Category Archives: iPhone

Google, iPhone

Google Sync Improved for Corporate iPhone, iPad Users

Apple iOS users are in luck. Google Sync now lets iPhone and iPad users search Gmail, send e-mail from any address they want, and accept, decline or edit calendar events.

Google June 15 added new features to its Google Sync application geared toward improving the work experiences for corporate iPhone and iPad users.

 

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Google released Google Sync in February 2009 to let users synchronize their Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar with their iPhone, Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 devices. The tool leverages the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol for synchronicity across apps.

The search engine later added push mail support for iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile-based smartphones to Sync.

Now Google is letting iPhone and iPad users with Gmail and Google Apps e-mail accounts search all of their e-mails in Gmail, instead of just those stored locally by the iOS e-mail application.

iPhone and iPad users may also now send e-mail from any address they want, a boon for users who manage multiple e-mail aliases from one Gmail account. Google essentially applied its “Send Mail as” Gmail feature to the iOS mail app.

Finally, users may also now accept, decline or edit calendar events from the iOS calendar app.

The majority of the 100 million iPhones and over 25 million iPads activated worldwide are used in the consumer sector. However, Apple is seeing a growing number of enterprise workers using its iOS devices thanks to their ease-of-use and steadily improving security features.

Google, whose own Android handsets are seeing enterprise adoption, recognizes this, which is why it had improved the user experience for traveling workers who like to access their Gmail from their favorite iOS device MCITP Online Training.

Good Technology said in January that iOS devices represented more than 65 percent of net new activations from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2010, while the iPad’s share of overall net activations grew from 14 percent to 22 percent over the quarter.

Android devices stayed steady at around 30 percent of all net new activations over the period, but represented more than 40 percent of all smartphone (non-tablet) activations.

ccna training, iPhone, MCITP, mcitp certification, Microsoft, Nokia, Tech, Twitter, Windows 7, Xbox, YouTube

Stupid user tricks 5: IT’s weakest link

But we were prepped. We were almost grinning, because we were about to be heroes. We told the IT guy that we have virtual images of his servers, that we had their configs registered with a local outfit that will rent us replacement infrastructure until he gets the new stuff on order, so all we need are the backup tapes and we can have him up and running in about a day, maybe less.

 

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Boy, that would have been nice. But we also learned that Mr. IT had gotten tired of going to the second floor to replace backup tapes. After all, that disk array was doing just fine as a backup. So the last tape they had was from four months before the four-post header.

Fallout: Not only did Mr. IT get fired, but the IT team lost the contract — unfair.

Moral: Do your daily backups, and don’t treat your  IT infrastructure like a fridge.

Stupid user trick No. 5: Letting mom monkey around with the admin console
Incident: One IT consultant tells tale of yet another hard-learned lesson in proper password management brought to you by that time-honored IT pro, mom.

A small-business client had us install a Small Business Server box for her. She had about 12 people working for her, including her mom, who was doubling as the office manager and her daughter’s personal assistant.

We did as we were asked. Everything was set up, tested, and found to be working. We established an admin account on the server and left it with the owner with strict instructions that it’s for emergencies when she’s on the phone with us only. She, of course, gave the admin account info to her mom to keep someplace safe without passing on the last part of the instructions.

Her mother went exploring and found this thing called Active Directory. Next thing we know, we’re getting an angry call from the daughter because our email server was sending strange emails to all her clients and friends. The story: Her mom had figured out how to get into Computers and Users and had been adding everyone in her daughter’s address book into AD, along with generating them an internal email address in addition to the one listed in her daughter’s rolodex. The system sent everyone a welcome email with an introduction to the “new” network they’d just joined.

Fallout: Apology emails around, consultant fees to delete all those users and set AD right, and palpable tension between daughter and mom.

Moral: Server passwords aren’t status symbols. If a person doesn’t need one, don’t share it.

Stupid user trick No. 6: Paying before planning
Incident: Hubris is no stranger to the world of IT. But when a trumped-up higher-up puts the purchase before the plan, the fallout can mean only one thing — a derailed career, as one developer recounts.

