and wanted to feed my addiction to a new game I had just bought. He didn't buy it. Not one bit at that." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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Multics Security
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"At a meeting in a Honeywell conference room, they handed me my password on a slip of paper. They'd exploited a bug in the obsolete interface put in for the XRAY facility, Jerry Grochow's thesis. This supervisor entry didn't do anything, but it accessed its arguments incorrectly, in a way that let the team cause the hardcore to patch itself. They'd used that hole to permanently install a tool that let them patch any location and read any file, and they'd obtained a copy of the password file from the MIT Multics site.
My code in the Multics User Control subsystem stored passwords one-way encrypted, at the suggestion of Joe Weizenbaum. I was no cryptanalyst; Joe had suggested I store the square of the password, but I knew people could take square roots, so I squared each password and ANDed with a mask to discard some bits. The Project ZARF folks then had to try 32 values instead of one, no big deal: except that there was a PL/I compiler bug in squaring long integers that gave wrong answers. If the compiler bug had been discovered and fixed, nobody would have been able to log in. The crackers had to construct some fancy tables to compensate for the 'Martian' arithmetic, but they still had only to try a few hundred values to invert the transform. (We quickly changed the encryption to a new stronger method, before Barry Wolman fixed the compiler bug.)"
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"At a meeting in a Honeywell conference room, they handed me my password on a slip of paper. They'd exploited a bug in the obsolete interface put in for the XRAY facility, Jerry Grochow's thesis. This supervisor entry didn't do anything, but it accessed its arguments incorrectly, in a way that let the team cause the hardcore to patch itself. They'd used that hole to permanently install a tool that let them patch any location and read any file, and they'd obtained a copy of the password file from the MIT Multics site.
My code in the Multics User Control subsystem stored passwords one-way encrypted, at the suggestion of Joe Weizenbaum. I was no cryptanalyst; Joe had suggested I store the square of the password, but I knew people could take square roots, so I squared each password and ANDed with a mask to discard some bits. The Project ZARF folks then had to try 32 values instead of one, no big deal: except that there was a PL/I compiler bug in squaring long integers that gave wrong answers. If the compiler bug had been discovered and fixed, nobody would have been able to log in. The crackers had to construct some fancy tables to compensate for the 'Martian' arithmetic, but they still had only to try a few hundred values to invert the transform. (We quickly changed the encryption to a new stronger method, before Barry Wolman fixed the compiler bug.)"
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My first wireless hacking experience
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"Okay, so I just got back to the hotel room after a night of partying. My Internet access has expired. Every time I open Firefox, it points me to the page to purchase a new session of access. I refuse; I've already paid my $10. But something interesting happens when I'm directed to the purchase page." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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"Okay, so I just got back to the hotel room after a night of partying. My Internet access has expired. Every time I open Firefox, it points me to the page to purchase a new session of access. I refuse; I've already paid my $10. But something interesting happens when I'm directed to the purchase page." Read the rest of this anecdote...
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Apple iPhone: Buy iPhone in India and in Your City
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After its launch, iPhone was sold like no other phone on the face of the earth. Steve wants to hit the 10 million mark in 2008; a conservative estimate is between 2.5 to 2.8 million iPhones sold worldwide so far.
And I can tell you that the grey market in India is surely helping Steve achieve that target quickly. Everyone who was desperately waiting for the iPhone to hit India already has an iPhone, thanks to the unbeatable spirit of the grey market which makes such products available much before they are officially launched.
Now! How can you get an iPhone in India Or where can I buy iPhone in India? Believe me there are more than one ways to do this. Following is the list of online websites where you can order your own iPhone NOW!
iPhone Nirvana is one such site which is selling iPhones in India. Business operates out of Mathura and the iPhones are delivered anywhere in India. An 8GB unlocked iPhone would cost you INR 28,000 on this website.
Gadget Guru.in is selling iPhone for about 32,000 (Unlocked)
Gadget.in is selling iPhone for 34,000 (Unlocked)
Rediff has a list of sellers selling iPhones in India. Click here to see one such listing on Rediff. It sells iPhone for 29,400 or EMI 9,800 for 3 months;
eBay:
iPhones ranging from 25,000 to 40,000 are available on eBay, click here to see the list
Cheapest on eBay: 25,000, click here to see the listing
Those were online options, but if you are one of those who belong to touch, feel, and buy school of thought then you can buy iPhone at the following places in your city.
Paris - Chennai
Heera Panna - Mumbai
Pallika Bazaar - Delhi
Jagdish Market, Abids - Hyderabad
(Leave a comment if you know more places to buy iPhone in India)
All of these phone are unlocked and work with Airtel, Hutch, Idea and all the other GSM service providers. These will not work with CDMA technology such as TATA Indicom and Reliance.
Now you know where to buy iPhone in India and in your city.
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After its launch, iPhone was sold like no other phone on the face of the earth. Steve wants to hit the 10 million mark in 2008; a conservative estimate is between 2.5 to 2.8 million iPhones sold worldwide so far.
And I can tell you that the grey market in India is surely helping Steve achieve that target quickly. Everyone who was desperately waiting for the iPhone to hit India already has an iPhone, thanks to the unbeatable spirit of the grey market which makes such products available much before they are officially launched.
Now! How can you get an iPhone in India Or where can I buy iPhone in India? Believe me there are more than one ways to do this. Following is the list of online websites where you can order your own iPhone NOW!
iPhone Nirvana is one such site which is selling iPhones in India. Business operates out of Mathura and the iPhones are delivered anywhere in India. An 8GB unlocked iPhone would cost you INR 28,000 on this website.
Gadget Guru.in is selling iPhone for about 32,000 (Unlocked)
Gadget.in is selling iPhone for 34,000 (Unlocked)
Rediff has a list of sellers selling iPhones in India. Click here to see one such listing on Rediff. It sells iPhone for 29,400 or EMI 9,800 for 3 months;
eBay:
iPhones ranging from 25,000 to 40,000 are available on eBay, click here to see the list
Cheapest on eBay: 25,000, click here to see the listing
Those were online options, but if you are one of those who belong to touch, feel, and buy school of thought then you can buy iPhone at the following places in your city.
Paris - Chennai
Heera Panna - Mumbai
Pallika Bazaar - Delhi
Jagdish Market, Abids - Hyderabad
(Leave a comment if you know more places to buy iPhone in India)
All of these phone are unlocked and work with Airtel, Hutch, Idea and all the other GSM service providers. These will not work with CDMA technology such as TATA Indicom and Reliance.
Now you know where to buy iPhone in India and in your city.
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iPhone, the iPod Mobile is almost here
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iPhone, an iPod which can hold thousands of songs even as you use it as a cellphone is coming, if rumors are anything to go by.The iPod Phone (lovingly called the iPhone, iMobile or iCell) is what Apple Computer has got up its sleeve, if iPod-trackers are to be believed. For long, iPod fans have been dreaming about an iPhone, which marries the technologies of the iPod and the cellphone. The iPhone, they say, would cater to all personal digital music entertainment and communications needs in a cute little package.Apple's teaser invite to select members of the media for the September unveiling of its surprise product has made imagination run wild among iPod aficionados. The Apple iPod mobile phone could be developed along with Motorola, with which it has a technology tie-up. It is clear that Motorola is developing an iTunes mobile phone, for which it has received FCC clearance. But the bigger news could be that it would be an iPod-Motorola mobile phone, which promises to be a killer product.It could be an iTunes Motorola mobile phone, which can play Apple's iTunes, say some. But as September 7 draws near, many are convinced that it is an iPhone (or iMobile or iCell if you like) and not the iTunes Motorola Mobile as expected before.If Apple is rolling out the iPhone on a standalone basis, it would be the Cupertino firm's path-breaking entry into the cellphone space. It is worth noting that many cellphone companies have already started hawking the music capability on their mobile phones. To survive and prosper, an iPod mobile is very much a necessity for Apple. A few weeks back, Nokia had denied rumors that it is developing a mobile phone which can play Apple's iTunes.But whether it is an iPhone or an iTunes Motorola which is still under wraps, it is clear that Apple analysts and iPod watchers have gone overboard, speculating about the possibilities of an iPod mobile phone. It is reported that US mobile phone service provider Cingular will be offering network support for the iPhone, which may be named iPod ROKR. The Wall Street Journal has reported, quoting sources, that the iPhone will actually be the Motorola ROKR, which will be sold with Cingular preloaded. It will be able to store thousands of songs and be a snazzy new mobile.Whether September 7 sees the birth of the iMobile or not, one thing is certain - anyone making such a musical mobile phone will meet stiff challenge from cellphone market leader Nokia, which is readying the N91 series as a music phone. The Nokia N91 will be capable of hoarding thousands of songs, just as the Apple iPod. The iCell has a tough cookie ahead, well entrenched and ready for battle.New York Times has also reported that the iROKR will have cellphone and music capabilities.Verizon already offers two models of mobile phones which let users transfer music from computers. It is also planning a rival online music service soon.The iPod phone won't be to the cellular service providers' liking, since they would like the music services to be provided by them. They fear that the iPhone would take away a lot of the revenues currently brought by the ring tones business. Watch this space for more on the iPhone!
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iPhone, an iPod which can hold thousands of songs even as you use it as a cellphone is coming, if rumors are anything to go by.The iPod Phone (lovingly called the iPhone, iMobile or iCell) is what Apple Computer has got up its sleeve, if iPod-trackers are to be believed. For long, iPod fans have been dreaming about an iPhone, which marries the technologies of the iPod and the cellphone. The iPhone, they say, would cater to all personal digital music entertainment and communications needs in a cute little package.Apple's teaser invite to select members of the media for the September unveiling of its surprise product has made imagination run wild among iPod aficionados. The Apple iPod mobile phone could be developed along with Motorola, with which it has a technology tie-up. It is clear that Motorola is developing an iTunes mobile phone, for which it has received FCC clearance. But the bigger news could be that it would be an iPod-Motorola mobile phone, which promises to be a killer product.It could be an iTunes Motorola mobile phone, which can play Apple's iTunes, say some. But as September 7 draws near, many are convinced that it is an iPhone (or iMobile or iCell if you like) and not the iTunes Motorola Mobile as expected before.If Apple is rolling out the iPhone on a standalone basis, it would be the Cupertino firm's path-breaking entry into the cellphone space. It is worth noting that many cellphone companies have already started hawking the music capability on their mobile phones. To survive and prosper, an iPod mobile is very much a necessity for Apple. A few weeks back, Nokia had denied rumors that it is developing a mobile phone which can play Apple's iTunes.But whether it is an iPhone or an iTunes Motorola which is still under wraps, it is clear that Apple analysts and iPod watchers have gone overboard, speculating about the possibilities of an iPod mobile phone. It is reported that US mobile phone service provider Cingular will be offering network support for the iPhone, which may be named iPod ROKR. The Wall Street Journal has reported, quoting sources, that the iPhone will actually be the Motorola ROKR, which will be sold with Cingular preloaded. It will be able to store thousands of songs and be a snazzy new mobile.Whether September 7 sees the birth of the iMobile or not, one thing is certain - anyone making such a musical mobile phone will meet stiff challenge from cellphone market leader Nokia, which is readying the N91 series as a music phone. The Nokia N91 will be capable of hoarding thousands of songs, just as the Apple iPod. The iCell has a tough cookie ahead, well entrenched and ready for battle.New York Times has also reported that the iROKR will have cellphone and music capabilities.Verizon already offers two models of mobile phones which let users transfer music from computers. It is also planning a rival online music service soon.The iPod phone won't be to the cellular service providers' liking, since they would like the music services to be provided by them. They fear that the iPhone would take away a lot of the revenues currently brought by the ring tones business. Watch this space for more on the iPhone!
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Apple Launches 16GB iPhone, 32GB iPod Touch
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Apple added new iPhone and iPod Touch models to its lineup of phones and music players Tuesday by doubling the maximum amount of storage space in each to 16GB.
The new top-of-the-line iPhone is priced at $499, Apple said. This is the first time since September, when Apple dropped the 4GB iPhone from its sales sheet, that the smart phone family has had multiple models. Apple continues to sell the 8GB iPhone for $399.
The iPod Touch -- for all intents and purposes an iPhone that cannot make or take calls -- now sports a 32GB model, also priced at $499, as a third option. Older models, including the $299 8GB and the $399 16GB configurations, remain available.
"This is just a bigger, faster kind of announcement," said Ezra Gottheil, analyst with Technology Business Research Inc., speculating that the timing was in part driven by an attempt to pump iPhone sales during a traditionally slow period. "Mobile phone [sales] aren't as seasonal as iPods, but they are seasonal."
Gottheil said he still expects Apple to make major changes to the iPhone in 2008, adding 3G capability and perhaps even true GPS functionality. "I'd put that around the middle of the year," he said today.
The larger-capacity iPhone and iPod Touch are available immediately at Apple's own retail stores, its online outlet and at resellers in the U.S.
The new iPhone's price tag is the same as the 4GB model's when the latter debuted in June 2007. Just over two months later, however, Apple CEO Steve Jobs ditched that model and slashed the price of the 8GB smartphone by $200, to $399.
Several users who said that they had recently bought 8GB iPhones asked on Apple's support forum whether they would be allowed to swap their purchase for the larger-sized model. Apple's policy is to accept returns within 14 days, although a 10% restocking fee applies if the iPhone box has been opened.
Other recent customers complained of the bump in storage. "I brought my iPhone about a month ago so I have no way of exchanging my phone," said a user pegged as SimonLee. "But Apple don't [sic] care about that because they just want me to go and buy a new one."
That kind of comment got little love on the forum. "Blah blah blah, go cry somewhere else," said Goshia on the same thread.
"Maybe the solution is to never bring out a new product. Oh, but then you'd complain too," said Simon Taylor. "So Apple, please stop developing new products or improving the ones you have. You are upsetting your customers. They would obviously prefer to use the original Apple II."
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Apple added new iPhone and iPod Touch models to its lineup of phones and music players Tuesday by doubling the maximum amount of storage space in each to 16GB.
The new top-of-the-line iPhone is priced at $499, Apple said. This is the first time since September, when Apple dropped the 4GB iPhone from its sales sheet, that the smart phone family has had multiple models. Apple continues to sell the 8GB iPhone for $399.
The iPod Touch -- for all intents and purposes an iPhone that cannot make or take calls -- now sports a 32GB model, also priced at $499, as a third option. Older models, including the $299 8GB and the $399 16GB configurations, remain available.
"This is just a bigger, faster kind of announcement," said Ezra Gottheil, analyst with Technology Business Research Inc., speculating that the timing was in part driven by an attempt to pump iPhone sales during a traditionally slow period. "Mobile phone [sales] aren't as seasonal as iPods, but they are seasonal."
Gottheil said he still expects Apple to make major changes to the iPhone in 2008, adding 3G capability and perhaps even true GPS functionality. "I'd put that around the middle of the year," he said today.
The larger-capacity iPhone and iPod Touch are available immediately at Apple's own retail stores, its online outlet and at resellers in the U.S.
The new iPhone's price tag is the same as the 4GB model's when the latter debuted in June 2007. Just over two months later, however, Apple CEO Steve Jobs ditched that model and slashed the price of the 8GB smartphone by $200, to $399.
Several users who said that they had recently bought 8GB iPhones asked on Apple's support forum whether they would be allowed to swap their purchase for the larger-sized model. Apple's policy is to accept returns within 14 days, although a 10% restocking fee applies if the iPhone box has been opened.
Other recent customers complained of the bump in storage. "I brought my iPhone about a month ago so I have no way of exchanging my phone," said a user pegged as SimonLee. "But Apple don't [sic] care about that because they just want me to go and buy a new one."
That kind of comment got little love on the forum. "Blah blah blah, go cry somewhere else," said Goshia on the same thread.
"Maybe the solution is to never bring out a new product. Oh, but then you'd complain too," said Simon Taylor. "So Apple, please stop developing new products or improving the ones you have. You are upsetting your customers. They would obviously prefer to use the original Apple II."
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About the security content of iPhone v1.1.3 and iPod touch v1.1.3
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This document describes the security content of iPhone v1.1.3 and iPod touch v1.1.3.
For the protection of our customers, Apple does not disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until a full investigation has occurred and any necessary patches or releases are available. To learn more about Apple Product Security, see the Apple Product Security website.
For information about the Apple Product Security PGP Key, see "How to use the Apple Product Security PGP Key."
Where possible, CVE IDs are used to reference the vulnerabilities for further information.
To learn about other Security Updates, see "Apple Security Updates."
iPhone / iPod touch v1.1.3
Foundation
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-0035
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2, iPod touch v1.1 through 1.1.2
Impact: Accessing a maliciously crafted URL may lead to an application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: A memory corruption issue exists in Safari's handling of URLs. By enticing a user to access a maliciously crafted URL, an attacker may cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of URLs.
Passcode Lock
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-0034
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2
Impact: An unauthorized user may bypass the Passcode Lock and launch iPhone applications
Description: The Passcode Lock feature is designed to prevent applications from being launched unless the correct passcode is entered. An implementation issue in the handling of emergency calls allows users with physical access to an iPhone to launch an application without the passcode. This update addresses the issue through an improved check on the state of the Passcode Lock.
Safari
CVE-ID: CVE-2007-5858
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2, iPod touch v1.1 through 1.1.2
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may result in the disclosure of sensitive information
Description: WebKit allows a page to navigate the subframes of any other page. Visiting a maliciously crafted web page could trigger a cross-site scripting attack, which may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information. This update addresses the issue by implementing a stricter frame navigation policy.
Installation note:
This update is only available through iTunes, and will not appear in your computer's Software Update application, or in the Apple Downloads site. Make sure you have an internet connection and have installed the latest version of iTunes from www.apple.com/itunes
iTunes will automatically check Apple's update server on its weekly schedule. When an update is detected, it will download it. When the iPhone or iPod touch is docked, iTunes will present the user with the option to install the update. We recommend applying the update immediately if possible. Selecting "Don't install" will present the option the next time you connect your iPhone or iPod touch.
The automatic update process may take up to a week depending on the day that iTunes checks for updates. You may manually obtain the update via the "Check for Update" button within iTunes. After doing this, the update can be applied when your iPhone or iPod touch is docked to your computer.
To verify that the iPhone or iPod touch has been updated:
Navigate to Settings
Click General
Click About The Version after applying this update will be "1.1.3 (4A93)" or later.
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This document describes the security content of iPhone v1.1.3 and iPod touch v1.1.3.
For the protection of our customers, Apple does not disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until a full investigation has occurred and any necessary patches or releases are available. To learn more about Apple Product Security, see the Apple Product Security website.
For information about the Apple Product Security PGP Key, see "How to use the Apple Product Security PGP Key."
Where possible, CVE IDs are used to reference the vulnerabilities for further information.
To learn about other Security Updates, see "Apple Security Updates."
iPhone / iPod touch v1.1.3
Foundation
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-0035
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2, iPod touch v1.1 through 1.1.2
Impact: Accessing a maliciously crafted URL may lead to an application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: A memory corruption issue exists in Safari's handling of URLs. By enticing a user to access a maliciously crafted URL, an attacker may cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of URLs.
Passcode Lock
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-0034
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2
Impact: An unauthorized user may bypass the Passcode Lock and launch iPhone applications
Description: The Passcode Lock feature is designed to prevent applications from being launched unless the correct passcode is entered. An implementation issue in the handling of emergency calls allows users with physical access to an iPhone to launch an application without the passcode. This update addresses the issue through an improved check on the state of the Passcode Lock.
Safari
CVE-ID: CVE-2007-5858
Available for: iPhone v1.0 through v1.1.2, iPod touch v1.1 through 1.1.2
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may result in the disclosure of sensitive information
Description: WebKit allows a page to navigate the subframes of any other page. Visiting a maliciously crafted web page could trigger a cross-site scripting attack, which may lead to the disclosure of sensitive information. This update addresses the issue by implementing a stricter frame navigation policy.
