Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service, 1/10/2012

T-Mobile is offering a calling service for iPhone and iPad users, even though it doesn’t sell those devices.

The operator is expanding its free voice-over-IP service, called Bobsled, to iPhones, iPads, and Android phones. Users with the app can make calls to mobile or landline phones in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico without incurring charges. Users can make the calls over cellular data networks, which typically charge for the data usage, or over Wi-Fi, which could be free.

T-Mobile’s Bobsled for iPhone

The new services are an expansion of the Bobsled service that T-Mobile first launched early last year. Initially, it let people make calls only to Facebook friends from PCs. In October, it began letting people make calls from Facebook to mobile devices and make calls from PCs to U.S. mobile and landline phones.

T-Mobile is also separately launching a Bobsled Messaging app on Tuesday for Android phones, with plans to also offer it for iPhones and iPads later this year. That app lets users send group text and multimedia messages.

Key to both apps is that they are tied to a user’s mobile phone number. That means a user can download Bobsled Messaging on their Android tablet and tie the app to their mobile phone number, so that when they send a message, the recipient will see that the message is coming from the sender’s regular phone number.

Users will find some benefits to downloading the app on multiple devices. For example, a user can read conversations on their tablet that were started on the phone. They’ll also be able to access their contacts list from the app on both devices.

In the future, T-Mobile plans to start issuing phone numbers along with Bobsled. That means someone with a Wi-Fi-only iPad, for example, could attach a phone number to the tablet that friends would recognize when the user made calls and sent messages from Bobsled.

T-Mobile has a number of reasons for wanting to get into the VoIP business, said Brad Duea, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile. VoIP traffic is only expected to grow, he said. “It might cannibalize some revenue, but we think it’s a much greater opportunity. We don’t have a fixed-line business to protect. So we’re saying, ‘cut the cord, here’s how we can empower you,’” he said.

Some other mobile service providers that have landline businesses are often less keen to promote VoIP because it competes with traditional landline phone service.

For now, T-Mobile isn’t saying much about how it will make money from the service. It plans to bring some new business models to the market, including ad-supported services and contextual advertising, he said. The company will talk more about that in a couple of months, he said.

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Nancy Gohring, IDG News Servic, 1/9/2012

The operator also said it plans to launch an online store for HTML5 apps this year

AT&T is hoping to encourage developers to use HTML5 with the release of a new API platform. “It’s essentially a rich set of APIs and tools aimed at furthering the HTML5 appeal as an app development choice,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer at AT&T. “Why are we focusing on HTML5? We think it has the potential to address fragmentation.” He spoke Monday at the AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Developers must rewrite native applications to run on iPhones, Android phones, Windows Phones, and BlackBerry phones. HTML5 simplifies things for developers by letting them instead build apps that run in a browser accessible by any smartphone. HTML5 apps look and act similar to a native app. By 2016, 85 percent of smartphones will have browsers capable of running HTML5, Christopher said, citing a prediction made by Strategy Analytics.

A spokewoman told InfoWorld she was not sure whether the APIs could be used for apps expected to run on devices provisioned by any carrier — the norm in most companies given the mix of corporate-supplied and employee-owned devices — or just on devices running on the AT&T network.

The new API (application programming interface) catalog includes APIs for MMS, SMS, location, and mobile-health capabilities. In addition, it allows developers to let users make payments in the app that appear on their AT&T bill. It also includes technologies that sense what capabilities a smartphone has to optimize the app for the individual smartphone.

The APIs are hosted on cloud services, including Heroku and Microsoft’s Azure. Developers must pay a $99 registration fee to start using the APIs.

AT&T also said it plans to launch an online store for HTML5 apps this year. It will initially be accessible by Android and iPhone users but will expand to include other phones, said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices for AT&T. “The two things that are the biggest challenges for HTML5 to reach its full potential are distribution and monetization,” he said. The API platform and the new app center are designed to address these challenges, he said.

The operator hopes to take a fresh approach to app stores with the store. Rather than simply listing apps by category, like most app stores do today, it will have a “magazine-like” format, he said. Developers can sign up to be part of the beta of the new app store at developer.att.com/appcenter.

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John Leyden, The Register, 6/1/2011

Fake security updates and other Windows malware-style trickery

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Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service, 2/16/2011

While some operators are still choosing one or the other, many experts say femtocells and Wi-Fi will both be used

Some people may yet debate the value of femtocells, but the tide has turned: in 2010, the number of femtocells around the world exceeded the number of macrocells, according to the Femto Forum.

Femtocells are small base stations that operators place in homes or businesses to improve coverage and capacity for users. While there is some debate yet about whether femtocells or Wi-Fi represents a better choice, most experts are now saying that the two technologies will work together.

“We’re seeing that competitive pitch receding,” said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum, an association supporting the femtocell industry. Now, many femtocell makers are including Wi-Fi in their products. That way end users can attach to the Wi-Fi network for data services and use the cellular connection for voice. Ubiquisys is one company that introduced new femtocells that include Wi-Fi during the conference.

“In the network community it’s not an either or,” said Steven Glapa, senior director of field marketing for Ruckus Wireless. “It’s ‘we’ll do femto and Wi-Fi’ and all of them added up will address the issue.” Ruckus builds Wi-Fi access points that operators can integrate into their wide-area networks.

Toward the end of last year, the number of femtocells in the U.S. reached 350,000, surpassing for the first time the number of macrocells there, Saunders said. Globally, there are 1.7 million femtocells in use compared to 1.2 million macrocells, he said.

