Apple

It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.

The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.

AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.

Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.

Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.

'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.

Apple's App Store has been a runaway success, but it's also been mired in controversy due to the application approval process. The company, however, isn't making apologies for its stringent gatekeeping and insists it's acting in the best interest of its customers.

(Credit: Apple)

"We've built a store for the most part that people can trust," Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, told BusinessWeek in an interview posted Monday. "You and your family and friends can download applications from the store, and for the most part they do what you'd expect, and they get onto your phone, and you get billed appropriately, and it all just works."

Schiller offered BusinessWeek a breakdown of app rejections. Of the applications sent back to developers, about 90 percent are due to technical issues and simply need code tweaks to make the apps work properly.

About 10 percent are rejected because they try to steal personal data or try to help someone break the law or because they contain content that Apple considers inappropriate, BusinessWeek reported.

About 1 percent are turned away for reasons that fall into gray areas, Schiller told BusinessWeek.

One of Apple's latest run-ins with a developer was over the use of Apple product images in Rogue Amoeba's audio-streaming app called Airfoil Speakers Touch. After three-and-a-half months of back and forth over an update for the already-live app, Apple is apparently going to let the company resubmit the app update with the product images intact as originally submitted. However, the ordeal has apparently soured Rogue Amoeba on future development for the App Store.

"At this time, we have no plans to return to the platform," Rogue Amoeba CEO Paul Kafasis told CNET on Monday. "Apple has corrected one small problem with their review process. But the platform as a whole still has many issues that need to be addressed before we consider it a viable place for our business to commit resources."

The App Store currently has more than 100,000 third-party applications available for download. Apple has reported more than 2 billion downloads since the online store opened in July 2008.

Another iPhone worm has been spotted in the wild.

Unlike the previous exploitation, which merely changed a jailbroken iPhone's wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley of "Rickrolling" fame, this new threat allows hackers to steal sensitive information.

According to security firm Sophos, which wrote about the exploitation after a Dutch ISP spotted it late last week, the worm attacks jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch devices only.

The worm "uses command-and-control, like a traditional PC botnet," Sophos wrote in a blog post on Saturday to warn users about the exploit. "It configures two startup scripts, one to execute the worm on boot-up, and the other to create a connection to a Lithuanian server to upload stolen data and cede control to the bot master."

Jailbreaking, which has been around for about two years, is a hack that enables iPhone and iPod Touch users to download applications unavailable through Apple's App Store.

Sophos wrote that the worm attacks users on several ISPs, including UPC in the Netherlands, Optus in Australia, and T-Mobile in several countries worldwide. Worse, the worm spreads faster on a Wi-Fi connection than a 3G connection. Users with affected devices might notice extremely short battery life while on Wi-Fi. According to Sophos, that's mainly due to the worm engaging in "so much network activity."

When a device is infected, it's assigned a unique number so that the attackers can easily pinpoint a single device. It also looks for authentication systems that use SMS, better known as mTANs. mTANs are frequently used by banks that send an SMS message with a password to mobile phones, allowing people to log in to their online accounts, Sophos wrote.

In essence, this threat is serious.

Sophos recommends that people with infected iPhones and iPod Touch devices restore them back to Apple's most recent firmware update. For now, there is no other way to fix the problem.

Apple's iPhone platform has attracted a wide range of developers, including many gaming companies over the last year. While competition in attracting developers is increasing among mobile operating system companies, it seems the performance of the App Store will keep Apple at the top of list.

French mobile gaming company Gameloft said at an investor conference on Friday that it is cutting back its investment in Android in favor of the iPhone, according to a Reuters report. Gameloft's finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said "many others" were doing the same thing, although he didn't mention the other companies by name.

Rochefort said the main reason for choosing the iPhone over Android was "due to weaknesses of Android's application store."

"It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue," said Rochefort.

Gameloft has more than 75 games available in the App Store and Rochefort said they sell 400 times more games for the iPhone than they do for Android.