Installation note:
This update is only available through iTunes, and will not appear in your computer's Software Update application, or in the Apple Downloads site. Make sure you have an internet connection and have installed the latest version of iTunes from www.apple.com/itunes
iTunes will automatically check Apple's update server on its weekly schedule. When an update is detected, it will download it. When the iPhone or iPod touch is docked, iTunes will present the user with the option to install the update. We recommend applying the update immediately if possible. Selecting "Don't install" will present the option the next time you connect your iPhone or iPod touch.
The automatic update process may take up to a week depending on the day that iTunes checks for updates. You may manually obtain the update via the "Check for Update" button within iTunes. After doing this, the update can be applied when your iPhone or iPod touch is docked to your computer.
To verify that the iPhone or iPod touch has been updated:
Navigate to Settings
Click General
Click About The Version after applying this update will be "1.1.3 (4A93)" or later.
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iPhone Dev Center
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Web Development Guidelines
Learn the latest techniques on mobile browser-based user experience design, and ensure users of your web application the best experience on iPhone.
Read Guidelines
iPhone Tech Talk Videos
Watch iPhone engineers from the recent iPhone Tech Talks discuss everything from user interface design to optimizing your web applications and content for iPhone.
iPhone Development Introduction
iPhone User Interface Design
Managing Content and Synced Data for iPhone
Safari on iPhone Part I: Compatibility
Safari on iPhone Part II: Optimization
Safari on iPhone Part III: iPhone Applications
Designing Web Content for iPhone
Sample Code
Choose from a range of Sample Code projects that provide development and user interface design techniques for interactive and standards-based design on iPhone.
iPhoneButtons
iPhoneListPatterns
iSudoku
makeiPhoneRef Movie
Puzzler
iPhone Reference Library
Browse the iPhone Reference Library for release notes, technical documentation and guides on developing and optimizing Web 2.0 applications and content for iPhone
Getting Started with iPhone
Safari Web Content Guide for iPhone
iPhone Human Interface Guidelines
Safari HTML Reference
Safari CSS Reference
Web Kit DOM Programming Topics
Web Kit DOM Reference
JavaScript Coding Guidelines for Mac OS X
Exporting Movies for iPod, Apple TV and iPhone
Preparing Content for Safari 3 and WebKit
Safari Release Notes for iPhone
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Web Development Guidelines
Learn the latest techniques on mobile browser-based user experience design, and ensure users of your web application the best experience on iPhone.
Read Guidelines
iPhone Tech Talk Videos
Watch iPhone engineers from the recent iPhone Tech Talks discuss everything from user interface design to optimizing your web applications and content for iPhone.
iPhone Development Introduction
iPhone User Interface Design
Managing Content and Synced Data for iPhone
Safari on iPhone Part I: Compatibility
Safari on iPhone Part II: Optimization
Safari on iPhone Part III: iPhone Applications
Designing Web Content for iPhone
Sample Code
Choose from a range of Sample Code projects that provide development and user interface design techniques for interactive and standards-based design on iPhone.
iPhoneButtons
iPhoneListPatterns
iSudoku
makeiPhoneRef Movie
Puzzler
iPhone Reference Library
Browse the iPhone Reference Library for release notes, technical documentation and guides on developing and optimizing Web 2.0 applications and content for iPhone
Getting Started with iPhone
Safari Web Content Guide for iPhone
iPhone Human Interface Guidelines
Safari HTML Reference
Safari CSS Reference
Web Kit DOM Programming Topics
Web Kit DOM Reference
JavaScript Coding Guidelines for Mac OS X
Exporting Movies for iPod, Apple TV and iPhone
Preparing Content for Safari 3 and WebKit
Safari Release Notes for iPhone
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Designing cases for iPod and iPhone
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Are you a case vendor looking to design a carrying case for iPhone or iPod? The following dimensional drawings will get you started with all the measurements you need for current and past products.Design Considerations for iPhone and iPod touch
If you are developing a carrying case for iPhone and iPod touch you need to take into consideration antenna location as well as the locations of any sensors which should always remain uncovered.
The touch interface senses the presence of one or more fingers on its surface. Any material between the surface and a user's hand, even a very thin sheet of plastic, can affect the performance of the touch interface. Touch screen covers must be thinner than 0.3mm and should be designed so that there are no air gaps between the cover and the screen surface. Covers may not be electrically conductive.
Dimensional Drawings
iPod 3G Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 4G Dimensions (PDF)
iPod mini Dimensions (PDF)
iPod photo Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 30/60GB photo Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 5G 30GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 5G 60/80GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod shuffle Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano (2nd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod shuffle (2nd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano (3rd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod classic 80GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod classic 160GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod touch Dimensions (PDF)
iPhone Dimensions (PDF)
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Are you a case vendor looking to design a carrying case for iPhone or iPod? The following dimensional drawings will get you started with all the measurements you need for current and past products.Design Considerations for iPhone and iPod touch
If you are developing a carrying case for iPhone and iPod touch you need to take into consideration antenna location as well as the locations of any sensors which should always remain uncovered.
The touch interface senses the presence of one or more fingers on its surface. Any material between the surface and a user's hand, even a very thin sheet of plastic, can affect the performance of the touch interface. Touch screen covers must be thinner than 0.3mm and should be designed so that there are no air gaps between the cover and the screen surface. Covers may not be electrically conductive.
Dimensional Drawings
iPod 3G Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 4G Dimensions (PDF)
iPod mini Dimensions (PDF)
iPod photo Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 30/60GB photo Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 5G 30GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod 5G 60/80GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod shuffle Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano (2nd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod shuffle (2nd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod nano (3rd Generation) Dimensions (PDF)
iPod classic 80GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod classic 160GB Dimensions (PDF)
iPod touch Dimensions (PDF)
iPhone Dimensions (PDF)
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The Apple iPhone
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Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?). Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4GB or 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow out of the gate. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email. Apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or video, with a full 16 hours in music mode -- no word on standby time yet. In a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we're almost sad to see grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we're going to have an opportunity to run this picture? The 4GB iPhone will go out the door in the US as a Cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.
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Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?). Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4GB or 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow out of the gate. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email. Apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or video, with a full 16 hours in music mode -- no word on standby time yet. In a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we're almost sad to see grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we're going to have an opportunity to run this picture? The 4GB iPhone will go out the door in the US as a Cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.
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iPhone review
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The first solid info anyone heard about the iPhone was in December of 2004, when news started to trickle out that Apple had been working on a phone device with Motorola as its manufacturing partner. About ten months later, under the shadow of the best-selling iPod nano, that ballyhooed device debuted -- the ROKR E1 -- a bastard product that Apple never put any weight behind, and that Motorola was quick to forget. The relationship between Apple and Motorola soon dissolved, in turn feeding the tech rumor mill with visions of a "true iPhone" being built by Apple behind the scenes. After years of rumor and speculation, last January that device was finally announced at Macworld 2007 -- and here we are, just over six months later -- the iPhone, perhaps the most hyped consumer electronics device ever created, has finally landed. And this is the only review of it you're going to need.We've gone into serious detail here, so here's the review split into multiple parts. Trust us, it's a quick read. Enjoy!Part 1: Hardware, interface, keyboardPart 2: Phone, Mail, Safari, iPodPart 3: Apps and settings, camera, iTunes, wrap-up
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The first solid info anyone heard about the iPhone was in December of 2004, when news started to trickle out that Apple had been working on a phone device with Motorola as its manufacturing partner. About ten months later, under the shadow of the best-selling iPod nano, that ballyhooed device debuted -- the ROKR E1 -- a bastard product that Apple never put any weight behind, and that Motorola was quick to forget. The relationship between Apple and Motorola soon dissolved, in turn feeding the tech rumor mill with visions of a "true iPhone" being built by Apple behind the scenes. After years of rumor and speculation, last January that device was finally announced at Macworld 2007 -- and here we are, just over six months later -- the iPhone, perhaps the most hyped consumer electronics device ever created, has finally landed. And this is the only review of it you're going to need.We've gone into serious detail here, so here's the review split into multiple parts. Trust us, it's a quick read. Enjoy!Part 1: Hardware, interface, keyboardPart 2: Phone, Mail, Safari, iPodPart 3: Apps and settings, camera, iTunes, wrap-up
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iPhone review, part 1: Hardware, interface, keyboard
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The last six months have held a whirlwind of hype surrounding the iPhone the likes of which we've rarely seen; an unbelievable amount of mainstream consumer electronics users -- not just Engadget-reading technology enthusiasts -- instantly glommed onto the idea of a do-it-all smartphone that's as easy to use as it is powerful. The fact is, there's only a very short list of properly groundbreaking technologies in the iPhone (multi-touch input), and a very long list of things users are already upset about not having in a $600 cellphone (3G, GPS, A2DP, MMS, physical keyboard, etc.). If you're prepared to buy into the hype, and thusly, the device, it's important that purchase (and its subsequent two year commitment to AT&T) not be made for features, but for the device's paradigm-shifting interface.
The hardwareIndustrial designWe're just going to come out and say it: the iPhone has the most beautiful industrial design of any cellphone we've ever seen. Yes, it's a matter of taste, and while we imagine some won't agree, we find it hard to resist the handset's thoughtful minimalism and attention to detail.
The edges of the beautiful optical-grade glass facade fit seamlessly with its stainless steel rim; the rear is an incredibly finely milled aluminum, with a hard, black plastic strip at the bottom, covering the device's antenna array, and providing small, unsightly grids of holes for speaker and mic audio. On the rear is the slightly recessed 2 megapixel camera lens, a reflective Apple logo, and some information about the device (IMEI, serial, etc.) in nearly microscopic print. (Sorry, iPhone engravings don't seem to be available yet for online customers.)
The iPhone's curves and geometry make it incredibly comfortable to hold. It fits well in the hand horizontally and vertically (completely one-handed operation is a snap in portrait mode), and its slim profile lets it slip into even a tight pocket with little effort. The device feels incredibly sturdy and well balanced -- no end seems any heavier than another. Every edge blends perfectly with the next (which will probably help fight gunk buildup over time), and holding the device to one's ear is comfortable enough, although not as comfortable as, say, the HTC Touch.
Our only real complaint with the device's design isn't one we take lightly: Apple went to the trouble of giving the iPhone a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, but the plug is far too recessed to use most headphones with -- we tested a variety, and were highly unimpressed with how many fit. What's the point of a standard port if it's implemented in a non-standard way? Apple might have at least included an extender / adapter for this, but didn't. Luckily, the iPhone earbuds sound very decent, and also include a minuscule, clicky in-line remote / mic -- but that's not going to alleviate the annoyance for the myriad users with expensive Etys or Shures who have to pay another $10 for yet another small part to lose.The display
The iPhone features the most attractive display we've ever seen on a portable device of this size, by far and bar none. While its 160ppi resolution isn't quite photorealistic, the extremely bright 3.5-inch display does run at 480 x 320, making it one of the highest pixel-density devices around today (save the Toshiba G900's mind-popping 3-inch 800 x 480 display). But pixel density doesn't necessarily matter, it's how your device uses the screen real estate it's got. Instead of printing microscopic text, as Windows Mobile often does with high resolution displays (see: HTC's Universal and Advantage), iPhone text looks smooth and natural in every application -- everything on-screen is eminently readable.
The screen also provides an excellent outdoor viewing experience. With optical properties reminiscent of transflective displays, the iPhone remains completely readable (if a only bit washed out) even in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, the display's viewing angle left a little something to be desired, and the rumors about the glass face being an absolute fingerprint magnet are totally true: this thing picks up more smudges than almost any touchscreen device we've ever used. Honestly though, we'd attribute this to the fact that unlike most other smartphones, you are exempt from using a stylus on the iPhone's capacitive display, meaning you must touch it with your bare finger to do almost anything.Thankfully, like the rest of the phone, the glass face feels extremely sturdy, and one should have absolutely no hesitation in wiping it off on their jeans or sleeve -- we've yet to produce a single scratch on the thing, and we understand others testing under more rigorous circumstances (like deliberately trying to key its face up) have also been unable to mar its armor.The sensorsOne of the more unique features in the iPhone is its trio of sensors (orientation, light, and proximity -- the latter two are behind the glass right above the earpiece) which help the device interact with its user and the world at large. Some of these sensors are more useful than others. The light sensor (for dimming the backlight) is great for saving power, but its use doesn't compare to the the other two sensors, which worked like champs. The proximity sensor, which prevents you from accidentally interacting with the screen while the iPhone is pressed against your ear, switches off the display at about 0.75-inches away; the screen switches back on after you pull away about an inch. This very useful automatic process took a little getting used to from us oldschool touchscreen users, who have long since grown accustomed to diligently turning off the screen while on a call, or holding our smartphones to our ear ever so gently.The orientation sensor also worked well enough. Although you can't turn the phone on its head, when browsing in Safari you can do a 180, jumping quickly from landscape left to landscape right. The iPhone would occasionally find itself confused by the odd angles one sometimes carries and holds devices at, but in general we didn't expect the orientation sensor to work as well as it did.Button layout
Despite the iPhone's entirely touchscreen-driven interface, all of its external buttons are mechanical and have a distinct, clicky tactility. There is, of course, the home button on the face, which takes you back to the main menu; along the left side of the unit is the volume up / down rocker (which is clearly identifiable by touch), and a ringer on / off switch -- something we wish all cellphones had, but that far too few actually do. Turning off the ringer briefly vibrates the device to let the user know rings are off; it's worth noting that turning the ringer off doesn't turn off all device audio, so if you hit play on a song in iPod mode, audio will still come out the speaker if you don't have headphones inserted.On the top of the unit is the SIM tray (each unit comes pre-packaged with an AT&T SIM already inserted), which pops out by depressing an internal switch with a paperclip. Finally, the largest perimeter button is the sleep / wake switch, which does as you'd imagine. Press it (and swipe the screen) to wake up the device, or press it to put it to sleep; hold it (and swipe the screen) down to shut it off completely. (You can also use it turn off the ringer - -one click -- or shunt a call to voicemail -- two clicks -- if someone rings you.) The headphones
The iPhone comes bundled with a standard set of iPod earbuds, but there are two differences from the kind that comes with your regular old iPod. First, these earbuds don't have the small plastic cable separator slide that helps keep your cables from getting tangled. Second, on the right channel cable about halfway up you'll find a very slim, discreet mic / music toggle. When listening to music, click it once to pause, or twice to skip tracks; when a call comes through, click it once to pick up, and again to hang up.That same in-line piece also picks up your voice for the call, and it sounds pretty good -- some people on the other end of the line said it sounds even better than the iPhone's integrated mic. For those worried that there would be issues with interference, put your mind at ease. We heard absolutely no cell radio interference over the headset, even when we wrapped it four times around the iPhone antenna, and sandwiched it between a second cellphone making a call. The headphones are an essential and amazing accessory that makes the seamless media and phone experiences of the device possible. We only wish Apple managed to integrate an inline volume switch in there too, since that's really the only essential control it lacks.Unfortunately for us, iPod headphones just don't fit our ears, so no matter how good they may sound, they're unusable since we can't seem keep them in longer than 30 seconds. (We typically prefer canalphones, they can't really go anywhere.) Since the included headphones are the only ones on the market right now that can interact with the iPod function, have an inline mic, and, of course, listen to audio, you're kind of stuck with Apple's buds if you want to get the most out of your iPhone. The same also applies to the expensive phones you invested in, which probably won't fit in the recessed jack anyway: even if you get an adapter, you still won't get the full experience.Apple's included headphones are about 42-inches long (3.5 feet), just about the perfect length to reach from your pocket to your head with a little extra slack. You'd be surprised how many cellphone manufacturers screw this up with bundled headphones that are way too long, or way too short.The dock, charging
The included dock is up to par for Apple's typically high standards -- it feels very solid and sturdy with no visible mold lines, and is capped on the bottom by a solid rubber base (with a nearly hidden vent for letting sound in and out of the iPhone's speaker and mic) to keep it in place. On its rear is the usual cable connector and line out. We thought the dock props the iPhone way too vertically -- about 80°, significantly more upright than the stock iPod dock we compared it to. If you're using it on a desk, you'll probably wish Apple angled it back a little so you're not leaning over to fumble with your phone like some miniature monolith.
Charging the iPhone is an easy enough affair. Pulling power from its adapter (and not a computer's USB), we were able to quick-charge it from 0% to 90% in just under two hours, but it took us almost another hour and a half to get that last ten percent. We also twice ran into this weird bug, where charging the iPhone from 0% power would deactivate the screen. The only way to recover was to soft-reset the phone. No big deal, just irritating. It's probably also worth mentioning that going from totally shut off to fully booted, the iPhone is up and running in under 30 seconds.Other accessoriesApple also includes a microfiber polishing cloth -- a welcome addition, but the device's sturdy glass will stand up to rubs on most of your clothes, so don't bother carrying it along if you're planning to just brush off some dust or residue left by your face / ears / fingers, etc. Also included is an extremely small power brick, and USB connector cable. Worth noting: the iPhone connector cable doesn't include tensioned clips, like most iPod connectors -- just pull it out, nothing messy to get caught and broken, and fewer moving parts in general.
User interfaceIf there's anything revolutionary, as Apple claims, about the iPhone, it's the user interface that would be nominated. Countless phones make calls, play movies and music, have maps, web browsers, etc., but almost none seem able to fully blend the experience -- which is part of the reason people flipped out at the idea of an iPhone. The device's user interface does all this with panache, but it's not without a number of very irritating issues. Before we get into those issues, however, we should quickly rundown the functions of the iPhone's primarily gesture-based input system.iPhone gesturesDrag - controlled scroll up / down through listsFlick - quickly scrolls up / down through listsStop - while scrolling, tap and hold to stop the moving listSwipe - flick from left to right to change panes (Safari, weather, iPod) and delete items (mail, SMS)Single tap - select itemDouble tap - zooms in and out (all apps), zooms in (maps)Two-finger single tap - zooms out (maps only)Pinch / unpinch - zoom in and out of photos, maps, SafariAs you can probably already tell, gestures in the iPhone are by no means consistent. By and large one can count on gestures to work the same way from app to app, but swipes, for example, will only enable the delete button in mail and SMS -- if you want to delete selected calls from your call log, a visual voicemail message, world clock, or what have you, you've got to find another way. Swiping left to right takes you back one pane only in iPod, and two-finger single tap only zooms out in Google maps -- none of the other apps that use zooming, like Safari, and photos.These kinds of inconsistencies are worked around easily enough, but add that much more to the iPhone learning curve. And yes, there is definitely a learning curve to this device. Although many of its functions are incredibly easy to use and get used to, the iPhone takes radically new (and often extremely simplified and streamlined) approaches to common tasks for mobile devices.Another rather vexing aspect of the iPhone's UI is its complete inability to enable user-customizable themes -- as well as having inconsistent appearances between applications. Users can set their background (which shows up only during the unlock screen and phone calls), but otherwise they're stuck with the look Apple gave the iPhone, and nothing more. This is very Apple, and plays right into Steve's reputation as a benevolent dictator; he's got better taste than most, but not much of a penchant for individuality.
Even still, Apple's chosen appearance varies from app to app. Some apps have a slate blue theme (mail, SMS, calendar, maps, Safari, settings), some have a black theme (stocks, weather), some have a combination blue / black theme (phone, iPod, YouTube, clock), some have a straight gray theme (photos, camera), and some have an app-specific theme (calculator, notes). Even the missing-data-background is inconsistent: checkerboard in Safari, line grid in Google maps. There's little rhyme or reason in how or why these three themes were chosen, but unlike OS X's legacy pinstripes and brushed metal looks, there's really no reason why the iPhone should have an inconsistent appearance between applications.