The timing is right for even more growth of femtocells because many operators are upgrading their networks to LTE, the next generation mobile technology. At the same time they realize that users want to consume an increasing amount of data. Femtocells can help increase capacity for operators but deploying femtocells requires radio frequency planning. It’s easier for operators to plan femtocells into new networks than it is to add them to an existing network.

“[LTE femtocells] won’t be new devices that are deployed years after the network is built,” said Todd Mersch, director of product line management at Continuous Computing. NTT DoCoMo is one operator that has been outspoken about working femtocells into its network upgrade plans, he said.

Femtocells can also help operators that are struggling with finding new sites for their base stations, an often expensive exercise. Femtocells are physically much smaller than a base station so can hang in many more kinds of locations. “They can disappear into a building,” said David Swift, a product marketing manager at Alcatel-Lucent.

Still, for some operators, sticking with Wi-Fi instead of femtocells makes sense. T-Mobile late last year said many of its Android phones would ship with software that allows people to use Wi-Fi to make phone calls and send SMS and MMS messages. That offloads traffic from T-Mobile’s cellular network and shifts the expense of backhaul to the Wi-Fi network.

T-Mobile invested in a backend system from Kineto four years ago that lets it manage the Wi-Fi use, including counting minutes of use on Wi-Fi against a subscriber’s plan. That may have made the choice to stick with Wi-Fi easier but a company executive said it was a clear choice.

“Femtocells have a math problem and a customer service problem,” said Joshua Lonn, director of product development for T-Mobile. From an investment standpoint, buying femtocells would cost T-Mobile tens of millions of dollars, he said. Many T-Mobile customers already have inexpensive Wi-Fi routers that can instead serve as a coverage extender. Also, most smartphones today come with Wi-Fi.

In addition, femtocells can be challenging to install, he said. “They’re a pain to set up and a pain to optimize on the network,” he said. “Wi-Fi is robust. Why do something as complicated as femto?”

The downside to using Wi-Fi currently is that users still have to actively turn on Wi-Fi on their phones before using it. But both Kineto and Ruckus talked about work going on internally and in standards bodies to make roaming between the cellular and Wi-Fi networks automatic.

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Matt Burns, TechCrunch, 10/19/2010

HP just announced the next generation webOS and it’s a doozy. This platform now has all the weapons necessary to fully compete in the smartphone wars: true multitasking, an updated version of the social media connection service Synergy, Adobe Flash 10.1, and a whole bunch of new advancements. Hardware is really the only thing missing now, but that’s set to change as the first webOS device, the Palm Pre 2, will hit later this week in France and in the coming months on Verizon in the states.

This big update comes 16 months after the original webOS devices dropped at CES ’09. The OS was herald as an iPhone killer back then, but the excitement was quickly hampered with poor hardware and carrier support. We’ve said all along that webOS is great, but the Pre and Pixie didn’t take advantage of it. Hopefully HP, with its massive manufacturing strength, can finally out hardware to take advantage of the OS. Oh, and a webOS tablet would be nice too. Just saying.

Coming first on new Palm Pre 2 in France, the United States and Canada
PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 19, 2010 – HP today announced HP webOS 2.0, the most significant update to the platform since its launch in 2009 and a substantial step in HP’s vision to transform how people think, feel and connect.
The first device to run webOS 2.0, HP’s new Palm Pre 2 smartphone, will be available on Friday in France from SFR and is scheduled to be available in the coming months in the United States from Verizon Wireless and in Canada.
“With webOS 2.0, we’re advancing the innovations we introduced 16 months ago, expanding the features that make webOS great for consumers, enterprises and developers,” said Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager, Palm Global Business Unit, HP. “We’ve made tremendous strides since the platform launched, and now we’re taking our biggest leap forward with powerful new features that make it easier to get more things done with your webOS device.”

webOS 2.0 offers consumers compelling application experiences not available on any other platform, while providing developers an unparalleled level of openness to integrate their applications and services. The next generation of webOS makes it easier to get more done:

True Multitasking – Pause a game, tap an email notification, check your calendar, read a restaurant review, send an email reply, then switch back to the game without closing anything.(1,2) webOS lets you easily manage multiple open applications and notifications using natural touch gestures. New in webOS 2.0, Stacks logically groups together your open apps so they work the way you do. Whether you’re reading email or planning a night on the town, Stacks keeps related items together so managing multiple tasks is even easier.

Just Type – Start an email, create a message, update your status, search your favorite websites – all before you’ve even opened an app.(1) With webOS 2.0, whenever you want to do something on your phone – whether it’s emailing, texting, searching or almost anything – just type. And Just Type is open to developers, so they can integrate with the search function and add their own user-customizable shortcuts, called Quick Actions.

HP Synergy – webOS was the first mobile OS to connect you seamlessly to multiple web services. With the Synergy feature, you just have to sign in to your Facebook, Google, Microsoft® Exchange, LinkedIn and Yahoo! accounts and your information automatically populates your phone.(3) webOS 2.0 will extend the support for Synergy so developers can easily plug new Messaging, Contacts and Calendar application sources directly into the core webOS experiences.(4)

Exhibition – A new way to use your webOS phone, Exhibition lets you run apps designed specifically for the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock, turning charge time into useful time.(4, 5) Set your phone on the dock and Exhibition launches automatically, showing you anything from today’s agenda to a slideshow of your Facebook photos. Exhibition will enable developers to display aspects of their existing app experience or create specialized apps for use when users have their webOS device in charge mode on the charging dock.

Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 Beta – With version 2.0, webOS now supports a beta of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 in the browser, which provides access to rich, Flash based web content.(6)

webOS 2.0 also includes many more new features, including the following:

Favorites – With webOS 2.0, you can tag your favorite contacts so they appear as favorites in Phone and Contacts views. When you search for them by name, they instantly show up at the top of the Contacts, Email, Messaging and Phone apps. Favorites make it simple to get in touch fast.

Skype Mobile™ (Verizon Wireless only) – For Verizon Wireless customers, webOS 2.0 supports Skype-to-Skype calls and messaging while in the United States to anywhere in the world, and low-rate calls to international landlines and cell phones.

Text Assist – webOS 2.0 offers greatly expanded capabilities to spell check, auto correct, set up macros and customize the dictionary.

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite – An all-new document viewer from the leading provider of mobile document viewers offers support for Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and provides integration with a variety of services, including Google Docs and Dropbox.

Facebook 2.0 – Available via the Palm App Catalog, Facebook 2.0 will support Facebook IM via Synergy in the Messaging application,(4) as well as Stacks, status updates via Quick Action and the Exhibition feature.

Browser – The browser adds support for more HTML5 features, including geolocation support. OpenSearch plugin support makes it easy to add your favorite websites to Just Type web search.

Messaging – The unified Messaging app in webOS 2.0 adds Yahoo! IM and buddy management. Customers can now connect to their buddies through SMS, MMS, Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM.

VPN – webOS 2.0 supports the most popular ways to connect to a corporate network, including IPsec and Cisco AnyConnect mobile optimized VPN, which supports SSL (TLS and DTLS).

App Catalog – The redesigned Palm App Catalog makes finding and discovering great apps even easier.(7) And the new Software Manager helps you keep your apps up-to-date.

Launcher – A redesigned app launcher lets you add, label and reorder launcher pages.

Phone – The webOS 2.0 Phone app lets you easily dial your favorites and offers reverse area code lookup and Skype Mobile integration (Skype Mobile for Verizon Wireless only).

Accounts – The new Accounts app provides a single place to manage all your Synergy accounts.

Bluetooth® keyboards – webOS now supports Bluetooth keyboards and Bluetooth SPP peripherals, enabling applications such as barcode readers and realty lock boxes.

A host of developer features – In addition to Exhibition, Just Type and Synergy APIs, webOS 2.0 adds Node.JS, enabling developers to create services in JavaScript. They also can now use the webOS Plug-In Development Kit (PDK) to combine C/C++ with web technologies in a single app.

Introducing Palm Pre 2

HP also introduced the Palm Pre 2 smartphone, the latest evolution to the Palm Pre lineup. Pre 2 is the first Palm phone with a gigahertz processor and features a 5-megapixel camera, a glass screen and a sleeker, streamlined design that still gives users the ideal combination of a vivid touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard.

Availability

Palm Pre 2 featuring webOS 2.0 will be available on Friday in France from SFR and is scheduled to be available in the coming months in the United States from Verizon Wireless and in Canada. The webOS 2.0 update will be delivered to existing customers in the coming months, with exact timing to be announced at a later date.
Developers will be able to purchase unlocked UMTS versions of Pre 2 in the United States to use as a canvas to build the next generation of webOS applications and services.

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AppleInsider Staff, AppleInsider, 5/20/2010

Users will be able to add and edit their own words to the iPhone’s dictionary when Apple delivers the iPhone OS 4 software upgrade to the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS this summer.

One of the many minor features set to be added to the iPhone in the latest upgrade was revealed Wednesday by Gizmodo. The custom dictionary will allow users to add their own words and unique spellings, and will automatically recommend those words as users type them.

The new option, “Edit User Dictionary,” can be found in the Keyboard section of the handsets Settings application in beta 4 of iPhone OS 4. There, users can press the plus button and add their own words.

This will allow users to bypass the “learning” feature found in previous versions of the iPhone OS, where the software will remember when the user chooses to discard a recommended spelling from the built-in dictionary.

When iPhone OS 4 was formally announced in April, Apple highlighted seven major features in the operating system upgrade. It also noted that the update would pack in more than 100 minor features, but did not go into detail on them.
As new betas of the iPhone OS have trickled out — including the fourth release this week — various new features have been added. Beta 4 includes the ability to view photo camera rolls in landscape, new wallpaper images, an option to turn off MMS messaging, and even suggested that Internet tethering with AT&T could be a part of the new release.

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AppleInsider Staff, AppleInsider, 4/5/2010

Apple on Monday announced that it will formally introduce the next version of its mobile operating system, iPhone OS 4.0, at a special event scheduled for this week, April 8.

Apple sent out invitations on Monday for the event, scheduled for 10 a.m. Pacific, offering a “sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone software,” according to Engadget. The event will be held at the company’s Cupertino, Calif., campus.

Apple is expected to release iPhone OS 4.0, along with a new version of its iPhone, this summer at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

In March AppleInsider reported that Apple plans to add full multitasking support in the forthcoming release of the 4.0 software update. Sources said that the company has developed a “full-on solution” to allow multitasking of third-party applications on the App Store.

The existing iPhone 3.x software is a fully preemptive multitasking operating system, but it only allows Apple-developed applications to run in the background.

Released on Saturday, the iPad runs a new version of the iPhone OS, version 3.2, that is only compatible with the new device. In February, Apple released iPhone OS 3.1.3 with a battery reporting fix.

iPhone OS 2.0 granted the iPhone the ability to run third-party applications natively with the App Store. It was released in 2008, and in less than two years has resulted in 150,000 applications created for the platform.

In 2009, Apple released iPhone OS 3.0 adding cut, copy and paste, MMS, voice memos, and Spotlight search.

