Mobile web browser development forms an ever important role; providing a platform that will enable companies to generate new revenue streams from a variety of sources, primarily: advertising, content/application downloads, and subscriptions.  According to a report published in CBS News Business, newspapers and magazines are getting up to 5 times the amount for advertisements placed in iPad applications as in print.  Testament to the exposure an advert in a printed magazine will receive, compared with one published via an iPad app.

You may argue against Apple’s monopoly of the mobile market, but it is hard to deny the effect that their technology has had on the way we use the internet. Visongain’s comprehensive report: ‘The Mobile Web Browser Market’, profiling existing web trends and predicting their metamorphoses in the future, highlights the importance of Apple in the mobile arena, their early impact and continued influence on the way we use the web.  In their 2009 report, Visiongain found that in the UK alone, people who owned an iPhone were five times more likely to browse the web when compared to other mobile phone users.  Mainly thanks to faster processors, larger touch screens and intuitive interfaces, reinforced by increased bandwidths provided by mobile networks, the possibilities of mobile web access have developed exponentially over a relatively short period; inevitably, it was only a matter of time before Apple bridged the gap between the iPhone and Macbook to give users portability as well as enhancing web interactions.

To pluck one example from the plethora available, the adaptation of popular social networking sites to support mobile versions, is testament to the obvious early signs, way back when the iPhone was launched; mobility and the web made perfect bed fellows and a phenomenal money spinner; change the way people access the web, their data, photos, email, social networking sites, and not only do you introduce the potential need to purchase an app that will support you on the move, or to enhance your experience as a mobile user; but you have just added hours onto the average commuters exposure to the web, on a daily basis, in a week, a month, a year, that stacks up to an incredible number of hours that all provide, crucially, more opportunities to sell, and increased possibilities to capture information about your target market.

According to the Guardian, our fascination with, and desire to access the web anywhere will continue to increase at a phenomenal rate: “Gartner predicts that by 2013, 80% of businesses will support tablet computers for their staff, and that rather than providing employees with business services and devices – that is, PCs – 90% will support corporate applications on employees’ own consumer phones, tablets and laptops”.

The predictions are that business and consumer budgets will be invested in smartphones or tablet PC’s; motivated by the price point in comparison to a new PC or laptop; and crucially by their mobility.

Although the frenzy surrounding the unveiling of the iPad 2 for sale in the UK, is unlikely to mirror that of the launch of the first generation iPad, it will serve to further establish the culture of information anywhere; perpetuating the trend and changing the way consumers, and businesses, interact with global media in and outside of their working environs.

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The event, which was located at the Apple headquarters in California, caused a number of attendees to prompt for information about the future running of the firm. The proposal was initially made by the Central Laborer’s Fund, and backed by other supporters. The proposal was issued as a result of the fact that Steve Jobs has recently taken his third leave of absence on medical grounds, and failed to attend the meeting.

Apple commented that to provide the requested information would offer too much power to competitors, as it would involve the publication of the firm’s plans and confidential objectives.

The fund proposal was defeated after a proxy count showed that there was insufficient support to force Apple to provide any information on planned succession. Jennifer O’Dell, who spoke on behalf of the Central Laborer’s Fund, commented: “We want Steve Jobs to come back to work yesterday. We want him to be here every day. We want him to live forever. That is not realistic and that is why they need to have a plan. And if they have a plan, and I am sure they do, what is wrong with a little transparency?”

“If the company doesn’t want to reach out to us and have a real discussion about this issue we will refile it again next year. Thirty companies have adopted this [succession plans] including HP and Intel. There are a lot of things we can do with this proposal. If the board continues to not want to listen to long-term shareholders, to talk about this issue seriously, we can take a second step and hold the board of directors directly accountable and we could withhold our votes from the members of the board. Do we want to do that? No.”

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According to Apple, the new plans are positive as they will enable publishers to benefit from the charges, and support customers to gain access to good services. The new plans will enable organsiations to provide content through iOS devices, providing customers with the option to subscribe directly from their application. From there, companies will pay a third of their revenue to Apple. This will be a new policy, as previously Apple users have simply paid revenue to the companies directly, when taking out subscriptions, meaning that Apple have not profited from the arrangement.