Keyboard
Since its announcement, the iPhone's single biggest x-factor has been its virtual keyboard -- primarily because the quality of its keyboard can make or break a mobile device, and of the numerous touchscreen keyboards released over the years, not one has proven a viable substitute for a proper physical keyboard. We've been using the keyboard as much as possible, attempting to "trust" its auto-correction and intelligent input recognition, as Apple urges its users to do in order to make the transition from physical keys. (The iPhone uses a combination of dictionary prediction and keymap prediction to help out typing.)The whole idea of a touchscreen is a pretty counterintuitive design philosophy, if you ask us. Nothing will ever rid humans of the need to feel physical sensations when interacting with objects (and user interfaces). Having "trust" in the keyboard is a fine concept, and we believe it when people say they're up to speed and reaching the same input rates as on physical keyboards. But even assuming we get there, we know we'll always long for proper tactile feedback. That said, we're working on it, and have found ourselves slowly growing used to tapping away at the device with our stubby thumbs.As for the actual process of typing, one hindrance we've had thus far is that despite being a multi-touch system, the keyboard won't recognize a second key press before you've lifted off the first -- it requires single, distinct key presses. But the worst thing about the keyboard is that some of the methods it plies in accelerating your typing actually sacrifice speed in some cases. For example, there is no period key on the main keyboard -- you have to access even the most commonly used symbols in a flipped over symbols keyboard. This is almost enough to drive you crazy. (We really, REALLY wish Apple would split the large return button into two buttons: one for return, one for period.)
Caps lock is also disabled in the system by default, but even if you enable it in settings (and then double-tap to turn it on), you still can't hold down shift for the same effect -- it's either caps on, or you have to hit shift between each letter. Also, whether you're in upper or lower case, the letters on the keyboard keys always look the same: capitalized. (This makes it difficult to see at a glance what case of text you're about to input, especially since when using two thumbs your left thumb always hovers over the shift key.) Oh, and don't hit space when typing out a series of numbers, otherwise you'll get dropped back into the letter keyboard again.We also found the in-line dictionary tool to be more cumbersome than helpful. Supposedly, to add a word that's not in the dictionary, type in your word, then when you get an autocorrect value, just press on that word and the word you typed will be added to the dict file (uhh, ok). But you can also accidentally add words to your dictionary by typing out a word, dismissing the autocorrect dropdown by adding another letter, then backspacing over it. Yeah, for some reason that adds a word to the dictionary file, too. And believe it or not, this confusing little problem caused us to add a number of bum words to the dict file (which you can only keep or clear in its entirety -- and no you can't back it up, either).
On the up side, the horizontal keyboard (which is only enabled when typing into Safari while browsing horizontally) is a much more palatable experience. The keys are far larger, resulting in drastically fewer typing mistakes. (We sincerely hope Apple will enable horizontal input for all its iPhone apps that require keyboard input.) The horizontal web keyboard also has very convenient previous / next buttons for tabbing through fields. The keyboard you're given when entering URLs is one of the most brilliant bits we've seen in the device, and is an incredible time-saver. Since there are almost never spaces in URLs, instead users have shortcuts to ".", "/", and ".com". Finally, the magnification loupe is the best touchscreen cursor positioning method we've seen to date in a mobile device. Too bad you can't highlight and cut / copy / paste text with the iPhone.So what's the long and short of the keyboard story? We're still getting used to it, but for a touchscreen keyboard it could have been a lot worse -- and a whole lot better. Some among the Engadget staff have been able to pick it up quickly, others, not so much -- your mileage may vary. We have to wonder though, what would it take to get Steve to give us a proper physical keyboard for this mother, anyway? (We already smell the cottage industry brewing.)
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The last six months have held a whirlwind of hype surrounding the iPhone the likes of which we've rarely seen; an unbelievable amount of mainstream consumer electronics users -- not just Engadget-reading technology enthusiasts -- instantly glommed onto the idea of a do-it-all smartphone that's as easy to use as it is powerful. The fact is, there's only a very short list of properly groundbreaking technologies in the iPhone (multi-touch input), and a very long list of things users are already upset about not having in a $600 cellphone (3G, GPS, A2DP, MMS, physical keyboard, etc.). If you're prepared to buy into the hype, and thusly, the device, it's important that purchase (and its subsequent two year commitment to AT&T) not be made for features, but for the device's paradigm-shifting interface.
The hardwareIndustrial designWe're just going to come out and say it: the iPhone has the most beautiful industrial design of any cellphone we've ever seen. Yes, it's a matter of taste, and while we imagine some won't agree, we find it hard to resist the handset's thoughtful minimalism and attention to detail.
The edges of the beautiful optical-grade glass facade fit seamlessly with its stainless steel rim; the rear is an incredibly finely milled aluminum, with a hard, black plastic strip at the bottom, covering the device's antenna array, and providing small, unsightly grids of holes for speaker and mic audio. On the rear is the slightly recessed 2 megapixel camera lens, a reflective Apple logo, and some information about the device (IMEI, serial, etc.) in nearly microscopic print. (Sorry, iPhone engravings don't seem to be available yet for online customers.)
The iPhone's curves and geometry make it incredibly comfortable to hold. It fits well in the hand horizontally and vertically (completely one-handed operation is a snap in portrait mode), and its slim profile lets it slip into even a tight pocket with little effort. The device feels incredibly sturdy and well balanced -- no end seems any heavier than another. Every edge blends perfectly with the next (which will probably help fight gunk buildup over time), and holding the device to one's ear is comfortable enough, although not as comfortable as, say, the HTC Touch.
Our only real complaint with the device's design isn't one we take lightly: Apple went to the trouble of giving the iPhone a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, but the plug is far too recessed to use most headphones with -- we tested a variety, and were highly unimpressed with how many fit. What's the point of a standard port if it's implemented in a non-standard way? Apple might have at least included an extender / adapter for this, but didn't. Luckily, the iPhone earbuds sound very decent, and also include a minuscule, clicky in-line remote / mic -- but that's not going to alleviate the annoyance for the myriad users with expensive Etys or Shures who have to pay another $10 for yet another small part to lose.The display
The iPhone features the most attractive display we've ever seen on a portable device of this size, by far and bar none. While its 160ppi resolution isn't quite photorealistic, the extremely bright 3.5-inch display does run at 480 x 320, making it one of the highest pixel-density devices around today (save the Toshiba G900's mind-popping 3-inch 800 x 480 display). But pixel density doesn't necessarily matter, it's how your device uses the screen real estate it's got. Instead of printing microscopic text, as Windows Mobile often does with high resolution displays (see: HTC's Universal and Advantage), iPhone text looks smooth and natural in every application -- everything on-screen is eminently readable.
The screen also provides an excellent outdoor viewing experience. With optical properties reminiscent of transflective displays, the iPhone remains completely readable (if a only bit washed out) even in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, the display's viewing angle left a little something to be desired, and the rumors about the glass face being an absolute fingerprint magnet are totally true: this thing picks up more smudges than almost any touchscreen device we've ever used. Honestly though, we'd attribute this to the fact that unlike most other smartphones, you are exempt from using a stylus on the iPhone's capacitive display, meaning you must touch it with your bare finger to do almost anything.Thankfully, like the rest of the phone, the glass face feels extremely sturdy, and one should have absolutely no hesitation in wiping it off on their jeans or sleeve -- we've yet to produce a single scratch on the thing, and we understand others testing under more rigorous circumstances (like deliberately trying to key its face up) have also been unable to mar its armor.The sensorsOne of the more unique features in the iPhone is its trio of sensors (orientation, light, and proximity -- the latter two are behind the glass right above the earpiece) which help the device interact with its user and the world at large. Some of these sensors are more useful than others. The light sensor (for dimming the backlight) is great for saving power, but its use doesn't compare to the the other two sensors, which worked like champs. The proximity sensor, which prevents you from accidentally interacting with the screen while the iPhone is pressed against your ear, switches off the display at about 0.75-inches away; the screen switches back on after you pull away about an inch. This very useful automatic process took a little getting used to from us oldschool touchscreen users, who have long since grown accustomed to diligently turning off the screen while on a call, or holding our smartphones to our ear ever so gently.The orientation sensor also worked well enough. Although you can't turn the phone on its head, when browsing in Safari you can do a 180, jumping quickly from landscape left to landscape right. The iPhone would occasionally find itself confused by the odd angles one sometimes carries and holds devices at, but in general we didn't expect the orientation sensor to work as well as it did.Button layout
Despite the iPhone's entirely touchscreen-driven interface, all of its external buttons are mechanical and have a distinct, clicky tactility. There is, of course, the home button on the face, which takes you back to the main menu; along the left side of the unit is the volume up / down rocker (which is clearly identifiable by touch), and a ringer on / off switch -- something we wish all cellphones had, but that far too few actually do. Turning off the ringer briefly vibrates the device to let the user know rings are off; it's worth noting that turning the ringer off doesn't turn off all device audio, so if you hit play on a song in iPod mode, audio will still come out the speaker if you don't have headphones inserted.On the top of the unit is the SIM tray (each unit comes pre-packaged with an AT&T SIM already inserted), which pops out by depressing an internal switch with a paperclip. Finally, the largest perimeter button is the sleep / wake switch, which does as you'd imagine. Press it (and swipe the screen) to wake up the device, or press it to put it to sleep; hold it (and swipe the screen) down to shut it off completely. (You can also use it turn off the ringer - -one click -- or shunt a call to voicemail -- two clicks -- if someone rings you.) The headphones
The iPhone comes bundled with a standard set of iPod earbuds, but there are two differences from the kind that comes with your regular old iPod. First, these earbuds don't have the small plastic cable separator slide that helps keep your cables from getting tangled. Second, on the right channel cable about halfway up you'll find a very slim, discreet mic / music toggle. When listening to music, click it once to pause, or twice to skip tracks; when a call comes through, click it once to pick up, and again to hang up.That same in-line piece also picks up your voice for the call, and it sounds pretty good -- some people on the other end of the line said it sounds even better than the iPhone's integrated mic. For those worried that there would be issues with interference, put your mind at ease. We heard absolutely no cell radio interference over the headset, even when we wrapped it four times around the iPhone antenna, and sandwiched it between a second cellphone making a call. The headphones are an essential and amazing accessory that makes the seamless media and phone experiences of the device possible. We only wish Apple managed to integrate an inline volume switch in there too, since that's really the only essential control it lacks.Unfortunately for us, iPod headphones just don't fit our ears, so no matter how good they may sound, they're unusable since we can't seem keep them in longer than 30 seconds. (We typically prefer canalphones, they can't really go anywhere.) Since the included headphones are the only ones on the market right now that can interact with the iPod function, have an inline mic, and, of course, listen to audio, you're kind of stuck with Apple's buds if you want to get the most out of your iPhone. The same also applies to the expensive phones you invested in, which probably won't fit in the recessed jack anyway: even if you get an adapter, you still won't get the full experience.Apple's included headphones are about 42-inches long (3.5 feet), just about the perfect length to reach from your pocket to your head with a little extra slack. You'd be surprised how many cellphone manufacturers screw this up with bundled headphones that are way too long, or way too short.The dock, charging
The included dock is up to par for Apple's typically high standards -- it feels very solid and sturdy with no visible mold lines, and is capped on the bottom by a solid rubber base (with a nearly hidden vent for letting sound in and out of the iPhone's speaker and mic) to keep it in place. On its rear is the usual cable connector and line out. We thought the dock props the iPhone way too vertically -- about 80°, significantly more upright than the stock iPod dock we compared it to. If you're using it on a desk, you'll probably wish Apple angled it back a little so you're not leaning over to fumble with your phone like some miniature monolith.
Charging the iPhone is an easy enough affair. Pulling power from its adapter (and not a computer's USB), we were able to quick-charge it from 0% to 90% in just under two hours, but it took us almost another hour and a half to get that last ten percent. We also twice ran into this weird bug, where charging the iPhone from 0% power would deactivate the screen. The only way to recover was to soft-reset the phone. No big deal, just irritating. It's probably also worth mentioning that going from totally shut off to fully booted, the iPhone is up and running in under 30 seconds.Other accessoriesApple also includes a microfiber polishing cloth -- a welcome addition, but the device's sturdy glass will stand up to rubs on most of your clothes, so don't bother carrying it along if you're planning to just brush off some dust or residue left by your face / ears / fingers, etc. Also included is an extremely small power brick, and USB connector cable. Worth noting: the iPhone connector cable doesn't include tensioned clips, like most iPod connectors -- just pull it out, nothing messy to get caught and broken, and fewer moving parts in general.
User interfaceIf there's anything revolutionary, as Apple claims, about the iPhone, it's the user interface that would be nominated. Countless phones make calls, play movies and music, have maps, web browsers, etc., but almost none seem able to fully blend the experience -- which is part of the reason people flipped out at the idea of an iPhone. The device's user interface does all this with panache, but it's not without a number of very irritating issues. Before we get into those issues, however, we should quickly rundown the functions of the iPhone's primarily gesture-based input system.iPhone gesturesDrag - controlled scroll up / down through listsFlick - quickly scrolls up / down through listsStop - while scrolling, tap and hold to stop the moving listSwipe - flick from left to right to change panes (Safari, weather, iPod) and delete items (mail, SMS)Single tap - select itemDouble tap - zooms in and out (all apps), zooms in (maps)Two-finger single tap - zooms out (maps only)Pinch / unpinch - zoom in and out of photos, maps, SafariAs you can probably already tell, gestures in the iPhone are by no means consistent. By and large one can count on gestures to work the same way from app to app, but swipes, for example, will only enable the delete button in mail and SMS -- if you want to delete selected calls from your call log, a visual voicemail message, world clock, or what have you, you've got to find another way. Swiping left to right takes you back one pane only in iPod, and two-finger single tap only zooms out in Google maps -- none of the other apps that use zooming, like Safari, and photos.These kinds of inconsistencies are worked around easily enough, but add that much more to the iPhone learning curve. And yes, there is definitely a learning curve to this device. Although many of its functions are incredibly easy to use and get used to, the iPhone takes radically new (and often extremely simplified and streamlined) approaches to common tasks for mobile devices.Another rather vexing aspect of the iPhone's UI is its complete inability to enable user-customizable themes -- as well as having inconsistent appearances between applications. Users can set their background (which shows up only during the unlock screen and phone calls), but otherwise they're stuck with the look Apple gave the iPhone, and nothing more. This is very Apple, and plays right into Steve's reputation as a benevolent dictator; he's got better taste than most, but not much of a penchant for individuality.
Even still, Apple's chosen appearance varies from app to app. Some apps have a slate blue theme (mail, SMS, calendar, maps, Safari, settings), some have a black theme (stocks, weather), some have a combination blue / black theme (phone, iPod, YouTube, clock), some have a straight gray theme (photos, camera), and some have an app-specific theme (calculator, notes). Even the missing-data-background is inconsistent: checkerboard in Safari, line grid in Google maps. There's little rhyme or reason in how or why these three themes were chosen, but unlike OS X's legacy pinstripes and brushed metal looks, there's really no reason why the iPhone should have an inconsistent appearance between applications.
Keyboard
Since its announcement, the iPhone's single biggest x-factor has been its virtual keyboard -- primarily because the quality of its keyboard can make or break a mobile device, and of the numerous touchscreen keyboards released over the years, not one has proven a viable substitute for a proper physical keyboard. We've been using the keyboard as much as possible, attempting to "trust" its auto-correction and intelligent input recognition, as Apple urges its users to do in order to make the transition from physical keys. (The iPhone uses a combination of dictionary prediction and keymap prediction to help out typing.)The whole idea of a touchscreen is a pretty counterintuitive design philosophy, if you ask us. Nothing will ever rid humans of the need to feel physical sensations when interacting with objects (and user interfaces). Having "trust" in the keyboard is a fine concept, and we believe it when people say they're up to speed and reaching the same input rates as on physical keyboards. But even assuming we get there, we know we'll always long for proper tactile feedback. That said, we're working on it, and have found ourselves slowly growing used to tapping away at the device with our stubby thumbs.As for the actual process of typing, one hindrance we've had thus far is that despite being a multi-touch system, the keyboard won't recognize a second key press before you've lifted off the first -- it requires single, distinct key presses. But the worst thing about the keyboard is that some of the methods it plies in accelerating your typing actually sacrifice speed in some cases. For example, there is no period key on the main keyboard -- you have to access even the most commonly used symbols in a flipped over symbols keyboard. This is almost enough to drive you crazy. (We really, REALLY wish Apple would split the large return button into two buttons: one for return, one for period.)
Caps lock is also disabled in the system by default, but even if you enable it in settings (and then double-tap to turn it on), you still can't hold down shift for the same effect -- it's either caps on, or you have to hit shift between each letter. Also, whether you're in upper or lower case, the letters on the keyboard keys always look the same: capitalized. (This makes it difficult to see at a glance what case of text you're about to input, especially since when using two thumbs your left thumb always hovers over the shift key.) Oh, and don't hit space when typing out a series of numbers, otherwise you'll get dropped back into the letter keyboard again.We also found the in-line dictionary tool to be more cumbersome than helpful. Supposedly, to add a word that's not in the dictionary, type in your word, then when you get an autocorrect value, just press on that word and the word you typed will be added to the dict file (uhh, ok). But you can also accidentally add words to your dictionary by typing out a word, dismissing the autocorrect dropdown by adding another letter, then backspacing over it. Yeah, for some reason that adds a word to the dictionary file, too. And believe it or not, this confusing little problem caused us to add a number of bum words to the dict file (which you can only keep or clear in its entirety -- and no you can't back it up, either).
On the up side, the horizontal keyboard (which is only enabled when typing into Safari while browsing horizontally) is a much more palatable experience. The keys are far larger, resulting in drastically fewer typing mistakes. (We sincerely hope Apple will enable horizontal input for all its iPhone apps that require keyboard input.) The horizontal web keyboard also has very convenient previous / next buttons for tabbing through fields. The keyboard you're given when entering URLs is one of the most brilliant bits we've seen in the device, and is an incredible time-saver. Since there are almost never spaces in URLs, instead users have shortcuts to ".", "/", and ".com". Finally, the magnification loupe is the best touchscreen cursor positioning method we've seen to date in a mobile device. Too bad you can't highlight and cut / copy / paste text with the iPhone.So what's the long and short of the keyboard story? We're still getting used to it, but for a touchscreen keyboard it could have been a lot worse -- and a whole lot better. Some among the Engadget staff have been able to pick it up quickly, others, not so much -- your mileage may vary. We have to wonder though, what would it take to get Steve to give us a proper physical keyboard for this mother, anyway? (We already smell the cottage industry brewing.)
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Syncing iPhone and iPod touch with your computer
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When you connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, items are automatically synced between the two according to your preferences. You can, for example, enter phone numbers and addresses of friends and family members on your computer, connect iPhone or iPod touch to sync, then unplug iPhone or iPod touch and tap a friend's name on the touch screen to call.
You can sync
Contacts—names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and so on
Calendars—appointments and events
Email account settings (only on iPhone)
Web bookmarks
Music and audiobooks
Movies
TV shows
Podcasts
Photos
You only have to set which items are synced in iTunes on your computer once. After that, just connect iPhone or iPod touch to start a sync.
Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks are synced from (or to) your computer, so if you add, change, or delete them on iPhone or iPod touch, they are changed on your computer, and vice versa. You can also sync contacts with your Yahoo! Address Book (Except yahoo.co.jp accounts).
Email account settings (on iPhone only), music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos are synced one-way, from your computer to iPhone (though you can import photos taken with iPhone to your computer).
If you like, you can set iPhone or iPod touch to sync with only a portion of what's on your computer. For example, you might want to sync only a group of contacts from your address book, or you may want to sync only songs from certain playlists so you don't fill up iPhone or iPod touch with all your music.
Setting Up Syncing
You use iTunes on your computer to set up which items are synced. Make sure you have the most recent version of iTunes (On a PC, open iTunes and choose Help > Check for Updates. On a Mac, open iTunes and choose iTunes > Check for Updates.
Step 1: Connect iPhone or iPod touch
Connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer using the included cable. You can connect the cable from your computer directly to iPhone or iPod touch, or connect the cable from your computer to the Apple Universal Dock (available separately) and put iPhone or iPod touch in the dock. By default, iTunes opens automatically.
Select iPhone or iPod touch in the iTunes source list.
Step 2: Set Up Which Items Are Synced
Follow the steps below for each item you want to sync.