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Mel Beckman, ComputerWorld, 3/1/2010

In a few short years, Apple has established the iPhone as the mobile platform to beat. Each successive firmware update opens new, and often unmatched, features for users and developers to explore. Many of these features, however, find their roots outside Apple’s walled-garden approach to the iPhone, as the jailbreak community proves time and again to be an innovative environment for off-limits apps that demonstrate new ways to push the iPhone platform forward.

To be sure, the past year of Apple updates has altered the pre-3.0 iPhone jailbreaking landscape. The company’s iPhone 3.0 OS, together with its speedy, feature-enriched iPhone 3G S handset, has brought new software and hardware capabilities that somewhat mitigate the need for jailbreaking. But despite these advancements, as well as warnings that jailbreaking leads to security risks and potential copyright infringement, iPhone jailbreaking continues apace, evidenced by the growing variety of rogue apps available for jailbroken iPhones.

Central to that growth is ongoing developer and user frustration with Apple’s enigmatic app acceptability rules, as well as its deliberate hobbling of many application capabilities, such as Web browsing, background processing, voice services, and tethering (in the United States). Jailbreaking also allows users to unlock their iPhones from Apple’s exclusive AT&T wireless service contract, freeing them to use their phones on other cellular providers’ networks worldwide. These factors, as well as developers’ interest in pushing the limits of the iPhone’s evolving capabilities, make for a jailbreaking community that is as vibrant as ever.

iPhone OS 3.0: Apple unlocks some features, keeps rein on othersApple’s iPhone OS 3.0 opened the iPhone to several features previously available only to jailbroken devices: copy/paste, MMS, push notification, voice recording, global search, HTTP streaming, and peer-to-peer networking. Apple’s June release of the iPhone 3G S extended the iPhone’s hardware capabilities to include an enhanced camera, integrated magnetic compass, video recording, augmented reality and navigation, and voice control.

There were other signs that Apple might begin lifting restrictions on previously forbidden application categories. Yet it took a very public investigation by the FCC following Apple’s hobbling of Skype and rejection of Google Voice for the iPhone to persuade Apple and AT&T to relent on VoIP telephony. And though apps such as Google Voice and Skype can now be used on the device, limitations still abound. Internet tethering, an intensely desired feature, is one high-profile example. Built into OS 3.0, the capability remains restricted in the United States by monopoly iPhone carrier AT&T.

Meanwhile, Apple has not altered its SDK restriction on interpreted code, which rules out Flash and Java applications (although Adobe purportedly has a Flash work-around), as well as Flash video playing inside the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. Web browsers themselves remain off limits as an app category, except for simple repackaging of the iPhone’s built-in Webkit HTML rendering engine.

Then there are certain iPhone capabilities that Apple still reserves for itself: background processing, video recording on pre-3G S devices, application launching, video output, lockscreen and wallpaper customization, interface skinning, GPS tracking, and remote control of an iPhone from your desktop computer (a la Apple’s Mac OS X Screen Sharing).

Each of these limitations provides incentive for the jailbreaking community to thrive.

Apple’s ongoing objections to iPhone jailbreakingApple’s company line on the kind of features jailbreakers seek remains steadfast: These features reduce battery life, slow performance, introduce security vulnerabilities, stress the 3G network, and increase Apple support costs. It is under the auspices of these objections that Apple routinely blocks apps it doesn’t like from its App Store. Some developers argue, however, that often such blocking happens more for competitive reasons than out of concern for iPhone users’ safety and productivity.

Still, many of Apple’s concerns have in fact materialized in jailbroken apps. Background processing does reduce battery life and overall performance, according to users, but these same consumers say the feature is worth the hit as long as they can control its application. Battery drain is also a key symptom of a particular jailbroken-iPhone worm infection. Jailbreaking proponents, however, point out that the worm can only infect phones that users haven’t properly secured by changing the default password. As for stressing the 3G network, most signs point to regional differences in AT&T cellular data capacity as the root cause of this issue, as opposed to anything that jailbreaking would exacerbate.

Performance issues aside, Apple has registered its formal opposition to jailbreaking under the cloak of copyright, claiming the act is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This claim has been disputed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and open source Web browser developer Mozilla, which has called Apple’s restrictions both harmful to innovation and an improper application of DMCA rules. Apple has thus far taken no legal action against users who jailbreak their phones, nor against any jailbreak-enablers, including the iPhone Dev Team, which has managed to jailbreak every iPhone OS update to date.

Meanwhile, the EFF and Mozilla have asked the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption specifically permitting installation of legal apps on iPhones. The Office listened to arguments on both sides in a May 2009 hearing, but has missed its own October projection for a decision and has yet to issue its opinion.

Jailbreaking encourages iPhone innovation Long before Apple launched its iPhone App Store in 2008, jailbreak users could download apps from a variety of repositories at a time when Apple limited customers to the apps it delivered with the phone. In fact, some argue that jailbreaking was instrumental in educating Apple about the shortcomings of its built-in apps, prompting it to launch the iPhone App Store to give developers an opportunity to fill the gaps.

Since then, Apple has demonstrated a pattern of recognizing features of interest in popular jailbroken apps, then addressing users’ desires for those features with OS updates.  iPhone OS 3.0 follow-up updates have included features such as video archiving and editing, Bluetooth-enabled voice control, desktop-based application reorganization, pop-up blocking, wireless ringtone downloads, and remote handset locking and erasing, all of which originated in jailbroken apps.

Jailbroken apps may also have played a part in persuading Apple to loosen restrictions on certain application programming techniques that were previously disallowed, such as exploitation of so-called private API functions. In addition to concessions on VoIP apps, Apple has approved live streaming video apps such as Ustream Live Broadcaster and iPhone development aid iSimulate, both of which use private APIs.

