A few weeks ago, Apple announced that it was dropping the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for all released versions of Apple’s iPhone Software, stating:

“We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software. We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. [...] Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.”

Apple has now officially released the new agreement, which removes the confidentiality clause and makes several other changes. Theoretically, this means that developers can now truly feel free to discuss the iPhone APIs, applications can be open-sourced, and more.

As previously reported, users had already started distributing free iPhone SDK App source code.

The company has also announced an iPhone developer-to-developer forum, which includes its own set of agreements. Developers tell iPhone Atlas that the agreement states, among other stipulations:

“Apple may provide you with access to confidential forums within the Apple Developer Forums for discussion of certain Apple Confidential Information, such as the discussion of pre-release software. For purposes of such confidential forums, Apple is providing a limited exception to your iPhone Developer Agreement(s) by allowing you to discuss Apple Confidential Information that you have obtained from Apple under such agreement(s) with other Participants who are also on such confidential forums, but only within these confidential forums. Except for the limited purpose of discussions with other Participants within these confidential forums, you acknowledge and agree that this Agreement does not grant you the right to copy, reproduce, publish, blog, disclose, transmit, or otherwise disseminate any Apple Confidential Information.”

Feedback? http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

The Hill reports that iPhones are beginning to be at the top of the “must-have” list for members of the US Congressional House of Representatives.

The Chief Adminstrative Office (CAO), which overseas the communictions systems of the House is reported to have started testing iPhones within Congress to see if they will meet the needs of lawmakers and their staff. Accordingly the site reports that,

“‘The reason we’re trying them out is because we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have them,’ said Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the CAO.”

Currently, the congressional communications device of choice is RIM Blackberry handhelds of which nearly 8,200 are in service after being introduced in 2001. They are used to deliver email to representatives using RIMs proprietary server interface to Microsoft Exchange which is not compatible with the iPhone.

Yesterday we reported on an issue in which the iPhone 3G fails to find and or connect to otherwise valid WiFi networks. The response from iPhone Atlas readers was overwhelming, with dozens of users (of both original and 3G iPhones) reporting the issue.

Among the reports:

• “Thought I was losing my mind. Although I don’t have a 3G. I have the first generation 8 gig. I have a wifi network in my house that ensures connectivity with my laptop from the road in front of my house. I live on over an acre of property but I can’t sit in a room 10 feet from a repeater and get a signal. I literally have to hold the phone next to my linksys, start, stop, and start the service again to get a connection.”
• “I all of a sudden have had exact same problem as your article states. I have Apple PowerBook, original iPhone (used as Touch now) and iPhone 3G. PowerBook and 3G wifi is working perfectly normal. All of a sudden wifi on original iPhone stopped working. Does not find any networks at all when always would show a few to choose from including my home network.”
• “My iPhone 3G intermittently loses Wifi connectivity. Sometimes it comes back on its own, other times, power cycling the wireless router and sometimes additionally the cable modem will re-establish connection. Often, if other wireless networks are present they will show up, sometimes not.”

Meanwhile, we’re now receiving reports from users indicating that Apple is replacing iPhones with WiFi problems at the Genius Bar, noting “hardware issues.”

One reader writes:

“I had the same problem with my first generation iPhone after about 6 months of use. I couldn’t connect to a wi-fi network and/or keep a wi-fi signal for more than a few seconds. I tried everything to fix it (full restore, changed router settings, etc.) Eventually made an appointment at the Genius Bar and was told that it was a hardware issue. They gave me a new phone since it was still under warranty and I haven’t had the problem return.”

Another adds:

“I had the same issue with my iPhone 3G. Took it to an apple store and they looked at for for thirty seconds and then replaced it.”

Among the fixes to try before taking your iPhone in for service:

• Turn WiFi off then on in Settings.
• “Forget” the currently configured connection and allow it to reconfigure
• Switch the router to WPA2
• Remove all spaces from the WPA pass phrase
• Remove all security from the router until a stable connection is attained then reconfigure the security

Feedback? http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

The iPhone corrects your typing as you go, but, until now, there hasn’t been a method for performing an aggregate spell check on emails before they are sent.

Mike Schneider has released a new update to TouchType, an application that allows Mail.app to use the keyboard in landscape (vs. portrait) mode.

Schneider writes:

“I am really proud of the spell check feature. The results are very accurate and it works in 86 languages. I was planning to make spell check its own application, but when TouchType was unexpectedly approved by Apple two weeks ago, I decided to merge the two programs. The updated TouchType is still $0.99 and is a free update for existing users.

Other improvements include: support for all international characters and symbols, save functionality, enabling users to reuse text in email messages and create multiple email signatures, and general increased stability and bug fixes.

Feedback? http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

Our sister site News.com has posted a speed test that pits the iPhone 3G against T-Mobiles new Google Android-based T1.

Bonnie Cha writes:

“In this quick Prizefight, CNET TV’s Brian Tong and I pit the two against each other in a 3G speed test, clocking the time it takes for each device to load CNET News from start to finish. Now, there are a couple of things to remember. Both smartphones use different Web browsers, and there are a number of factors that might affect 3G speeds, such as the area you live in and how many people are on the network at one time. However, in the spirit of friendly competition and out of pure curiosity, we decided to go for it.”