Set contacts to sync
Any Contacts you've chosen to sync, such as those in Address Book or Microsoft Entourage on a Mac or Windows Address Book (Outlook Express) or Microsoft Outlook on a PC, will be synced with iPod touch. If you sync with Yahoo! Address Book, you only need to click Configure to enter your new login information when you change your Yahoo! ID or password after you've set up syncing.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync Address Book contacts."
If you're using a PC, select "Sync contacts from" and then choose Yahoo! Address Book, Windows Address Book, or Outlook from the pop-up menu.
Select "All contacts," or select "Selected groups" and select the groups you want to sync.
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync Yahoo! Address Book contacts" if you also want to sync with your Yahoo! contacts.
You only need to click Configure when you change your Yahoo! ID or password after you've set up syncing. Click Configure and enter your new login information.
Note: Syncing won't delete any contact in Yahoo! Address Book that contains a Messenger ID, even if you've deleted the contact from your address book on iPhone or your computer. To delete a contact containing a Messenger ID, log in to your Yahoo! account online and delete the contact using Yahoo! Address Book.
On a Mac, when you sync Address Book contacts with iPhone or iPod touch, any other address books you've set to sync with .Mac, such as your contacts in Microsoft Entourage, will also be synced with iPhone or iPod touch.
Set calendars to sync
When you sync Calendars with iPod touch, calendars you've set to sync, such as your events and tasks in iCal and Microsoft Entourage on a Mac or Microsoft Outlook on a PC, will be synced with iPod touch.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync iCal calendars." Then choose "All calendars," or choose "Selected calendars" and select the calendars you want to sync. Then, from the pop-up menu, choose the calendar on your computer to update with events you create directly on your iPhone or iPod touch.
If you're using a PC, select "Sync Outlook calendars."
On a Mac, when you sync iCal calendars with iPhone or iPod touch, any other calendars you've set to sync with .Mac, such as your events and tasks in Microsoft Entourage, will also be synced with iPhone or iPod touch.
Set email accounts to sync (only on iPhone)
You can sync email account settings from Mail on a Mac, or Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express on a PC.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync selected Mail Accounts."
If you're using a PC, select "Sync selected mail accounts from" and then choose Outlook or Outlook Express from the pop-up menu.
Select the accounts you want to sync.
Set bookmarks to sync
You can sync bookmarks from Safari on a Mac, or Internet Explorer and Safari on a PC. Click the Info tab in iTunes and select Sync Bookmarks.
Set music, podcasts, or video to sync
Click the Music, Video, or Podcasts tab and select Sync, Sync Music, Sync TV shows, or Sync Movies.
Set sync options. You can sync all items, selected items or playlists, or a number of recent, unwatched, or unplayed items. In the Music tab, you can elect to also sync music videos. If you sync music, audiobooks are synced too.
Set photos to sync
You can sync iPhone or iPod touch with photos in iPhoto 4.0.3 or later on a Mac, or Photoshop Album 2.0 or later or Photoshop Elements 3.0 or later on a PC. Or you can sync with any folder on your computer that contains images.
Click the Photos tab and select "Sync photos from."
From the pop-up menu, do one of the following:
If your using a Mac, choose iPhoto or your Pictures folder.
If you're using a PC, choose Photoshop Album, Photoshop Elements, or your My Pictures folder.
Choose Folder, then choose any folder on your computer that has images inside.
Choose "All photos," or choose "Selected folders" or "Selected albums" and choose the folders or albums you want to sync.
Step 3: Sync iPhone or iPod touch
Click Apply in the lower-right corner of the screen. Your computer syncs with iPhone or iPod touch according to your settings.
The first time you sync iPhone or iPod touch, you are asked if you want to merge data, replace data on the service, or replace the data on your computer. After that, anytime you connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, iTunes opens and syncs with iPhone or iPod touch according to your settings.
Note: When syncing with Yahoo! Address Book, you do not have the option to replace the data on Yahoo!.
You can adjust sync settings anytime iPhone or iPod touch is connected to your computer. You can only connect and sync with one iPhone or iPod touch at the same time. If you need to sync more than one iPhone or iPod touch, disconnect one before connecting the other.
Important: You should be logged in to your own user account on the computer before connecting iPhone or iPod touch. If you connect more than one iPhone or iPod touch to the same user account, use the same sync settings for each.
Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple's recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.
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When you connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, items are automatically synced between the two according to your preferences. You can, for example, enter phone numbers and addresses of friends and family members on your computer, connect iPhone or iPod touch to sync, then unplug iPhone or iPod touch and tap a friend's name on the touch screen to call.
You can sync
Contacts—names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and so on
Calendars—appointments and events
Email account settings (only on iPhone)
Web bookmarks
Music and audiobooks
Movies
TV shows
Podcasts
Photos
You only have to set which items are synced in iTunes on your computer once. After that, just connect iPhone or iPod touch to start a sync.
Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks are synced from (or to) your computer, so if you add, change, or delete them on iPhone or iPod touch, they are changed on your computer, and vice versa. You can also sync contacts with your Yahoo! Address Book (Except yahoo.co.jp accounts).
Email account settings (on iPhone only), music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos are synced one-way, from your computer to iPhone (though you can import photos taken with iPhone to your computer).
If you like, you can set iPhone or iPod touch to sync with only a portion of what's on your computer. For example, you might want to sync only a group of contacts from your address book, or you may want to sync only songs from certain playlists so you don't fill up iPhone or iPod touch with all your music.
Setting Up Syncing
You use iTunes on your computer to set up which items are synced. Make sure you have the most recent version of iTunes (On a PC, open iTunes and choose Help > Check for Updates. On a Mac, open iTunes and choose iTunes > Check for Updates.
Step 1: Connect iPhone or iPod touch
Connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer using the included cable. You can connect the cable from your computer directly to iPhone or iPod touch, or connect the cable from your computer to the Apple Universal Dock (available separately) and put iPhone or iPod touch in the dock. By default, iTunes opens automatically.
Select iPhone or iPod touch in the iTunes source list.
Step 2: Set Up Which Items Are Synced
Follow the steps below for each item you want to sync.
Set contacts to sync
Any Contacts you've chosen to sync, such as those in Address Book or Microsoft Entourage on a Mac or Windows Address Book (Outlook Express) or Microsoft Outlook on a PC, will be synced with iPod touch. If you sync with Yahoo! Address Book, you only need to click Configure to enter your new login information when you change your Yahoo! ID or password after you've set up syncing.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync Address Book contacts."
If you're using a PC, select "Sync contacts from" and then choose Yahoo! Address Book, Windows Address Book, or Outlook from the pop-up menu.
Select "All contacts," or select "Selected groups" and select the groups you want to sync.
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync Yahoo! Address Book contacts" if you also want to sync with your Yahoo! contacts.
You only need to click Configure when you change your Yahoo! ID or password after you've set up syncing. Click Configure and enter your new login information.
Note: Syncing won't delete any contact in Yahoo! Address Book that contains a Messenger ID, even if you've deleted the contact from your address book on iPhone or your computer. To delete a contact containing a Messenger ID, log in to your Yahoo! account online and delete the contact using Yahoo! Address Book.
On a Mac, when you sync Address Book contacts with iPhone or iPod touch, any other address books you've set to sync with .Mac, such as your contacts in Microsoft Entourage, will also be synced with iPhone or iPod touch.
Set calendars to sync
When you sync Calendars with iPod touch, calendars you've set to sync, such as your events and tasks in iCal and Microsoft Entourage on a Mac or Microsoft Outlook on a PC, will be synced with iPod touch.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync iCal calendars." Then choose "All calendars," or choose "Selected calendars" and select the calendars you want to sync. Then, from the pop-up menu, choose the calendar on your computer to update with events you create directly on your iPhone or iPod touch.
If you're using a PC, select "Sync Outlook calendars."
On a Mac, when you sync iCal calendars with iPhone or iPod touch, any other calendars you've set to sync with .Mac, such as your events and tasks in Microsoft Entourage, will also be synced with iPhone or iPod touch.
Set email accounts to sync (only on iPhone)
You can sync email account settings from Mail on a Mac, or Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express on a PC.
Click the Info tab in iTunes, then do one of the following:
If you're using a Mac, select "Sync selected Mail Accounts."
If you're using a PC, select "Sync selected mail accounts from" and then choose Outlook or Outlook Express from the pop-up menu.
Select the accounts you want to sync.
Set bookmarks to sync
You can sync bookmarks from Safari on a Mac, or Internet Explorer and Safari on a PC. Click the Info tab in iTunes and select Sync Bookmarks.
Set music, podcasts, or video to sync
Click the Music, Video, or Podcasts tab and select Sync, Sync Music, Sync TV shows, or Sync Movies.
Set sync options. You can sync all items, selected items or playlists, or a number of recent, unwatched, or unplayed items. In the Music tab, you can elect to also sync music videos. If you sync music, audiobooks are synced too.
Set photos to sync
You can sync iPhone or iPod touch with photos in iPhoto 4.0.3 or later on a Mac, or Photoshop Album 2.0 or later or Photoshop Elements 3.0 or later on a PC. Or you can sync with any folder on your computer that contains images.
Click the Photos tab and select "Sync photos from."
From the pop-up menu, do one of the following:
If your using a Mac, choose iPhoto or your Pictures folder.
If you're using a PC, choose Photoshop Album, Photoshop Elements, or your My Pictures folder.
Choose Folder, then choose any folder on your computer that has images inside.
Choose "All photos," or choose "Selected folders" or "Selected albums" and choose the folders or albums you want to sync.
Step 3: Sync iPhone or iPod touch
Click Apply in the lower-right corner of the screen. Your computer syncs with iPhone or iPod touch according to your settings.
The first time you sync iPhone or iPod touch, you are asked if you want to merge data, replace data on the service, or replace the data on your computer. After that, anytime you connect iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, iTunes opens and syncs with iPhone or iPod touch according to your settings.
Note: When syncing with Yahoo! Address Book, you do not have the option to replace the data on Yahoo!.
You can adjust sync settings anytime iPhone or iPod touch is connected to your computer. You can only connect and sync with one iPhone or iPod touch at the same time. If you need to sync more than one iPhone or iPod touch, disconnect one before connecting the other.
Important: You should be logged in to your own user account on the computer before connecting iPhone or iPod touch. If you connect more than one iPhone or iPod touch to the same user account, use the same sync settings for each.
Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple's recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.
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iPhone review, part 2: Phone, Mail, Safari, iPod
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Phone and contacts
Apple broke rank during its ubiquitous iPhone advertising campaign in the last few weeks -- typically the company doesn't go out of the way to highlight the specific functionality of its devices, instead choosing to sell products with iconography and emotion. But the bottom line Apple made is that the iPhone must live up to it's name: before anything else, it's a phone. And it has to be, because if it's an awful phone, no one's going to use it as their phone, get it? Well, Apple obviously succeeded here. We found nearly everything about making and receiving calls on the iPhone to be dead simple -- scratch that, pleasurable, even. It's almost enough to make us call home every weekend. (Almost.)While finding contacts might have been improved, calling contacts is as far from a chore as we've seen on a mobile. What the iPhone contact app most needs is use of the keyboard to hone in on names, like Windows Mobile's excellent Smartdial feature -- even the device's own SMS app has a keyboard-based contact finder. Instead, you're given just two options for finding your pals' contact cards: flicking up and down the list, or using the alphabet column on the right side, which makes short work of scrolling through hundreds of names.However, the pleasure of the elastic scroll-drag motion isn't to be underestimated. Despite the fact that the iPhone has no haptic feedback, traversing lists of emails, text, and songs has a nearly tactile feel due to the interface's "rubber band" effect. You can swing through about 60 contacts with a quick swipe -- traversing long lists without a scroll wheel is feasible, but if you've got a few hundred people in your address book, you'll probably soon be jonesing for keyboard-based contact search.Call functions are organized into five categories
Favorites - Apple's take on speed dial. A simple list of your favorite contacts. Adding favorites is very simple -- every non-favorite contact has a huge button allowing you to add them to the list. The list can be re-ordered by tapping edit, then using an icon on the right to drag each entry around.Recents - Shows a list of all or missed calls, and the call time / date. Incoming and outgoing calls are not differentiated, annoyingly. Missed calls are highlighted in red. Like some phones, unknown numbers have the region of call origin displayed (i.e. if you missed a call from a 415 area code number, beneath the digits it says "San Francisco, California" -- very handy!).Contacts - Your contact list, with your phone number listed at the top. (Having your number listed at the top is deceptively clever -- how many times have you needed to show someone your phone number in a loud area? For us, often.) Users can select to show all their synced contacts, or just select groups. (Creating contacts on the iPhone easily syncs back to the desktop.) Pushing against the final contact does not return the user to the top of the list, as is the typical expected behavior.Dialpad - The usual 12-key. You aren't presented with contact list-assisted dialing, but if you punch in a known number the device will give you a small prompt confirming who it is you're dialing (i.e. "Ryan Block, mobile"). From this pane users can add a dialed-in number to a new or existing contact -- users can also add numbers from the contacts pane, with the added option of plus and pause dialing. Note: numbers dialed in during calls are lost -- so prepare to take down proper notes in your phone, you can't just dial them in and save them for later, like some phones.Voicemail - Visual voicemail pane. Visual voicemail allows for email-like voicemail interaction, using caller ID and small voicemail files (transmitted to the phone automagically in the background). Visual voicemail quality leaves a lot to be desired, but we'd argue the functionality itself supersedes the audio fidelity, poor though it may be. Also in the VV pane: a speakerphone toggle and voicemail greeting option pane where you can select and locally record a new VM greeting (and transmit it back to AT&T for playback). Sorry, you can only set a single outgoing message; you can't record multiple and swap them out for various occasions (i.e. on vacation, or whatever).
Dialing a number is extremely simple: in a contact card (or in an email, or anywhere else) tap the number you want to call and it dials. That's it. In-call functions are also very simple: users are presented with just a few common options: mute, keypad, speakerphone on / off, add call (which brings up the contact list), pause, and contacts (presumably for finding someone's contact info to read into phone). Incoming calls present obvious prompts: ignore, hold call & answer, and (in a huge red button) end call & answer. Users can conference up to five calls on a single line -- the sixth call gets put on hold.
Using a Bluetooth headset is also super easy. If it's paired and powered up you'll be prompted with an audio source button instead of the speakerphone button. Tap that and you can choose which audio source you'd like to use. Note: even with a Bluetooth headset active on your phone, visual voicemail will only play into the iPhone. Call qualityAs GSM handsets go, the iPhone's voice quality can only be described as "unremarkable." Not bad, but not particularly stellar, either. Anyone stepping down from a UMTS handset will likely notice a slightly more "compressed" sound than they're used to, but the call clarity is good -- we noticed virtually no static hiss in the background. We were able to get decent volume out of the speakerphone's bottom-facing grill (particularly when set on a hard surface) but even at full volume the earpiece was a little soft for our liking. Realistically, we could've used a couple more notches -- the ability to turn it up to 11, if you will -- for use in loud environments.Likewise, folks on the other end of the call reported decent, if not good, sound quality from us. Background noise was within acceptable limits -- something that's more often a problem for candybar devices than for clamshells -- and we were coming through with plenty of volume. If anything, the most chintzy aspect of the iPhone's voice is its inability to use data while talking, and vice versa (no Class A EDGE or 3G, hint hint), but we digress.Ringtones and vibrationWe're still kind of bummed you can't (yet) add custom ringtones or even use MP3 ringtones with the massive library of tracks your iPhone is walking around with, but the default sounds are all pretty good. In fact, as far as ringtones go, they're definitely above average. (We have a feeling we're going to be hearing a LOT of "Marimba" in the coming years.) When you turn the ringer off with the side switch, the device enters vibration mode (duh); we found the iPhone's vibration totally suitable for pocket use -- both standing up, moving, and sitting down. But in-bag use is a whole 'nother game, and few phones (including this one) could rattle enough to catch our attention from inside a sack.
Mail
There's no other way than to come out and say it: we are extremely disappointed in the iPhone's email app. So much so, in fact, that despite the keyboard and the rest of the things the iPhone lacks in the features department, its mail support may be the largest factor in killing its status as a productivity device. Don't get us wrong, the application is just fine for anyone who wants to do light email, but it lacks the power and convenience that frequent-emailers require.For starters, if you've ever been out for an hour or two and checked your mail from your phone only to find a good 50 messages waiting for you, your iPhone nightmare has just begun. Scrolling through messages is just as easy as in other lists, but opening even a small, simple message has a noticeable delay -- the same kind of delay you get moving from one message to the next (with the up / down arrows), or deleting each message with the trash can button (which only appears with the message open).
One may take it for granted, but mobile email deletion can be a serious problem. The only other methods of message deletion is a swipe over the message to be deleted, then tapping the delete button; or tapping the edit button, then tapping the minus button, then tapping the delete button for each message to be erased. Maybe this doesn't sound too extrarodinary, but using the swipe-delete or edit-minus-button-delete on even a dozen or so messages is incredibly tedious.We suspect even a moderate email user won't be able to delete 20 emails on their phone without fantasizing about throwing their iPhone across the room. If you can delete 50 emails in one sitting, you deserve to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, and you have to manually delete all these messages again from the trash, there's no empty trash button (only an auto-delete option buried deep within settings, which removes deleted emails never, or after a day, a week, or a month). We kid you not.Which brings us to our next serious email matter: the iPhone's complete lack of integration with Mail.app, OS X's powerful-enough mail client. We expected that if you're an email user, when you plug in your iPhone and iTunes says it's "syncing your mail accounts," that means it's actually comparing and moving messages between the device and Mail.app. Not so. In fact, the iPhone does not interact in any meaningful way with Mail.app, other than to simplify the setup on the iPhone by copying account settings over from the desktop client's settings. Specifically:
The POP mail you read on your iPhone does not show up as read in Mail.app after sync.
Sent messages on your iPhone are not synced to Mail.app's sent folder (you can automatically CC, but not BCC, yourself on every outgoing iPhone message, though).
Filters in Mail.app are not applied to incoming mail on the iPhone.
The iPhone keeps its own set of non-contact addresses you manually enter -- these are not copied over from Mail.app. What's more, the iPhone mail application has a number of other harsh shortcomings:
There is no BCC.
Messages on IMAP cannot even be marked as read.
No ability "mark all / selected" as read.
No empty trash option.
There is a save to draft, but there is no spellcheck. (We suppose that's because Apple thinks spellcheck should be inline with auto-correction as you type.)
Users can only download and view the latest 200 messages from their server -- there is no "retrieve all" messages option. This is a very bad thing when you just got off a trans-continental flight and it's time to triage some serious email. If we haven't already driven the point home, for heavy email users such as ourselves, the iPhone didn't even come close to cutting the mustard. Email is, in fact, the weakest aspect of the whole device. While the Yahoo push-IMAP worked beautifully (and we do mean flawlessly -- push mail was delivered instantaneously), the Gmail integration requires POP access, and basically has similar issues with fetching messages, magnified by the different organizational requirements the web mail service has. One Engadget editor called the Gmail integration "a crime against humanity" -- and let's be frank, it's not "years ahead of everything else," it's actually years behind even the simple Java Gmail app Google released a while ago.To us, a productivity device is anything that helps us Get Things Done while we're out and about, and email, web, and SMS are the holy trinity on a smartphone device. If any part of that trifecta is crap, the whole device may as well be crap. And unfortunately for us, even if you can put up with the keyboard, the Mail client is so awful it actually makes us wish Apple made a Foleo for the iPhone. An iFoleo, if you will. Anyway, if you're anything like us, this is a major, major dealbreaker.
Safari
Ease of use aside, there's no question that the iPhone's build of Safari serves up the most true-to-PC web browsing experience available for a phone today. Opera Mini and S60's native browser (which happens to be based on the same core as Safari, coincidentally) do commendable jobs, but the iPhone has taken it to the next level. Anyone who has used the Nokia 770 or N800 internet tablets will be roughly familiar with what the iPhone is trying to do here: render a page faithfully without trying to work any fit-to-screen magic, and give the user convenient options for zooming in on text.