Apple’s capriciousness drives developers to jailbreak The iPhone’s 140,000 apps (and counting) continue to enrich both Apple and independent iPhone developers. Yet Apple’s uneven App Store administration threatens to kill, or at least maim, the app cash cow, despite recent signs of flexibility from Apple. In November 2009, Apple drove away major iPhone developer Rogue Amoeba after repeatedly rejecting its Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0.1 app update. Rogue CEO Paul Kafasis said in his corporate blog, “Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare. The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we’re focusing on the Mac.”

But if high-profile defections such as Rogue’s threaten to undermine the breadth or quality of apps on offer at the App Store, Jay Freeman’s Cydia store for jailbreak-iPhone apps continues to point the way forward. His Cydia Installer remains an organizing tool for frustrated developer creativity, linking to app repositories that have proved to be useful crystal balls for predicting future Apple iPhone OS enhancements.

“I definitely believe [Apple's] decisions increase the demand for Cydia: Developers want to be able to improve on the base platform, and Apple doesn’t let them even come close to that,” says Freeman.

Of the jailbreak iPhone apps we listed last year, more than half still can’t be implemented on all native iPhones. Still thriving in Cydia, these apps and several new offerings show promise as future Apple enhancement prototypes..

Recent jailbreak apps of note include those that streamline background task management, such as Multifl0w, which helps users switch between multitasking apps in a way similar to how app switching is performed on Android handsets. Another popular category is personal Wi-Fi hotspot creation, as illustrated by MyWi. Several apps, such as QuickReply, exploit background processing to let users pop out of an app to, for example, reply to a message, then return to where they left off.

Security has become an important issue for iPhone users, both due to demonstrated vulnerabilities inadvertently created during jailbreaking and as a result of privacy liberties taken by traditional app vendors, such as Facebook. Firewall iP is an app that addresses this interest; it helps users stay in control of their data by alerting them to any unusual outbound data transmissions.

Apple iPhone sales — and jailbreaking — to continue Despite numerous “end of jailbreaking” scares, the iPhone DevTeam and compatriots have so far always succeeded in sawing through any bars and locks Apple adds with each new OS release. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these users are non-AT&T subscribers, which add to Apple’s bottom line, to AT&T’s chagrin.

The jailbreaking phenomenon also likely presages a similar movement in the nascent Apple iPad community. The iPad, what many see effectively as a giant iPod Touch, runs iPhone apps natively and may also be crackable by iPhone escape artists.

It’s safe to say that as long as Apple maintains its heavy-handed grip on “authorized” iPhone developers, jailbroken phones, and app stores such as Cydia, will continue to thrive, even after the iPad arrives.

This story, “Jailbreaking in the iPhone 3.0 era,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.

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Daren Darrow, CNET, 2/28/2010

Updated to include WebOS’s new plug-in support for Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta.
Palm’s release of its WebOS 1.4 on Friday adds video capture, editing, and sharing to the company’s Pre and Pixi smartphones.

Along with video recording, the updated operating system lets users trim videos and upload them directly to YouTube, Facebook, or share them via an e-mail or an MMS message. It also adds support for Adobe’s Flash 10.1 Beta plug-in. According to Palm, the “plugin is a standalone app that will be available in App Catalog,” but it doesn’t say when the plug-in will be available.

According to Palm’s Web site, WebOS 1.4 improves battery life and application launch time as well as increases performance for some apps. Also new is an LED messaging feature that alerts users to new voice mails, e-mails, and so on–even when the phone’s display is off.

In the U.S., the WebOS update is available for Sprint customers; in Europe, it’s available for O2 U.K., O2 Germany, O2 Ireland, and Movistar customers. However, it’s currently unknown when Verizon, Bell Canada, and Telcel users will receive the update. According to Palm, “the update is expected to be available for Palm webOS phones on other networks soon.”

The update will be automatically pushed to phones over the next few days, or users can manually update their phones now by using the Update application.

Read on for a list of the changes as well as a Palm video showcasing its video recording, editing, and sharing features.

Palm WebOS 1.4 changes
* Record, edit, and share video
* Added a notification light that indicates new messages, appointments, and other notifications
* E-mail, messaging, and calendar notification customizations by selecting new sounds
* Capability to view, dial alternate contact numbers from the call log
* Place calls directly from the messaging app
* Call numbers from Web sites, e-mails, and messages by pressing and holding on number
* Forward a text message to an e-mail address
* Exchange contacts now shown through universal search
* Calendar view now indicates a.m. or p.m.
* Faster app loading and gesture response
* Improved battery life

A complete list of changes is available on Palm’s support Web site.

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Joshua Topolsky, Engadget, 2/18/2010

Microsoft just planted a massive flag in the ground with the debut of Windows Phone 7 Series. The company’s new mobile operating system is a radical and potent departure from the past, and there’s a lot to take in — so we’ve gathered together all our knowledge and impressions of the device so far and rolled them into a single, concise guide. Of course, there will be plenty more to learn in the coming months, and we’re going to be beating down Redmond’s door for more details on this thing, but for now let’s dive into what Microsoft has revealed so far about its latest and (potentially) greatest phone operating system.

The basic facts
Windows Phone 7 Series is the successor to Microsoft’s line of Windows Mobile phone operating systems. It’s based on the Windows CE 6 kernel, like the Zune HD, while current versions of Windows Mobile are based on Windows CE 5. Microsoft announced the new OS at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, and says that the first handsets to run it are supposed to be released by the holiday shopping season of this year.