As of June 30^th, companies will be prohibited from including direct links to websites from Apple devices. This has led to a number of publishers calling for an investigation in to the ethics of Apple’s plans. Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple has commented: “We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.”

An analyst from Forrester Research commented: “Taking a 30% toll amounts to a massive increase in the cost basis of a content business that will kill it. In the end, Apple envisions a world in which people don’t consume any kind of digital media without its help. The 10% number is a shot across Apple’s bow. It’s going to be a pain, but everyone can now clearly see that in an HTML5 world, they won’t have to pay taxes every single time they deliver value to consumers.”

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The announcement was made in a matter of hours following Apple’s release of their latest version of the software. The group of hackers, who call themselves ‘pod2g’, announced that they have managed to locate a way of exploiting the system, by taking advantage of a loophole which is built in to all devices that run the Apple IOS platform.

The hackers have stated that they don’t believe it will be easy for Apple to find a solution to the Jailbreaking, as this would require a number of significant alterations to the way in which the operating system is coded and configured, rather than just finding a patch resolution to prevent the practice.

Apple has previously managed to patch Jailbreaking (including the recent JailBreakMe service, which users could download from a site) by patching bugs in their software. The previous iterations of Jailbreaking simply exploited failings in the software to open up devices. Another team of hackers, who call themselves ‘Dev-Team’ have stated that they are still working on a way of accessing iPhones using the new Apple operating system, and advised people not to update to the newest software issued by Apple until a system for hacking it has been found.

A spokesperson for the company stated: “This time of year there are lots of new iPhone owners, and not everybody knows that accepting new IOS updates is the surest way to lose your jailbreak and/or unlock. While those of you who have Cydia or TinyUmbrella backups of your FW hashes will always be able to get back to 4.0.1 if you make this mistake, this doesn’t hold for unlockers.”

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The spokesperson from Sophos commented on their blog: ‘Spammers have taken aim at social networks and blog comment sections aggressively for some time, but apparently Apple didn’t consider this when designing Ping, as the service implements no spam or URL filtering.’

‘Our tests show that Apple is filtering profanity, and approving profile photos before posting them. But there appears to be no barrier to spam or malware. About a third of comments on prominent accounts, like those of Lady Gaga and U2, are spam. At this point I have not seen anything malicious.’

Despite the lack of filtering on spam comments and posts, Sophos has stated that a number of security issues have been fixed on the new iTunes 10 software, and suggested that people upgrade to benefit from the enhancements. Spam on Ping has so far been predominantly focussed upon people trying to elicit mobile numbers from members. The most common types have been adverts offering people free iPhones or iPads for filling out surveys on the site. As up to 95% of posts generated by users online tend to be spam, filtering on sites is becoming increasingly common.

Ping is not in itself an ideal host for spam activities, as it doesn’t use URL links and isn’t searched by the principal engines, meaning that most spammers will not bother to target the site. Sophos recommends that people do not give out there mobile numbers on online surveys, as they risk handing over enough information to enable malicious web users to set up charges on mobiles and generate illicit profit.

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Ping, the new music discovery service, will be built in to the Apple iTunes software, enabling people to share their musical choices with other enthusiasts. iTunes is currently used by over 160 million people globally, and enables members to both download music and organise their song library into categories to update their MP3 players.

The chief executive of Apple, Steve Jobs, announced the launch of Ping at a press conference held to let people know about the firm’s new services for music enthusiasts. He commented: “One of the biggest things we focus on with iTunes is discovery. There are more than 12 million songs to choose from, so how do you find new stuff? So we’re launching Ping – it’s a social network that’s all about music. It’s like Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes. You can follow your favourite artists and friends and discover what music they like and are downloading.”

“We have listened to user feedback about exactly what they wanted from a set-top box, and had overhauled the device to meet those needs. They want on-demand access to Hollywood movies and TV shows, they don’t want amateur stuff. They want their movies and TV shows in high-definition, and want to pay less for this content.”

“And they don’t want a computer on their television – though this is a hard one for people in the computer industry to understand. And they don’t want to manage the storage of downloaded movies and programmes.”