Of course, it could be argued that the iPhone shouldn't even be trying to present a PC-like rendering of pages because it necessitates zooming. Emphasis on "necessitates" here -- you really can't go to any mainstream site on the iPhone and expect to glean useful information from it without dragging, double tapping, pinching, and unpinching your way around. Zooming in on a page produces an interesting transient display artifact: everything looks really fuzzy for just a moment, as though you've overzoomed on a low-resolution picture. (Microsoft's new Deepfish browser has a similar effect on zoom-in.) Granted, after a while the browsing motions become a little more natural, and we'd always prefer to have the option of seeing and interacting with sites that don't have dedicated mobile versions. WAP is supported, but Safari isn't detected as a mobile browser, so you need to specifically navigate to the WAP version if the site you're trying to visit has automatic browser detection.
Bookmarks are supported and automatically synchronized with Safari on the host computer; adding a new bookmark is a simple matter of hitting the "+" button in the address bar, naming the bookmark, selecting a destination folder, and hitting Save. Mobile Safari's meager four-button toolbar along the bottom edge dedicates a button for this, along with forward, backward, and tabs. The tab implementation is pretty clever -- all you see on the tab button is a count of the number of tabs currently open (or nothing if your current page is the only tab). Tapping the button takes you to a Cover Flow-esque display that shows a small view of each tab; flicking left and right changes tabs and tapping opens a tab. A red X in the upper left and corner of each tab's display allows you to close it.
Of all the iPhone's wares, Safari most thoroughly implements rotation detection, which makes sense considering that most sites are designed with a landscape display in mind. The phone can be held vertically, 90 degrees clockwise, or 90 degrees counterclockwise, and the currently displayed page will be rotated (complete with a nifty animation, naturally) to fill up the screen. Safari is also the only iPhone app to implement the horizontal keyboard, which some will find far easier to use than its more ubiquitous vertical counterpart. One small complaint we have here is that if you have the keyboard up and rotate the phone, the page and keyboard won't reorient -- you have to manually close the keyboard with the Done button, at which point the page will do its thing and you can bring up the keyboard again in the correct orientation.On the iPhone, Safari is boiled down to the very most basic set of features necessary to do its thing, but the rendering engine is true to the original, for better or for worse. Take Gmail, for example; just like Safari on the desktop, there's a screwy looking little box immediately to the left of the subject line of each email in the inbox if you have personal level indicators enabled. It works, but it's a very Safari-esque experience -- Safari users will feel right at home, but folks coming from other browsers might run into the occasional surprise when hitting up sites optimized for Internet Explorer or Firefox.On the subject of Gmail, Ajax-enabled sites are hit or miss. One gotcha is that there's no gesture to simulate a double-click, so it's impossible to open up a new IM window in Meebo by double-tapping a contact, for example (though we were able to initiate one using the IM Buddy button on the buddy list). Google Documents worked okay for reading text and spreadsheets, but we weren't able to edit anything. A good rule of thumb here: if it's not designed specifically for the iPhone, keep your expectations to a minimum until you try it out yourself.
Unfortunately, Safari seems to share more than just a rendering engine with its distant S60-based cousin. Specifically, we've had some problems with stability -- the browser will often unceremoniously disappear from time to time. We have no problem opening it back up (and the offending page works the second time more often than not), but it's still a pain in the ass. It seems like the number of open tabs (and hence, memory consumption) might be at least one of the culprits, but we've yet to find any reproducible scenarios. Mobile browsers aren't typically the most stable pieces of software around, so we've gotta say we're not terribly surprised. Here's hoping future firmware updates shore up the goods just a little bit.
iPod / media functionalityHistorically, we haven't been huge fans of the iPod. We've found its interface generally simple, but irritating to navigate; its lack of numerous basic features other devices have long since had, like the ability to create multiple playlists on the go, has persisted as the iPod has undergone very conservative functionality additions through the years. Whereas our biggest complaint about the iPod -- its dire lack of codec support -- hasn't been addressed in the iPhone, its user interface definitely has.
Playing back music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, etc. has never been easier on an iPod, or more more seamlessly integrated into a phone. Most of the iPod interface has been revised to take advantage of the iPhone's massive touchscreen, so navigating artists and albums in lists is simple, where before it was a tedious, thumb-joint-popping experience. Tilting the device horizontally allows you to browse your music in Cover Flow mode, a novelty of breakthrough proportions. Tapping an album in Cover Flow mode lets you select which track to play.
When browsing in list mode, you get the same alphabet column on the right as you do with contacts. Again, keyboard search would have been nice here, but it's still far more livable than the click wheel. If you put your iPhone in sleep while listening to music, when waking it up instead of your usual background on the unlock screen you'll see the cover art of the album you're listening to, and the name of the track beneath the current time -- an extremely useful bit of glanceable information, saving you from having to dig through your mobile to see what's playing.
The media integration with the rest of the device is obviously far better than on any mobile we've seen to date -- but it's not without its issues. It's wonderful seeing SMS messages pop up while watching movies, for instance, but if you load up a YouTube video while listening to music, the audio automatically fades out when the video starts, but doesn't come back when the video ends. This is counter to the phone experience, where an incoming call pauses your music and brings it back when the call is over. We also noticed that even while under heavy load multitasking, the music would never skip or falter, just crash.
We managed to continuously crash the iPod app while listening to music and doing other things, namely browsing. We wouldn't call it incredibly unstable, but we wouldn't say it's rock solid, either. Movie playback did seem very stable though, even when skipping around and playing video for long periods of time. (It may also be of note that even when playing video for hours on end the device hardly ever even got warm to the touch.) The biggest upshot we found on the media playback, though, was the iPhone's Herculean battery life. We've seen other reviews' media playback results vary, but ours seemed to jump far ahead of even Apple's lofty expectations.Playing relatively high bitrate VGA H.264 videos, our iPhone lasted almost exactly 9 freaking hours of continuous playback with cell and WiFi on (but Bluetooth off). Yeah, we had to pick our jaws up off the floor, too. So by our tests, you could watch a two hour movie and drain off a little more than 22% of the battery -- totally acceptable for trip-taking and the like.Our music testing showed similarly outstanding results. Playing back 160-192Kbps MP3s, our iPhone pushed about 29 hours and 30 minutes music playback. To put that in perspective, the Apple claims the iPod nano gets about 24 hours playback on a full charge, and the iPod a scant 14 - 20 hours.To do a little simple math, you could watch two hours of video, listen to 8 straight hours of music, and still have only drained off less than half your device's capacity -- that is, if your iPhone's battery works as well as ours. (Read: your battery life may differ.) Still, if that's a good estimate of what users can expect from their device's power drain, you should have little issue making the iPhone your music and video player, in addition to your cellphone.
please visit 7effects.com
Phone and contacts
Apple broke rank during its ubiquitous iPhone advertising campaign in the last few weeks -- typically the company doesn't go out of the way to highlight the specific functionality of its devices, instead choosing to sell products with iconography and emotion. But the bottom line Apple made is that the iPhone must live up to it's name: before anything else, it's a phone. And it has to be, because if it's an awful phone, no one's going to use it as their phone, get it? Well, Apple obviously succeeded here. We found nearly everything about making and receiving calls on the iPhone to be dead simple -- scratch that, pleasurable, even. It's almost enough to make us call home every weekend. (Almost.)While finding contacts might have been improved, calling contacts is as far from a chore as we've seen on a mobile. What the iPhone contact app most needs is use of the keyboard to hone in on names, like Windows Mobile's excellent Smartdial feature -- even the device's own SMS app has a keyboard-based contact finder. Instead, you're given just two options for finding your pals' contact cards: flicking up and down the list, or using the alphabet column on the right side, which makes short work of scrolling through hundreds of names.However, the pleasure of the elastic scroll-drag motion isn't to be underestimated. Despite the fact that the iPhone has no haptic feedback, traversing lists of emails, text, and songs has a nearly tactile feel due to the interface's "rubber band" effect. You can swing through about 60 contacts with a quick swipe -- traversing long lists without a scroll wheel is feasible, but if you've got a few hundred people in your address book, you'll probably soon be jonesing for keyboard-based contact search.Call functions are organized into five categories
Favorites - Apple's take on speed dial. A simple list of your favorite contacts. Adding favorites is very simple -- every non-favorite contact has a huge button allowing you to add them to the list. The list can be re-ordered by tapping edit, then using an icon on the right to drag each entry around.Recents - Shows a list of all or missed calls, and the call time / date. Incoming and outgoing calls are not differentiated, annoyingly. Missed calls are highlighted in red. Like some phones, unknown numbers have the region of call origin displayed (i.e. if you missed a call from a 415 area code number, beneath the digits it says "San Francisco, California" -- very handy!).Contacts - Your contact list, with your phone number listed at the top. (Having your number listed at the top is deceptively clever -- how many times have you needed to show someone your phone number in a loud area? For us, often.) Users can select to show all their synced contacts, or just select groups. (Creating contacts on the iPhone easily syncs back to the desktop.) Pushing against the final contact does not return the user to the top of the list, as is the typical expected behavior.Dialpad - The usual 12-key. You aren't presented with contact list-assisted dialing, but if you punch in a known number the device will give you a small prompt confirming who it is you're dialing (i.e. "Ryan Block, mobile"). From this pane users can add a dialed-in number to a new or existing contact -- users can also add numbers from the contacts pane, with the added option of plus and pause dialing. Note: numbers dialed in during calls are lost -- so prepare to take down proper notes in your phone, you can't just dial them in and save them for later, like some phones.Voicemail - Visual voicemail pane. Visual voicemail allows for email-like voicemail interaction, using caller ID and small voicemail files (transmitted to the phone automagically in the background). Visual voicemail quality leaves a lot to be desired, but we'd argue the functionality itself supersedes the audio fidelity, poor though it may be. Also in the VV pane: a speakerphone toggle and voicemail greeting option pane where you can select and locally record a new VM greeting (and transmit it back to AT&T for playback). Sorry, you can only set a single outgoing message; you can't record multiple and swap them out for various occasions (i.e. on vacation, or whatever).
Dialing a number is extremely simple: in a contact card (or in an email, or anywhere else) tap the number you want to call and it dials. That's it. In-call functions are also very simple: users are presented with just a few common options: mute, keypad, speakerphone on / off, add call (which brings up the contact list), pause, and contacts (presumably for finding someone's contact info to read into phone). Incoming calls present obvious prompts: ignore, hold call & answer, and (in a huge red button) end call & answer. Users can conference up to five calls on a single line -- the sixth call gets put on hold.
Using a Bluetooth headset is also super easy. If it's paired and powered up you'll be prompted with an audio source button instead of the speakerphone button. Tap that and you can choose which audio source you'd like to use. Note: even with a Bluetooth headset active on your phone, visual voicemail will only play into the iPhone. Call qualityAs GSM handsets go, the iPhone's voice quality can only be described as "unremarkable." Not bad, but not particularly stellar, either. Anyone stepping down from a UMTS handset will likely notice a slightly more "compressed" sound than they're used to, but the call clarity is good -- we noticed virtually no static hiss in the background. We were able to get decent volume out of the speakerphone's bottom-facing grill (particularly when set on a hard surface) but even at full volume the earpiece was a little soft for our liking. Realistically, we could've used a couple more notches -- the ability to turn it up to 11, if you will -- for use in loud environments.Likewise, folks on the other end of the call reported decent, if not good, sound quality from us. Background noise was within acceptable limits -- something that's more often a problem for candybar devices than for clamshells -- and we were coming through with plenty of volume. If anything, the most chintzy aspect of the iPhone's voice is its inability to use data while talking, and vice versa (no Class A EDGE or 3G, hint hint), but we digress.Ringtones and vibrationWe're still kind of bummed you can't (yet) add custom ringtones or even use MP3 ringtones with the massive library of tracks your iPhone is walking around with, but the default sounds are all pretty good. In fact, as far as ringtones go, they're definitely above average. (We have a feeling we're going to be hearing a LOT of "Marimba" in the coming years.) When you turn the ringer off with the side switch, the device enters vibration mode (duh); we found the iPhone's vibration totally suitable for pocket use -- both standing up, moving, and sitting down. But in-bag use is a whole 'nother game, and few phones (including this one) could rattle enough to catch our attention from inside a sack.
There's no other way than to come out and say it: we are extremely disappointed in the iPhone's email app. So much so, in fact, that despite the keyboard and the rest of the things the iPhone lacks in the features department, its mail support may be the largest factor in killing its status as a productivity device. Don't get us wrong, the application is just fine for anyone who wants to do light email, but it lacks the power and convenience that frequent-emailers require.For starters, if you've ever been out for an hour or two and checked your mail from your phone only to find a good 50 messages waiting for you, your iPhone nightmare has just begun. Scrolling through messages is just as easy as in other lists, but opening even a small, simple message has a noticeable delay -- the same kind of delay you get moving from one message to the next (with the up / down arrows), or deleting each message with the trash can button (which only appears with the message open).
One may take it for granted, but mobile email deletion can be a serious problem. The only other methods of message deletion is a swipe over the message to be deleted, then tapping the delete button; or tapping the edit button, then tapping the minus button, then tapping the delete button for each message to be erased. Maybe this doesn't sound too extrarodinary, but using the swipe-delete or edit-minus-button-delete on even a dozen or so messages is incredibly tedious.We suspect even a moderate email user won't be able to delete 20 emails on their phone without fantasizing about throwing their iPhone across the room. If you can delete 50 emails in one sitting, you deserve to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, and you have to manually delete all these messages again from the trash, there's no empty trash button (only an auto-delete option buried deep within settings, which removes deleted emails never, or after a day, a week, or a month). We kid you not.Which brings us to our next serious email matter: the iPhone's complete lack of integration with Mail.app, OS X's powerful-enough mail client. We expected that if you're an email user, when you plug in your iPhone and iTunes says it's "syncing your mail accounts," that means it's actually comparing and moving messages between the device and Mail.app. Not so. In fact, the iPhone does not interact in any meaningful way with Mail.app, other than to simplify the setup on the iPhone by copying account settings over from the desktop client's settings. Specifically:
The POP mail you read on your iPhone does not show up as read in Mail.app after sync.
Sent messages on your iPhone are not synced to Mail.app's sent folder (you can automatically CC, but not BCC, yourself on every outgoing iPhone message, though).
Filters in Mail.app are not applied to incoming mail on the iPhone.
The iPhone keeps its own set of non-contact addresses you manually enter -- these are not copied over from Mail.app. What's more, the iPhone mail application has a number of other harsh shortcomings:
There is no BCC.
Messages on IMAP cannot even be marked as read.
No ability "mark all / selected" as read.
No empty trash option.
There is a save to draft, but there is no spellcheck. (We suppose that's because Apple thinks spellcheck should be inline with auto-correction as you type.)
Users can only download and view the latest 200 messages from their server -- there is no "retrieve all" messages option. This is a very bad thing when you just got off a trans-continental flight and it's time to triage some serious email. If we haven't already driven the point home, for heavy email users such as ourselves, the iPhone didn't even come close to cutting the mustard. Email is, in fact, the weakest aspect of the whole device. While the Yahoo push-IMAP worked beautifully (and we do mean flawlessly -- push mail was delivered instantaneously), the Gmail integration requires POP access, and basically has similar issues with fetching messages, magnified by the different organizational requirements the web mail service has. One Engadget editor called the Gmail integration "a crime against humanity" -- and let's be frank, it's not "years ahead of everything else," it's actually years behind even the simple Java Gmail app Google released a while ago.To us, a productivity device is anything that helps us Get Things Done while we're out and about, and email, web, and SMS are the holy trinity on a smartphone device. If any part of that trifecta is crap, the whole device may as well be crap. And unfortunately for us, even if you can put up with the keyboard, the Mail client is so awful it actually makes us wish Apple made a Foleo for the iPhone. An iFoleo, if you will. Anyway, if you're anything like us, this is a major, major dealbreaker.
Safari
Ease of use aside, there's no question that the iPhone's build of Safari serves up the most true-to-PC web browsing experience available for a phone today. Opera Mini and S60's native browser (which happens to be based on the same core as Safari, coincidentally) do commendable jobs, but the iPhone has taken it to the next level. Anyone who has used the Nokia 770 or N800 internet tablets will be roughly familiar with what the iPhone is trying to do here: render a page faithfully without trying to work any fit-to-screen magic, and give the user convenient options for zooming in on text.
Of course, it could be argued that the iPhone shouldn't even be trying to present a PC-like rendering of pages because it necessitates zooming. Emphasis on "necessitates" here -- you really can't go to any mainstream site on the iPhone and expect to glean useful information from it without dragging, double tapping, pinching, and unpinching your way around. Zooming in on a page produces an interesting transient display artifact: everything looks really fuzzy for just a moment, as though you've overzoomed on a low-resolution picture. (Microsoft's new Deepfish browser has a similar effect on zoom-in.) Granted, after a while the browsing motions become a little more natural, and we'd always prefer to have the option of seeing and interacting with sites that don't have dedicated mobile versions. WAP is supported, but Safari isn't detected as a mobile browser, so you need to specifically navigate to the WAP version if the site you're trying to visit has automatic browser detection.
Bookmarks are supported and automatically synchronized with Safari on the host computer; adding a new bookmark is a simple matter of hitting the "+" button in the address bar, naming the bookmark, selecting a destination folder, and hitting Save. Mobile Safari's meager four-button toolbar along the bottom edge dedicates a button for this, along with forward, backward, and tabs. The tab implementation is pretty clever -- all you see on the tab button is a count of the number of tabs currently open (or nothing if your current page is the only tab). Tapping the button takes you to a Cover Flow-esque display that shows a small view of each tab; flicking left and right changes tabs and tapping opens a tab. A red X in the upper left and corner of each tab's display allows you to close it.
Of all the iPhone's wares, Safari most thoroughly implements rotation detection, which makes sense considering that most sites are designed with a landscape display in mind. The phone can be held vertically, 90 degrees clockwise, or 90 degrees counterclockwise, and the currently displayed page will be rotated (complete with a nifty animation, naturally) to fill up the screen. Safari is also the only iPhone app to implement the horizontal keyboard, which some will find far easier to use than its more ubiquitous vertical counterpart. One small complaint we have here is that if you have the keyboard up and rotate the phone, the page and keyboard won't reorient -- you have to manually close the keyboard with the Done button, at which point the page will do its thing and you can bring up the keyboard again in the correct orientation.On the iPhone, Safari is boiled down to the very most basic set of features necessary to do its thing, but the rendering engine is true to the original, for better or for worse. Take Gmail, for example; just like Safari on the desktop, there's a screwy looking little box immediately to the left of the subject line of each email in the inbox if you have personal level indicators enabled. It works, but it's a very Safari-esque experience -- Safari users will feel right at home, but folks coming from other browsers might run into the occasional surprise when hitting up sites optimized for Internet Explorer or Firefox.On the subject of Gmail, Ajax-enabled sites are hit or miss. One gotcha is that there's no gesture to simulate a double-click, so it's impossible to open up a new IM window in Meebo by double-tapping a contact, for example (though we were able to initiate one using the IM Buddy button on the buddy list). Google Documents worked okay for reading text and spreadsheets, but we weren't able to edit anything. A good rule of thumb here: if it's not designed specifically for the iPhone, keep your expectations to a minimum until you try it out yourself.
Unfortunately, Safari seems to share more than just a rendering engine with its distant S60-based cousin. Specifically, we've had some problems with stability -- the browser will often unceremoniously disappear from time to time. We have no problem opening it back up (and the offending page works the second time more often than not), but it's still a pain in the ass. It seems like the number of open tabs (and hence, memory consumption) might be at least one of the culprits, but we've yet to find any reproducible scenarios. Mobile browsers aren't typically the most stable pieces of software around, so we've gotta say we're not terribly surprised. Here's hoping future firmware updates shore up the goods just a little bit.
iPod / media functionalityHistorically, we haven't been huge fans of the iPod. We've found its interface generally simple, but irritating to navigate; its lack of numerous basic features other devices have long since had, like the ability to create multiple playlists on the go, has persisted as the iPod has undergone very conservative functionality additions through the years. Whereas our biggest complaint about the iPod -- its dire lack of codec support -- hasn't been addressed in the iPhone, its user interface definitely has.
