Early iPhone designs have emerged, showing what the people at Apple were thinking when they designed the iPhone and iPad.
The early designs for the iPhone and iPad have emerged in court documents submitted for the legal spat between Apple and Samsung, which reveal that Apple was inspired by Sony, of all people. The Verge has collected various versions of what could have been the iPad, and a now decidedly odd-looking slimline iPhone concept.
The iPhone prototype is labeled the N90, and is much slimmer than any final version of the iPhone -- it's barely wider than the dock connector in fact, and has a much smaller screen that only takes up half the phone.
It looks like a Qwerty phone without the keyboard, which I'm guessing means either the bottom of the phone had some kind of touch-sensitive thing going on, or the designers of this concept didn't think a phone would ever be used for watching videos and other things that require a bigger screen.
The two-tone casing on the back isn't a million miles away from the silver and black frame that encased the very first iPhone.
Another iPhone concept features sharply-angled corners, making it look a bit like a prop from a sci-fi film.
Various iPad designs have also been revealed, including a number of twists on the humble kickstand to support the tablet without using your hands. We've also seen pictures of the iPad prototype with dual dock connectors that sold on eBay for £6,500 in May.
Another interesting note is that many of the concepts are labelled iPod, suggesting Apple was considering keeping the new designs within the established branding.
What do you think of the Apple prototypes? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
Samsung claims Apple's iPhone design was inspired by Sony - in.news.yahoo.com
Sydney, July 27 (ANI): South Korean mobile maker Samsung has claimed that tech giant Apple's iconic iPhone wasn't the firm's own invention but was a rip off of Sony products, according to a report.
According to a court filing made by Samsung as it battles a patent infringement dispute with Apple, in 2006, the year before the iPhone was launched, Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori was directed to design an iPhone prototype inspired by Sony, and the Apple prototypes even had the "Sony" logo bar one which was renamed "Jony" after Apple design chief Sir Jonathan Ive.
After an Australian High Court in December overturned a decision to ban the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from sale, the Federal Court is now hearing Samsung's counter-claim that Apple infringed Samsung's patents related to 3G communications technology.
Samsung also tabled its own internal documents from 2006 purportedly showing that it was working on iPhone-style designs "well before the iPhone was announced".
"Samsung has been researching and developing mobile telecommunications technology since at least as early as 1991 and invented much of the technology for today's smartphones," The Age quoted Samsung, as saying in a statement.
"Indeed, Apple, which sold its first iPhone nearly 20 years after Samsung started developing mobile phone technology, could not have sold a single iPhone without the benefit of Samsung's patented technology," he added.
However, an Australian patent lawyer said he did not expect the US case to affect the case in Australia as in the US the hearing would be concerned with Apple's "design patents" protecting the physical appearance of products, whereas the case in Australia concerned their function.
The documents also revealed that compared to Apple's own internal prototype that looked like an iPod Mini, Apple designer Richard Howarth noted the Sony-inspired designs allowed for a "much smaller-looking product with a much nicer shape".
The patent lawyer said that settlement talks between Samsung and Apple appeared to have failed because Apple believes its patents are worth significantly more than the Samsung patents involved in the case. (ANI)
iPhone apps susceptible to simultaneous hack - wcyb.com
The iPhone's baked-in security has improved dramatically over the past few years, which is great for Apple fans.
In a weird way, it's good for hackers too.
With the "bring your own device" phenomenon in full-swing, Apple has been successful at getting its iPhones and iPads into the hands of Fortune 500 companies and even many government agencies, including the White House and the U.S. military. To make those sales, Apple had to update its iOS mobile operating system with some of the industry's most robust security features.
That had a nasty unintended consequence: Many app developers no longer put their own safeguards in place, relying instead almost exclusively on Apple to ensure the security of their applications.
With thousands of apps in the iTunes App store all featuring the same exact security features, one single vulnerability could have a domino effect.
"Security is now an afterthought for many app developers," said Jonathan Zdziarski, senior forensic scientist at viaForensics, in a presentation at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas on Thursday. "That means if you hack one, you can hack them all."
Apple declined to comment.