The visual and underlying differences in the operating system are almost too numerous to mention, including a completely (and we do mean completely) upended user interface, an emphasis on finger-based touchscreen input, deep social networking integration, fully branded and expansive Zune and Xbox components, and extremely strict hardware requirements for partners. A couple familiar touchstones from the past include plans for Outlook and Office support, as well as licensing to a wide variety of third party hardware vendors — despite the name change, Microsoft still isn’t building any phones itself.

Hardware
Part of what makes Windows Phone 7 Series a departure for Microsoft is that the company is taking a much bigger role in dictating what hardware is allowed to run the OS. While we still haven’t seen an actual device produced by a manufacturer for retail (the demo unit being shown off is a prototype slab allegedly made by Garmin-Asus, but not a device that might ever come to market), Microsoft has a very clear picture of what they want these units to be built like. Still, while the company is laying down the ground rules in an attempt to create a more consistent experience across phones, it doesn’t mean there won’t be variety. You’ll see variation in devices (yes, some with and some without a keyboard), but there will be a much more steady tone in the nature of Windows Phone 7 Series handsets. Here’s a look at some of the minimum specs detailed to us thus far:

• Large WVGA screen with a single aspect ratio (which means BlackBerry-style devices won’t be readily available to begin with)
• Five specific hardware buttons required: Start, back, search (a dedicated Bing button), camera button, and power — no more, no less
• Capacitive multitouch
• CPU and GPU requirements (beginning with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon as the go-to processor)
• WiFi
• AGPS
• Accelerometer
• FM radio
• High resolution camera

As we said, Microsoft is showing the OS off on unbranded prototype hardware. It’s a simplistic slate phone with a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, what appears to be a front-facing camera (a point we haven’t heard the company sound off on yet)… and not much else. We still have plenty of unanswered questions on hardware, not just about that camera, but storage specs, whether or not we’ll be able to use microSD or some form of removable storage, and how we’ll go about connecting these devices to our laptops.

What’s the software like?
How exactly is Windows Phone 7 Series different than previous versions of Windows Mobile? The question is probably better phrased as “how isn’t Windows Phone 7 Series different than previous versions of Windows Mobile.” This isn’t a coat of paint or a touch up — this is a full-scale nuclear assault on everything you knew about Windows on phones. Basically, every interface paradigm you’ve seen in earlier versions is obliterated here, and the design has been utterly decimated (in a very, very good way). There’s no longer a Start menu, drop downs, check boxes, radio buttons, windows, lists of icons… we could go on and on, but suffice to say this thing is just a totally different beast altogether. Microsoft clearly worked long and hard developing new ways to navigate a phone, and this doesn’t even bear a resemblance to other phones currently on the market. There are no icon grids, no pull down menus, no card view, and no task manager (more on that in a moment).

So what is it actually like?

Well, it’s a lot like the Zune HD. In fact — it’s just like the Zune HD… but more. Microsoft says it’s drawn on its Zune and Windows Media Center UI concepts and come up with something it calls “Metro.” A typographic and motion heavy interface based on primary colors and lots of minimal, negative space. Whatever you call it, however, it should be very familiar to anyone who’s ever glanced at a Zune HD, because it incorporates all those weird interface tweaks that made it so distinct, such as large, bold text that trails off the screen, menus which move dimensionally in and out instead of just side to side, and the sense that you’re panning over long, single pages of information, rather than a set of separate panels. Another way Microsoft refers to the look is “chromeless,” which can best be witnessed in the clean, sharp “tiles” which dominate the home screen, completely lacking in any real world-inspired bevels, drop shadows, curves or textures, or the Tron-like calendar app, dialer, and alphabetical contact search grid, which look like they’ve been built out of spare parts from Tempest.

The OS’s unlock screen is similar to the Zune’s; a large photo that can be dragged upward to unlock the device, though it also includes time, date, upcoming calendar items, number of unread messages, and number of missed calls (imagine that — information on a lock screen!). Behind the unlock is the Start screen, which is composed of user-configurable and movable “tiles” in a somewhat narrow strip down the middle of the screen, either in sets of two across, or longer single tiles. Tiles can be linked to an app (like Internet Explorer), a specific contact or website, a photo gallery, playlist, can function as a standalone widget, or reach out to one of the “hubs” which comprise the majority of the phone’s functionality. In fact, there seems to be no end to what you might be able to link the tiles to (we’ll wait for word on Microsoft though, because we suspect there is an end). The panels are live and animated, with changes coming in the form of status updates from friends, new photos, new messages, upcoming calendar events and so forth. Your most used or best loved tiles can be “promoted” to the top of this list, meaning that what you are most likely to reach for is easily accessible, but as your habits or use change, so does the arrangement of your Start screen, and the list of tiles is infinitely long. Infinite.

Hubs are where things really get interesting, however. Microsoft described it to us as an “app that makes sense of your apps.” Instead of icon screens or just the applications themselves, Microsoft offers a weird kind of middle ground — sections of the phone where further action can be taken. You’re not diving down into obscure menus here, rather interacting with a subset of functionality within the OS or applications. When you jump into a hub, you land in a horizontal-scrolling interface, with a series of scrollable data streams and views in parallel that you can “pivot” to. Again, this should be very familiar to Zune users. The content in a hub is composed of both locally-stored data and cloud-sourced information such as photos, contacts and so forth, and each hub has its own particular emphasis. The cloud-connected content is interesting, because it means you’ll be able to browse both locally stored data (such as a photo gallery) or a server-side collection in exactly the same way, with no break in the user experience or separate action required.