Playing back music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, etc. has never been easier on an iPod, or more more seamlessly integrated into a phone. Most of the iPod interface has been revised to take advantage of the iPhone's massive touchscreen, so navigating artists and albums in lists is simple, where before it was a tedious, thumb-joint-popping experience. Tilting the device horizontally allows you to browse your music in Cover Flow mode, a novelty of breakthrough proportions. Tapping an album in Cover Flow mode lets you select which track to play.
When browsing in list mode, you get the same alphabet column on the right as you do with contacts. Again, keyboard search would have been nice here, but it's still far more livable than the click wheel. If you put your iPhone in sleep while listening to music, when waking it up instead of your usual background on the unlock screen you'll see the cover art of the album you're listening to, and the name of the track beneath the current time -- an extremely useful bit of glanceable information, saving you from having to dig through your mobile to see what's playing.
The media integration with the rest of the device is obviously far better than on any mobile we've seen to date -- but it's not without its issues. It's wonderful seeing SMS messages pop up while watching movies, for instance, but if you load up a YouTube video while listening to music, the audio automatically fades out when the video starts, but doesn't come back when the video ends. This is counter to the phone experience, where an incoming call pauses your music and brings it back when the call is over. We also noticed that even while under heavy load multitasking, the music would never skip or falter, just crash.
We managed to continuously crash the iPod app while listening to music and doing other things, namely browsing. We wouldn't call it incredibly unstable, but we wouldn't say it's rock solid, either. Movie playback did seem very stable though, even when skipping around and playing video for long periods of time. (It may also be of note that even when playing video for hours on end the device hardly ever even got warm to the touch.) The biggest upshot we found on the media playback, though, was the iPhone's Herculean battery life. We've seen other reviews' media playback results vary, but ours seemed to jump far ahead of even Apple's lofty expectations.Playing relatively high bitrate VGA H.264 videos, our iPhone lasted almost exactly 9 freaking hours of continuous playback with cell and WiFi on (but Bluetooth off). Yeah, we had to pick our jaws up off the floor, too. So by our tests, you could watch a two hour movie and drain off a little more than 22% of the battery -- totally acceptable for trip-taking and the like.Our music testing showed similarly outstanding results. Playing back 160-192Kbps MP3s, our iPhone pushed about 29 hours and 30 minutes music playback. To put that in perspective, the Apple claims the iPod nano gets about 24 hours playback on a full charge, and the iPod a scant 14 - 20 hours.To do a little simple math, you could watch two hours of video, listen to 8 straight hours of music, and still have only drained off less than half your device's capacity -- that is, if your iPhone's battery works as well as ours. (Read: your battery life may differ.) Still, if that's a good estimate of what users can expect from their device's power drain, you should have little issue making the iPhone your music and video player, in addition to your cellphone.
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iPhone review, part 3: Apps and settings, camera, iTunes, wrap-up
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SMS Sporting a bubbly, iChat-like interface, the SMS app mercifully threads messages, an idea Palm hatched for its Treo devices many moons ago. Users of the threaded setup became immediately addicted to it, making it difficult to move back to plain old flat SMS (darn you, Palm!) and leaving us wondering why other manufacturers didn't follow suit. Granted, the inherent 160-character limit and sometimes exorbitant per-text rates have always left traditional SMS with a paper disadvantage against data-based instant messaging, but ultimately the Short Message Service's worldwide ubiquity has crowned it the "killer app" for mobile textual communication anyway. So why not make it all purty?
Indeed, if we had to boil the iPhone's SMS down to a one-word description, "purty" would certainly be a finalist. The app's simple enough; messages from numbers that don't already have a "conversation" going get added as a new entry in the main grid. Swiping to the right on a line item here presents an option to delete the conversation entirely, while tapping it opens the bubbly goodness. At the very top, call and contact info buttons appear for contacts already in your address book; contact info is replaced with add to contacts for numbers that aren't. Below the conversation, a text field and send button do exactly what they imply. Hitting send brings up a progress bar that prevents you from doing anything else in the SMS app until the current message has been successfully sent, although you can still hit the home button and use other apps.When a message is received, you get a popup with the contact name (or number) and the message text, regardless of whether you're on a call. If you're anywhere but the standby screen, you also get ignore and view buttons; ignore will return you to your previously scheduled programming, while view sends you straight to the conversation. Like Mail, SMS shows a red circle near its icon when there are unread texts.The cutesy, drop dead simple interface doesn't come without a price, though. First of all, the SMS app is about as configurable as a DynaTAC 8000 (yep, that's pre-Zack Morris for you young'uns in the audience). Don't like your messages threaded? Sorry. Want red bubbles instead of green? Tough luck! We guess SMS alerts from our bank warning us that our checking account balance is under $50 are somehow less bothersome when presented in a shiny, rounded bubble, but we'd at least like the option of going old-school if we're so inclined.Secondly, there's no rhyme or reason to when timestamps appear. That's fine -- we get the idea, they appear when there's been a significant lapse in communication -- but we want to be able to hold down on a specific bubble to get that level of detail then. And finally, SMS offers no character counter or multi-message warning, features available on virtually every other handset on the market. The phone seems pretty smart about reassembling multiple messages into a single bubble, but that's still no reason to lull us into the false sense that this is a true IM service, especially when AT&T's default package for the iPhone only has 200 messages. And believe it or not, some of us still don't have devices that can reassemble multi-text messages anyway.
Calendar
The iPhone's calendar may possibly be the most usable we've ever seen on a cellphone -- but most of the credit there may be due to the device's massive screen. Most cellphone calendars are difficult to use, but not for lack of effort, it's for lack of screen real estate. The iPhone's huge, high res display makes it possible to get a month-view while also having enough room to show each day's events below. Dragging your finger around the days of the month instantly loads those appointments; all in all the calendar is very snappy, far more so than the mail client.Too bad we still had major problems syncing appointments made on the iPhone back to our our desktop iCal calendar. It just wouldn't happen. Appointments we created on the iPhone refused to show up on the desktop, and about half the time during sync our iPhone-created appointments would actually get deleted entirely from the device. (This may be something screwy with our phone, so we'll assume it's not expected behavior.) Appointments created on the desktop sync over fine, however, and we had no issues there -- so just be sure that you never need to make an appointment in your iPhone calendar when you're on the go. Kidding!Another issue we had with the calendar is its refusal to inherit color coding from desktop calendars, or in any way display in which calendar an appointment was made. If you're anything like us, you have a few calendars, like one for personal, work, birthdays, spouse, etc. Well, if that's the case then it sucks to be you, because all those calendars' appointments look exactly the same in the iPhone (and unlike desktop iCal, you can't set a time zone for an appointment). The iPhone calendar also lacks a week-view mode, but supplants a pretty useful appointment list instead. We wish we could take a short appointment list summary and drop it in our unlock screen -- the day's appointments is some incredibly valuable information that you shouldn't have to start, unlock, and then hit calendar to retrieve.
Photos and camera
So here's how we're picturing that this went down inside Apple HQ: there's like a couple months left before the iPhone's release, and suddenly the team realizes that they haven't created the software for the camera. They then proceed to spend five weeks on cute animations and one week on actual functionality. Yes, yes, we're quite sure that's a gross exaggeration, but we just can't remember the last time we've used a phone camera with this little functionality. Then again, maybe that's a good thing for some.When the Camera app is opened, you get a giant viewfinder and two buttons along the bottom. The large button in the middle snaps the picture and the smaller button to the left moves you to the camera roll, which is simply a special photo album within the Photos app. We understand that packing a larger sensor or a decent flash would've sacrificed more thickness and battery life than Apple was willing, but that's still no excuse to leave us without even a single configurable parameter for the camera. No scene selection, no digital zoom, no destination album, nothing.Pressing the shutter button causes a shutter animation to collapse momentarily over the viewfinder; a moment later, the just-taken picture becomes translucent and collapses down into the camera roll icon. Both animations are kinda cool but totally unnecessary. The viewfinder's refresh rate is decent -- but not even close to real realtime -- and it's far from the best we've seen. We'd estimate it's humming along at 7 or 10fps.Enough grousing, though; on to picture quality. For two megapixels, no autofocus, and no flash, we're about as impressed as we can be. Compared to the Nokia N76 -- another 2 megapixel cameraphone we've recently spent some time with -- the iPhone's pictures consistently came out clearer and with far less pixel noise. That said, it's still a lousy sensor by even ultra low-end dedicated camera standards, so we'd recommend this not be used in the field for anything but the occasional candid shot.As we mentioned, snapped photos hightail themselves over to the Photos app. The iPhone appears as a digital camera to the computer, so it'll bust open iPhoto on the Mac while PCs can configure it to import to a folder. Photo albums already on your computer (in iPhoto, Aperture, or a particular folder) can be configured to be automatically synced to Photos as well.When Photos first opens, the user is asked which album to browse; the name of the album is shown along with the number of pictures in the album. Tapping an album brings up a flickable thumbnail view of all photos within it. Here you can either tap a particular picture to bring it full screen or tap the play button at the bottom of the display to kick off a slide show. Slide show options are configured in the iPhone's settings: duration to show each photo, transition effect, repeat, and shuffle. The transitions are, for lack of better verbiage, freaking awesome ("Ripple" is our favorite).
Calling up an individual photo brings up a view that is navigationally very similar to Notes, an app that we'll be taking a look at shortly. The photo dominates the screen, while buttons at the bottom allow you to export the photo (to wallpaper, email, but only in VGA, or a contact), move to the previous / next photos, kick off a slide show, or delete the pic you're looking at. Unlike Notes, however, the interface disappears after a moment to allow you to see the entire picture unobstructed by the user interface; pinching and unpinching here will cause the displayed picture to zoom in and out.Photos also offers a couple extra goodies here that Notes does not. First, the iPhone can be rotated here as it can in Safari -- but interestingly, it can be rotated in all four orientations versus Safari's three. Second, swiping left and right moves from photo to photo. If you tap and hold, the movement will stop even if you're halfway between two photos (think of it like a roll of film), but flicking fast will not spin through multiple photos like with textual lists (iPod, Contacts, etc.). Why the left and right swipes weren't implemented in Notes, we don't know, but we're pretty bummed about it.
YouTubeHaving rolled out YouTube support for Apple TV recently and given the service its very own icon on the iPhone's home screen, it seems Apple has suddenly decided that the mother of all video sites is a key part of its entertainment portfolio. Though it's a fairly impressive and particularly feature-rich component of the handset, it's not a perfect reproduction of the desktop YouTube experience (not to suggest we won't still be capable of wasting hundreds of hours on it, of course).Opening YouTube presents an interface whose flexibility and searchability is really rivaled by nothing else on the iPhone -- not even the iPod app. Along the bottom is a toolbar with five buttons: Featured, Most Viewed, Bookmarks, Search, and More. More is really a catch-all for three other buttons that wouldn't fit on the toolbar: Most Recent, Top Rated, and History (though the toolbar can be reconfigured using the edit button, like the iPod). Lets walk through these one at a time.
Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent, and Top Rated all roughly equate to their equivalent lists on the YouTube page, though not exactly one-to-one. We're guessing the differences are thanks to YouTube's and Apple's inability to re-encode every single video into an iPhone-friendly format in a timely fashion. Most Viewed is further divided into All, Today, and This Week with toggle buttons at the top.The grid view used in both of these views is fabulous, featuring a thumbnail of the video, the name, rating, number of views, length, and the uploading user's name. Tapping the blue arrow to the right of the video brings up yet more information in a new screen, including the full description, date added, category, tags, and a list of related videos. You also have Bookmark and Share buttons here; the former adds this video to your Bookmarks view, while the latter creates a template email with the video's URL embedded.Bookmarks contains a list of all videos that have been bookmarked on the device. Note that this is not the same favorites list found in your YouTube login -- in fact, it's not even possible to log in to one's YouTube account on the iPhone (unlike the Apple TV). The grid view here is the same one found in Featured and Most Viewed with the addition of an edit button at the top right; tapping it allows videos to be removed from the list. Inexplicably, the wipe gesture used in SMS and email isn't used here either, but rather the red circle that makes a few appearances throughout the phone.Search is, well, a search function. Tapping on the field at the top calls up the keyboard and search results appear in the grid underneath. It appears to use essentially the same logic as that on YouTube's website, though just like Featured and Most Viewed, you'll get fewer videos here since not everything has been re-encoded to the iPhone's liking just yet. History simply shows a chronological list of the most recently played videos on the device -- and rest easy, it can be cleared with a Clear button in the upper right.
Moving on to playback, this is where we're struggling a bit. We want to like this app over EDGE, we really do, but as we mentioned before, it's just a little too flaky to be much fun. Load times are long -- 15 seconds or longer, with an occasional spike as high as one minute in our testing -- and we'd sometimes get mysterious error messages saying that videos can't be played. Add in the fact that the playback resolution and bitrate is automatically "optimized" (read: scaled way down) for EDGE, and frankly, it's just more trouble than it's worth.Over WiFi, though, it's a different story altogether. Videos load quickly and the resolution seems perfectly suited for the iPhone's glorious display. During playback, controls include a scrubber, done button for returning to the video list, and a toggle switch for moving between a letterbox and stretched view (this bearing in mind that the iPhone's aspect ratio is wider than YouTube's) all along the top. At the bottom you get a volume control, bookmark button, previous and next buttons for moving to different videos in the grid, play / pause, and an envelope icon that fires up a template email the same as the share button found when viewing a video's details. For some reason, the YouTube app forces video lists to be shown in portrait and playback to be landscape -- the rotation sensor has no bearing here whatsoever, same as in iPod playing video.
Stocks
Stocks bears some striking resemblances to its cousin, the Dashboard widget of the same name. The main displays are virtually indistinguishable, though the iPhone version trades its Mac equivalent's blue background for black. Like Weather, Stocks loses its Dashboard data provider (Quote.com in this case) and adds a "Y!" logo in the lower left that, when tapped, takes the user to a Yahoo! Mobile page with a variety of information for the highlighted stock. The performance graphs at the bottom take several seconds to load, and like everything else, take longer over EDGE -- a little more than twice as long in our informal testing. Interestingly, the longer time spans took longer to load, which means they seem to actually be loading more data in the background instead of aggregating it at a lower resolution on the back end. Over EDGE, 2-year stock graphs took on average around 7 seconds to load, while on the other end of the spectrum, 1-day graphs took about 2.5 seconds. Averages -- DJIA, for example -- seem to take marginally longer. Data never appears to be cached here, so every time you tap on a different time span, you've got to wait for the data to load again.
Configuring Stocks is a simple affair; the only options are adding / removing stocks and selecting whether price changes should be displayed by value or percentage.In both cases, positive changes are shown as a green box and negative are in red. Companies can be added by symbol, full, or partial name; a results grid shows symbols that match your entered term. Annoyingly, there's no way to change the order in which stocks are listed, except but to re-enter them in the desired order.
Google maps
Using Google maps on most smartphones is an absolute pleasure. The Windows Mobile and Palm OS Gmaps apps are just fantastic -- and the iPhone ranks among them. Apple supposedly spent a lot of time working on this one (Google has historically released all its own mobile apps), and it shows. Map loads are reasonable even over EDGE (and expectedly snappy on WiFi), and being able to easily search Google local, pull up a number and address in a contact card, then call that location and route directions to it, that is an amazing mobile maps experience. Too bad the iPhone can't make use of a Bluetooth GPS receiver (wink, wink Apple!).We wish the maps app recognized a search for "home" so we could return to a default location at or near our residence (without typing it in), but users can set map bookmarks for repeat use. The traffic alerts system is also pretty impressive, but it doesn't work for all roads and freeways, so your mileage may vary (har) on that. Pulling up the satellite view on the iPhone is a thing to behold -- the crisp display shows an extraordinary amount of detail for such a small device.Our biggest complaint about the maps app, though, is something we mentioned earlier: inconsistent gesture input. Gmaps is the only app in the iPhone where two-finger single tap zooms out. This is something one can get used to, but it's still pretty disorienting, and we've found ourselves inadvertently trying the Gmaps two-finger zoom out in other apps, obviously with little result.
Weather
Anyone familiar with Mac OS X's preinstalled weather widget will feel right at home here (right down to the static Sunny / 73° icon, which we would've much preferred be updated regularly for our home city). Naturally, the layout is more vertical on the iPhone to accommodate the taller screen (and coincidentally, it seems you can't hold the phone sideways to get a landscape version of the widget). While the Dashboard widget uses AccuWeather as its data provider, the iPhone has made the jump to Yahoo! with a new "Y!" logo appearing in the lower left -- an homage to Apple's newfound relationship with the company to launch that push-IMAP email, perhaps. Pressing the logo pulls up Safari and directs you to a Yahoo! Mobile page with weather, news, events, and Flickr photos for the selected city.Configuration for the widget is about as basic as it could possibly get: hit the ubiquitous "i" icon in the lower right, select your cities and your preferred unit of temperature, and you're done. In light of the simplicity and overall lack of configurability of the phone, we're a little surprised they even bothered to offer a unit selection since the device is currently only offered in the US, but we know not everyone grew up here, and we're certainly not complaining. After you've selected your cities and hit done, you're returned to the widget's primary display. Multiple cities are indicated as small dots at the bottom of the screen, while flicking left and right changes cities. Notably, the order you enter cities is the order they'll appear -- there's no way to change that without deleting and reentering, like stocks.
Clock
Jet setters and chefs should appreciate the Clock widget, one of the better implementations of a world clock and timer (among other things) we've seen on a phone. Clock bears little resemblance to its Dashboard cousin (but that's not a bad thing). It also shares a rather unfortunate trait with Weather in that its icon doesn't reflect reality -- the time is permanently fixed at 10:15. We suppose the decision to keep it static was made because you can clearly see the time at the top of the home screen anyway, but it would've been a nice touch anyway considering that the Calendar icon reflects the actual date.At the bottom of Clock there are four buttons: World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer. All four function pretty much the way you'd expect. The World Clock function is great in that each selected city shows its name and an analog clock followed by a digital clock and an indication of whether the locale is yesterday, today, or tomorrow (crazy International Date Line antics!). Unlike Weather and Stocks, cities can be reordered here by dragging on the "ribbed" area at the right while in Edit mode.
The Alarm page lets you add pretty much as many alarms as you like (we had ten going). The functionality here is great; for each alarm you can select what days it's active, what sound should be played, whether Snooze is available, and the alarm's name when viewed in the grid of all alarms. The time is selected with a slot machine-style series of rollers, one each for hour, minute, and AM / PM. Once options are set up and you return to the grid, each alarm can individually be turned on and off with a switch. Having any of them set to active causes a clock icon to appear in the status bar at the top of the screen.Stopwatch and Timer are both extraordinarily simple goodies, but even so, it's still possible to make them extraordinarily unintuitive. Thankfully, the iPhone's aren't. Stopwatch simply gives the time broken down in minutes, seconds, and tenths (plus hours on the far left when you get that far) with a start and reset button; when the time is all zeroes, Reset is grayed out. Hitting start turns the left button to stop and the right button to lap. Pressing lap will add the split time to the grid directly below the buttons along with an indicator of the lap number. Hit stop, and the start and reset buttons return. Hitting Rreset will clear split times as well. The sleep behavior of the phone seems a little indeterminate while the stopwatch is running -- sometimes the screen dims, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it stays wide awake. We couldn't nail down what (if anything) determined the phone's behavior here. Happily, you can leave the Clock app and go about your business and the stopwatch will continue running -- you can even use other parts of the Clock app itself.
As for Timer, you're presented with two slot machine-style dials, one for hour and one for minute. Below, a button asks you which sound should play when the timer expires, followed by the start button (which changes to cancel once the timer has been kicked off). Unfortunately, you cannot run multiple timers simultaneously.