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The patch has been issued despite a statement by US authorities which stated that it was perfectly legal to ‘jailbreak’ their phones. ‘Jailbreaking’ refers to the exploitation of a vulnerability in Apple devices which enables people to unlock their security features in order to run unauthorised applications. The JailbreakMe application works by exploiting a bug in the Apple mobile Safari browser, which handled PDF files improperly. The bug enabled users to download applications by ‘piggybacking’ on the flawed PDF management approach.

The JailbreakMe application has been widely adopted by users to run utilities, applications and add-ons that have not been approved officially by Apple. Unofficial applications are supplied by Cydia and other providers. The JailbreakMe programme is triggered when users visit a specific website.

This latest patch issued from Apple will stop JailBreakMe from working, and will tighten up security in Apple devices through the risk of exploitation. This gives Apple users a moral dilemma. Do they accept that they should not be jailbreaking their devices for unauthorised software, thereby protecting against malicious attacks, or do they continue to benefit from this legal activity? The patch which has been issued is optional, not mandatory.

A security analyst from Sophos commented: “It remains to be seen, of course, how many iPhone and iPad users decide to install this security patch. Some may be delighting in their newly-jailbroken gadget. Leaving the vulnerability unpatched would be a foolish move. It would be relatively trivial for a malicious hacker to exploit it, and cause a problem on your shiny Apple gear.”

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Experts are convinced that the decision to leave has come from the controversy surrounding the launch of the iPhone 4, which has been slated by users for being difficult to use. The Smartphone’s antenna caused problems with signal reception, when the phone was held in a certain way. This issue has led to a number of refund requests, and the decision by Apple to issue free covers to all iPhone 4 customers in order to address the signal problem.

The problem was traced to the iPhone’s use of its metal casing to house its antennas. Bridging the short gap between two antennas on the lower left-hand side of the case caused signal strength to leak away.

An investigation by the influential Consumer Reports organisation confirmed the problem and led to it declaring that it could not recommend the product.

Apple would not comment on the reasons for his departure or whether he resigned or was fired. An Apple spokesman said Mr. Papermaster’s responsibilities would be assumed by Bob Mansfield, who currently oversees engineering efforts for the company’s Macintosh products. He also has a role in guiding development of some of the components for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Papermaster generated publicity upon his departure from IBM after twenty-five years of service, when the company stated that his leaving to join Apple in 2008 breached contract terms. As a result, he was not able to commence work with the new company until a year later.

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While the threat is currently theoretical, experts at Symantec suggest that Apple needs to address the issue before people begin to realise the weakness and exploit it. The vulnerability comes from the way Mobile Safari deals with Adobe Acrobat PDF documents. According to Symantec, when a user launches a PDF file on their device, there is potential for a hacker to embed some code within the file to infect devices.

Apple have issued a statement saying that they have seen the Symantec report, and are looking in to it.

A security expert from Sophos has commented: “The exploit uses the same principle as Jailbreakme – a utility that lets iPhone 4 owners run non-Apple approved applications – although it uses the exploit in a benign way. It uses the same tricks as you do when jailbreaking. We always thought that Apple’s Mobile Safari would be the main vulnerability. At present, we have yet to see any of these exploits out in the wild, but it is only a matter of time.”

“In an ironic twist, the only way of preventing Mobile Safari from automatically opening PDF files is by jailbreaking a phone and installing an application, called PDF Loading Warner, that then asks for permission every time the browser tries to open a PDF file. I personally wouldn’t want to jailbreak my phone to get the fix.”

“Right now, it’s all eyes on Apple who we hope are going to fix this problem as soon as possible. Historically, Apple have been slow to fix problems on their Mobile browser. This has been a concern of ours in the past and continues to be.”

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To mitigate the issues with the iPhone, Apple is now offering a free case to everyone who has purchased a phone since launch. The case will be provided to fix issues with reception, by preventing the phone from being held in the wrong way, and reducing signal strength.

Steve Jobs, Director of Apple, presented the offer in response to the iPhone’s antenna issues at a recent press conference. Jobs stated that the reception issues were typical right across the mobile smartphone industry, and commented ‘We’re not perfect’. People will have to apply for their free case online with Apple before July 22nd.

