Apple has posted some information regarding where to buy the iPhone 3G and what to bring to the store so you can get up and running. According to Apple, in-store activations will occur at Apple's retail stores.
"Let a Specialist help you choose your iPhone, check the network coverage where you live, select a rate plan, review the contract terms, and - best of all - activate your new iPhone in just a few minutes," the Apple page explains.
Apple suggests having the following information handy to make the activation process speedy:
Credit card
Social security number
Valid government-issued photo ID
Current wireless account number and password or PIN (if you're new to AT&T)
Apple also provides information for new iPhone owners on how to organize their data to make it ready for the iPhone. All of this information can be found on Apple's Where to Buy website.
In an interview with Financial Times [registration required], Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg shared his company's answer to the iPhone's popularity "...As handsets become banking tools and games controllers, he argues, mobile operators can up-end other companies' business models. 'It's very cool. And Steve Jobs will eventually get old ... I like our chances.'"
Seidenberg, who is nine years Jobs' senior, has decided to wait for his rival to "age out" of his position. This reminds me of the skinny 7th grader who laments, "Someday my bully will notice girls and lose interest in stealing my lunch money."
Or, perhaps by "old" he meant "out-of-favor" as Daring Fireball suggests. Like Jelly Shoes and Jarts, the appeal of Apple with Jobs at the wheel will eventually fade. All Verizon must do is ride out the trend, like a lobster boat in a Nor'easter.
Forget innovation and hard work. The sit-and-wait method is a good one, too. It worked for Estragon and Vladimir.
With all of the excitement about the 3G iPhone, one question you should ask yourself is "Am I actually in an area with AT&T HSDPA 3G service?" After all, a 3G iPhone will only poke along at EDGE (or even, God forbid, GPRS) speeds unless it is in a 3G service area.
Fortunately, AT&T Wireless has a list of the major markets that have HSDPA service. Unfortunately, you have to go through the list by state and city name before you can actually click on a map and see if your house or office is in a zone of 3G love. My house, which has sucky AT&T service at this time, is allegedly in a 3G-happy area (blue on the screenshot). That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm right near the border of one of those orange zones, which indicate no 3G service.
My sister currently enjoys EDGE service in her home town of Richland, WA, but is anxious to get her iPhone connected with 3G service. I hate to tell her that she's not on the list.
A MacRumors tipster has discovered a treat for iPhone users from AT&T. It would seem that AT&T is offering free wireless internet access via an iPhone in Starbucks (we posted about the Starbucks-AT&T deal a little while ago) as well as in Barnes and Nobles and 71,000 other locations.
MacRumors notes that you must enter your mobile iPhone number as a means of verification. A picture of the portal home page is available on MacRumors.
Apple Insider is reporting that the New York City Department of Education has put all shipments of Macs to schools on complete hold while they're apparently waiting for Apple to fix a Wifi connectivity issue with OS X (which should be fixed with the 10.5.3 update). And Apple is apparently scrambling to get it worked out -- they've sent an apologetic email to faculty and have asked schools to try and separate any orders of computers that won't need wireless (that will use a regular ethernet hookup) to ship now.
Unfortunately, there's no hint of exactly how many Macs we're talking about here, but if this is a substantial number of computers, and word gets out causing other organizations to delay shipments as well, Apple will feel more and more pressure to get the problem fixed ASAP. Bad news for the kids who want Macs in New York City (that's the DoE's seal on the right, in case you didn't recognize it), but good news for anyone else having this problem -- Apple's working hard on a fix.
As much as I love my MacBook Air, it's had one issue in particular recently that has been pretty annoying: it drops wireless network connections seemingly at random intervals and for no particular reason. Not all wireless connections, though, just some and again, with no discernible pattern of access point or type of connection. For example, it works on my home Airport network flawlessly, but with some public Wi-Fi networks, it has a problem.
Case in point: I was at a local coffee shop near my house recently that provides free WiFi. Given that the WiFi was free and only had a WEP password, it should have been a simple matter to connect and enjoy the benefits of free Internet access. After being told the WEP password, I was able to enter it, click "Save this password to the Keychain," sign on to the wireless network and was off and surfing. Unfortunately, my wireless connection was short-lived as after only a few minutes, the connection dropped, leaving me with nothing.
Not knowing the exact nature of the problem, I connected again by selecting the network SSID in my list of available networks which show up in the Airport menu on the top right of the screen. When I selected the network, I was again prompted for the password I had just entered a few minutes ago and had, as I remembered distinctly, clicked that I wanted the Keychain to remember.