Calculator
There's very little to be said about the Calculator widget -- and let's be honest, that's exactly how a simple calculator should be. You enter your digits, you do your arithmetic, and you get on with life. This particular widget has undergone a full redesign from the calculator found in Mac OS, taking on darker colors for the buttons and the background and a blue, 3D-look display. Gone are the segmented digits, replaced by a traditional smooth font (in other words, Apple wasn't too concerned about making this thing look exactly like a physical four-function calculator).Missing from the iPhone, though, are dedicated scientific / graphing calculators, or, perhaps more usefully, a tip calculator. We think any would be nice to have, and this device definitely has the necessary screen real estate to make them functional and visually appealing. In fact, the iPhone's screen is so big that a simple four-function calculator looks just a little too sparse, although it certainly makes the buttons easy to press.
Notes
Font look familiar? It should -- the iPhone Notes app ganks the Marker Felt font, perhaps best known as the default font in Stickies. Frankly, we could do without it, or at the very least we'd like an option to change it to something a little simpler and less Comic Sans-like (the iPhone's systemwide font would've been just fine, thanks). Adding a note is accomplished by clicking the "+" button found in several iPhone apps; the new note is automatically timestamped and titled based on the first line of text that you write. While editing, two buttons appear in the title bar directly above the yellow pad -- both save the note, but the Notes button kicks you back out to the list of all notes, while the done button keeps you in a read-only view of the current note. We really would've liked a cancel button here, too.In the read-only view, four icons appear at the bottom of the screen in the same casual, fun style as the font. The far left and right icons move from note to note (seems like there should be a swipe gesture here that'll accomplish the same function), the envelope creates an email with the note as the body and the first line as the subject, and the trash can predictably deletes the note. Strangely, there is no other way we can find to delete a note -- you must be looking at it to trash it. Also, we found ourselves instinctively rotating the phone from time to time in Notes, but sadly, you won't find any landscape mode here. And why no drawing capability? We're not asking for handwriting recognition or anything fancy like that, just the ability to doodle would've been a fabulous feature.
Settings
It's no secret, our favorite part of any cellphone and device is the settings area. We often find ourselves running to the settings before even making a call on a new phone or playing back some video on a new media device. When it comes to settings, by and large the iPhone doesn't disappoint. We won't go over every nook and cranny (we could do a feature on just the menus and submenus and subsubmenus... in this thing), but here are some highlights:Airplane mode - Super easy toggle, works instantaneously.Usage - Doesn't show percentage of battery remaining (lame), but does show all of your current usage stats, like standby time since last charge, etc.Sound - Comprehensive yet simple sound behavior settings, lots of toggles.Date & Time - Has a setting for time zone support on / off in calendar, convenient if you do / don't travel a lot.Network - VPN settings (supports L2TP and PPTP); WiFi settings allow you to select DHCP, BootP, or static IP address, as well as no, manual, or auto HTTP proxy.
Bluetooth - Extremely straightforward and usable interface for Bluetooth; discoverable is switched off by default, but turned on only for the duration of time you're in the Bluetooth menu. Pairing is very simple, although we kind of hoped it would use the Sidekick system of attempting common Bluetooth PINs so you don't have to remember which your headset uses, 1111, 0000, etc. Oh, and you can pair your iPhone with most anything, but don't expect it to actually do something once paired -- almost all Bluetooth profiles are disabled.Keyboard - Allows you to enable / disable auto-capitalization and caps lock.Mail - Add, delete accounts (types include POP3, IMAP, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, .mac, and Exchange IMAP, but not Exchange EAS), auto-check messages (manual, 15, 30, or 60 minutes), message preview (0 - 5 lines), CC myself on / off, signature, etc.Phone - Contact sort / display order, call fwding, call waiting, caller ID (no option to only show ID to known contacts), and way at the bottom, the awesome AT&T services menu that remembers the codes for things like checking bill balance, viewing minutes, etc.Safari - Set your search engine (Google, Yahoo), on / off switches for JavaScript, plug-ins (what plug ins?), pop-ups. There's also a cookies menu, and clear history / cookies / cache buttons.iPod - Audiobook speed, EQ, volume limiter, etc.
iTunes, activation, and syncAs with the iPod, setting up and syncing the iPhone in iTunes is meant to be an incredibly easy experience, and for the most part it is. You're (obviously) required to have iTunes 7.3 to get it going, bet starting the guided activation setup is as easy as plugging in your phone. Although a huge number of people had understandably maddening issues during launch that caused them to be unable to use their new phones for up to a couple of days, we were able to burn through a number of different types of activations (new AT&T customer, existing AT&T customer, non-ported number, ported number, etc.) on about a half dozen phones, each in under 10 minutes -- none had any issues. It stands to reason that as the initial sales glut for the iPhone fades, this process will only become more stable.Once your device is recognized by iTunes, you can select which contacts groups, calendars, music, movies, podcasts, etc. you want to drop onto the iPhone. It took us under a minute to sync a couple hundred contacts, and not much more to do a few hundred calendar appointments. We moved about 1.5GB of music and movies over to the device in about 10 minutes -- that's a little more than 2.5MB per second. Not unbelievably fast, but if you wanted to completely refresh the entire capacity of your iPhone, that process would take under 50 minutes, which is reasonable enough. Syncing photos with your desktop is less automated than we would have liked. On a Mac, users are expected to pop open iPhoto and import manually. iTunes also backs up your iPhone's non-synced settings, such as SMS conversations, notes, call history, contact faves, sound settings, and so on. We tried it out, and sure enough, it worked well enough -- even saved our browser history. WiFi passwords? Naw, not so much.Not surprisingly, syncing to a PC is a different experience than syncing to a Mac. PC users shouldn't expect to have the iPhone take advantage of all of Vista's new iLife-like lifestyle software suite (Windows Mail, Calendar, Address Book, etc.), users can only use Outlook (not Outlook Express) to sync content. On a PC sync worked perfectly, strangely enough (considering it worked less than perfectly on a Mac). Outlook was kind enough to copy contacts and calendar appointments back and forth with ease. It was almost eerie watching an iPhone interact better with a PC and Microsoft software than with a Mac and Apple software, but kudos to Cupertino for not leaving Windows users out in the cold on this one.
Data performanceApple and AT&T are banking that a two-line attack of WiFi plus a recently-enhanced EDGE network is going to quell the call for 3G in the iPhone -- in its first iteration, anyway. We see at least three problems with that approach. First, UMTS employs a more advanced vocoder than 2G does, so we're losing out on the opportunity for moderately improved voice quality. Second, on its best day, EDGE is sill an order of magnitude slower than HSDPA on its worst day (we're talking about both throughput and latency here, with the latter often being a better indicator of perceived speed). Third -- and perhaps most importantly -- AT&T's EDGE network can't support simultaneous voice and data. Read: if you're moving data to or from your iPhone, calls will go straight to voicemail. Big time bummer. The thought of browsing with Safari on the iPhone's magnificent display while chatting on Bluetooth is a seductive one, but it ain't gonna happen.That being said, is EDGE bearable for the iPhone's core services? We'd sorta expected that Apple would've fine-tuned all of the iPhone's first-party apps to behave reasonably well regardless of what kind of data network you were feeding on, but we found that wasn't necessarily the case. Browsing in Safari was a generally satisfying experience (thanks partly to the fact that typically-large embedded Flash objects don't load), ditto for Mail, Weather, and Stocks, but YouTube really tried our patience.For a couple hours after activating the phone, we couldn't play videos period -- possibly because YouTube's and Apple's servers were being hit so hard by new owners putting their handsets through their paces -- but once we could finally get things going, we were left disappointed by load times, buffering issues, and errors. To put things in perspective, videos consistently started playing within four seconds on WiFi, whereas YouTube frequently ran over fifteen seconds. Our high was a staggering 58.1 seconds!
We guess we could live with an average of fifteen seconds, though, if they always ended up playing. They didn't. When on EDGE, we'd estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the videos we try to play churn for a few seconds then bring up a message simply (and unhelpfully) informing us that the movie can't be played. Maybe the oddest bit of all this YouTube drama is that the videos run at a much lower resolution on EDGE than they do on WiFi, obviously in an attempt to make load times reasonable and streaming possible. Perhaps that sitch will improve over time with better encoding, better EDGE, and firmware upgrades -- but for now, we're declaring YouTube a WiFi-only app.On that note, WiFi is a breath of fresh air that turns the iPhone into a data-munching powerhouse. Annoyances like slow load times in YouTube and Maps melt away, generally giving the device a very different feel. The iPhone's WiFi implementation is seamless but moderately annoying out of the box; by default, the phone regularly prompts you if you want to connect to the strongest available network, which gets old really fast, especially when walking down the street. This can be turned off from the WiFi settings, which is prominently placed near the top of the settings app -- second item, in fact, right after the Airplane Mode toggle.Other WiFi settings include a switch for the WiFi radio (not to be confused with Airplane Mode, which'll also disable the cell radio and Bluetooth) and a list of nearby SSIDs which is automatically populated when you enter the screen and refreshed about every eight seconds. Next to each network's SSID is an icon indicating whether encryption is being used, a three-bar signal strength indicator, and a blue arrow that you tap for advanced configuration (more on that in a moment). Simply tapping the SSID will connect you to the network, or if a WEP key or WPA password is necessary, you'll be prompted.After the connection is successful, the "E" icon in the status bar is replaced with a signal strength indicator -- not the most obvious way of showing that you're connected to WiFi, but sure, we get the point. If a particular network requires advanced configuration, you can tap the blue arrow at the far right which displays the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and so on (if you're already connected), allows you to choose a method of IP address acquisition (DHCP, BootIP, or static), and set an HTTP proxy if necessary. If the network is already "remembered" for the phone, a "Forget this Network" button appears at the top to kill it from your preferred list.
Wrap-upWe're not huge fans of "conclusions" in reviews -- or number systems, or one liner pros / cons / bottom-lines for that matter. Devices have become so feature-rich over the years that potential buyers' decisions can be made or broken on the support, quality, or integration of just one or two features. For us that's exactly the case with the iPhone -- although the list of things it doesn't do is as long as the list of things it does, it's only a few small, but severe, issues about the device that truly galvanizes our opinion of it.It's easy to see the device is extraordinarily simple to use for such a full-featured phone and media player. Apple makes creating the spartan, simplified UI look oh so easy -- but we know it's not, and the devil's always in the details when it comes to portables. To date no one's made a phone that does so much with so little, and despite the numerous foibles of the iPhone's gesture-based touchscreen interface, the learning curve is surprisingly low. It's totally clear that with the iPhone, Apple raised the bar not only for the cellphone, but for portable media players and multifunction convergence devices in general.But getting things done with the iPhone isn't easy, and anyone looking for a productivity device will probably need to look on. Its browser falls pretty short of the "internet in your pocket" claims Apple's made, and even though it's still easily the most advanced mobile browser on the market, its constant crashing doesn't exactly seal the deal. The iPhone's Mail app -- from its myriad missing features to its un-integrated POP mail experience to its obsolete method of accessing your Gmail -- makes email on the iPhone a huge chore at best.For us, the most interesting thing about the iPhone is its genesis and position in the market. Apple somehow managed to convince one of the most conservative wireless carriers in the world, AT&T (then Cingular), not only to buy into its device sight-unseen, but to readjust its whole philosophy of how a device and carrier should work together (as evidenced by the radically modernized and personalized activation process). Only a few days after launch it's easy to see June 29th as a watershed moment that crystalized the fact that consumers will pay more for a device that does more -- and treats them like a human being, not a cellphone engineer. Imagine that.But is the iPhone worth the two year contract with the oft-maligned AT&T and its steep price of admission? Hopefully we gave you enough information about the iPhone's every detail to make an informed decision -- despite the iPhone's many shortcomings, we suspect the answer for countless consumers will be a resounding yes.
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SMS Sporting a bubbly, iChat-like interface, the SMS app mercifully threads messages, an idea Palm hatched for its Treo devices many moons ago. Users of the threaded setup became immediately addicted to it, making it difficult to move back to plain old flat SMS (darn you, Palm!) and leaving us wondering why other manufacturers didn't follow suit. Granted, the inherent 160-character limit and sometimes exorbitant per-text rates have always left traditional SMS with a paper disadvantage against data-based instant messaging, but ultimately the Short Message Service's worldwide ubiquity has crowned it the "killer app" for mobile textual communication anyway. So why not make it all purty?
Indeed, if we had to boil the iPhone's SMS down to a one-word description, "purty" would certainly be a finalist. The app's simple enough; messages from numbers that don't already have a "conversation" going get added as a new entry in the main grid. Swiping to the right on a line item here presents an option to delete the conversation entirely, while tapping it opens the bubbly goodness. At the very top, call and contact info buttons appear for contacts already in your address book; contact info is replaced with add to contacts for numbers that aren't. Below the conversation, a text field and send button do exactly what they imply. Hitting send brings up a progress bar that prevents you from doing anything else in the SMS app until the current message has been successfully sent, although you can still hit the home button and use other apps.When a message is received, you get a popup with the contact name (or number) and the message text, regardless of whether you're on a call. If you're anywhere but the standby screen, you also get ignore and view buttons; ignore will return you to your previously scheduled programming, while view sends you straight to the conversation. Like Mail, SMS shows a red circle near its icon when there are unread texts.The cutesy, drop dead simple interface doesn't come without a price, though. First of all, the SMS app is about as configurable as a DynaTAC 8000 (yep, that's pre-Zack Morris for you young'uns in the audience). Don't like your messages threaded? Sorry. Want red bubbles instead of green? Tough luck! We guess SMS alerts from our bank warning us that our checking account balance is under $50 are somehow less bothersome when presented in a shiny, rounded bubble, but we'd at least like the option of going old-school if we're so inclined.Secondly, there's no rhyme or reason to when timestamps appear. That's fine -- we get the idea, they appear when there's been a significant lapse in communication -- but we want to be able to hold down on a specific bubble to get that level of detail then. And finally, SMS offers no character counter or multi-message warning, features available on virtually every other handset on the market. The phone seems pretty smart about reassembling multiple messages into a single bubble, but that's still no reason to lull us into the false sense that this is a true IM service, especially when AT&T's default package for the iPhone only has 200 messages. And believe it or not, some of us still don't have devices that can reassemble multi-text messages anyway.
Calendar
The iPhone's calendar may possibly be the most usable we've ever seen on a cellphone -- but most of the credit there may be due to the device's massive screen. Most cellphone calendars are difficult to use, but not for lack of effort, it's for lack of screen real estate. The iPhone's huge, high res display makes it possible to get a month-view while also having enough room to show each day's events below. Dragging your finger around the days of the month instantly loads those appointments; all in all the calendar is very snappy, far more so than the mail client.Too bad we still had major problems syncing appointments made on the iPhone back to our our desktop iCal calendar. It just wouldn't happen. Appointments we created on the iPhone refused to show up on the desktop, and about half the time during sync our iPhone-created appointments would actually get deleted entirely from the device. (This may be something screwy with our phone, so we'll assume it's not expected behavior.) Appointments created on the desktop sync over fine, however, and we had no issues there -- so just be sure that you never need to make an appointment in your iPhone calendar when you're on the go. Kidding!Another issue we had with the calendar is its refusal to inherit color coding from desktop calendars, or in any way display in which calendar an appointment was made. If you're anything like us, you have a few calendars, like one for personal, work, birthdays, spouse, etc. Well, if that's the case then it sucks to be you, because all those calendars' appointments look exactly the same in the iPhone (and unlike desktop iCal, you can't set a time zone for an appointment). The iPhone calendar also lacks a week-view mode, but supplants a pretty useful appointment list instead. We wish we could take a short appointment list summary and drop it in our unlock screen -- the day's appointments is some incredibly valuable information that you shouldn't have to start, unlock, and then hit calendar to retrieve.
Photos and camera
So here's how we're picturing that this went down inside Apple HQ: there's like a couple months left before the iPhone's release, and suddenly the team realizes that they haven't created the software for the camera. They then proceed to spend five weeks on cute animations and one week on actual functionality. Yes, yes, we're quite sure that's a gross exaggeration, but we just can't remember the last time we've used a phone camera with this little functionality. Then again, maybe that's a good thing for some.When the Camera app is opened, you get a giant viewfinder and two buttons along the bottom. The large button in the middle snaps the picture and the smaller button to the left moves you to the camera roll, which is simply a special photo album within the Photos app. We understand that packing a larger sensor or a decent flash would've sacrificed more thickness and battery life than Apple was willing, but that's still no excuse to leave us without even a single configurable parameter for the camera. No scene selection, no digital zoom, no destination album, nothing.Pressing the shutter button causes a shutter animation to collapse momentarily over the viewfinder; a moment later, the just-taken picture becomes translucent and collapses down into the camera roll icon. Both animations are kinda cool but totally unnecessary. The viewfinder's refresh rate is decent -- but not even close to real realtime -- and it's far from the best we've seen. We'd estimate it's humming along at 7 or 10fps.Enough grousing, though; on to picture quality. For two megapixels, no autofocus, and no flash, we're about as impressed as we can be. Compared to the Nokia N76 -- another 2 megapixel cameraphone we've recently spent some time with -- the iPhone's pictures consistently came out clearer and with far less pixel noise. That said, it's still a lousy sensor by even ultra low-end dedicated camera standards, so we'd recommend this not be used in the field for anything but the occasional candid shot.As we mentioned, snapped photos hightail themselves over to the Photos app. The iPhone appears as a digital camera to the computer, so it'll bust open iPhoto on the Mac while PCs can configure it to import to a folder. Photo albums already on your computer (in iPhoto, Aperture, or a particular folder) can be configured to be automatically synced to Photos as well.When Photos first opens, the user is asked which album to browse; the name of the album is shown along with the number of pictures in the album. Tapping an album brings up a flickable thumbnail view of all photos within it. Here you can either tap a particular picture to bring it full screen or tap the play button at the bottom of the display to kick off a slide show. Slide show options are configured in the iPhone's settings: duration to show each photo, transition effect, repeat, and shuffle. The transitions are, for lack of better verbiage, freaking awesome ("Ripple" is our favorite).
Calling up an individual photo brings up a view that is navigationally very similar to Notes, an app that we'll be taking a look at shortly. The photo dominates the screen, while buttons at the bottom allow you to export the photo (to wallpaper, email, but only in VGA, or a contact), move to the previous / next photos, kick off a slide show, or delete the pic you're looking at. Unlike Notes, however, the interface disappears after a moment to allow you to see the entire picture unobstructed by the user interface; pinching and unpinching here will cause the displayed picture to zoom in and out.Photos also offers a couple extra goodies here that Notes does not. First, the iPhone can be rotated here as it can in Safari -- but interestingly, it can be rotated in all four orientations versus Safari's three. Second, swiping left and right moves from photo to photo. If you tap and hold, the movement will stop even if you're halfway between two photos (think of it like a roll of film), but flicking fast will not spin through multiple photos like with textual lists (iPod, Contacts, etc.). Why the left and right swipes weren't implemented in Notes, we don't know, but we're pretty bummed about it.
YouTubeHaving rolled out YouTube support for Apple TV recently and given the service its very own icon on the iPhone's home screen, it seems Apple has suddenly decided that the mother of all video sites is a key part of its entertainment portfolio. Though it's a fairly impressive and particularly feature-rich component of the handset, it's not a perfect reproduction of the desktop YouTube experience (not to suggest we won't still be capable of wasting hundreds of hours on it, of course).Opening YouTube presents an interface whose flexibility and searchability is really rivaled by nothing else on the iPhone -- not even the iPod app. Along the bottom is a toolbar with five buttons: Featured, Most Viewed, Bookmarks, Search, and More. More is really a catch-all for three other buttons that wouldn't fit on the toolbar: Most Recent, Top Rated, and History (though the toolbar can be reconfigured using the edit button, like the iPod). Lets walk through these one at a time.
Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent, and Top Rated all roughly equate to their equivalent lists on the YouTube page, though not exactly one-to-one. We're guessing the differences are thanks to YouTube's and Apple's inability to re-encode every single video into an iPhone-friendly format in a timely fashion. Most Viewed is further divided into All, Today, and This Week with toggle buttons at the top.The grid view used in both of these views is fabulous, featuring a thumbnail of the video, the name, rating, number of views, length, and the uploading user's name. Tapping the blue arrow to the right of the video brings up yet more information in a new screen, including the full description, date added, category, tags, and a list of related videos. You also have Bookmark and Share buttons here; the former adds this video to your Bookmarks view, while the latter creates a template email with the video's URL embedded.Bookmarks contains a list of all videos that have been bookmarked on the device. Note that this is not the same favorites list found in your YouTube login -- in fact, it's not even possible to log in to one's YouTube account on the iPhone (unlike the Apple TV). The grid view here is the same one found in Featured and Most Viewed with the addition of an edit button at the top right; tapping it allows videos to be removed from the list. Inexplicably, the wipe gesture used in SMS and email isn't used here either, but rather the red circle that makes a few appearances throughout the phone.Search is, well, a search function. Tapping on the field at the top calls up the keyboard and search results appear in the grid underneath. It appears to use essentially the same logic as that on YouTube's website, though just like Featured and Most Viewed, you'll get fewer videos here since not everything has been re-encoded to the iPhone's liking just yet. History simply shows a chronological list of the most recently played videos on the device -- and rest easy, it can be cleared with a Clear button in the upper right.
Moving on to playback, this is where we're struggling a bit. We want to like this app over EDGE, we really do, but as we mentioned before, it's just a little too flaky to be much fun. Load times are long -- 15 seconds or longer, with an occasional spike as high as one minute in our testing -- and we'd sometimes get mysterious error messages saying that videos can't be played. Add in the fact that the playback resolution and bitrate is automatically "optimized" (read: scaled way down) for EDGE, and frankly, it's just more trouble than it's worth.Over WiFi, though, it's a different story altogether. Videos load quickly and the resolution seems perfectly suited for the iPhone's glorious display. During playback, controls include a scrubber, done button for returning to the video list, and a toggle switch for moving between a letterbox and stretched view (this bearing in mind that the iPhone's aspect ratio is wider than YouTube's) all along the top. At the bottom you get a volume control, bookmark button, previous and next buttons for moving to different videos in the grid, play / pause, and an envelope icon that fires up a template email the same as the share button found when viewing a video's details. For some reason, the YouTube app forces video lists to be shown in portrait and playback to be landscape -- the rotation sensor has no bearing here whatsoever, same as in iPod playing video.
Stocks
Stocks bears some striking resemblances to its cousin, the Dashboard widget of the same name. The main displays are virtually indistinguishable, though the iPhone version trades its Mac equivalent's blue background for black. Like Weather, Stocks loses its Dashboard data provider (Quote.com in this case) and adds a "Y!" logo in the lower left that, when tapped, takes the user to a Yahoo! Mobile page with a variety of information for the highlighted stock. The performance graphs at the bottom take several seconds to load, and like everything else, take longer over EDGE -- a little more than twice as long in our informal testing. Interestingly, the longer time spans took longer to load, which means they seem to actually be loading more data in the background instead of aggregating it at a lower resolution on the back end. Over EDGE, 2-year stock graphs took on average around 7 seconds to load, while on the other end of the spectrum, 1-day graphs took about 2.5 seconds. Averages -- DJIA, for example -- seem to take marginally longer. Data never appears to be cached here, so every time you tap on a different time span, you've got to wait for the data to load again.
Configuring Stocks is a simple affair; the only options are adding / removing stocks and selecting whether price changes should be displayed by value or percentage.In both cases, positive changes are shown as a green box and negative are in red. Companies can be added by symbol, full, or partial name; a results grid shows symbols that match your entered term. Annoyingly, there's no way to change the order in which stocks are listed, except but to re-enter them in the desired order.
Google maps
Using Google maps on most smartphones is an absolute pleasure. The Windows Mobile and Palm OS Gmaps apps are just fantastic -- and the iPhone ranks among them. Apple supposedly spent a lot of time working on this one (Google has historically released all its own mobile apps), and it shows. Map loads are reasonable even over EDGE (and expectedly snappy on WiFi), and being able to easily search Google local, pull up a number and address in a contact card, then call that location and route directions to it, that is an amazing mobile maps experience. Too bad the iPhone can't make use of a Bluetooth GPS receiver (wink, wink Apple!).We wish the maps app recognized a search for "home" so we could return to a default location at or near our residence (without typing it in), but users can set map bookmarks for repeat use. The traffic alerts system is also pretty impressive, but it doesn't work for all roads and freeways, so your mileage may vary (har) on that. Pulling up the satellite view on the iPhone is a thing to behold -- the crisp display shows an extraordinary amount of detail for such a small device.Our biggest complaint about the maps app, though, is something we mentioned earlier: inconsistent gesture input. Gmaps is the only app in the iPhone where two-finger single tap zooms out. This is something one can get used to, but it's still pretty disorienting, and we've found ourselves inadvertently trying the Gmaps two-finger zoom out in other apps, obviously with little result.
Weather
Anyone familiar with Mac OS X's preinstalled weather widget will feel right at home here (right down to the static Sunny / 73° icon, which we would've much preferred be updated regularly for our home city). Naturally, the layout is more vertical on the iPhone to accommodate the taller screen (and coincidentally, it seems you can't hold the phone sideways to get a landscape version of the widget). While the Dashboard widget uses AccuWeather as its data provider, the iPhone has made the jump to Yahoo! with a new "Y!" logo appearing in the lower left -- an homage to Apple's newfound relationship with the company to launch that push-IMAP email, perhaps. Pressing the logo pulls up Safari and directs you to a Yahoo! Mobile page with weather, news, events, and Flickr photos for the selected city.Configuration for the widget is about as basic as it could possibly get: hit the ubiquitous "i" icon in the lower right, select your cities and your preferred unit of temperature, and you're done. In light of the simplicity and overall lack of configurability of the phone, we're a little surprised they even bothered to offer a unit selection since the device is currently only offered in the US, but we know not everyone grew up here, and we're certainly not complaining. After you've selected your cities and hit done, you're returned to the widget's primary display. Multiple cities are indicated as small dots at the bottom of the screen, while flicking left and right changes cities. Notably, the order you enter cities is the order they'll appear -- there's no way to change that without deleting and reentering, like stocks.
Clock
Jet setters and chefs should appreciate the Clock widget, one of the better implementations of a world clock and timer (among other things) we've seen on a phone. Clock bears little resemblance to its Dashboard cousin (but that's not a bad thing). It also shares a rather unfortunate trait with Weather in that its icon doesn't reflect reality -- the time is permanently fixed at 10:15. We suppose the decision to keep it static was made because you can clearly see the time at the top of the home screen anyway, but it would've been a nice touch anyway considering that the Calendar icon reflects the actual date.At the bottom of Clock there are four buttons: World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer. All four function pretty much the way you'd expect. The World Clock function is great in that each selected city shows its name and an analog clock followed by a digital clock and an indication of whether the locale is yesterday, today, or tomorrow (crazy International Date Line antics!). Unlike Weather and Stocks, cities can be reordered here by dragging on the "ribbed" area at the right while in Edit mode.
The Alarm page lets you add pretty much as many alarms as you like (we had ten going). The functionality here is great; for each alarm you can select what days it's active, what sound should be played, whether Snooze is available, and the alarm's name when viewed in the grid of all alarms. The time is selected with a slot machine-style series of rollers, one each for hour, minute, and AM / PM. Once options are set up and you return to the grid, each alarm can individually be turned on and off with a switch. Having any of them set to active causes a clock icon to appear in the status bar at the top of the screen.Stopwatch and Timer are both extraordinarily simple goodies, but even so, it's still possible to make them extraordinarily unintuitive. Thankfully, the iPhone's aren't. Stopwatch simply gives the time broken down in minutes, seconds, and tenths (plus hours on the far left when you get that far) with a start and reset button; when the time is all zeroes, Reset is grayed out. Hitting start turns the left button to stop and the right button to lap. Pressing lap will add the split time to the grid directly below the buttons along with an indicator of the lap number. Hit stop, and the start and reset buttons return. Hitting Rreset will clear split times as well. The sleep behavior of the phone seems a little indeterminate while the stopwatch is running -- sometimes the screen dims, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it stays wide awake. We couldn't nail down what (if anything) determined the phone's behavior here. Happily, you can leave the Clock app and go about your business and the stopwatch will continue running -- you can even use other parts of the Clock app itself.
As for Timer, you're presented with two slot machine-style dials, one for hour and one for minute. Below, a button asks you which sound should play when the timer expires, followed by the start button (which changes to cancel once the timer has been kicked off). Unfortunately, you cannot run multiple timers simultaneously.
Calculator
There's very little to be said about the Calculator widget -- and let's be honest, that's exactly how a simple calculator should be. You enter your digits, you do your arithmetic, and you get on with life. This particular widget has undergone a full redesign from the calculator found in Mac OS, taking on darker colors for the buttons and the background and a blue, 3D-look display. Gone are the segmented digits, replaced by a traditional smooth font (in other words, Apple wasn't too concerned about making this thing look exactly like a physical four-function calculator).Missing from the iPhone, though, are dedicated scientific / graphing calculators, or, perhaps more usefully, a tip calculator. We think any would be nice to have, and this device definitely has the necessary screen real estate to make them functional and visually appealing. In fact, the iPhone's screen is so big that a simple four-function calculator looks just a little too sparse, although it certainly makes the buttons easy to press.
Notes
Font look familiar? It should -- the iPhone Notes app ganks the Marker Felt font, perhaps best known as the default font in Stickies. Frankly, we could do without it, or at the very least we'd like an option to change it to something a little simpler and less Comic Sans-like (the iPhone's systemwide font would've been just fine, thanks). Adding a note is accomplished by clicking the "+" button found in several iPhone apps; the new note is automatically timestamped and titled based on the first line of text that you write. While editing, two buttons appear in the title bar directly above the yellow pad -- both save the note, but the Notes button kicks you back out to the list of all notes, while the done button keeps you in a read-only view of the current note. We really would've liked a cancel button here, too.In the read-only view, four icons appear at the bottom of the screen in the same casual, fun style as the font. The far left and right icons move from note to note (seems like there should be a swipe gesture here that'll accomplish the same function), the envelope creates an email with the note as the body and the first line as the subject, and the trash can predictably deletes the note. Strangely, there is no other way we can find to delete a note -- you must be looking at it to trash it. Also, we found ourselves instinctively rotating the phone from time to time in Notes, but sadly, you won't find any landscape mode here. And why no drawing capability? We're not asking for handwriting recognition or anything fancy like that, just the ability to doodle would've been a fabulous feature.
Settings
It's no secret, our favorite part of any cellphone and device is the settings area. We often find ourselves running to the settings before even making a call on a new phone or playing back some video on a new media device. When it comes to settings, by and large the iPhone doesn't disappoint. We won't go over every nook and cranny (we could do a feature on just the menus and submenus and subsubmenus... in this thing), but here are some highlights:Airplane mode - Super easy toggle, works instantaneously.Usage - Doesn't show percentage of battery remaining (lame), but does show all of your current usage stats, like standby time since last charge, etc.Sound - Comprehensive yet simple sound behavior settings, lots of toggles.Date & Time - Has a setting for time zone support on / off in calendar, convenient if you do / don't travel a lot.Network - VPN settings (supports L2TP and PPTP); WiFi settings allow you to select DHCP, BootP, or static IP address, as well as no, manual, or auto HTTP proxy.
Bluetooth - Extremely straightforward and usable interface for Bluetooth; discoverable is switched off by default, but turned on only for the duration of time you're in the Bluetooth menu. Pairing is very simple, although we kind of hoped it would use the Sidekick system of attempting common Bluetooth PINs so you don't have to remember which your headset uses, 1111, 0000, etc. Oh, and you can pair your iPhone with most anything, but don't expect it to actually do something once paired -- almost all Bluetooth profiles are disabled.Keyboard - Allows you to enable / disable auto-capitalization and caps lock.Mail - Add, delete accounts (types include POP3, IMAP, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, .mac, and Exchange IMAP, but not Exchange EAS), auto-check messages (manual, 15, 30, or 60 minutes), message preview (0 - 5 lines), CC myself on / off, signature, etc.Phone - Contact sort / display order, call fwding, call waiting, caller ID (no option to only show ID to known contacts), and way at the bottom, the awesome AT&T services menu that remembers the codes for things like checking bill balance, viewing minutes, etc.Safari - Set your search engine (Google, Yahoo), on / off switches for JavaScript, plug-ins (what plug ins?), pop-ups. There's also a cookies menu, and clear history / cookies / cache buttons.iPod - Audiobook speed, EQ, volume limiter, etc.
iTunes, activation, and syncAs with the iPod, setting up and syncing the iPhone in iTunes is meant to be an incredibly easy experience, and for the most part it is. You're (obviously) required to have iTunes 7.3 to get it going, bet starting the guided activation setup is as easy as plugging in your phone. Although a huge number of people had understandably maddening issues during launch that caused them to be unable to use their new phones for up to a couple of days, we were able to burn through a number of different types of activations (new AT&T customer, existing AT&T customer, non-ported number, ported number, etc.) on about a half dozen phones, each in under 10 minutes -- none had any issues. It stands to reason that as the initial sales glut for the iPhone fades, this process will only become more stable.Once your device is recognized by iTunes, you can select which contacts groups, calendars, music, movies, podcasts, etc. you want to drop onto the iPhone. It took us under a minute to sync a couple hundred contacts, and not much more to do a few hundred calendar appointments. We moved about 1.5GB of music and movies over to the device in about 10 minutes -- that's a little more than 2.5MB per second. Not unbelievably fast, but if you wanted to completely refresh the entire capacity of your iPhone, that process would take under 50 minutes, which is reasonable enough. Syncing photos with your desktop is less automated than we would have liked. On a Mac, users are expected to pop open iPhoto and import manually. iTunes also backs up your iPhone's non-synced settings, such as SMS conversations, notes, call history, contact faves, sound settings, and so on. We tried it out, and sure enough, it worked well enough -- even saved our browser history. WiFi passwords? Naw, not so much.Not surprisingly, syncing to a PC is a different experience than syncing to a Mac. PC users shouldn't expect to have the iPhone take advantage of all of Vista's new iLife-like lifestyle software suite (Windows Mail, Calendar, Address Book, etc.), users can only use Outlook (not Outlook Express) to sync content. On a PC sync worked perfectly, strangely enough (considering it worked less than perfectly on a Mac). Outlook was kind enough to copy contacts and calendar appointments back and forth with ease. It was almost eerie watching an iPhone interact better with a PC and Microsoft software than with a Mac and Apple software, but kudos to Cupertino for not leaving Windows users out in the cold on this one.
Data performanceApple and AT&T are banking that a two-line attack of WiFi plus a recently-enhanced EDGE network is going to quell the call for 3G in the iPhone -- in its first iteration, anyway. We see at least three problems with that approach. First, UMTS employs a more advanced vocoder than 2G does, so we're losing out on the opportunity for moderately improved voice quality. Second, on its best day, EDGE is sill an order of magnitude slower than HSDPA on its worst day (we're talking about both throughput and latency here, with the latter often being a better indicator of perceived speed). Third -- and perhaps most importantly -- AT&T's EDGE network can't support simultaneous voice and data. Read: if you're moving data to or from your iPhone, calls will go straight to voicemail. Big time bummer. The thought of browsing with Safari on the iPhone's magnificent display while chatting on Bluetooth is a seductive one, but it ain't gonna happen.That being said, is EDGE bearable for the iPhone's core services? We'd sorta expected that Apple would've fine-tuned all of the iPhone's first-party apps to behave reasonably well regardless of what kind of data network you were feeding on, but we found that wasn't necessarily the case. Browsing in Safari was a generally satisfying experience (thanks partly to the fact that typically-large embedded Flash objects don't load), ditto for Mail, Weather, and Stocks, but YouTube really tried our patience.For a couple hours after activating the phone, we couldn't play videos period -- possibly because YouTube's and Apple's servers were being hit so hard by new owners putting their handsets through their paces -- but once we could finally get things going, we were left disappointed by load times, buffering issues, and errors. To put things in perspective, videos consistently started playing within four seconds on WiFi, whereas YouTube frequently ran over fifteen seconds. Our high was a staggering 58.1 seconds!
We guess we could live with an average of fifteen seconds, though, if they always ended up playing. They didn't. When on EDGE, we'd estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the videos we try to play churn for a few seconds then bring up a message simply (and unhelpfully) informing us that the movie can't be played. Maybe the oddest bit of all this YouTube drama is that the videos run at a much lower resolution on EDGE than they do on WiFi, obviously in an attempt to make load times reasonable and streaming possible. Perhaps that sitch will improve over time with better encoding, better EDGE, and firmware upgrades -- but for now, we're declaring YouTube a WiFi-only app.On that note, WiFi is a breath of fresh air that turns the iPhone into a data-munching powerhouse. Annoyances like slow load times in YouTube and Maps melt away, generally giving the device a very different feel. The iPhone's WiFi implementation is seamless but moderately annoying out of the box; by default, the phone regularly prompts you if you want to connect to the strongest available network, which gets old really fast, especially when walking down the street. This can be turned off from the WiFi settings, which is prominently placed near the top of the settings app -- second item, in fact, right after the Airplane Mode toggle.Other WiFi settings include a switch for the WiFi radio (not to be confused with Airplane Mode, which'll also disable the cell radio and Bluetooth) and a list of nearby SSIDs which is automatically populated when you enter the screen and refreshed about every eight seconds. Next to each network's SSID is an icon indicating whether encryption is being used, a three-bar signal strength indicator, and a blue arrow that you tap for advanced configuration (more on that in a moment). Simply tapping the SSID will connect you to the network, or if a WEP key or WPA password is necessary, you'll be prompted.After the connection is successful, the "E" icon in the status bar is replaced with a signal strength indicator -- not the most obvious way of showing that you're connected to WiFi, but sure, we get the point. If a particular network requires advanced configuration, you can tap the blue arrow at the far right which displays the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and so on (if you're already connected), allows you to choose a method of IP address acquisition (DHCP, BootIP, or static), and set an HTTP proxy if necessary. If the network is already "remembered" for the phone, a "Forget this Network" button appears at the top to kill it from your preferred list.
Wrap-upWe're not huge fans of "conclusions" in reviews -- or number systems, or one liner pros / cons / bottom-lines for that matter. Devices have become so feature-rich over the years that potential buyers' decisions can be made or broken on the support, quality, or integration of just one or two features. For us that's exactly the case with the iPhone -- although the list of things it doesn't do is as long as the list of things it does, it's only a few small, but severe, issues about the device that truly galvanizes our opinion of it.It's easy to see the device is extraordinarily simple to use for such a full-featured phone and media player. Apple makes creating the spartan, simplified UI look oh so easy -- but we know it's not, and the devil's always in the details when it comes to portables. To date no one's made a phone that does so much with so little, and despite the numerous foibles of the iPhone's gesture-based touchscreen interface, the learning curve is surprisingly low. It's totally clear that with the iPhone, Apple raised the bar not only for the cellphone, but for portable media players and multifunction convergence devices in general.But getting things done with the iPhone isn't easy, and anyone looking for a productivity device will probably need to look on. Its browser falls pretty short of the "internet in your pocket" claims Apple's made, and even though it's still easily the most advanced mobile browser on the market, its constant crashing doesn't exactly seal the deal. The iPhone's Mail app -- from its myriad missing features to its un-integrated POP mail experience to its obsolete method of accessing your Gmail -- makes email on the iPhone a huge chore at best.For us, the most interesting thing about the iPhone is its genesis and position in the market. Apple somehow managed to convince one of the most conservative wireless carriers in the world, AT&T (then Cingular), not only to buy into its device sight-unseen, but to readjust its whole philosophy of how a device and carrier should work together (as evidenced by the radically modernized and personalized activation process). Only a few days after launch it's easy to see June 29th as a watershed moment that crystalized the fact that consumers will pay more for a device that does more -- and treats them like a human being, not a cellphone engineer. Imagine that.But is the iPhone worth the two year contract with the oft-maligned AT&T and its steep price of admission? Hopefully we gave you enough information about the iPhone's every detail to make an informed decision -- despite the iPhone's many shortcomings, we suspect the answer for countless consumers will be a resounding yes.
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