Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm tech conference, AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson, discussed the iPhone and it’s exclusivity with AT&T.

“There will be a day when you are not exclusive with the iPhone.”

Nothing was discussed regarding any negotiations that may be taking place at this time between the two companies but be assured that AT&T will do everything and anything in it’s power to keep Apple’s device under lock and key for as long as it possibly can.

All good things must come to an end, however. With that being said, AT&T’s exclusitivity deal with Apple’s iPhone is no different. It will eventually end. Sure there are those of you out there that can’t wait until Apple breaks free of it’s chains from AT&T, just don’t count on that happening anytime in the near future.

[Via Engadget Mobile]

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CEOh-Snap! AT&T Says iPhone Exclusivity Will End… Eventually

Dieter did some digging over at PreCentral.net and goes through how Palm re-hacked the iTunes sync. It looks pretty much like what we figured. Palm is spoofing the Apple USB Vendor ID so as to present as an iPod. This is one step deeper than last time, where they still ID’d themselves as a Pre. In a further display of chutzpah, while violating the prohibition against misuse of USB vendor IDs themselves, Palm has filed a complaint against “another company” (we’re guessing Apple) for improper use of same.

So let’s follow the logic here. Palm is seemingly objecting to Apple using the USB vendor ID to filter out non-Apple devices. Palm doesn’t feel that filtering is in keeping with the openness of the USB standard.

What’s the alternative, however? For Apple to maintain control over their own software by putting an authentication chip in every iPod/iPhone that handshakes with iTunes before syncing? Or to agree to freely license iTunes interoperability to every device maker on the planet?

That iTunes has achieved a high enough market penetration to be considered a platform, and that scripts for iTunes could be considered “software” on that platform is certainly a legitimate point of view. However, Apple historically takes advantage of only writing software for their own hardware, which means they can change things whenever they want without worrying about breaking third party hardware. Opening up iTunes brings headaches for Apple.

For Palm, we still find it an odd fight to pick. Is it really what Palm wants to spend their time — and Elevation Partner’s — money on.

webOS was supposed to be a next-generation platform in its own right, something not tied down with a desktop heritage like Apple. Palm, arguably more than even Google in the mobile space at the time, made a point to talk about the cloud, not the desktop — Synergy, not some USB tether, is how it manages personal information.

And yet they’re fixated on iTunes desktop, something even Apple has left entirely behind on iPhone 3.0 except for firmware updates and third-party media transfer.

We’ll say it again — iTunes. Desktop. From a cloud-focused company?

We’ve already given our theory — Palm’s Apple heritage, Jon Rubinstein’s desire to stretch beyond Steve Jobs’ shadow, and the press fallout are more important to Palm than webOS or its users. Still, we can’t help thinking of the end of Batman Begins…

Palm broke into iTunes. Apple dressed up in the Batsuit and shut them down. Now Palm’s got the white warpaint and crazy-wide smile on, and have just flipped over the Joker card.

Escalation.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Yeahbuwhy?! - Palm Spoofs Apple USB Vendor ID, Files Complaint Against Apple for Misuse of USB Vendor ID

UniWar [$4.99 - iTunes link] is a turn-based strategy game for the iPhone and iPod touch that provides a great challenge and three races to choose from.

UniWar is quite the little gem of a strategy game. You have four modes of play: Online, Campaign, Solo and Vs. and three species to choose from: Sapiens, Titans and Khraleans. The variety of  units is very diverse. You have units that can bury them selves underground and move a space at a time to units that can teleport across the screen. One of the great things I enjoy about this game is the plethora of maps you have to play; 50+!!! That is plenty to keep me busy. As of this writing, I have only played about 10 maps, so I have a long way to go!

This game is very polished and I have lost many hours playing it. If you like StarCraft, this is an excellent diversion to keep you busy. The developers are quite active in delivering updates (they are up to 1.0.4 already). They have also added the little extra touches that can make a difference such as the ability to play in portrait or landscape in real-time; just rotate your iPhone. Nice.

When you play online you register on the UniWar website and it keeps track of your stats and even has a ladder to see your ranking. You also have the ability to save multiple active games and resume them at your leisure.