As I've often said right here at TUAW, I have a need for speed. I want my computers, my phones, and especially my Internet access to be as fast as possible. When I'm at home, secure in the knowledge that my Time Warner Business Cable connection is the fastest I can get (until FIOS comes to my hood), things are going well for me and looking good.
But what happens if I have to leave the house and go on the road as I frequently do? How can I possibly maintain my connection to the Internet while mobile and still get the speed I need? Fortunately, there a a few solutions to this problem such as using wireless "hotspots" around town or using a cell phone's data connection as a high speed modem for my Mac Book Pro.
However, for true freedom, a hotspot isn't the answer for me as you can't always find one when you need one or they cost too much money. As an iPhone user, the option to use my cell phone as a high speed modem was also out. So, that left one obvious choice for me: EVDO cards. Now that I had decided an EVDO card was the answer to my needs, several more questions immediately came to mind.
Which card should I get and from which provider? Would the cards work with my laptop of choice: the Apple Mac Book Pro? How much would the cards and data plans cost me? And the most important question of all: what kind of speed would I get?
Feature: Time Machine How it works: Plug an external hard drive into your Mac and Leopard will automatically detect it and ask if you want to enable the Time Machine back up option. Select yes, and you're done. Time Machine will automatically back up your entire hard drive but if you want to skip certain files or folders, simply tell it what to do in the preference pane.
Time Machine is also handy for that dreaded "Why did I hit delete?" moment. If you accidentally trash that presentation you've been working on the night before you need it, just flip back through the files on the back up drive until you find what you need. Apple assumes that this will happen to everyone at some point, so they'll thoughtfully provided access to Time Machine right in Finder.
Got more than one Mac? No problem. Multiple machines can be backed up onto one drive via your wireless network.
Who will use it: Anyone who hates losing files, folders, documents, or media unexpectedly. So, pretty much everyone.
We first mentionedNetworkLocation back in November '06, and since then this automated location manager and setting switcher has been upgraded to v2.0 with some killer new features. In addition to automatically changing settings like system volume, opening a webpage, playing an iTunes playlist or switching Mail servers all based on the wired or wireless network you connect to, this new version adds a great new feature that users have been dying for: the ability to auto-detect which network you're connecting to and begin changing any settings you prefer with no effort on the user's part. Also on the new actions list are things like disabling bluetooth and locking the keychain, with another great enhancement making it easy to duplicate locations and stets of actions: the ability to drag and drop said actions between locations. NetworkLocation has also received plug-in support, with the first plug-in available for rooSwitch, another utility we love that allows you to switch between multiple profiles and sets of data for an application (i.e. - multiple Yojimbo libraries or different Firefox profiles with their own bookmarks and add-ons).
I have to say, after the development crew was kind enough to allow me to test the beta, NetworkLocation 2.0 has become one of my can't-live-without Mac OS X utilities. I move between home networks, multiple coffee shops, wireless on campus and friends' houses, and allowing NetworkLocation to adjust all my settings automatically in the background is easily worth the $25 price tag (though upgrade licenses are free for 1.x owners). Heck, I'd go so far as to say NetworkLocation should be the next Cover Flow, deserving to get bought by Apple as a feature Mac OS X should have had a long time ago.
Reader Andrew dropped a note that Michael Rossberg, developer of KisMAC, the wireless network sniffer based on Kismet, has declared the project discontinued. I can't get the project's website to load (most likely because it's been Slashdotted), but apparently the reason Rossberg gave was that a change in Germany's laws would make it dangerous for him to continue working on it. The law apparently makes it illegal for anyone to sniff out a password that "allows access to data", and since that's a big part of KisMAC's function, Rossberg is calling it quits.
But he is asking for interested parties to continue his work, in the EU or the US, so if the site ever returns, feel free to grab the source and check it out yourself.
Of course, from what Slashdot commenters are saying, this isn't much of a loss anyway-- the program hasn't seen any real updates in a long time, and apparently it didn't even work with the new MacBooks. In terms of network finders, there's lots more to choose from (including iStumbler, which I didn't mention in the other article), but in terms of cracking WEP and WPA keys (legally, of course), are there any other OS X specific options out there? Update: Clarification: the program will run on MacBooks, but it doesn't do anything but find networks, which is just a fraction of the intended functionality.
As Dave noted on Friday, we expected to hear more from Duke on the iPhone-killed-our-network story, and we did -- on Friday the university released a statement that identified the problem, now resolved, as "a Cisco-based network issue" which has now been patched. The iPhone has been fully exonerated as a cause or victim of the wireless issue, demonstrating once again that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Hey, it's not like Cisco's still bitter about the whole iPhone trademark thing, either.
