Gizmodo.com, a CNN for geeks, enthralled the Apple fanboy nation with the latest edition of the highly coveted iPhone series yesterday. Reportedly lost at a bar in Redwood City, Gizmodo broke coverage doing what they do best, a gadget review.

Though it may resemble the original iPhone at first glance, it looks as though Apple may have answered many recurring gripes from the growing number of users.

Along with a front facing camera (Chatroulette, here I come), the new iPhone seems to be sporting a higher resolution display and a larger camera lens.

The redesign itself has yet to be tested in the field; I will be curious to see how it survives the rounds users will put it through. I’ve seen instances of running, clubbing, toddler tantrums, and bathroom readings with these mini iPads. Hopefully, the new casing will endure the elements my original first gen iPhone could not.

So how did Gizmodo get their hands on this newest piece of tech porn?

Much like any American worker after a hard day’s grind, Gary Powell, an Apple software engineer,  left his cellular device at the bar after a few beers.

With the nation still feeling the wake of iPad madness, this new development out of Cupertino has certainly kept Apple in the headlines. I hope Steve Jobs is kind to Gary and his momentary lapse of contractual agreements. And on that note, I’m off to the local watering hole to research ‘upcoming emerging technology.’

Cheers!

More iPhone pictures and videos at Gizmodo.com

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This long awaited tablet has been speculated since the first waves of netbooks swept the world in 2007, leaving Apple and their intrepid leader, Steve Jobs, with no answer to the mini notebook domination.

Today, Apple finally announced their answer to the netbook call, officially named The iPad.

The Hardware – Almost a Macbook
With an iPhone-esque interface, the iPad will sport the same look and feel as a flattened iPod Touch. At 9.7 inches and a familiar capacitive multi-touch screen, the overall viewing size is significantly smaller than the smallest Macbook, but noticeably larger than the iPhone. The silver finish bevel also mimics the iPhones, a mistake in my opinion. Be prepared to buff out scratches for the entire short life of your device.

Much like the iPhone/iPod Touch, screen orientation auto adjusts to portrait or horizontal using the built-in accelerometer. More of a 4:3 aspect ratio than 16:9, a widescreen would have been nice, but understandable for the various types of media it will be equipped to handle (pdfs, e-magazines, e-books, etc).

At 1.5 pounds and a half-inch thick, this tablet will be quite easy to carry. And with a battery life of 10 hours during constant use (says Apple), I feel this will be an appropriate hybrid for students and business people alike.

Apple touts that the 1GHz A4 chip will process HD video seamlessly. Okay, but 16gb, 32gb, and 64gb are the only options? This sounds very familiar. Apple has the capability of going bigger, but delaying the size bumps for a couple months to reignite interest in July Apple? Dirty. Very dirty. This won’t be replacing my iAnything anytime soon : \

Data – the iPhone pitfall
The 3G equipped models, have both 3g and WIFI, unlike their sans-3g counterparts. How much is connectivity worth to you? $15/ month for 250MB or $30/month for “unlimited” data via AT&T. The upside? No contracts. If you’ve sold your car and engagement ring to get your geek fix, you can cancel your service whenever you want – right after apologizing to the spouse and weeks on the couch.

The Software – An iPhone on steroids Vitamins
With a beefed up iTunes, browser, and OS, the iPad will be a middle-of-the-road device placed in between a full fledged notebook and the ultra portable iPhone. Even the Email adds a couple of neat features like message previews and pull-down menus.

The touch screen keyboard is almost life size, but only time will tell if it is tactile enough for the power users out there. The iPhone did a decent job with predictive type, but a real keyboard seems to be a deal breaker for most netbook users. Naturally, there will be a keyboard dock to add to your purchases during your next Apple store visit.

The Apps are really what makes this device robust. With plans to develop specifically for the iPad, this tablet will come to life because of the power of the people, not Apple. The original iPhone SDK has been expanded for tablet development and can even run current iPhone apps, though crudely expanded to fit.

Ebooks will continue to flood the market and has now entered the iTunes arena. iWork will be updated and designed specifically for tablature. Expect new versions of the entire suite to hit stores soon.

Things I would’ve liked to see:
- Front facing camera
- Smaller bezel
- Flash?!
- Multitasking
- Live music performance by The Roots featuring Steve Jobs

The iPad ships in 60 days for the WIFI only version, and 90 days for the WIFI/3g version.

