http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080306-apple-iphone-announcements.html

Enjoy!

Thanks for checking in and providing additional insight. One minor quibble: Was the original article I linked to really for an “internal publication?” I mean, it’s a Purdue press release that’s already publicly available to anyone on the Internet.

About the iPhone (and BlackBerry and Windows Mobile), they are just positioned different. The iPhone is an iPod that can make calls, browse the web, and do some calendering/e-mail. The BB/WM side of things is such that they are e-mail/calendering devices that can make calls, browse the web, and play music. It is all about how well each device does each function.

IMO, the only thing that the iPhone clearly does better than any other platform is mobile web browsing. The price is nearly low enough for me to consider one now, but I don’t think I could live with the phone part of the iPhone. Particularly how you look up contacts.

I have a Treo 680 that is a great phone and PDA. I don’t do e-mail, but the music playback is actually pretty good. Not iPod level of ease, but definitely good enough that I don’t feel the need to purchase a separate MP3 player. BTW, you can get it for -$25 (yes, minus $25) after rebate with a new/renewed contract at Amazon. I could never justify spending $300-$400 more just for the iPhone.

The latest version of 10.4.11 had yielded reliable 802.1x connections on my laptop and my desktop. I’ve upgraded both to 10.5.2 and see even better results. (Stay away from 10.5 and 10.5.1 in regards to 802.1x connections) I suspect that most problems mac users have with wireless on campus may not be the OS so much as the wireless card or the access point they’re using. I think older cards, especially the pre AirPort Extreme cards, will have problems. Also, the signal broadcast by the AirPort Extreme wireless cards is pretty powerful and can sometimes interfere with other wireless access points.

But back to the iPhone. It does things very well that a Blackberry or Windows Mobile device can’t, such as web browsing, playing media files, etc. On the other hand a Blackberry is a “one trick pony” that does it’s trick (email and calendaring) exceptionally well. Right now people have to choose one or the other (media device that’s a phone or enterprise messaging) or put up with a myriad of work arounds. I’m confident this won’t always be the case. In any case, waiting never hurts. That’s why they call it the “bleeding edge”.

We are actually talking about 802.1x, not any 802.11 (the extra one is all the difference) protocol/feature/etc. It is an authentication mechanism that can be used for LANs or WLANs. The iPhone definitely does not support 802.1x (link). Some people have even started a petition to Apple over it.

Also, I don’t know about any 802.1x networks other than Purdue’s but Mac OS X’s implementation barely works here. People usually have to authenticate a dozen times or so before it will work.

If you’re looking for a good source of info about the iPhone that is a bit more objective than Apple marketing or an Enterprise Computing article, look here:

http://www.macintouch.com/iphone/faq.html

The fact that Apple advertised, and assumed to have hired, an Exchange engineer, hints that they’re getting more serious about the iPhone as an enterprise device.

Cheers!

Frank Wolf