Kinda cool. The picture zoom thing is amazing.

They might have to call it something else, though....

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...coapple11.html

Apple hit with iPhone suit; Cisco Systems says it owns name
By Michelle Quinn, Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco to Apple: We need to talk.

A day after Apple baptized its eagerly anticipated cellphone with the marketing slogan "we need to talk," Cisco Systems filed a trademark lawsuit Wednesday, pointing out it has owned the iPhone name since 2000.

Up until Monday night, the two companies had been negotiating over the name. Cisco, which acquired the name when it bought a company, was willing to "share," spokeswoman Terry Anderson said.

Apple, apparently, was not.

Apple built a consumer-electronics empire on the lower-case "i" — iMac, iPod, iTunes — and has long coveted Silicon Valley neighbor Cisco's iPhone. Nevertheless, Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris called Cisco's lawsuit "silly."

Cisco came to own the name when it bought Infogear, which had owned the trademark since 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, began shipping iPhone products a year ago. It recently launched a phone that uses voice-over-Internet technology.

For several years, Apple has approached Cisco about the name iPhone, according to Cisco. Anderson said the networking company was not looking for money and that it credited the hard work of the Apple team.

Cisco, instead, is looking for "collaboration and joint development with Apple" to ensure Apple's phone will work with Cisco's networking gear, Anderson said.

After talks stalled, Cisco executives were surprised that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs went ahead and christened his iPhone in a presentation Tuesday.

"Several other companies are using the name iPhone for voice-over-the-Internet products," Apple's Kerris said.

"We're the first to use iPhone for a cellphone. If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're confident we'll prevail."

Silicon Valley is not a hotbed of trademark-violation lawsuits, mostly because the products aren't around long enough to build brand recognition, lawyer Thomas Schneck said.

Apple might assert the iPhone is part of its family of marks, he said.

Cisco may worry that, with Apple entering the market, the name iPhone will become more generic.

Said Schneck: "I think it's a shot across the bow."

.lol. Thats a point. I've got an I-Phone as well.

My guess is that Apple will stick with it - the i-prefix thing (especially since iPod) is brilliant marketing from Apple's POV, plus Cisco aren't really competitors so not sure how they'll show it hurts them.

Looks like a neat gadget, too - but there are fewer tougher markets than mobile telephony, so will be interesting to seehow it fares...

It's a pointless toy imo. My phones expanded card has as much capacity as the proposed Iphone already. Most new phones already are MP3 players and all have digital cameras, some of much superior quality.

The iphone offers nothing new but hype.

The Watcher wrote: And for Apple, hype sells....the iPod is evidence of that.....guess they're hoping for more of the same with iPhone, regardless of the quality of the product - the iPod is a long way from the 'best' mp3 player from a technical standpoint, but it had tons of 'cool' and was a design masterpiece.....

Can see certain functions becoming part of standard computers. They didn't mention that is only so and so thick. Apart fromnot being able to type properly, touchscreens are crap at that,it looks like a good productnot as breakthough as they make it out to be but it is impressive.

Would put money down on Apple is I knew how to stock trade and all that, it looks like they're moving and shaking.

Telefonica's O2 poised to be iPhone's partner in Britain: report

AFP - Thursday, July 5 11:14 amLONDON (AFP) - O2, the British unit of Spanish telecommunications group Telefonica, is close to securing a deal to be the sole network partner for Apple's iPhone in Britain, a report said Thursday.

(Advertisement)
O2 is set to be the first European mobile phone operator to reach a deal with Apple over its iPhone, the Financial Times said, citing "people familiar with the matter."

O2 said that it has "not signed a deal with Apple," while Apple declined to comment, the FT noted.

The iPhone, which was launched in the United States last week, will hit stores in Britain, France and Germany later this year.

It will become available elsewhere in Europe in 2008, when it will launch also in Asia.

T-Mobile, the mobile arm of German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, has meanwhile beaten British rival Vodafone in the battle to win the marketing rights for Apple's iPhone in Germany, a report said on Wednesday.

The iPhone, one of the most eagerly awaited devices in years, went on sale last Friday.