Core-functionality applications have a similar but more minimal interface, centered around a single task like SMS or email, while still relying on the swipe (or pan or pivot, whichever term you refer) motion to switch between views. At the bottom of the screen is an “app bar” that has a few icon shortcuts to common commands (like add calendar item or back and forward in the browser), but which also can be pulled up like a drawer to reveal further commands available to the user. Additionally, the search button is contextual, meaning that depending on where you’re located on the device it can have slight variations on behavior. For instance, when you’re in your contact list, tapping search will call up a contact search, as opposed to dropping you into a web or device search. Make no mistake about it though, Bing is your main avenue of search with this device, and Microsoft is pushing its engine hard, making it a central part of the user experience for both local (that is, local to the phone) and external content.

Also present in Windows Phone 7 Series is an all-new touchscreen keyboard (again, similar to its Zune HD counterpart), but with some significant auto-correction, along with the ability to tap a word you’ve already typed and select or type a correction for it. There’s even a dedicated button to reveal a bevy of emoticons when updating your status, though this isn’t unheard of — Android features a similar set.

So how does it feel?

Well right now it’s rough. Overall things seem solid and connected, but there are clearly holes where this software is unfinished, and components of the interface that still require some serious debugging. The touchscreen in particular troubled us, as we saw inconsistent results from scrolling and tapping (sometimes there was no reaction at all, sometimes it went a bit crazy). There are also lots of pieces of this puzzle we haven’t seen, such as notifications, and we still don’t have a clear understanding of the nuts and bolts on things like multitasking (on that topic Microsoft is mostly mum, but the word is that this won’t be true a “true” multitasking OS, rather something more like the iPhone), but it’s relatively early on at this point. We have reservations about other things as well, little concerns such as the time it takes to jump from one task to another (we’re hoping that the company gives us options to tweak animations and interface settings to some extent). Microsoft has the next six months or so to take what is an exciting and really fresh OS concept and put the polish on it that’s required. We definitely saw plenty of bugs with touch sensitivity and UI behavior, and have a lot of questions to ask, but the raw materials are really impressive. You can’t completely get a feel for something as complex as a modern smartphone OS in a couple of minutes or even hours of use — it’s the kind of thing you need to live with. We’re hopeful about what Microsoft has shown us, and think that as long as they stay as aware and realistic as they’ve been so far with Windows Phone 7, the possibilities for success are strikingly high.

Hubs and apps
Microsoft has made it clear that we haven’t seen everything from Windows Phone 7 yet — particularly in the application department — but here’s a look at what we have been given access to, and brief descriptions of the software’s functionality:

People hub: Pulls in contacts from Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live and others, aggregating contact information, status updates, and contact images into a single view (or views, really). The main view of this hub keeps your most recently or heavily contacted people in first view dynamically (though this can be customized as well), and allows you to quickly jump to feeds of your recent updates from social networks aggregated by Windows Live. There’s also a section here called “me” where you can view and edit your own statuses within your networks.

Pictures hub: An aggregate of your locally stored photos, cloud-based Facebook, Windows Live, or other connected picture galleries, and feeds of your contacts’ recently updated images. The pictures hub will also allow you to upload and comment on photos on services like Facebook natively inside of the hub experience.

Games hub: Integrates with Xbox LIVE, including the housing of a miniature version of your avatar (in 3D and everything), Xbox LIVE games and achievements, Spotlight feeds, and the ability to browse gamer profiles. Microsoft hasn’t shown any games yet, but has made mention of Facebook-style turn-based casual games being part of the equation. It’s our impression that these devices have the horsepower to push pretty decent gaming experiences, and the integration with Xbox and its ecosystem is being taken very seriously by the folks in Redmond. We hope the fruit of this union will focus on more than just users hoping to play Sudoku on their phone. This should be an easy one to not screw up.

Music + Video hub: It’s a Zune HD in your phone. Seriously. It’s exactly like the Zune HD experience. You’re able to utilize Zune Pass here too, including the ability to browse and download new music over WiFi and 3G. Video is a go too, and we assume that means rentals as well as purchases, but it’s still unclear how this will interact with your desktop, Xbox, or Media Center setup. Furthermore, Microsoft is working with partners like Pandora to integrate with the hub, utilizing the Zune player to tap into Pandora’s streaming service.

Marketplace hub: We’ve heard the least about this one so far, Microsoft is promising big things at MIX10, but we get the impression that when it comes to getting apps for these devices, the company is going to bring a much more Zune or Xbox like experience to the process. Based on the photos we’ve seen (which haven’t been officially issued by Microsoft), the Marketplace looks nothing like the app-purchasing scheme on current Windows Mobile devices — and that’s an incredibly good thing.

Office hub: Microsoft’s bread and butter, but so far we’ve just seen the hub itself — none of its deeper functionality like document editing. There’s an emphasis on OneNote and SharePoint Workspace that should be pretty interesting, however. Ultimately, based on the new UI paradigms and user experience directives of Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft is going to have to rebuild these applications from the ground up. As long as they’re able to make them super functional while keeping the Metro look intact, this should be a real win — we’re still curious as to how the company plans to cram all that information into a UI which is focused on doing away with visual noise. Hopefully MIX10 will shed some light on this as well.

And all the rest…

Email: Relies on the pivot to switch between message views (unread / flagged / etc.), and has a color-coded system for differentiating between work and personal messages. Hopefully there’s an option to un-mix multiple inboxes as well, but it’s unclear so far. Multiple message management is onboard here, thankfully, though there’s also a lot of negative space in the app, which is a bit of a concerning (if beautiful) trend throughout the UI. We don’t expect any deep integration with services like Gmail beyond the contact syncing… though if Microsoft could pull labeling, archiving, and threaded messages off here, we can think of at least one editor who would be seriously inclined to switch to this platform.