Games are a big focus for Apple, especially with the release of its newest iPod Touch in September. It was there that Apple began comparing itself to the gaming elite like Nintendo and Sony.

Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said during the event that the buying experience was "too expensive" and "not a lot of fun." Schiller also pointed out that, at the time, there were more than 21,000 gaming titles on the iPhone, compared to 3,600 on Nintendo, and 600 on Sony.

Earlier this month, Apple said it had more than 100,000 apps available with over two billion downloads.

Is Apple an enterprise software or hardware company? That's the question Gartner's Nick Jones asks, ultimately answering with "you have to have a pretty relaxed definition [of enterprise] before Apple fits it."

"Enterprise" is defined by the company you keep.

With this definition in mind, Apple clearly fits the "enterprise" moniker, whether Apple wants it or not. As BusinessWeek reported back in 2008, the Mac is finding its way into enterprise computing, with or without the IT department's blessing. Ditto the iPhone.

Is it somehow less enterprise because the CIO didn't issue a policy giving permission?

Maybe "enterprise" means something more than "gets used a lot within the enterprise." In fact, Jones points out a few reasons he, personally, doesn't feel Apple is an enterprise vendor:

Apple does the bare minimum for enterprises, they aren't deeply committed to security, management, road maps, low TCO and so on. And they don't open up the architecture of iPhone enough for third parties to fill the holes.

But, again, is this really how we should define "enterprise?"

It reminds me of the criticisms leveled at open-source software early in its adoption. Originally Linux, for example, wasn't considered "enterprise grade" or "enterprise ready," presumably because it didn't meet Jones' hurdles above.

Now, however, Linux is considered an essential enterprise technology. What changed? Nothing...except adoption.

Here's a test for Jones: while Gartner pooh-poohs Apple's iPhone as an enterprise mobile device, perhaps for a variety of good definitional reasons, will it hold to such a rationale once the iPhone's market share within the enterprise dwarfs that of Windows Mobile, which has lost a third of its market share since 2008?

Seriously, at some point it won't be enough to listen to Microsoft's Ray Ozzie deprecate the iPhone's enterprise credentials because its 100,000-plus applications are "not very deep" and lack the "thousands of man years" that have gone into the applications that run on Windows. It won't make sense. Why? Because no matter how "enterprise grade" those Windows Mobile applications are, few within the enterprise are using them.

Enterprise is as enterprise does. Would you rather work for the company that builds software for the enterprise, or would you prefer to work for the company whose software gets used by the enterprise?

If you can have both, great. But it's silly to say Apple isn't an enterprise company simply because it sells to the enterprise without even trying.

According to purportedly leaked documents on the tech rumor site Boy Genius Report, Apple is gearing up to offer a series of post-Thanksgiving bargains on products from iPods to MacBooks.

The deal, allegedly good only on November 27, lists "up to" discounts of 30 percent on iPods (excluding the Shuffle and iPhone), 25 percent on Mac laptops and desktops, and 15-percent on accessories, software, and other hardware.

The Boy Genius Report Web site says: "One of our connects just hit us up with some intriguing Apple information. According to them, what you see detailed above is a shot of Apple's yearly Black Friday deals. It's reported to be something Apple will email out shortly."

Of course, with the vague use of "up to" and no specific products listed, we can't be sure if these will be good deals or not. But if you're interested in being the first in line to check them out, the leaked doc also says that select Apple stores will be opening at 6 a.m. on November 27.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

While it's waiting to be gobbled up by Google, AdMob isn't sitting still.

The mobile ad company announced Tuesday that it will deliver interactive video ads to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The ads, set to run this week, will let iPhone users surf the Web and check out other videos while the video ad is playing. AdMob believes advertisers and developers will take advantage of the video format by serving up interactive ads designed to pull in consumers.

"AdMob's new Interactive Video Ad Unit brings together consumers' love of watching videos on their mobile device with advertisers' goal of providing an interactive, social experience for consumers," said AdMob Founder and CEO Omar Hamoui in a statement. "We are excited to create new ways for advertisers to engage with consumers on their mobile devices and for the developers behind the most popular and engaging iPhone applications to effectively monetize."

