Recently, we reported on AT&T's push to make it easier for iPhone & iPod touch users to connect to their Wi-Fi Hot Spots. One of our readers, Jamie Phelps, pointed out on his blog that AT&T's Wi-Fi service is not actually a "secure connection," as is advertised in various places on their website; we had overlooked this, and mistakenly reinforced the company's shaky claim in our post.

This brings to light an important point about wireless networks and security, however. It's really easy (and sadly all too common) to hop on to an available wireless signal in your office, at the hotel, or your favorite coffee spot and not even think twice about logging in to your e-mail or checking your bank balance.

What many users don't realize is even though the server you are connecting to (i.e. your bank's website) may employ several layers of security, the connection between your computer and the wireless access point is very likely to be unsecured. Anyone who is within range of your computer can trivially monitor the traffic being sent between your computer and the access point, allowing them to see what websites you may be visiting or capture details about other services that you may be connected to. This isn't because of some gaping vulnerability or software bug, it's just an inherent part of how wireless networks work.

So, what can you do to protect yourself? Read on for a list of simple steps you can take to ensure that your wireless connection is safe and secure.

Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about the Quicky Jr II USB wireless signal booster, which is a little USB dongle / antenna that plugs into a USB port on any Mac that is running Mac OS X 10.4 or newer. This little device, from QuickerTek, purports to let you wander up to three times the distance you normally can, and still receive a nice, strong, and encrypted wireless signal.

The US$89.95 Quicky Jr II comes with an easily-installed USB driver that lets it work with your 802.11n/g/b networks, including those that are powered by an AirPort Extreme Base Station. While I'm usually dubious of any device that claims to increase wireless range unless it is pitched by the late, great Billy Mays, the Quicky Jr II appears to be just what it says it is; a powered USB Wi-Fi antenna. In theory the larger antenna size and a built-in USB-powered amplifier could help boost the signal, then route it to your AirPort circuitry.

Rather than speculate on how well devices like this work, I'd like to ask our readers. Do you have any experience with this or similar products? Do they work as advertised? TUAW wants to know.

It's hard to believe that we're approaching the two-year anniversary of the original iPhone. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that the iPhone has completely transformed the mobile computing space. This is especially clear when evaluating mobile Wi-Fi usage data.

Today, Boingo Wireless released a data snapshot of mobile device access on its airport network of Wi-Fi hotspots. According to Boingo, airports are the number one venue for Wi-Fi access worldwide, so they make for a good data point when evaluating Wi-Fi usage.

For the past 24-months, Boingo has tracked its airport Wi-Fi data and the increase in mobile device uptake is astonishing. It's also driven almost entirely by the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Since May 2007, mobile device usage has gone from accounting for 0.1% of Boingo's airport Wi-Fi connections to 26.1%. In two years, the smartphone has gone from a non-entity to accounting for 1/4 of all of Boingo's connections.

Boingo has also tracked what type of devices associate with Boingo operated airport Wi-Fi hotspots. In 2007, the first year the iPhone was available, the iPhone only accounted for 1% of all mobile devices. Windows CE (Windows Mobile), was the leader in 2007, with 66% of mobile device connections. In 2008, the iPhone accounted for 51.7% of all mobile devices, with the iPod touch coming in second with 42.4%. For the first five months of 2009, the iPhone has taken an astounding 89.2% of all mobile devices accessing Boingo's airport hotspots. The iPod touch has dipped to 4.7%. I talked to Jeremy Pepper from Boingo PR and he said that they think the drop in the price of the iPhone is the reason iPod touch access figures have dipped, with the iPhone taking its place.

Although these figures are only from one Wi-Fi access source, the number of users that access Wi-Fi at the airport provides what I consider a good sample for data collection. In two years, not only has the mobile access space increased 261x, the iPhone OS accounts for nearly 94% of all mobile connections.

No wonder every other phone manufacturer is desperately trying to play catch-up!

