iPhone and a New Age of Communications
iPhone represents a new age of communications, an age that has voice applications at its core. The iPhone age is about more than just dialing the phone and waiting to see if someone on the other end answers. Devices in this new age do more than simply connect you to friends, loved ones, and colleagues. They can also deliver particular types of content tailored to meet your specific needs.

iPhone Delivers Customized Content
iPhone products come with a variety of features that will change the way you communicate with friends and family, including:

• Compelling Internet services: iPhones work with such popular clients as Skype and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice; these clients display real-time contact list and presence information letting you know when the party you want to call is available.
• Access to personal content: Use your iPhone to access music, photos, and live video cameras from sources on the Internet.

With an iPhone from Linksys, you can do more from your phone than just talk!

Who on earth would buy this thing? –Obviously not people who ask this question. But that’s OK–there’s no requirement that everyone buy the iPhone. More for the rest of us!

An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name "iPhone" appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it.

'People are salivating over it,' says one security researcher

January 13, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Technology fetishists aren't the only folks itching to get their hands on an iPhone. Hackers want to play with Apple Inc.'s new toy, too.

Within hours of Apple's iPhone unveiling on Tuesday, the iPhone was a hot topic on the Dailydave discussion list, a widely read forum on security research.

Much of the discussion centered on the processor that Apple may have chosen to power its new device and what kind of assembly language "shellcode" might work on this chip. "Is this beast running an ARM?" wrote reverse-engineering expert Havlar Flake, "I have doubts about a mobile device being based on x86, so does anyone have details about what sort of shellcode needs to be written?"

In an e-mail interview, one of the hackers behind the Month of Apple Bugs project, which is disclosing new Apple security vulnerabilities every day for the month of January, said he "would love to mess with" the iPhone.

"If it's really going to run OS X, [the iPhone] will bring certain security implications, such as potential misuses of wireless connectivity facilities, [and] deployment of malware in a larger scale," the hacker known as LMH wrote in an e-mail. He declined to provide his real name.

Because the device could include a range of advanced computing features, such as Apple's Bonjour service discovery protocol, it could provide many avenues of attack, according to LMH. "The possibilities of a worm for smartphones are something to worry about," he wrote. " Imagine Bonjour, and all the mess of features that OS X has, concentrated in a highly portable device which relies on wireless connectivity."

"This is all speculation right now, until a technical specification is released by Apple on its features and technology," he added.

David Maynor is another security researcher interested in the iPhone. Maynor's videotaped demonstration of a MacBook being hacked over a wireless network received widespread attention at last year's Black Hat USA conference, although Maynor and his co-presentor were later criticized for the way they presented their research. They demonstrated these flaws using a third-party wireless card rather than the one that ships with the MacBook, and they still have not published the code they used.

"I can't wait to get one," said Maynor, who is chief technology officer with Errata Security LLC. "There's already a lot of discussion going on, and it's not coming out for another six months. People are salivating over it."

Because the iPhone will be new and relatively untested, but running a familiar operating system, Maynor believes that there will be plenty of places for hackers to look for bugs. "My feeling is that this is going to be one of the easier devices to find vulnerabilities in."

But there is one other factor that will also help determine how often the iPhone is hacked: its popularity. If nobody buys the $499 device, then it become less interesting to hackers.

On the other hand, if it becomes as popular as the iPod, it "will become the preferred target for writers of mobile malware," wrote Kaspersky Lab Ltd. Senior Research Engineer Roel Schouwenberg in a recent blog posting.

The fact that hackers looking for OS X bugs would possibly have two platforms to exploit -- Apple's computers and the iPhone -- would "mean an increase in the number of vulnerabilities identified in Apple's workstation OS," he wrote.

Apple seems to be aware of the problem. Although the company was unable to provide an executive who could comment on the security of its products during this week's Macworld conference, the company was quick to respond to Havlar Flake's question on the Dailydave discussion list.

"Do you really want to know the answer to this question?" wrote Apple's Simon Cooper. "If so, then you should apply, get offered and accept the software security position I currently have open at Apple. This is work in Core OS for Mac OS X."

iSuppli, a research firm known for analyzing hardware component costs, has run the numbers on the iPhone and concluded that at $499 for a 4GB iPhone, Apple could be making 50 percent gross profit margins. The $599 8GB model is an even better deal - for Apple.

But I think the iPhone could be even more profitable for Apple - because it will only be sold with a two-year Cingular contract. Here's why.

When you look at the advertised price of most cell phones, you have to add $150 to $200 to get the true retail price. That's because wireless carriers typically discount the phones by that much in exchange for getting consumers to sign multi-year service contracts. The cost of the discount is priced into the service fees wireless carriers charge. Cancel the service, and you have to pay an early termination fee - essentially giving back the discount.