If I were to mention some areas of improvement it would be the AI’s time to play; it can be lengthy at times (I once waited 20 seconds). Though trivial, I think with the modern hardware of the iPhone, that the AI can be sped up a bit for mobile gaming. Also, though the graphics are good, the animation appeared to be a bit jerky. Perhaps this could be improved with more animations per unit. If i had to guess, there are only a few frames of animation each. The fluidity of movements would make the play that much more immersive.

Overall, if you like Sci-Fi turn-based stragatey games, this is a steal at $4.99! Check it out now! Sreenshots after the break!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick App: UniWar Turn-Based Strategy Game

While the re-hacking of iTunes sync hogged a lot of attention yesterday, the bigger story is Palm updating the Pre to webOS 1.1.

And what were the major updates?

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN with complexity
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock
• Improved digital certificates

Our sibling site, PreCentral.net is also keeping an updated list of webOS 1.1: Tons of Undocumented Features

May not sound like much compared to some iPhone updates, but here’s the key thing we’re taking away — Palm is doing the update over the air (OTA). Unlike the iPhone, where 250ish MB firmware files need to be downloaded via iTunes and installed over USB tether, webOS sticks to its cloud-centric focus and calmly sips down 85MB or so during down time then installs when it’s ready to go. If memory serves, Android did this as well with their 1.5 Cupcake release. Sounds like the future to us.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

The Competition: Palm webOS 1.1 Goes Live, Updates Over-the-Air

Wired.com talks to Jonathan Zdziarski, iPhone developer, hacker, forensics teacher, finder of the iPhone kill switch, creator of the AMBER alert app, about the iPhone 3GS‘ new hardware encryption, recently touted as giving consumers “enterprise-class” security. His take? It’s implemented so poorly it can be cracked in two minutes, "like storing all your secret messages right next to the secret decoder ring".

To steal an iPhone's disk image, hackers can use popular jailbreaking tools such as Red Sn0w and Purple Ra1n to install a custom kernel on the phone. Then, the thief can install an Secure Shell (SSH) client to port the iPhone's raw disk image across SSH onto a computer.

We’ve heard before that Jailbreaking strips away security layers on the iPhone, though that’s been in the context of the users own device. This is using the Jailbreak process to actively get at another device’s data.

Is Apple going to change the way they implement their hardware-based iPhone 3GS encryption in light of this? Can the current model be made more robust? And what, if any, changes made to keep bad guys out of the iPhone will effect users who simply want to gain access to their own iPhones?

[Thanks to Antony for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3GS Hardware Encryption “Useless”?

In reference to last week’s news that Amazon pulled copies unlicensed copies of 1984 and Animal Farm off users’ Kindles and iPhone Kindle apps, Jeff Bezos proves that sometimes the buck still stops at the top:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

Nice.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Apologizes to Kindle (and iPhone Kindle App) Users

Google Latitude — the service that either allows you to keep track of your friends or be stalked by stalking stalker types, depending on your point of view — is finally available for the iPhone and iPod touch. No, it’s not built into Google Maps as part of iPhone 3.1 with push update capability. No, it’s not built into Google Mobile app. No, it’s not even set up as an iPhone app in and of itself.

Google Latitude is a WebApp and it runs in Mobile Safari using the iPhone 3.0 geoLocation feature.

Apparently Apple, in their infinitely-looped wisdom, hasn’t yet deigned (or Google wouldn’t yet offer them the chance?) to build it into Maps, and Apple decided it would be too confusing to users to have another app on the iPhone thats shows the same Google maps. (And it’s not when simply framed by mobile browser chrome? Sigh.)

While Google inarguably makes among the best iPhone WebApps in the business, this doesn’t strike us an ideal solution. Still it is a solution for iPhone users desperate to get their Latitude on. Until Apple gets their act together on this, here’s official word from the blog:

Our Latitude web app provides all the core functionality you might expect: you can see the location of your friends on a map and modify your privacy settings so that you control how your location is shared and with whom. In fact, if my friends and colleagues back in London haven’t yet noticed my absence, they’ll see in Latitude that I’m currently vacationing on the beach in Australia. Hi guys, remember me!?