It seems that Kevin Miller, with Duke's IT department, jumped the gun a bit last week when he told Network World, with considerable confidence, that the iPhone was at the root of Duke's wireless problems. "I don't believe it's a Cisco problem in any way, shape or form," he said. Oops. Sounds familiar to me... network guys always bristle when someone says "it's a router problem," and the immediate (and often correct) reaction is to blame the newest devices on the LAN. Don't worry, Mr. Miller, we've got the perfect Sysadmin Appreciation Day gift for you: a fruit basket, chock full of Apples.
Engadget is reporting that a rumored firmware update to Microsoft's Zune DAP (Digital Audio Player) could usher in wireless downloads from their Zune Marketplace digital media store. No word yet on whether these would be all-you-can-eat subscription downloads or purchases made via the Zune Marketplace's points system, but regardless: if Microsoft gets this out in the near future and Apple hasn't stepped up to the plate (possibly with wireless iTunes downloads to the iPhone), they'll be one of the last major players in the DAP market that hasn't snipped the chord on downloading yet. Mobile phones and services from the likes of Cingular, Sprint and Verizon are all enabling wireless downloads, with Sprint recently matching the iTunes price of $.99 per song.
While Microsoft doesn't seem to be causing any loss of sleep for Apple in terms of iPod sales just yet, wireless downloads is one of the undeniable holy grails that digital media lovers everywhere have been clamoring for since the rumor mongers first began posting their silly claims of 'wireless iPods any day now' many years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if the debut of this feature alone made at least a few potential iPod switchers finally make the leap to black, white and brown waters.
Apple has just released a new update for AirPort Extreme base stations. The update includes general fixes, security improvements and addresses compatibility for the 802.11n base station. To install this update, you'll need AirPort Utility 5.1 for Mac or Windows.
The first security concerns seem to be the AirPort's ability to allow incoming IPv6 connections, which it does by default. The new update changes those default settings to limit inbound IPv6 connections to the local network only. You can check your settings after installing the update by opening AirPort Utility, selecting an 802.11 Extreme base station, clicking Advanced -> IPv6, and making sure that Block incoming IPv6 connections is checked.
A second security issue allows file names from a password-protected AirPort Disk to be viewed by users on the local network without a password. This is patched to require validation before file names (not file contents) can be seen.
Ah, the open road. What's more American than being mobile, drifting along the highways and byways, traveling hither and yon, free as a debt-laden bird? While I try to rein in that derailed train of road metaphor, let's consider the options for Mac users and wireless data. Many of you would love to take your Internet access with you as you travel on family vacation or spring break; for others, terrestrial broadband (cable modem or DSL) is unavailable or prohibitively expensive at your fixed location. Good news for all: the choices on the wireless access front are better than ever before. We'll cover the US domestic options today, and hopefully get to Europe/UK and other international options sometime soon.
While I still need to drop $180 to get an AirPort Extreme Base Station for 'review' from Apple, Engadget just put theirs through its paces. Overall, they found that the obvious upsides were Apple's sleek design and easy-breezy setup thanks to the revamped AirPort Admin Utility 5.0. In the drawbacks category, however, were a bizarre lack - in fact a back-step for the AirPort base station - of gigabit ethernet, and less-than-optimal transfer rates, though Engadget concedes your mileage may vary, as it so often does with wireless hardware.
Engadget has also posted a hands-on gallery, which includes their own screenshots of the new Admin Utility. Strangely, they didn't say anything about some of this base station's new found abilities, such as the new AirPort Disk, one of the key features making me count my pennies in anticipation of affording one of these.
Apple has posted some information regarding where to buy the iPhone 3G and what to bring to the store so you can get up and running. According to Apple, in-store activations will occur at Apple's retail stores. 
In an 
A MacRumors tipster has discovered a treat for iPhone users from AT&T. It would seem that AT&T is offering free wireless internet access via an iPhone in Starbucks (we posted about the 
Apple Insider is reporting that 
As much as I love my 
Reader Andrew dropped a note that Michael Rossberg, developer of KisMAC, the wireless network sniffer based on 
As Dave noted on Friday
Engadget is 
Ah, the open road. What's more American than being mobile, drifting along the highways and byways, traveling hither and yon, free as a debt-laden bird? While I try to rein in that derailed train of road metaphor, let's consider the options for Mac users and wireless data. Many of you would love to take your Internet access with you as you travel on family vacation or spring break; for others, terrestrial broadband (cable modem or DSL) is unavailable or prohibitively expensive at your fixed location. Good news for all: the choices on the wireless access front are better than ever before. We'll cover the US domestic options today, and hopefully get to Europe/UK and other international options sometime soon.
