iPhone News Updated

O2 says iPhone SMS patch imminent

Don’t fear the square text message! British wireless provider O2 told the BBC that Apple will shortly be rolling out a patch for the recently uncovered SMS vulnerability that could allow hackers to remotely take control of phones.

While Apple has remained mum on the flaw, its United Kingdom wireless partner O2 said that a software update for the iPhone will be issued on Saturday and will be distributed via iTunes. The SMS vulnerability in question affects not just the iPhone, but also mobile operating systems by Microsoft and Google.

The hack was first shown off Thursday at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, though reports first hit the Web at the beginning of this month. Security researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner demonstrated the flaw at the conference, showing how a malicious party could send seemingly innocuous text messages (or even text messages that weren’t displayed to the phone’s owner) to access various functions of the phone, such as the camera or address book, all without notifying the user.

Miller reported the flaw to Apple, but the company has remained its usual uncommunicative self on the subject. According to the BBC, Google said that it has already patched the vulnerability in its Android OS.

[Thanks: http://www.macworld.com]

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Apple files patent for apparent iPhone nano

While other phone makers rush to catch up with Apple’s iPhone, the Cupertino-based gadget maker appears to be leaping ahead with a new phone roughly the size of the company’s current iPod nano — 3.6 inches tall, 2.5 inches wide, and one-quarter inch thick.

The new phone’s gimmick is that it has a two-sided interface — a screen on the front, and a “force-sensitive touch-surface” on the back that replicates the iPod’s clickwheel, but also tracks the user’s fingertip and displays it on the front-side display as a cursor. Users will operate the click wheel with one finger behind the phone while looking at the display side.

MacNN writer Jack Purcher, who was alerted to the patent filing and blogged a half dozen of its illustrations, summarizes the interface as “confusing.” Without a demo video, it’s hard to follow the text description of how the device’s front and back sides work.

US Patent Office documents, Purcher says, show that FingerWorks founder John G. Elias was the original owner of the patent, but ownership has been transferred to Apple. Elias sold FingerWorks’ assets to Apple in 2005 and is now an Apple employee.

Will this nano-Phone ship, and when? Our best guess is that Apple willunveil the iPhone nano at CES in January, or at a separate event around that time to upstage other phone makers’ announcements. The phone would become available in the middle of 2010. Price, subsidized by a mobile carrier? It’s tempting to say “Free,” but we’ll go with $49 because Apple likes to position its products as cost-effective premium gadgets, rather than giveaways.

[Images from US Patent Office via MacNN]

[Thanks: http://venturebeat.com]

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