The move is going to cost Apple in the region of £11 million to source and supply the new cases. Three million users have purchased an iPhone 4 since it was launched. Apple is also continuing to provide refunds for the phones if customers are not satisfied with its performance. Refunds will be given until the end of September 2010.

Apple’s iPhone 4 has attracted a great deal of negative publicity which has slowed sales significantly from that which was predicted upon launch. The steel casing around the phone works as an aerial, and when held in a certain position, the antenna ceases to work effectively. Using a case prevents the loss of signal strength.

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Apple have released the next version of its Safari web browser (version 5.0) on the sly for Mac and Windows. The most notable changes that Safari 5.0 brings is the HTML5 and the extensions support. Apart from that, much like the iPhone the browser will now also offer the option to make Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine.

Apple are claiming that Safari 5.0 is faster than its rival browsers Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. Safari 5.0 for Mac is powered with a Nitro JavaScript engine that makes JavaScript run 30 percent faster than on the previous Safari 4 browser.

Apple are boasting that Safari 5.0 is twice as fast as Firefox and three percent faster than Google’s latest browser Chrome 5. Apple uses the Domain Name System pre-fetching of previously viewed web pages to make them load faster.

The new Safari 5 supports dozens of new web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, all of which allow developers to create rich-media experiences. Safari 5 well also bring full screen play back and closed captions for HTML5 Video, HTML5 Geo-location, HTML5 forms validation, and several other features.

Apple has also introduced new free Safari Developer Program under which developers can build extensions using standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for enhancing the Safari 5 web browser. New Extension builder in Safari 5 works like a sandbox for the extensions that get digitally signed Apple certificate and runs only from web browser.

Finally, Safari has joined Chrome, Firefox and Opera’s league with Extensions. Safari is available for download to run on Windows or Mac platform on the Apple site as of this week.

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This new approach from Apple, named a ‘split process model’ or ‘process isolation’ has already been used by Google in their WebKit based Chrome browser.

Apple have stated that WebKit2 was designed with the purpose of improving robustness, security and responsiveness and to use the capabilities of the more common multi-core chips appearing in computers more efficiently.

The new technology will isolate the user interface and the application logic in a completely different process from the web content. This will then make it easier to isolate crashes or to create a sort of security sandbox around the web content.

Other techniques that Apple have introduced in WebKit2 include notification style client callbacks, policy settings, injected code and policy style client callbacks.

The release last week was only a technology demo, it will apparently be significantly different on its full release. Apple said it would release a basic web browser suitable for testing WebKit2 in the near future as the current download of it will not work on the Safari browser.

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This is all well and good of course, if the App Store wants to maintain a family vibe then fine, though it’s just the latest in a long line of apps that have had to be embarrassingly banned after the fact including the blackjack cheating app and of course the unfortunate ‘baby shaker,’ which sadly for Apple actually ended up making national television news.

For a human reviewed service, this seems a bit strange, none of these apps have been exactly cryptic about what they were, I mean ‘Baby Shaker,’ etc., surely the titles alone are going to make you take another look and think carefully.

Another factor that has rankled with developers is the perceived inconsistency in the vetting process. Critics have pointed to the fact that whilst numerous apps have scantily clad women featured within them, other apps are routinely denied, based on use of even moderate bad language.

It seems Apple really need to do one of two things, either build proper age verification into the App Store, or actually decide what is or isn’t acceptable and stick to it religiously. It’s probably not the biggest deal in the world, though it doesn’t exactly reflect well on Apple that they can’t write and stick to a content policy.

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Those of you doubting the validity should check out the video below. ‘Brushes,’ the application used to create the picture records each ‘brush stroke,’ allowing you to play back the drawing process at your leisure. The result below is the breathtaking 51 second record of the creation of the cover.

Apple are predictably spinning this as proof positive (if any were needed) that the iPhone, far from being a glorified toy, is actually a serious piece of computing equipment capable of performing complicated and unique tasks. Obviously, impressive as it is, it is really only a good picture, done on a hand held device. Still, bit of a hurrah moment for Apple, and not just from a marketing point of view.

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