The tech giant made its first official appearance at Black Hat this year with a session on iOS's security features, but the dry presentation was little more than a public reading of a white paper Apple recently released. Presenter Dallas De Atley, Apple's platform security team manager, took no questions after his talk and quickly escaped out a side door.
A few rooms away, Zdziarski simultaneously delivered his workshop on "The Dark Art of iOS Application Hacking."
The scenarios Zdziarski outlined are scary, but they're also far-fetched.
To hack all the apps on your phone, a hacker would need to: 1) steal your iPhone, which isn't so hard, and 2) discover and exploit an iOS vulnerability before Apple does. That's proven to be very hard. It has happened before -- most notably when serial Apple hacker Charlie Miller found a way to sneak a rogue app into Apple's fiercely guarded iTunes store. (When he publicized the hack, Apple yanked his developer license.)
Still, so-called "zero day exploits" on iOS have been extremely rare.
"This isn't Chicken Little and the sky is falling," Zdziarski told CNNMoney. "But the message is if you don't add your own security to your app, you're highly susceptible."
To illustrate, Zdziarski live-demonstrated some of the vulnerabilities of a few popular iOS apps that don't add much more security above Apple's baked-in protections.
A bug in PayPal's app, for instance, allows a hacker to place malicious code in a stolen iPhone and get all the log-in information that a user enters. It's unlikely. The hacker would need about 20 minutes with the iPhone to do it before handing the phone back to the owner. But the point is it's possible -- and it shouldn't be.
PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay, said it is investigating the issue.
"The security of our users is a top priority for PayPal," the company said in a statement. "One of the benefits of using PayPal on a mobile device is that a user's financial information is stored in the cloud and not on his or her device. Therefore, even if a device is compromised a user's financial information is inaccessible."
One vulnerable spot is Apple's lack of password confirmations any time a user returns to an app they've previously logged into. In one demo, Zdziarski tweaked an app's code and entered, "userIsLogged: 1." That "1" means "true" in this case, and the app was tricked into thinking the user had been properly identified.
Zdziarski's end goal wasn't to call out Apple, PayPal or any company in particular, he said. Rather, it was simply to warn developers not to be lazy when dealing with security in their iPhone apps.
"Apple has good security," Zdziarski said. "Just don't rely entirely upon it."
-- CNNMoney tech editor Stacy Cowley contributed reporting to this article.
iPhone 5 could be used as universal remote control for the home - PC Advisor
A Near Field Communications chip in future iPhones could be used to control digital devices around the home.
A new patent application, discovered by Apple Insider, reveals that Apple is interested in using NFC chips to allow an iPhone act as a remote control for various devices around the home, including other Apple products, games consoles, digital cameras or even sprinkler systems and thermostats.
"A person may use a wide variety of electronics each day, including computers and media players, televisions and other entertainment devices, thermostats and other utility devices, and/or consumer electronics such as digital cameras," reads Apple's patent description. "Each electronic device may generally be controlled locally or using an associated remote control device."
Apple's aim is to make controlling multiple devices using a single control, such as the iPhone. "The control information may be received from a near field communication interface of the controllable electronic device or from a radio frequency tag associated with the controllable electronic device."
Scanning a barcode with the iPhone could also pair electronic devices and provide control.
Other devices mentioned by Apple that could be controlled using an iPhone include a games console, video recorder, DVD player, TV, projector, light switch, home security system, and garage door.
The iPhone could use its weather app to help adjust the thermostat to the appropriate temperature, and could enable users to control a camera to zoom in and out, change other setting and capture a photograph.
This is not the first we've heard about the possibility of an NFC chip being introduced in the next iPhone. Data from alleged iPhone 5 prototypes lead developers to conclude that NFC will be used with Apple's new Passbook app, which is set to arrive with iOS 6 this autumn.
Apple has also filed a patent to use NFC to introduce a 'Gifting' feature that will allow users to share iTunes files through Playlists.
To read more about Apple's patent filing, you can refer to the extensive 114-page official document first filed by the company in March.
See also:
Massive Apple patent win could kill off Android completely New Apple patents show 'iPen' stylus for iPad, iPhone
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