All Articles Tagged Software

Sven Rafferty has posted information from one of his “sources” who claims that an update to iPhone’s mail app will integrate Microsoft Exchange DirectPush support. Not only that, but this feature upgrade will also enable OTA (Over-The-Air) syncing of contacts and calendar events as well.

In effect the iPhone will interoperate with corporate Exchange accounts just like a Windows Mobile device. Sounds great, but this is still rumor (Read: unconfirmed).

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It didn’t take long for hackers to break through the iPhone’s glossy exterior and into its inner bowels, gaining root access. What troubles me is how easily and quickly it was done. So far hackers have managed to uncover the iPhone’s root password for the device, which is “Alpine”, as well as the mobile user account password – “Dottie”. And DVD Jon found a way to unlock the damn thing so we can use it as an iPod sans AT&T service.

Needless to say, in all this merriment, security analysts aren’t laughing.

“Once hackers are able to dissect the firmware, they can come up will all kinds of avenues to get to the iPhone’s kernel,” Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism for Secure Computing, told MacNewsWorld.

Yeah, and you know what that means…soon the scaremongering will begin and security firms will be lining up to sell us copies of Norton Anti-Virus for our iPhones.

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This shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Nokia’s Symbian web browser is actually based on Safari’s core framework, known as WebKit. If anything this may benefit iPhone users by extending developer support to a much wider audience, beyond just iPhone’s Safari environment. I say good on them.

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Developers at Opera appear to be suffering iPhone envy. Today the company rolled out a public beta of its Opera Mini 4 browser, designed for Java enabled phones, which rips off features first unveiled on iPhone’s Safari browser. Opera Mini 4 sports Safari’s impressive zoom feature that enables users to see a large thumbnail image of a web page, and navigate or zoom to specific sections of the page by tapping in that location.

I’ve used Opera Mini on my Treo and frankly it stinks. So does the Treo for that matter, but that’s another topic. The browser is very poorly optimized and lacks elegance and integration of a native application environment. Opera’s mobile browser for Windows Mobile is a much better overall solution, but still lacks refinement. Keep trying, Opera. You’ll get it right – eventually.

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Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so!

Our sources at WWDC are reporting that, for now, there is officially no Flash support on the iPhone. Apparently, in the State of the Media address yesterday, the announcement was made that: “There will be no Flash support at the moment on the iPhone.” Developers are being told not to serve video via Flash, as there simply isn’t a player built for the phone yet.

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Some industrious haxor developer has created an interesting yet simple demo web application, highlighting what is possible via iPhone’s Safari browser. I still have very mixed feelings about this framework. Maybe I’ve been hanging around PDAs too long, but I prefer system-native applications as apposed to the Web 2.0 approach.

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Stop the presses! The Wall Street Journal is claiming that it heard from a source, who heard from a friend, who knows a guy that has a brother who was told by a street corner hooker, that Apple will require iPhone users to register an iTunes account in order to use the phone. Oh the humanity.

Ok, this isn’t as extreme as it might sound. Registration is free, and since I already have an iTunes account I won’t be screaming bloody murder.

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What’s this? iPhone supports Flash plugin? Just think of the possibilities! This means we’ll be able to watch xTube YouTube video right our iPhone. Or not. Keep a close eye on this story because it is completely unconfirmed by anything other than a product shot used in a TV ad.

Still, since iPhone is running OSX under the hood it’s totally conceivable that Flash is supported. We’ll see.

Via Engadget Mobile

New York Times columnist David Pogue has published an ammended blog entry containing a second round of FAQs everyone seems to interested in finding answers to. This is definitely worth the click, as it paints a clearer picture of this “micro” OSX platform. I found one comment from Steve Jobs to be rather dishy…

Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”

Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”

Markoff: “Flash?”

Jobs: “Well, you might see that.”

Markoff: “What about YouTube–”

Jobs: “Yeah, YouTube—of course. But you don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using h.264 instead of the old codec.”

Err..I hate to break this to Steve but YouTube’s embedded video playback feature is based on Flash, so I’m not sure whether he understood the relevance of Markoff’s line of questions regarding Flash and its inclusion in the iPhone. Partnering with YouTube isn’t going to enable playback of YouTube content on the iPhone unless that partnership involves said company building a portable Flash package for Apple’s new phone. But I digress.

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