Among the many wonderful (and sometimes frustrating) new features of iPhone OS 3.0 was one that was announced today by AT&T. The company now supports auto-authentication for 3.0 users who are connecting to AT&T WiFi Hot Spots. While the Hot Spots are nothing new, the simple logon is a iPhone OS 3.0 feature that went live today.

Any customer using a qualified iPhone data plan has unlimited access to more than 20,000 AT&T WiFi Hot Spots. Previously, using the Hot Spots required a two-step authentication process that required receiving an SMS message. Now you connect your iPhone to the network at a Hot Spot one time, and the auto-connect capability is set up for you. From then on, all you need to do is walk into the Hot Spot, and you'll be automatically logged in with a secure connection. (One-click logon capability for the AT&T wireless sites was offered for iPhone 2.x devices via Devicescape's Easy Wi-Fi app, but it has disappeared from the App Store.)

Update: As pointed out here and acknowledged here, AT&T is playing fast and loose with the word 'secure' in its marketing materials. The hotspot connection is not protected with WEP or WPA encryption, and there is nothing in the default setup to prevent other users in the same location from sniffing your packets as they fly by.

This is a big step in the direction that AT&T seemed to be taking when they started boldly moving into the WiFi Hot Spot market, in terms of making sure that AT&T customers can easily and seamlessly move between AT&T's wireless network and the WiFi Hot Spots. Most iPhone users can now walk into any McDonald's, Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble location and immediately take advantage of WiFi speeds and bandwidth.

For more information about the location of the Hot Spots and how to connect, visit the AT&T WiFi site here.

Sure, the transparent email and the yet-another-dialer brigade are all well and good, but there are a few things the iPhone doesn't do that I really wish it would. Here's a pair of app suggestions that are probably outside the bounds of the SDK and prime fodder for jailbreak developers, but if someone came up with a way to do them that would make it onto the App Store, I can guarantee you at least one customer.

WiFi Master: If you use your iPhone in a major metropolitan area, you've probably encountered the problem I have in New York City -- scores of access points named 'linksys,' 'netgear' or 'default' or a Starbucks broadcasting AT&T's WiFi network on every corner. Join one, just once, and your iPhone insists on hopping aboard whenever it's in range, whether or not the named network is the one you meant to use or whether you've signed into the web portal for the WLAN (leaving you starved for connectivity, as the 3G connection is superceded by the WiFi link).

Tweaking the network settings is generally a no-no for non-Apple apps, but we need help. Give me a quick way to turn WiFi on and off from the home screen, a way to exclude or include access points by MAC address instead of just by SSID (locking out the rogue 'linksys' networks), and instant display of my assigned DHCP address without diving four screens down into the Settings app. Granted, the Devicescape sign-on automation apps are a good start towards this goal (the Easy WiFi for AT&T iPhones app is worth the $0.99 in aggravation reduction) but I need more active WiFi control in this network-dense environment.

As noted in the comments, the jailbreak app SBSettings covers a lot of these use cases; if you're in a WiFi hot zone and you can't take any more, it might be the tool that pushes you to jailbreak your phone.

GotThis?: One of the favored activities of appoholics, when meeting in their secret underground lairs, is comparing screenfuls of cool iPhone apps to see what they might want to download next. It would be easier if these phone-waving sessions could be automated with -- of course -- an app that would compare your installed suite with that of your neighbor's, point out what he's got that you don't and vice versa, show you most-run statistics and then perhaps link you to the App Store if you've gotta have one of those apps right away.

The problem is that the roster of installed apps is not accessible to a sandboxed app running on the phone, at least not under SDK rules; one way to do this would be to scrape the installed app profile from iTunes and then store it, with the user's permission, on an external website (leveraging the existing iUseThis for iPhone, perhaps). Give this app the interface and location awareness of contact sharer & billionth-app Bump, let users tap iPhones to compare installation profiles, and you'd have a fun social networking tool plus an appoholic enabler of devastating proportions.

What's on your app wishlist? Have you seen apps like these, either in the App Store or in the Cydia Store? Let us know below.