The slim, pocket-sized machine from the innovative Apple computer company merges mobile telephone, Internet browsing, e-mail, text messaging, music and video replay into one device.


Telefonica's O2 poised to be iPhone's partner in Britain: report - Yahoo! News UK

Affair with iPhone cools when handset breaks - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

Affair with iPhone cools when handset breaks
After four days with phone, trouble in paradise


By Joe Hutsko
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 9:47 a.m. ET July 5, 2007
Falling in lust with an expensive device like the iPhone sets owners up for a hard fall if it stops working. I know, because mine died after only four days into our relationship.

At first I thought it was just a hiccup when the iPhone was working fine one minute, then wouldn’t turn on the next. I tried the prescribed reset (hold down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time for several seconds until the device restarts) with no luck. Black screen, period. But when I plugged it in the Apple logo appeared as if restarting. Then it vanished, the screen went black again, and a few seconds later the logo reappeared, as if restarting. Again. Then again. And again. Trouble in paradise.

On a whim I held the buttons for a reset again but this time kept holding, until eventually a bright yellow triangle appeared, instructing me to Connect the iPhone to iTunes. This forced “restore mode” allowed the otherwise endless-looped iPhone to appear in iTunes, which prompted me to restore the phone. Since iTunes backs up the phone’s data after every sync I said sure, gladly, please do.

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The restore process began — but then the loopy restarts started again. And again, ad nauseam. At that point I felt a little nauseous, too — four days and the iPhone I spent eight hours in line to buy was a goner.

I contacted the AT&T store and was told I could return the phone for a refund (with a 10 percent restocking fee) but could not exchange it for a replacement; all iPhone support is handled by Apple. I contacted a public relations person at Apple and she said she’d have customer service call me. While waiting on that call I decided to drive to the nearby Apple Store with the far-flung hope that they’d simply swap the phone for me (crazily assuming they’d even have another 8 GB model in stock).

An extremely polite Apple customer service rep named Nate called just as I was walking into the Apple Store. He introduced me to the store manager, Sean, who was also on the line. We hung up with Nate and conducted the service business in person. Sean said they’d simply swap my phone for another, and after some help from two guys named Chris at the Genius Bar, they took back the broken one and I left with the new iPhone. Driving home, I had a number of questions. Would they completely erase my iPhone when it reached the service department, so that my private data remains mine alone? What if they hadn’t had another iPhone in stock?

I got answers from Apple’s PR department. Yes, all iPods and iPhones that are exchanged for replacements get wiped clean. As for the in-stock issue, iPhone owners can swap a “DOA” phone for a replacement if within 30 days of purchase. If the store is out of stock or if the purchase is past thirty days (or if a customer doesn’t live near an Apple Store), the repair-by-mail process kicks in.

The owner removes the SIM card (which will work in the previously used phone that the iPhone presumably replaced), mails the iPhone to Apple, and they repair it and send it back. Apple offers the option of a rental iPhone during the repair process for a $29 fee — something that is bound to rub customers the wrong way.

There was no such fee from AT&T when one of my previous phones — the Palm Treo 680 — went in for repairs. While under warranty AT&T automatically ships a loaner phone, which you wind up keeping if they deem your original dead.

They do charge a small fee if you want the replacement sent overnight, but otherwise the repair process is free. (AT&T waived the rush fee the two additional times I had to send the Treo in for replacement due to the thin plastic bezel around the screen repeatedly cracking despite my handling the device with kid gloves.)

Why did my iPhone fail so soon? Apple’s Geniuses couldn’t say on the spot. But I think it had something to do with heat — my iPhone would get incredibly hot to the touch when plugged in and charging while I was on a long phone call. So hot I lived those first three days in constant fear that it would heat to the point of burning up.

So hot that I was tempted to put some raw egg in a foil cup and set it atop the iPhone to see if it would cook — or if not actually cook, turn opaque from the iPhone’s super-heated back surface. Describing this on my blog JOEyGADGET promoted one other iPhone owner to comment:

“Yep, mine seems hot but I don’t know if it’s too hot. Hotness is relative you know.” Agreed when discussing physical attraction, but when talking about physical touch, take my word for it, my original iPhone all but burned the skin on my hand.

