CUPERTINO, California—March 6, 2008—Apple® today previewed its iPhone™ 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

“We’re excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone’s enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device.”

The iPhone SDK provides developers with a rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools to create innovative applications for iPhone and iPod® touch. Starting today, anyone can download the beta iPhone SDK for free and run the iPhone Simulator on their Mac®. Apple today also introduced its new iPhone Developer Program, giving developers everything they need to create native applications, and the new App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod touch users.

With the iPhone SDK, third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies. The iPhone SDK will allow developers to create amazing applications that leverage the iPhone’s groundbreaking Multi-Touch™ user interface, animation technology, large storage, built-in three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology to deliver truly innovative mobile applications.

Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007 for secure over-the-air push email, contacts, calendars and global address lists. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery. The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks. More at Apple.

Over the past few years I must have tested, reviewed and owned over 50 PDAs and smartphone, and this has given me what I believe to be a fairly rounded knowledge of what is available on the market today, and how well each new device compares to older and current competitors. I have been guilty of changing devices just to try something new, and also to get hold of one extra minor feature that I do not need in the latest model.

A few of you have questioned my thoughts on the Palm Centro and there seems to be a general feeling that it is old hat and cannot possibly be a worthy contender in today's crowded market. Well, you are wrong. The device I choose to use daily is the best one for me, and the same applies to all of us. I want a smartphone that is quick, stable and portable with a decent battery life and a good range of functional third party software. At this time, the Centro is proving to work well for me, and a few others by the sound of it.

I want to access mobile email and quickly look up information on the web, so why on earth would I need Wi-Fi, HSDPA and a huge screen to do that? I want to enter data quickly and the Centro keyboard is near the top of the pile for easy access and quick email responses. Of course, Palm's lack of innovation is still annoying and I do believe that Wi-Fi should be included but it's not a deal breaker for me.

The Centro has moved me from not caring if Palm survive or not, to worrying that it is all too late and that future products will be taken away from us. Palm OS keeps dragging me back from the rather clever but dull Windows Mobile and tricky to use but exceptionally stable Symbian OS and is still, in my opinion, way ahead of all of the competition in terms of usability and flexibility.

The real worry is that the entire market is changing direction quickly and that third party software may soon no longer be available the way they are now. Web apps (hate them!) are grabbing attention and seem to be in vogue with developers and manufacturers, but ultimately the local solution will still work best for many people.

Let's hope that some stability arrives and stays for a little while, but for now the Centro is serving me well. Give it time though...

I asked Megasoft when KeyguardExt will work on the Centro the other day and v1.2.1 solves that issue. I'm not saying they released it because of me, but I am happy to let you think that was the reason...

"KeyguardExt is a functional analogue of the system utility Keyguard, which has much more extended setting functions and the list of information displayed on the screen of your smartphone."

Scrapbook has not been updated and I have no reason to mention it, except that it has become my most used application over the past month. After many years, I have finally found my prefect PDA information storage program.

"Do you have many scraps of paper scattered around in various places recording interesting facts or important pieces of information?

Would you like to use your Palm Powered™ device to keep track of all this data, but find that the built-in Memos application (or Memo Pad on older devices) doesn't let you organize your notes as you would like to or make it easy enough to find a particular note when you need it?

With a fixed limit of only 15 categories (and no sub-categories), and no way to search other than by using the Global Find facility, Memos isn't really equipped to provide convenient access to your notes when the total number of notes gets large.

"ScrapBook" is a note-taking application, featuring enhanced organizational and search capabilities that help you manage a large collection of notes.  ScrapBook also supports encryption, which provides much better security than is offered by 'private' records in Memos.

You can organize your notes using nested folders (as many as you need, nested as deeply as you need), as well as by using standard Palm OS "categories".  Also, you can assign a list of keywords to a note, and find notes by searching for one or more keywords.  A combination of the nested folders and keyword search features is also available which provides a "virtual folder" capability, in which notes are associated with virtual folders dynamically (based on a correspondence between the words used in a virtual folder's path and the keywords assigned to the associated notes!)

ScrapBook can search its database for multiple words at once (or, optionally, even multiple strings at once), searching keywords, titles, and (optionally) full message texts.  This includes the ability to search the message text of encrypted notes (in which case, ScrapBook will decrypt notes on the fly during the search, prompting for passwords as needed, but only when necessary). Search results are sorted so that the best matches are presented first."

Unbound Medicine recently released Bright Futures for Mobile Devices, offering PDA and smartphone access to the American Academy of Pediatrics' (AAP) authoritative guidelines for pediatric care.

Now clinicians and trainees at the point-of-care can consult practical, evidence-based AAP recommendations for pediatric health care. This powerful mobile reference provides guidance on everything from immunizations and appropriate screening tests to counseling for parents and patients. Bright Futures for Mobile Devices includes both the third edition of Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents and the Bright Futures Pocket Guide. More than 50 experts in pediatrics, family medicine, public health, dentistry and mental health contributed and the content was reviewed by 1,000 health professionals, parents, and child advocates. Clinicians treating infants, children, and adolescents can link directly from age-based visit information in the Pocket Guide into comprehensive strategies for anticipatory guidance and preventive care.