Have you ever wondered whether the wifi data you send and receive with your iPhone or iPod touch at the local coffee shop or airport is secure? Well, I bet if you hadn't wondered that before, you are now. It's easy to forget that inside that cute little handheld device live the guts of an actual computer, and likely a lot of personal data. Depending on your surfing habits, you could be sending and receiving personal information in a non-secure way over public wifi.

If you're concerned about your data's safety, consider using Anchorfree's Hotspot Shield free VPN service. Hotspot Shield has been a great way to lock down your laptop's wifi for a long time now, and just recently they have released instructions on how to take advantage of their service on an iPhone / iPod touch. Pleasantly, the service does not require that a program be downloaded to your device, but rather takes advantage of the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in VPN functionality.

My only gripe with Hotspot Shield is that it can sometimes be challenging to get the VPN to successfully connect. Anchorfree recommends performing a quick reboot of your device to get your connection going, but in my experience even that can be a hit-or-miss scenario. But it's still better than letting that creepy guy that keeps hitting on the barista peruse my http requests. 'Cause I'm not paranoid, but I'm sure that's what he's doing.

Devicescape has released Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T (iTunes link) a new iPhone application designed to streamline logging onto the now free AT&T wifi hotspots. The old way required you to join the network, which would then bring up a page in mobile Safari to enter your AT&T phone number. A few seconds later you receive a (free) text message from AT&T containing a link. Click on the link and you're connected to the internet.

With Easy Wi-Fi apparently all you have to do is launch the app and it will log you on without going through the text message rigmarole. They're offering it for free at the moment, though apparently it'll be jumping up to $1.99 on Friday. So if you make a habit of visiting places with AT&T wifi (e.g. Starbucks) grab it now at the iTunes Store.

[via Gizmodo]

We'll believe it when we see it, of course. Livestation is a service that claims to be "Slingbox without the box." Once subscribed, you can watch television streamed to your computer, via peer-to-peer, from anywhere. And now they're apparently set to announce an iPhone app that will do the same thing. Like we said, it seems like a great idea -- who wouldn't want to watch some TV while waiting for the train or sitting the doctor's office -- but investment money and promises do not a working iPhone app make.

Even the Livestation rep says it's still in development right now, and he won't give a date other than "soon." I have no doubt that we'll soon see streaming TV on the iPhone -- with the growing popularity of sites like Hulu and Netflix's own streaming video service, and a similar promise of streaming shows from i.TV, it definitely seems like that's where media is headed, even portable media. But this isn't something to hold your breath for quite yet -- I'm happy with Weatherbug's already-working video weather reports.

Several readers are reporting that they've gotten SMS messages from AT&T reminding them of the long-awaited "free wireless at Starbucks" plan. First announced in February with a target launch of 'spring 2008,' the service has been quietly running on and off since April, including two hours of daily access at any Starbucks store or AT&T hotspot. T-Mobile users who have existing hotspot accounts are supposed to have ongoing access to the network in Starbucks stores.

Although the service has been available on a spotty basis, an official "yes it's working" announcement has been long in coming. Have you gotten a reminder from AT&T? Is WiFi working at your local Starbucks? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

Update 2: Box.net will work with first generation iPod Touch units. The team is going to push an update very soon to make this visible on the app description page. You can download the program right now and it is fully compatible with all iPhone and iPod Touch units.

Update: Box.net is looking into why its new app is not working with first generation iPod Touch units and hopes to push out an update soon. We'll keep you posted!

I love Box.net -- the online file storage system that makes it easy to store and share files with other users quickly and easily. A couple of years ago, TUAW wrote up how to use Box.net as an iDisk (and this still works), but now the Box team has made it even easier to access your files while on the go, with the new Box.net iPhone app.

The app, which is compatible with the iPhone and the second generation iPod Touch (sorry 1st Gen touch users!), is simply awesome. Box.net already had an iPhone friendly mobile interface at i.box.net, but while you could access some files from that page, you couldn't play back media and document viewing was more limited. The new application means you can play back audio and video (assuming the file is compatible with the iPhone 2.1's firmware support for QuickTime), view PDF or Office files, view photos, and upload photos from your iPhone or iPod Touch directly to Box.net.