[...] To try Google Latitude, type google.com/latitude into your iPhone’s browser. And if you miss the experience of launching the app directly from your home screen, you can add a bookmark to the home screen by opening Latitude in Safari and tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add.

Wonder if Steve Jobs is already using it to follow Eric Schmidt….?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Google Finally Provides Latitude to iPhone Users — Yeah, it’s a WebApp

Palm Pre got webOS 1.1 today and the surprise feature was that it re-hacks iTunes sync, once and for all proving Palm’s new management — in this area — cares more about thumbing their nose at Apple and strutting in front of the press than they do about Palm and the Pre user base.

Yeah, this will be an editorial of the scathing variety. You’ve been warned…

Palm got an astounding and impressive number of things right with webOS. The multitasking is great, the notifications sublime, the SDK a stroke of genius, and the Classic emulator smart, smart, smart. Palm’s done so much so right, it’s flabbergasting that they’ve handled iTunes sync so boneheadedly wrong.

What’s so wrong about it? It doesn’t serve the webOS/Palm Pre user. Bottom line, no company should ever base a user experience on something they don’t own or license. Regardless of caveats like version numbers, Palm telling Pre users they can sync with iTunes when Palm can’t guarantee it will work going forward is irresponsible.

RIM/BlackBerry and Nokia, by contrast, sync with the iTunes XML file which won’t break if iTunes updates. Sure, it’s not the way an iPod syncs, but then they aren’t — and the Palm Pre isn’t — and iPod.

We’ve spoken before about user confusion. Stick a Palm Pre into iTunes and it pretends to be an iPod, but it can’t sync iTunes movies, can’t sync App Store apps. That breaks the user experience (my mother has no idea what DRM is, but she sure knows what “not working” is). And if iTunes is updated and, even if purely by accident, Palm Pre can no longer sync, it shatters the user experience. (”No, see mom, Apple and Palm are like rivals and– yes, I know you can’t get your ABBA to play. Sigh. Again–”)

See, we’re not talking about pro level users here. This isn’t DVD Jon hacking iTunes DRM and experts going in to set up the sync themselves. That’s closer to Jailbreak, you roll your own dice and takes your own chances.

We’re talking about average users who go in thinking they can sync with iTunes just like an iPod. That’s incredibly unfair to them.

So why is Palm doing it? First, it’s important to remember current Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein was formerly head of the iPod division at Apple, and brought a lot of iPod and iPhone engineers (and PR people) with him to work on webOS and the Pre. That’s reportedly caused some animosity between Palm and Apple. Second, look at all the press it generates for them.

Even putting aside whether Palm, with all that iPod brain trust, could prove reverse-engineering in a clean room, it comes off as looking like they did it to show they could, and to get the required action from Apple to generate buzz and attention.

The original hack was just a USB masquerade and was easy for Apple to stop. This hack, while currently unidentified, is likely deeper and perhaps not as trivial. That makes the first hack look like a sacrificial pawn in a chess gambit, with the second (and third, fourth?) more like Bishops and Queens lined up, ready and waiting.

But Palm isn’t playing with game pieces, they’re playing with that average user who just wants a reliable sync solution for his or her (or moms!) media. Palm is putting that user behind their own ego — to show up former big boss Apple — and attention seeking — to hook the blogsphere in riveting rounds of cat and mouse posts.

And that’s not right. It’s not right for Apple, who’ll get blamed for Palm’s manipulations. It’s not right for Palm who is better than this, and has created an otherwise exemplary new platform. It’s not right for the engineers on both sides who waste time hacking and patching unlicensed sync rather than working on great new features. And it’s absolutely not right for Palm Pre users who deserve that BlackBerry or Nokia quality sync experience, legitimately for their very own.

How about it Palm, how about we re-task those engineers into making a great iTunes Library XML sync for all the users who stuck by the original Palm, through the years in the desert, and into the clouds?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Palm Re-Hacks iTunes Sync, Shows They Care More About Ego and Press Than Pre Users