With explicit plans for 31 age-based visits, pediatricians and families can be confident that no aspect of pediatric care is overlooked. Each visit plan enumerates five priorities, including sample questions and discussion points for both parent and child. Unbound Medicine delivers these authoritative guidelines through their award-winning mobile platform. Powerful navigation tools like links to related topics & bookmarks make finding information fast and efficient.

Bright Futures for Mobile Devices is available for Windows Mobile and Palm operating systems. Users can experience Bright Futures for Mobile Devices with a free trial.

Multi-tasking is over rated...it's official & FastLaunch is new at Palm-Mac, and once again Murray is talking about me. Starting to get worried:)

Yes it is...Shaun McGill, venerable pda247 founder and staunch (well, for this week anyway) palm o/s user has stated so and therefore I believe it to be official. Of course, regular readers will recall that I have bemoaned in the past, on several occasions, my own inability to take "advantage" of this windows mobile feature which I suspect was down to years of previous palm useage...what you don't have you never miss and all that.

I've never rated it because I always felt it was a hardish feature to access on a win mob device. There was never just one button you could press to take you back to a previously opened application but rather it necessitated several presses and I ended up always thinking..."what's the point?"...it would be quicker to head back to the launcher. On my Centro however, when in an application like Resco Neeews reading an RSS feed I can go to a website link from there and then just hold down the "home" button on the Centro. From there I can pick "Neeews" and it will re-open at exactly the same spot. Bingo. Quicker and simpler.

Let's be honest here, how many times have you needed to have more than the 2 apps open at the same time? For myself, it is super-rarely which makes a palm application like this all the more attractive as it seems to fulfill that need to switch seamlessly between 2 apps on the likes of a Centro. Bang...press one key and you're back to the last app virtually and then another press and you're back where you started...sounds good does it not?

Nokia and Microsoft, sittin' in a tree... is the latest from Michael Mace- "There's so much hype in the mobile industry that I'm always reluctant to use a word like "shocking," but nothing else fits Nokia's announcement today that it will support Microsoft Silverlight.

If you missed the press release (link), Nokia said that it's going to make Microsoft Silverlight available for all of its mobile platforms -- Series 40 (the low-end phone OS), S60 (the high-end OS), and its Maemo Internet tablet. (It's not clear if Silverlight will be bundled or just offered as a download.) Silverlight is a web app graphics and interface layer, intended to displace Adobe Flash.

The announcement was shocking for several reasons:

--Up until now, Nokia and Adobe had worked together closely. Nokia is one of the few companies paying to bundle Flash on its phones, and Nokia had featured Adobe prominently at some of its developer events in Silicon Valley. So the announcement I was expecting was that Nokia would bundle Air, the next evolution of Flash, rather than its competitor..."

Shifting Google Gears to mobile is great news for Windows Mobile owners, and potentially great for everyone else. Thanks to Justine.

Ever use a mobile web application and suddenly lose your cell connection? That's happened to me many times. If you've shared my pain, you'll be excited to know that we've launched Google Gears for mobile, which lets users access Gears-enabled mobile web apps offline. Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.

Take Zoho and Buxfer, for example: Zoho is a powerful suite of web-based productivity applications, while Buxfer is an innovative personal finance web application that helps you track your money. With Google Gears for mobile integrated into mobile Zoho and Buxfer, you can now access these web applications even when your phone is disconnected from the mobile web. Stuck on a plane? No problem — you can still read your docs on your mobile with Zoho Writer Mobile offline. Want to buy that new plasma TV, but can't remember how much is in your account? Check your balance with Buxfer's mobile web application, even if there is no cell phone signal. Try them out on your Windows Mobile 6 device by going to m.buxfer.com or mobile.zoho.com.

Today's free eBook is Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter- "IN CAMBODIA PEOPLE ARE used to ghosts. Ghosts buy newspapers. They own property.

A few years ago, spirits owned a house in Phnom Penh, at the Tra Bek end of Monivong Boulevard. Khmer Rouge had murdered the whole family and there was no one left alive to inherit it. People cycled past the building, leaving it boarded up. Sounds of weeping came from inside.

Then a professional inheritor arrived from America. She'd done her research and could claim to be the last surviving relative of no fewer than three families. She immediately sold the house to a Chinese businessman, who turned the ground floor into a photocopying shop.
   
The copiers began to print pictures of the original owners.
   
At first, single black and white photos turned up in the copied dossiers of aid workers or government officials. The father of the murdered family had been a lawyer. He stared fiercely out of the photos as if demanding something. In other photocopies, his beautiful daughters forlornly hugged each other. The background was hazy like fog.
   
One night the owner heard a noise and trundled downstairs to find all five photocopiers printing one picture after another of faces: young college men, old women, parents with a string of babies, or government soldiers in uniform. He pushed the big green off-buttons. Nothing happened."