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Apple

iPhone 3.1 Spotted In Field Testing 136

kai_hiwatari writes "Digitizor reports that the next generation of the iPhone was spotted in the analytics log of an iPhone app called iBart. The device, it seems, was identified as iPhone 3.1 in the log. When iPhone 2.1 was spotted, it was followed by iPhone 3G."
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iPhone 3.1 Spotted In Field Testing

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  • News Flash (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Akido37 ( 1473009 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:05AM (#30270608)
    Company is developing follow-up product to an existing successful product!!

    Details at 11.
    • Someone enlighten me: how hard would it be for someone to fake this on either end, someone downloading it on something faking the "iphone 3.1" or someone at ibart playing a prank?

      • not hard at all. Safari allows you to do this under the developer tools. Just select Develop > user agent > other and put in a UA string of your choosing.
      • by Tetsujin ( 103070 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:23AM (#30270776) Homepage Journal

        Someone enlighten me: how hard would it be for someone to fake this on either end, someone downloading it on something faking the "iphone 3.1" or someone at ibart playing a prank?

        Well, you see, the iPhone has a lockout system that prevents people from doing anything with the device apart from buying programs on the app store... This lockout system is guaranteed unsinkable, so it is entirely impossible that anyone could cause their iPhone to report false information... ...Well, there was a "pretend to be iPhone 3.1" app released, but it was rejected from the app store...

      • how hard would it be for someone to fake this on either end, someone downloading it on something faking the "iphone 3.1" or someone at ibart playing a prank?

        Here's a better question: why would anyone bother to do that?

        • Re:News Flash (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:37AM (#30270960)
          Many people are asshats. I'm quite surprised you haven't noticed.
        • Re:News Flash (Score:4, Interesting)

          by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday November 30, 2009 @12:26PM (#30271560) Homepage Journal

          Here's a better question: why would anyone bother to do that [Alter their browser's UserAgent setting -mi]?

          Dunno about you... I usually have my Konqueror's setting to something like No one here but us, squirrels - 3.0 VMS 19-bit. If a particular site breaks from that, I make an exception for them (and try to avoid them, for it annoys me, when sites have browser-specific rules/content.)

          • Dunno about you... I usually have my Konqueror's setting to something like No one here but us, squirrels - 3.0 VMS 19-bit. If a particular site breaks from that, I make an exception for them (and try to avoid them, for it annoys me, when sites have browser-specific rules/content.)

            And how exactly do you install the iBart application using Konqueror so that it reports that it's running on iPhone 3.1?

            • by mi ( 197448 )

              And how exactly do you install the iBart application using Konqueror so that it reports that it's running on iPhone 3.1?

              I don't need to install iBart (whatever that is) — or any other "foo" — to tell the world, I'm using it... The browser's UserAgent string was the only thing, that led the site in TFA to conclude, they had a visit from iPhone-3.1...

          • I'm waiting for the story tomorrow, when iphone 6,9 is discovered in the wild.

        • by u38cg ( 607297 ) <calum@callingthetune.co.uk> on Monday November 30, 2009 @02:58PM (#30273564) Homepage
          It's amusing. I quite often set my user agent to whatever the latest bit of vapourware is, or to a Commodore 16. Every once in a while, I get a bite and some blogmaster posts something like "MOG [sic] I've been surfed by a Microsoft Surface" or whatever. It gives me a little frisson of pleasure.
          • OK, but would you go through the trouble of hacking your iPhone into identifying itself as a different version so that when you download and run an app and it reports the version back you can get a little laugh?

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by mdwh2 ( 535323 )

          Slashdot Editor #1: "Oh crap, I can't think of anything for today's Iphone story. Maybe post a story about someone doing something, where he just happens to use an Iphone? Nope already done it [slashdot.org]."

          Slashdot Editor #2: "Maybe a story about some random website, and we can say how you can use your Iphone to access a website? Oh wait, we did that one too [slashdot.org]."

          Slashdot Editor #1: "Ah I know - quick, fake up an Iphone new version and put it in my server logs. Instant story!"

          But I've got to say - despite the constant spam

      • why do we care?
    • iPhone 3.1...... hopefully it'll be better than Windows 3.1 was?! Or are we to avoid version number comparison?

    • Indeed.

      When they finally release a product, then it may be worthy of a story. And I say may - note that most released phones never get any stories on Slashdot, even those from well known companies with far bigger market share (Nokia, Samsung, - well just about all of them, actually). Yet when it comes to Apple, with just a few per cent market share with their previous products, it's now news because some random guy saw something in his logs?

      The Daily Iphone Slashvertisement is getting boring.

  • by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:06AM (#30270610) Homepage Journal
    Important update: Its version number is 1 higher than the old one!
  • by Peregr1n ( 904456 ) <ian.a.ferguson@gmail.com> on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:07AM (#30270628) Homepage
    ...if Apple WEREN'T bringing out a new iPhone sometime next year. An annual cycle is predictable; some manufacturers would consider it TOO long between launches.
  • With more and more providers getting the iPhone, it seems like Apple just isn't feeling exclusive enough. Time to make a new version.

    • There isn't much lef that is meaningfull for them to do before it turns into a real damn computer.

    • by RedK ( 112790 )

      No, this timeframe is very normal. They always have the next iPhone model ready 6 months in advane for a June-July release, so it can go through FCC approval, and they can announce before it does. Same reason the original iPhone was introduced and functionnal late 2006 but only shipped June 2007.