Watch the official iPad video at Apple.com. (Notice how they use their index finger to hit the space bar. Weird)

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The original firmware for the iPhone was disappointing in the way of business use. The email application offered no form of push technology and Microsoft Exchange had to be configured using pull IMAP. There was also no way to sync contacts or calendar events with exchange over the air. I wrote a personal blog at the time addressing the need for more business friendly applications and that until it could be integrated with common business infrastructures, the iPhone should only be considered for personal use.

In June of 2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G, the successor to what I call the iPhone Classic. With the release of the new hardware, Apple also released the much coveted 1.2.0 firmware more commonly known as 2.0. The 2.0 firmware is available for the iPhone Classic and the iPhone 3G. This firmware includes greater functionality, but more importantly to me as an IT professional, it includes the ability to use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for over-the-air push email, push contacts, and push calendar from an Exchange server.

I was also an early adopter of the new iPhone 3G and upon getting it home my first plan of action was to get it working with our Microsoft Exchange infrastructure. I wasn’t able to get it working right away. It turns out there are some tweaks that had to be made to our Exchange IIS configuration in the way of NTLM authentication. After making the correct changes to IIS and correctly entering my near 20 character password correctly on the iPhone keypad, I was up and running.

Setting up the iPhone for Exchange ActiveSync is fairly straight forward. On the iPhone Home screen, go to settings and then choose “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”. Now choose the “Add Account…” option. This will bring up a screen to enter your account information. The password can be the tricky part especially if you use a secure password with all kinds of character types. After the account information is entered, hit the next button and wait for the confirmation. Our mobile device policy requires a pin be set and entered when ever unlocking or waking up the device. Automatically after the account is verified, a screen prompts for the input of a new pin. After entering the pin and verifying the pin it may take up to five minutes for all the contacts, calendar events, and emails to sync. On a 3G connection it took less than 3 minutes to sync 100 email messages, 2 months of calendar events and all of my 100 plus contacts.

The push technology works perfectly. When I’m sitting at my desk I often receive the notification of a new email on my phone before my Outlook has a chance to report it. If I make a change to emails, contacts, or calendars on either my desktop or my iPhone the change is near instantly available on the other. Remote wipes via Exchange MobileAdmin works perfectly too. Within seconds of pressing the wipe link in MobileAdmin the iPhone shuts down and wipes its data. This is handy should the phone ever be lost or stolen.

There are, however, some short comings. The first of which is that the push email only pushes the inbox where as Blackberries can receive push email to any folder. This is ok for some people, but I use a lot of rules to filter emails to separate folders especially for system alerts. I can still check them manually, but it would be nice to not need to flood my inbox with priority 1 alert emails. In addition, there is no access to Public Folders. This isn’t too vital to me at this point; however, our spam processing does use a public drop folder to process spam. Without access to the public folders, I’m unable to move a spam email to the processing folder from my iPhone.

Another shortcoming is in the calendars application. I can create events, but I can’t schedule meetings and assign attendees like I can from my desktop. That would be a handy feature to have when I’m out of the office and receive a client request for a conference call. I could setup the appointment then and there and not have to set a reminder to set it up when I’m at my desktop. In addition, there is no separating your personal entries from your exchange entries. It can be a little uneasy to enter private non-work related calendar events knowing they will be on your work calendar as well. The same annoyance exists for the contacts as there is no way to set personal contacts without them being added to your exchange contacts.

A final shortcoming is in missing some other exchange features. Tasks and Notes could easily be integrated into the iPhone. I’m a huge fan of using the tasks and assigning them to others. I use the exchange notes to keep important tidbits of information readily available. The iPhone doesn’t have a native tasks or to-do list though several third party apps are available. None of the third party applications make use of push tasks from Exchange. The iPhone does have a native Notes application, but there is no integration with Exchange.

In lieu of the shortcomings, the iPhone does work well for business email now. The greatest simple feature Apple added was the ability to delete multiple emails at once instead of having to delete one at a time. The email is always timely, even when I’m on EDGE or standard cell connection. With a little more tweaking, the iPhone may become good competition with Blackberry as an enterprise mobile communications solution. For now, it is good enough to get the job done.

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