So who's getting the $200 here? If it's Apple, and the true price of the iPhone is more like $700, then it's making 64 percent profit margins. If it's AT&T's (T) Cingular, and the carrier's getting iPhone customers locked into two-year service contracts without having to shell out upfront for a hardware discount, then AT&T (T) shareholders should be glad Cingular struck such an insanely great deal.

Most likely Apple and Cingular are splitting the difference, with both poised to make hefty profits off the iPhone.

Update: Paul Kedrosky points out that unlike other iSuppli component-price analyses, the firm did not actually tear apart an actual iPhone, and so the figures are all guesses. In an IM conversation, he argued especially that iSuppli's price for the high-resolution, smudge-resistant touchscreen - the centerpiece of the iPhone - is way too low. Fair enough: That just makes Cingular's contribution to the iPhone's overall profit margin even more important.

Rogers Wireless has confirmed that it will be the exclusive carrier for Apple’s iPhone in Canada. “Rogers is actively working with Apple to launch the iPhone in Canada as soon as possible and will be the exclusive provider of the iPhone in Canada,” the company said this week in a customer service email. Rogers Wireless is the largest Canadian wireless communications service provider. An exact date and service pricing were not mentioned. Apple is set to release the iPhone in the U.S. in June.

NEW YORK — Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. cellphone carrier, passed on the chance to be the exclusive distributor of the iPhone almost two years ago, balking at Apple's rich financial terms and other demands.
Among other things, Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers, said Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless vice president. "We said no. We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn't reach a deal that was mutually beneficial."

Verizon's decision to pull the plug on talks sent Apple into the waiting arms of Cingular, which will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone. The multifunction device is expected to ship in June and cost about $500.

Apple and Cingular (which now is solely owned by AT&T and adopting that brand name) have declined to discuss terms of their alliance. But the Apple-Verizon talks offer a peek into the computer giant's thinking.

According to Verizon, Apple CEO Steve Jobs insisted that he have hard control over iPhone distribution.

The problem? While Apple and Verizon stores would have it, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other Verizon distributors could have been left out. "That would have put our own distribution partners at a disadvantage" to Apple and Verizon stores, Gerace said.

Customer care was another hitch: If an iPhone went haywire, Apple wanted sole discretion over whether to replace or repair the phone. "They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support," Gerace says.

Cingular won't talk about the financial terms or say how long its iPhone exclusivity lasts, but two people with direct knowledge of the deal say it's a five-year contract. The exclusive is USA-only, leaving Apple free to market its iPhone globally.

Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment on any aspect of this story.

Mark Siegel, a Cingular spokesman, said, "We think this is a win for Apple, and it is a win for Cingular."

Siegel declined to comment on customer care plans but said Cingular would field calls related to the wireless service. "I don't want to leave the impression that these (iPhone) customers are not ours. They are."

Siegel would not say whether Cingular distributors, which include Wal-Mart and RadioShack, would get the iPhone. The deal announcement referred only to Cingular and Apple stores and their websites.

San Francisco (IDGNS) - Consumers aren't willing to pay what Apple may ask for the iPhone, but if the price drops they'll switch their mobile service to AT&T in order to get it, according to results of a survey released Thursday.

Online market research firm Compete Inc. surveyed 379 people in the U.S., most of whom had heard of the iPhone and have shopped for an iPod, to find out how interested they are in the device to produce the uncommissioned report. The iPhone is a combined music player and cell phone that Apple plans to start selling in the U.S. in June.

Among the 26 percent of respondents who said they're likely to buy an iPhone, only 1 percent said they'd pay $500 for it. When Apple introduced the iPhone in January, it said it would cost $500 on the low end.

Forty-two percent of those who said they're likely to buy the phone said they'd pay $200 to $299.

The iPhone will be available only to subscribers of Cingular Wireless, now part of AT&T. In a blow to the operator's competitors, 60 percent of those in the survey who said they were likely to buy the phone said they'd switch their mobile operator in order to get it.

While the iPhone has been discussed as a competitor to other handsets like Research In Motion's BlackBerry, the two serve very different markets, said Andy Neff, an analyst at Bear Stearns who participated in a conference call to discuss the results of the study. "Even though there's talk about this as an alternative to RIM, it's not a corporate product," he said. Instead, the iPhone is an indication of a broad shift toward smartphones and the emergence of niches within the category, he said.

The analysts were split on what price they think the device will ultimately retail for. Operators recently haven't been discounting phones in the similar price range as the iPhone, said Phil Cusick, an analyst at Bear Stearns.

However, Apple has been known to announce a product with one price and ultimately sell it for less. Apple TV, for example, was expected to cost $399 but sells for $299, he said.

The phone may start out around $500 because early adopters will pay that, said Neff. But pricing will likely drop by $100 to $200 to target the mass market, he said.