Apple faced a similar too-hot-too-handle problem with the underside of the initial MacBook models; the situation has since cooled down, but personally I feel my own later-model MacBook’s underside is too much relative hotness for my taste. Or touch. Whether my first iPhone was a fluke remains to be seen.

As for the iPhone I was given to replace the little hottie, the new one is much cooler to the touch when plugged in and in use, and therefore, so am I.

CENTER]Image from the RBG SSTT Image Database:

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[b]iPhone a Trojan Horse For Government Surveillance?

Backdoor spyware module allows state, corporations and hackers to listen in
Prison Planet | July 20, 2007
Paul Joseph Watson

An alarming white paper concludes that the Apple iPhone contains a backdoor spyware module that allows hackers or the government to conduct secret surveillance of the user, part of an established trend of corporations and the state working hand in hand to eavesdrop on citizens via widely-used software and hardware products.

Earlier this week, a technology group in Russia released the results of their attempts to reverse engineer the iPhone, concluding that the product has "A built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of Safari browser - all your personal information can be stolen."

The module could act as a backdoor for trojan developers or AT & T, said the report, adding that "government structures" would have access to the information.

Since AT & T displayed no hesitation in handing over information about their subscribers to the U.S. government as part of the controversial and illegal NSA wiretapping scandal , it would be no surprise to learn that included in the trendy new must-have gadget is a spyware module that allows the government to listen in to your conversations.

AT & T were chosen by Apple as the exclusive service provider for the iPhone, at present all other cellphone companies are blocked from offering any kind of service compatible with the iPhone.

The revelation is also not without precedent - a plethora of companies now include backdoor access in both software and hardware products that allow the state to step in and conduct warrantless covert surveillance, a blanket violation of the 4th Amendment.

Digital cable TV boxes, such as Scientific Atlanta, have had secret in-built microphones inside them since their inception in the 1990's and these originally dormant devices were planned to be activated when the invasive advertising revolution arrived - 2006 marked that date.


Yeeaah! I just got my ass wiretapped by the government!
The advent of digital video recording devices such as TiVo (Sky Plus in the UK) introduced the creation of psychological algorithm profiles - databases on what programs you watched, how long you watched them for, which adverts you liked or didn't like. This information was retained by TiVo and sold to the highest bidders - an example being Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the 2003 Super Bowl half-time show - TiVo were able to compile lists of how many people had rewound the clip and how many times they had replayed it.

Two way communications systems like OnStar also have the ability to tap into private conversations as Americans become increasingly conditioned, by means of the private sector, to having their every movement, web session and conversation tracked and catalogued by big brother.

Last year we reported on how Google were planning to use microphones in the computers of an estimated 150 million-plus Internet active Americans to spy on their lifestyle choices and build psychological profiles which will be used for surveillance and minority report style invasive advertising and data mining.

"The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject," reported the Register .

The report cites the inevitability that the use and abuse of this technology will eventually be taken over by the state.

"Pretty soon the security industry is going to find a way to hijack the Google feed and use it for full on espionage."

The Echelon program has collected information in violation of the 4th Amendment from American citizen's phone calls since the early 90's at least. In addition, a 2001 European Parliament report stated that "within Europe all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted" by the NSA.

The fact that Echelon barely even merited a mention during the recent furore created by the original USA Today NSA spying piece goes to show how utterly useless our media are in recalling what has already been admitted and proven.

In 1999 the Australian government admitted that they were part of an NSA led global intercept and surveillance grid in alliance with the US and Britain that could listen to "every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio transmission."

The use of the iPhone as another means of carte-blanch invasive surveillance underscores the fact that corporations and government are joined at the hip when it comes to their disregard of the right to privacy as enshrined in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.



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There wasa program on more4, surveilliance britian or something where one communications expert showed how he could tap into a persons phone from their bluetooth connection and record their conversations. He followed the producer and taped his chat with someone at a bar from across the road. A lot of phones, including mine have the net on them, can pretty much do anything once you can tap that signal I guess. Police will have cctv on them as well soon, which should be intresting.

State is getting paranoid.