Even nicer, the Box.net app integrates directly with your address book, so you can share a folder or individual document with a contact, just by clicking the "Share" button and selecting the contact from the address book. The application also notifies you of any updates or changes made to your box, which is great for individuals who collaborate with other users using a Box.net account.

I have a free Box.net account (which limits me to 1 GB of storage space and puts a 25 MB cap on file sizes), but I was able to access all my files and documents with ease. On my iPod Touch, Box.net loaded PDF files faster than some other tools I have used for PDF viewing, though I did find that network activity did impact overall speed. When the bridged router I use with my non-802.11n devices was in heavy use, it could take quite some time to load a large PDF. When the G router was idle, load time was almost non-existent, even for 8 or 9 MB files.

I don't have an iPhone, so I cannot vouch for EDGE or 3G speeds -- but over WiFi, speed was solid.

The interface of this app, as you can see from the gallery, is just superb. It perfectly matches both the Box.net website and the iPhone user interface guidelines. Maneuvering through files was a cinch and I love the integration with the address book for sharing files or folders. Being able to upload photos directly to Box.net is also pretty great.

If there was anything that could be on my wishlist, it would be the ability to upload other types of tiles to Box.net as well. Of course, you can always e-mail uploads to Box.net, so this isn't an absolute necessity.

Box.net is free and available from the App Store now.

Apple released AirPort Extreme Update 2008-003, but then pulled it several minutes later. The update now no longer shows up in Software Update, and the page it was on is missing from Apple's site.

The update was originally recommended for all Intel-based Macs with Mac OS X 10.5.5. The update said it resolved "some issues with AirPort connections when roaming in large Wi-Fi networks."

The file was available from this page on Apple's website, and via Software Update. It's unclear why the update was pulled, or if there are any consequences for those who have installed it already.

If you installed the update, do you notice anything amiss? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Thanks, Danny and Randall!

Colony is a new free application that showed up on the iPhone App Store just recently, but it won't do much of anything if you download it -- unless you're hooked up to the WiFi at the Life.Lab building in Digital Harbour in Melbourne, Australia. The app is actually part of an art installation by an artist named Troy Innocent, and was developed by Stewart Haines specifically to control the setup there in Melbourne.

It's a very interesting project -- while it doesn't mean much to anyone not in Digital Harbour, the idea of bringing the iPhone into a location-specific setup is intriguing. Haines has a nice page on his site that details the process of creating the app, and you get to not only see the thought behind the process, but some of the concepts and tech behind the app as well. Very cool.

There are lots of location-specific applications that have yet to be explored on the iPhone, most of them commercial (putting your order in while waiting in line at Starbucks, for instance). But Colony looks like a really thoughtful take on the idea -- I would say that it's too bad you have to go all the way to Australia to use it, but then again that's kind of the point.

Since the introduction of the 1st-gen, GPSless iPhone and the iPod touch, the WiFi location awareness of those devices has been a continuous source of delight to me -- with the underlying technology from Skyhook Wireless, that brave band of cross-country wardrivers, these handhelds manage to know where they are remarkably well (at least, most of the time). Having the same capability on your Mac certainly seems like a logical next step... and what would you do with that location data?

Maybe you'd like to find your friends or hunt for restaurants with the Loki plugin for Firefox, but the real power of location awareness comes to bear when you can have your Mac automatically act on that information: to optimize your configuration, or change your settings to the appropriate choices for the place you're at.

Enter the newest offering from centrix.ca, the Skyhook-enabled version of NetworkLocation 3.0. This $29 settings management utility (we've covered it before) can perform all the necessary changes to your settings: tweaks to network, email, proxy, sound and screen, or even arbitrary modifications via triggered AppleScripts or Automator actions (much like similar apps Location X or WiLMa). With the connection to Skyhook's database, NL3 can now switch profiles when you're in proximity to a known point, along with the previous options to flip over based on network connection or the presence of a specific device. Plugins add support for launching a VPN connection or changing Entourage or Mail's SMTP config. It's a beautiful thing.