Calendar: One of the odder apps visually, it almost looks like a DOS UI, with a white-on-black / primary color presentation. There are differentiations for specific types of data, such as red and blue notation for personal items and work. As we said earlier, this is weirdly one of the most striking applications on the phone, with lots of interesting functionality tied to its visual elements, like little lines in the day boxes which represent appointments when you’re zoomed out to a month view.

SMS: It’s barebones so far, but supports SMS and MMS, and it appears that the keyboard can be rotated to landscape for text entry. Let’s hope that’s an option in most places where input is required.

Phone: Even barer bones. Chromeless is in full effect here.

Internet Explorer: This is a big one, and Microsoft claims to have something newer and more based on the desktop IE than the current Windows Mobile / Zune browser. Features include multitouch pinch-to-zoom, “tabbed” browsing, and a new text rendering engine that brings supports sub pixel positioning for text. It’s not as fast as we’d like just yet, but Microsoft has more than half a year to work out the kinks, and at least the page rendering is accurate.

Bing search: Search has contextual use in most apps, but from the Start menu it pulls up a separate, dedicated Bing app. When you search, Bing will try to decide what sort of search you’re doing and present an appropriate set of results — local results instead of web pages if you’re looking for sushi, for instance. You can pivot between views, naturally, and the results are presented in the standard Windows Phone UI instead of just a mobile browser version of Bing.

Bing Maps: Addresses throughout the phone are turned into hyperlinks that can pull up Bing maps (phone numbers and email addresses are also intelligently discovered by the OS and made linkable), which includes pinch to zoom navigation and an auto-switch from map to satellite view at a certain zoom level. Microsoft is really pushing geolocation here, though we assume users will be given an option on whether or not they want to be found.

Windows Mobile legacy
Microsoft hasn’t directly addressed the issue of backward compatibility with old Windows Mobile applications, but based on rumors and chatter we’ve heard, it’s looking like this is a clean break, or at least it would require significant tweaks to get old software up and running on the new platform. Also, few (if any) existing handsets will be eligible for an upgrade to 7, there’s almost zero UI carryover (sorry, power users), and Microsoft isn’t allowing any carrier or OEM skins on top of 7 either. Let that soak in for just a moment: no Sense, no TouchWiz, no SPB Mobile Shell. The company has hinted at “extensibility” of its framework to allow for some level of carrier or manufacturer customization, but it’s clear that Microsoft wants a much more unified experience from device to device.

So, where does this leave existing Windows Mobile users? Well, your phone still works, and since Microsoft has eliminated any sort of clear upgrade path, we’re guessing there will be a pretty vibrant community of non-upgraders who will develop for and support existing Windows Mobile devices for years to come. Microsoft itself is positioning Windows Phone 7 Series primarily for consumers right now, which means it also has an interest in keeping Windows Mobile alive and well supported for the enterprise — not to mention the slew of new Windows Mobile 6.5.3 devices it’s pushing at MWC right this minute. Any reports of the death of Windows Mobile are greatly exaggerated, but it’s also not an exaggeration to say that Microsoft has gone “scorched earth” in developing toward its primary future in phones.

Partners and developers
Naturally, there are plenty of companies — both on the hardware and carrier front — on board for Windows Phone 7 Series, and so far support has been pledged by Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG (rumored to have a device ready by September), Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba on the hardware end. When it comes to carriers, the list is even longer, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. Needless to say, there will be no shortage of availability when WP7 comes to market.

On the developer side, Microsoft seems to be acutely aware of how badly it needs to come big on the app and software front. Every indication we got from team members in Barcelona led us to believe that they are focusing a tremendous amount of energy and thought on what the next step for them from a developer standpoint will be. One thing Microsoft has always prided itself on was developer love (c’mon, we’ve all seen the video), but in recent years the company seems to have taken a backseat while Apple has been blowing everyone away with its easy-to-code, easy-to-market solution for software on the iPhone and iPod touch. Microsoft will have to deliver a solution here that is not only competitive, but more attractive than the competition. We were told countless times that we would get a clearer picture on a lot of the nerdier queries we had at the upcoming MIX10 (which happens in mid-March). Until that event comes and goes, we’re not sure we’ll get a lot more clarity on that.

What’s next?
Microsoft’s shown a lot, but in some ways it’s raised more questions than answers. The biggest issue at hand is how Microsoft will treat app development: will it expect Windows Phone 7 Series apps to look and operate like the 7 Series UI? Will it allow open extensions into its hubs to expand the number and kind of supported services? How do you navigate your files on the phone? Is the Xbox Live hub going to be inhabited by the likes of Scrabble or Halo? Hopefully most of this will be answered at MIX10, where Microsoft promises to unveil its app and gaming strategy for Windows Phone (amongst other things). It’s going to take a special blend of tools, encouragement, and market share incentive to get developers on board, but we have to assume Microsoft knows this as well as anybody.

The rest is in the hands of Microsoft’s developers, however. So far we’ve seen barely skin deep into the new OS, and witnessed plenty rough edges in even what was presented. We’ve been here before: Palm wowed the world with its revolutionary webOS UI, but a tight release deadline left quite a bit of functionality on the cutting room floor, and perhaps too many bugs, hiccups and slowdowns for a shipping OS. Microsoft has less than a year to pull this thing into fighting shape, and we’ll be tracking every step of the way, with particular curiosity about the what sort of finished product we’ll end up with on the other side.

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