I worked for an Internet startup back in the late ’90s, complete with big-time VC funding and a small DNA kernel of three business whizzes and one techno geek who gleefully grabbed the CTO title.

The startup’s goal was to create a Java-based vertical accounting system followed by inventory and sales systems that would eventually comprise a “suite” of offerings. The three kernel guys land a huge bundle of first-round financing and sit down with two “experts” from the vertical to discuss what the initial application should look like and how it should run.

They’re in germination meetings for about a week, coming out with huge schematics and wireframes for the first rev. The CTO decided a messaging bus platform is absolutely required and proceeded to do a deal with the leader in that space at the time (name withheld), for — wait for it — $5 million.

iPhone, Microsoft, Nokia, Tech

Will the carriers kill the mobile revolution?

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I rented a car for the first time, I drove with one eye on the odometer because I was paying by the mile. Those days are long gone, but with all-you-can-eat data plans rapidly disappearing, more and more of us are downloading with one eye on the data meter.

 

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Consider a typical metered plan: An AT&T tablet user can use up to 250MB a month for $14.99 (see the plan for yourself). Go over your 250MB and you’ll pay another $14.99 for the next 250MB, which bring you to $30. However, a recent survey by Nielsen found that the typical user of an Android device consumed 582MB per month, for a total of $45 a month on that plan (to be fair, AT&T does offer a 2GB plan for $25). iOS users averaged somewhat less — 492MB per month — and unlike with voice plans, unused data allowances cannot be rolled over.

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And I’ve just mentioned the easy-to-understand part of the plan. It turns out that there are huge gotchas hidden in the fine print that vary the actual charges based on the device you use. For example, AT&T and Verizon Wireless expect smartphone users who connect to corporate email to pay $15 more per month for the same amount of data.

Sure, carriers have a right to recover costs, and there certainly are data hogs among us who should pay for their gargantuan appetites. But charges keep going up. Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo said in May that his company will ditch its $30 unlimited data plan this summer. Can Sprint be far behind?

If the telecommunications industry were competitive, the market would keep the carriers from raising prices even faster. But it isn’t competitive now; in most cities there are few choices for serious business users. If AT&T succeeds in swallowing T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless advances in its plan to smash the smaller, regional carriers, the market will be even less competitive and the mobile revolution will slow to dial-up speeds.

iPhone, Nokia

4G faceoff: ThunderBolt vs. Galaxy

However, it’s worth noting that the ThunderBolt weighs about 5.8 ounces – about 30% more than the T-Mobile Galaxy S 4G. It’s also somewhat thicker – slightly over a half inch. The extra heft is unlikely to cause a problem unless you carry the device in a shirt pocket. Part of the reason for the extra thickness is likely due to the “kickstand” that can be swung out from the back of the device. This is primarily intended to allow video viewing without having to hold the device at the correct angle while you watch. However it also proved useful when using the phone while navigating.

 

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Unlike some other CDMA-based phones, notably the Verizon Wireless iPhone 4, you can use voice and data simultaneously with the ThunderBolt as long as you’re using LTE. The device has a number of other useful features, including a WiFi mobile hotspot, support for DLNA which allows you to access DLNA-equipped servers on your network, and an 8 megapixel camera on the rear. The front camera runs at 1.3 megapixels.

While Verizon Wireless describes the display as “immense” it’s only slightly larger than the display on most other similar Android phones. You can see the difference if you hold the devices next to each other, but short of that the difference is not obvious. The ThunderBolt’s more noticeable difference was in screen sensitivity where it was possible to trigger a letter on the keyboard without actually touching the screen. You can open the applications screen by touching an arrow at the bottom of the screen, and then swiping your finger up and down to expose the entire list.

A more significant difference when using the devices side-by-side is the level of performance. I downloaded identical files from Gmail to both devices from a variety of locations that had strong 4G signals. As long as I was in a 4G area for both, the ThunderBolt was consistently faster by a wide margin. Normally the difference was about double – the ThunderBolt was usually twice as fast in downloads, sometimes faster.