      This is just the normal product cycle for the iPhone.

  • by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:09AM (#30270646) Homepage
    The only thing that could make this, like, even more awesome is if it were being used by Britney Spears!!!!!!11!
  • by Anonymusing ( 1450747 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:09AM (#30270648)

    ...at MacRumors [macrumors.com]. Relevant quote:

    References to "iPhone3,1" was first discovered in the iPhone firmware files back in August, but this seems to be the first time that it has been spotted "in the wild". Apple similarly began testing the iPhone 3GS (iPhone2,1) back in October of 2008 about 8 months ahead of its launch. At the time, the usage was similarly focused in the San Francisco Bay Area where Apple is located.

    So, if history repeats itself, the actual product will be released sometime in April or May.

  • That's certainly a nice little news tidbit, but there's not much more to say. I'm an Apple fan, but really it would be more newsworthy if they announced no more phones and then something new was seen. I think everyone knows they are going to be coming out with a new one at regular intervals. If we had a section for 'News Headlines that are Their Own Articles' this would go there.
  • Mr. Hutz [wikipedia.org]? I think we might have another case for you! - Fox Networks

  • Dear Editors: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StarKruzr ( 74642 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:15AM (#30270692) Journal

    That should be a comma in ("iPhone %d,%d",majorversionnumber,minorversionnumber), not a period.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:20AM (#30270742)

    The summary says, "The last time when iPhone 2.1 was spotted, it was followed by iPhone 3G."

    But the version numbers actually are:
    iPhone: 1,1
    iPhone 3G: 1,2
    iPhone 3GS: 2,1

    The mistake in the summary isn't a big deal. But it does go into the big pile of little mistakes that we see all the time around here.

  • 2,1 was 3GS not 3G (Score:3, Informative)

    by eegad ( 588763 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:28AM (#30270850)

    Former iPhones were labeled like this:

            * Original iPhone = 1,1
            * iPhone 3G = 1,2
            * iPhone 3GS = 2,1

  • So if i set my firefox useragent as iPhone/Tablet 5.0 and start visiting iPhone related sites a lot of noise will be generated?

    Announcing that they are looking specially to an info so easily modified is a good recipe for unfounded hype.
    • Re:useragent? (Score:4, Informative)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @12:02PM (#30271286) Journal

      This isn't a user agent string. This is a hardware model identifier. Apple hardware has an identifier in the ROM so that you can find out what hardware you're running on in software. Here are some examples of why you'd want to do that:

      MacPro 1,1: First generation Mac Pro (only has 16-lane PCI-e)
      MacBookPro 1,1: First generation MacBook Pro (Intel Core Duo, not Intel Core2 Duo with SSE4)
      MacPro 3,1: Third generation Mac Pro (32-lane PCI-e, quad core Nehalem Xeons)
      iPhone 2,1: Hardware compass, etc. etc.

      Get it?

    • but you can't use iPhone apps using firefox :p
  • Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @11:47AM (#30271072)

    *double checks URL he typed in*

    Yeah it says http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] ... thought maybe I'd typed macrumors

    • It's on apple.slashdot.org.

      Change your prefs to remove any Apple stuff from the main page, if you're so incensed by it.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    that iBart is "spying" sorry "analytics" on its users by sending who-knows-what-else data
    to a third party

    if this behaviour was on Windows app it would be condemmed instantly
    and users would demand they stop it [uneasysilence.com]

    i wonder how many other of the iPhone apps spy on its "users"

    • yes, lots of apps spy on the users.

      Jailbreak and install "Firewall IP" .


      It's a complete graphical firewall package for the iPhone that asks you whenever an app makes a connection, and you can generate rulesets on-the-fly. Really handy.
  • It worries me a lot that random iPhone apps are allowed to phone home with this kind of data, especially after that story a while back where the user's phone number was being sent in order to spam call them.

    There seems to be a lot of protection for Apple (against jailbreaking or doing anything they or the carrier does not authorise) and pretty much none for the user.

  • False user agent (Score:2, Redundant)

    by ickleberry ( 864871 )
    So what are the odds that this is a falsified user agent and that someone with a jailbroken iPhone is having a good laugh at this article?
  • by GreyFish ( 156639 ) on Monday November 30, 2009 @12:21PM (#30271500) Homepage

    So when do we see an iPhone 3.11 for workgroups?

  • What's more interesting, is that probably thousands of rumor site addicts are now checking out iBart (I know I just did). That's the real news in this story: a lot of iPhone programmers are now going to let their app phone home with as many details about the device as possible hoping to get a scoop out with their app's name!
  • I gave up on waiting for apple to get off the schnide and make the one change they desperatly need to make; ditch at&t. Got my droid a few weeks ago and couldn't be happier.

    Verizon seems to be the smartphone thunderdome, and i'd love to see apple come in and kick some windows mobile and blackberry ass, but they are apparently content to hang out in the at&t sandbox. I'd be posting this from an iphone instead of a droid if apple would commit to a decent network. Maybe in 2 years they'll have gotten t

  • Really? This has got to be the dumbest, most pointless story (and I use the term lightly) I have ever read on here.
  • All I see here is a story about a foolish developer who decided it was smarter to let slip that they are mining their usage logs looking for "interesting" stuff like this, when they should probably keep their mouths shut if they plan on misusing people's (or, for that matter, a company's) personal data.

  • You can create a custom browser user agent . [mozilla.org]

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