iPhone 3.0 Update Delivers Prodigious Patch Batch 150
CWmike writes "Apple patched 46 security vulnerabilities in the iPhone and iPod Touch, half of them in the Safari browser and its WebKit rendering engine, as it released iPhone OS 3.0 on Wednesday. One of the patched WebKit vulnerabilities stands out because of the attention it received in March, when a German college student, Nils, walked away with a $5,000 cash prize for hacking Safari at the Pwn2Own challenge. Nils used a bug in WebKit's handling of SVGList objects to crack Safari."
Hacking Safari? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:5, Informative)
Rogers/Fido in Canada, surprisingly, will allow tethering.
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:5, Informative)
If you have AT&T in the US, you can enable tethering and MMS without jailbreaking. It is pretty convoluted process, but it works. This isn't Apple's fault though, but AT&T's.
http://www.krillr.com/blog/3DPQHBZ3/i-have-tethering-and-mms-on-my-iphone-and-yes-im-on-att [krillr.com]
Re:Well that's just fantastic (Score:3, Informative)
If you feel that strongly about it, go torrent the firmware. Not that hard to do.
I sure hope apple does the right thing.
You must be new here.
Kiss Pay-As-You-Go "Good-bye" (Score:3, Informative)
GoPhone subscribers warned the upgrade will be the end of the service. [mobiletechreview.com]
AT&T Narrows Prepaid Plan Options [pcworld.com]
"AT&T currently offers two types of prepaid plans: GoPhone, its "pay as you go" plan, and Pick Your Plan, its "prepay once a month" plan. AT&T's statement says that GoPhone will not be available for either original iPhones or iPhone 3Gs; Pick Your Plan will only continue to work for existing subscribers using the original iPhone, as long as they have an unlimited data plan. Current Pick Your Plan users who don't have an unlimited data plan will be asked to add one. iPhone 3G users are not eligible for Pick Your Plan.
According to Erica Sadun at TUAW, who's been investigating this issue, all pay-as-you-go users are being strongly encouraged to sign up for a postpaid plan, which includes making a new two-year commitment."
Looks like I'll be waiting a year for the Apple/AT&T agreement to time-out. I'll not do a two year agreement again, ever.
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Well that's just fantastic (Score:4, Informative)
Go ahead and search Google for the following string, it contains the patches you requested: iPod2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:3, Informative)
Go here on your iPhone: http://help.benm.at/ [help.benm.at]
It will show you how to enable tethering.
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:4, Informative)
The really surprising thing is that it's automatic. I didn't have to get them to turn anything on in my account. I simply turned it on in the Network Settings page and was able to tether my Windows 7 laptop and a friends Macbook Pro over both Bluetooth and USB without issues and, even more surprisingly, without iTunes installed (on the Win7 machine).
Bandwidth was around 3Mbps down and 0.3Mbps up, with a minimum ping of around 150ms, tested on multiple servers using Speedtest.net. This is in the middle of Halifax, NS.
Re:I am disappointed! (Score:3, Informative)
They also allow it on the BB storm.
Re:Well that's just fantastic (Score:3, Informative)
The upgrade to 3.0 is free.
not for iPod touches.
Re:Well that's just fantastic (Score:3, Informative)
iPod1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw for a first generation
Apple charges 'by law' - Sarbanes-Oxley act (Score:1, Informative)
From what I understand, SOX is a law that intends to make public companies more accountable to share holders. Apple has interpreted SOX in such a way that it feels as though it *must* charge for updates which unleash new features that substantially increase the potential value of the device. This appears to be applicable to virtually all hardware-enabling features and reasonably 'novel' software features. 3.0 is such an update.
Why doesn't this affect the iPhone? That's because the iPhone is a subscription-based device. As such, it continually generates profit for the company and its shareholders. The iPod Touch has no subscription, meaning that anytime Apple unleashes a new set of big features for free, they supposedly have "cheated" shareholders by not releasing a new product instead. To generate revenue, they charge for the update. The idea is this keeps them in compliance with SOX by generating extra revenue for 'shareholders'. Obviously, Apple is making a profit, but I understand SOX compliance also costs big companies millions of dollars [wikipedia.org] in fees (lawyers, accountants and God knows what else)... Who knows. And remember: Minor updates are supposedly fine; major updates are supposedly not fine -- although I'm not sure who the legally viable arbiter of that decision would be, exactly.
Like it or not... Believe it or not... It's the way Apple has dealth with this. Incidentally, it's the same reason they charged $2.99 for 802.11n support on Macbooks through Software Updater.
Re:Well that's just fantastic (Score:3, Informative)
It was for the convenience of one device, and because it would allow me to drop a mobile tariff for a VoIP application, which I was going to get an iPod Touch, but I disagree with paying for security updates on a fundamental level.