You can check out the gallery for a peek at some of NL3's options. For anyone who uses a portable machine in a large campus or corporate environment and wants to take the aggravation out of changing settings for each spot you sit in, this tool is definitely worth a look.

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I've been a faithful reader for awhile and purchased a 3G iPhone a couple weeks ago. Everything is great - except for one thing which is extremely unusual (genius words), I wanted to share with you guys. When I am in my home (and only when I am in my home) my phone believes I am in Springfield PA. I live in Minneapolis MN. It doesn't matter if I am on the 3G network or my personal WiFi network (I've isolated each), Google Maps always centers on Springfield PA. If I walk down my street, watching Google Maps- the phone re-orientates itself back to Minneapolis MN. The Genius tried to re-set the time-zone and a couple other things, but it didn't work.

Anyway, I've got a bunch of screen caps if you guys want to see them. I just can't figure out why BOTH 3G and WiFi would both point to the same (incorrect) place...one uses cell towers and one uses IP addresses right? Anyway, I'm not necessarily looking for you guys to fix it or anything - just thought you might want to know. I Googled "iphone Springfield PA" or "google maps iphone Springfield PA" and several iterations, but it seems I am alone in my situation.

Love,

Jeff

Read on for Auntie's reply.

When the App Store first launched last Thursday, I saw Pandora and AOL Radio and immediately wondered if they would work on my first generation iPhone using EDGE. The quick answer is yes, however, you do make some sacrifices in one of the applications. Read my full review below to get the full details.

About Pandora (Download Link)
Pandora is a part of the Music Genome Project and allows you to create "stations" of your favorite artists. Pandora then pairs those artists to others you might like and plays an unlimited playlist based on your favorite artists. Pandora tracks your likes and dislikes and will play songs based on those results. Pandora lets you find new music for free, and who can argue with that?



About AOL Radio (Download Link)
AOL Radio is a CBS Radio partner that provides online streaming radio stations. Unlike Pandora, AOL Radio is a true streaming radio station in the sense that you can play local stations which support in-audio advertising. AOL Radio can use the location feature in order to find CBS affiliate stations that bitcast near you.



User Interface
Both Pandora and AOL Radio follow a similar user interface design: they both look like the iPod feature on iPhone/iPod touch. Both of the interfaces are nice, however, I have the same gripes for both. The volume controllers in both seem to be independent of the iPhone's volume controller. This can cause the audio to be distorted if you turn it up too much in the applications themselves since you can use the volume buttons on the side to control the audio volume as well.

Secondly, I would love to be able to quit the application and have the audio keep playing (I know, this is an Apple/SDK restriction, but it would still be nice). You can, however, lock the phone and keep the audio playing (which is a nice feature).

Both applications allow you to purchase the currently playing song from the iTunes WiFi Music store. AOL Radio also provides a link to find out more about the currently playing song on AOL Radio's site.

WiFi (or 3G) vs. EDGE Use
When you are playing the music over WiFi (or the 3G cell network), you get awesome audio quality. Both applications seem to provide audio quality that matches that of purchased iTunes songs. On EDGE, however, AOL Radio falls short by providing very low quality audio (I would guess 56k audio). However, Pandora on EDGE seems to maintain good audio quality when you have a signal that is greater than 2/5 bars.

So, who wins?
Since both of these applications are absolutely free and have equal pros and cons, I would recommend downloading both to see which one fits you the best. If you are on a 3G iPhone, both will work well no matter where you are (assuming you're within 3G coverage). However, if you have a 2G iPhone, you might prefer Pandora because it provides better audio quality over EDGE. You can download both applications by clicking the download links above.

Disclaimer: The Unofficial Apple Weblog and AOL Radio are both owned by AOL.