While it’s unlikely that most people will spend a lot of time in varying locations downloading photos of the Frankfurt, Germany, airport data center as I did, the fact remains that the improved performance made the ThunderBolt able to deliver data-intensive results more quickly and seamlessly. This was obvious during navigation, for example, when the phone had to fetch new information from its cloud-based servers and did so without any obvious delay. Video streaming was smooth and usually without interruption, but the same was also true of the Galaxy S 4G.

One quick note of caution: During the period of this review, the Verizon Wireless LTE network went down nationwide. The ThunderBolt, instead of automatically reverting to 3G, fell back to an earlier version of EVDO, known as 1X.

To get back to 3G, you have to enter the settings menu and tell the phone to use EVDO Rev. A. If you do that, you’ll get the standard Verizon 3G network, and most functions will operate normally.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear that most users will know how to shift the phone to 3G operation manually, and as a result will be stuck with 1X for data speeds. This works, but it’s fairly slow.

iPhone, Microsoft, Tech

How to See the Secret Tracking Data in Your iPhone

Coverage of the iPhone tracking “feature” has ranged from concern to outrage. “I don’t know about you, but the fact that this feature exists on an iPhone is a deal-killer,” wrote PCMag Columnist John Dvorak, shortly after news broke. PCMag Executive Editor Dan Costa drew a softer line, writing, “Apple may not be actively tracking you, but it did turn your phone into a tracking device without telling you.”

 

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As frustrating as it is to learn that your iPhone has been spying on you, collecting an unencrypted treasure trove of your travels, the truth is we knew this was happening. Last June we reported that Apple updated its privacy policy, stating that it could, “collect, use, and share precise location data, including real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.” How precise that location data is remains in question. What is clear, however, is that the update arrived alongside the release of iOS 4—the OS affected by the tracking feature—and identified the four devices (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad with 3G) affected by the tracking feature.

I’m not about to give Apple a pass on disclosure or execution. Who combs through an Apple privacy statement when the latest iOS software awaits? And, to “collect” and “share” user data is one thing; to retain it in an unprotected file is quite another.

However, I think it’s important that, with a few days’ hindsight, we move beyond the bombast, pin down the facts, and see what’s actually there. To do this, I’ve taken a close look at what’s at risk and, in empirical spirit, borrowed fellow PCMag software analyst Jeff Wilson’s iPhone 3GS to see what I could learn of the man and the travels using Pete Warden’s iPhoneTracker app.

UPDATE: While I tested the tracking feature using the OS X-based iPhoneTracker, Windows users can access their data using iPhoneTrackerWin.

What and Who Is At Risk?
First, the bad news: if you’re running iOS 4, your location-based data—latitude and longitude coordinates, coupled with timestamps—is stored on your phone in a file called “consolidated.db;” that file is automatically transferred to any machines with which you sync (and back up), and it’s probably flowing back to Apple in some form or another. The worse news: if you haven’t encrypted your backups, that data is unprotected.

Now, for the not-so-bad news. There’s no confirmation that that data is leaving your custody and no evidence that Apple’s harvesting it towards nefarious ends. More likely, it’s being used for two things: Apple’s reportedly tapping location information to build a database, which may actually be for your own good; and other apps, such as Maps, require geo-locational data to play. To halt both in their tracks, you can disable Location Services.
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Furthermore, the data is far from “precise.” In fact, Apple’s data collection is both inconsistent and imprecise. Rather than using GPS, location information logged in consolidated.db is determined by triangulation via cell-phone towers, a notoriously loose method. Update times run the gamut, left to the whims of cell-phone towers and phone activity. Finally, the location data available on your phone is limited by several variables:

* it dates back to the release of iOS 4, less than one year;
* only affects iPads with 3G or the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4;
* while data is timed to the second on your iPhone, you can only browse within a single week of activity using Pete Warden’s iPhoneTracker application

The final point is important: let me show you why. (Click “Next” below to keep reading.)