The video ads will automatically pop up as iPhone users access certain content and applications. The ads will also offer a video player so that people can control and interact with them. To make sure the ads run at a decent clip, AdMob uses a network of distributed servers to push them out. Each video is saved in different file sizes, with the most appropriate one streamed based on the connection type, such as 3G or Wi-Fi.

AdMob is one of the top advertising providers for the handheld and portable device market, a position that convinced Google to cough up $750 million in stock to buy out the company. With its multimedia capabilities and huge market share, the iPhone has proven a fertile ground for video ads, with the first ones popping up in early 2008 and growing since then.

Paul Kafasis

(Credit: O'Reilly)

Apple's App Store boasts more than 100,000 apps and more than 2 billion downloads, but not all of its developers are as happy as some would think. One well-respected developer decided to call it quits.

Citing his frustration with the App Store approval process, Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis said on his company's blog last week that he is throwing in the towel on iPhone app development after an exasperating three-and-a-half month app approval.

(Credit: Rogue Amoeba)

"Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare," said Kafasis. "The iPhone platform had great promise, but that promise is not enough, so we're focusing on the Mac."

Kafasis' growing irritation with the App Store centers around an update he wanted to release for his Airfoil Speakers Touch iPhone app. The app allows users to receive audio from any Mac or Windows-based PC and the update fixed some issues with audio sync.

However, Apple rejected the update because it used images of Apple products in the app. The way Airfoil Speakers Touch works is that it shows you graphically what machine and application your audio is coming from on the host computer. If you are connected to an iMac running Safari, that's what will show up in the iPhone app.

This isn't something that Kafasis hacked together--this functionality is freely available as part of Mac OS X for developers to use. In fact, Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0 was still in the App Store, approved by Apple, with these images.

"The only thing Apple's process was doing was preventing a needed bug-fix from reaching the hands of our mutual customers," said Kafasis.

(Credit: Rogue Amoeba)

In order to get the fixes to customers, Kafasis took out all of the offending images and replaced them with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) logo. If you tap on the logo, you will be taken to a page explaining why the images have been removed.

Kafasis is asking users to consider donating to the EFF. While the organization isn't involved with his decision to place its logo in his app, "if Apple is to change, it may take such an organization to make it happen," he said.

As a developer, Kafasis also wants users to know the frustrations they have to go through to put out software. "We wanted to ship a simple bug fix, and it took almost four months of slow replies, delays, and dithering by Apple," said Kafasis. "All the while, our buggy, and supposedly infringing version, was still available. There's no other word for that but 'broken.'"

This isn't the end of the road for Kafasis. A Mac developer for 11 years, he will re-focus his efforts back to his many popular Mac applications and continue developing for that platform.

U.K. wireless carrier Orange just started selling the iPhone, and it is trumpeting first-day sales numbers for the device.

(Credit: Apple)

The carrier signed up 30,000 people with a new iPhone contract on Tuesday, its first day selling Apple's smartphone, according to a post on Twitter from a member of Orange's marketing department.

While 30,000 isn't necessarily a lot, compared to the "hundreds of thousands" of iPhones AT&T sold in its first weekend selling the iPhone 3GS in the United States, it's not bad for being the second carrier in a much smaller country, where the iPhone 3GS has been available for four months.

Until Tuesday, wireless provider O2 was the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United Kingdom. Orange currently has 16 million mobile customers, compared to O2's 22 million. Incidentally, Orange's experience as the second carrier of the device in a country would seem to make a decent case for Apple releasing the iPhone to more than one carrier in many other countries, including the United States.

The numbers were far more impressive than the iPhone's debut on China Unicom's network last week. China's first crack at selling the iPhone was by most accounts disappointing, with 5,000 units sold over the first four-day period.

Of course, China Unicom is dealing with factors Orange is not. Besides having to sell the iPhone without Wi-Fi connectivity, China has to contend with something U.K. and U.S. carriers largely do not: a vast market for iPhone knockoffs, or gray-market phones.