See the video embedded below or visit the full article.

Yesterday Apple announced that iPhone 3G sales surpassed Research in Motion’s Blackberry by approximately 1.5 million units in Apple’s fiscal fourth (calendar third) quarter. Today, AT&T announced that it saw 2.4 million iPhone 3G activations in roughly the same period.

Of these activations, roughly 40%, or approximately 960,000, were for new AT&T customers. According to AT&T, “iPhone 3G is delivering high-value subscribers with significantly higher ARPU and lower churn than postpaid subscriber average.” AT&T gained a net two million subscribers in the quarter, with a total wireless subscriber base of 74.9 million. You can read the complete press release here.

The iPhone has more than 3,100 points of distribution in the U.S. and over 30,000 points of distribution globally.

Several users have reported an issue in which the iPhone 3G fails to find and or connect to otherwise valid WiFi networks. A sampling of reports from this Apple Discussions thread:

• “My laptop can find my router network fine. I reset my router and iPhone but my iPhone still cant find any routers. I reset the network settings too. If I try to put in the name and password manually it just says ‘Joining InsertNetworkNameHere’ Over and over, with no results.”
• “Suddenly my iPhone 3g can’t find any wifi network. I have restored factory configuration but still the same. Yesterday my iPhone could find 4-5 wifi networks including my own now not even one.”
• “My brother and sister have iPod touches and theirs each work fine on my home network. I got an iphone last Tuesday, had to get update to start, won’t connect to my home network.”

An Apple support document entitled “Unable to use Wi-Fi with iPhone or iPod touch because there’s no Wi-Fi address listed for the device” has a list of potential solutions, though most have proven ineffective for readers. Among the listed fixes:

• Reset network settings (Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Setting)
• Erase all settings (Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings)
• Restore the iPhone

Users posting to the aforementioned thread have had little success with any of these fixes.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know at http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

Apple sold 6.3 million iPhones in its just-reported fiscal fourth quarter. That compares with 1.1 million iPhones (of the original variety) sold in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2007, which was the device’s first full quarter of sales. That represents year-over-year growth of 527%. iPhone sales more than doubled from the fiscal fourth quarter of 2007 to the fiscal first quarter of 2008, which encompasses the holiday season.

Our colleague Matt Rossoff, who maintains the Digital Noise blog for CNET, breaks down the hockey stick phenomenon in iPhone sales by quarter:

• June 2007: 0.3 million (it was only on sale for two days in this quarter)
• Sept. 2007: 1.1 million
• Dec. 2007: 2.3 million
• Mar. 2008: 1.7 million
• June 2008: 0.7 million (limited stock, as the channel was being cleared for the 3G)
• Sept. 2008: 6.9 million.

And as another colleague, Tom Krazit, writes: “The iPhone isn’t just the third leg of Apple’s business that Jobs promised back it would become back in January 2007, when he introduced the iPhone and changed the name of the company from Apple Computer to Apple Inc. It’s now the single largest contributor to Apple’s bottom line.”

If you’re planning to travel overseas and want to use your iPhone for data transfer with AT&T’s international data plan, don’t count on canceling the add-on plan as soon as you get back. Readers report that canceling the plan before 90 days after the transfer has occurred will trigger charges for data at the full, non-international-plan rate.

One iPhone Atlas reader writes:

“After receiving a huge international data roaming bill for my iPhone account — even though I had added a sufficiently large International Data Roaming Plan before my trip — I was informed by an AT&T service rep that AT&T had charged me the exorbitant per KB rate for international data usage because I had cancelled my International Data Roaming plan after I returned to the United States.

“The plan is available on a month-to-month basis, so canceling it when I got home seemed like an obvious thing for me to have done, since I have no plans to go overseas again in the foreseeable future. But the service rep said that AT&T’s policy (unwritten, so far as I can tell) is that one needs to leave the roaming plan in place for 90 extra days, so that it is still in place when the foreign carrier finally reports the subscriber’s roaming back to AT&T. If the plan is not in place when the foreign data usage gets reported to AT&T, then AT&T’s billing system — which was fully capable of charging me for the International Data Roaming service when it was in place — is incapable of recognizing that I had an international data roaming plan in place on the dates that the foreign carrier says I used its data connection”

AT&T’s 100MB iPhone plan costs an additional monthly fee of $119.99, while the 200MB plan runs an additional $199.99 a month. During the plans’ rollout, AT&T stated that both could be added or dropped from users’ existing plans at any time, without penalty.

On a pay-per-use data basis, users could pay as much as 0.0195 cents per kilobyte, which translates into nearly $40 for 2MB of data, according to AT&T. “AT&T has worked diligently to provide affordable options for international roaming because the feature-rich mobile experience of iPhone is indispensable to users,” Bill Hague, AT&T wireless operations international executive vice president, said in a statement. “With these new international data plans, iPhone users can access more data in more countries for less cost.”

The 90 day restriction, however, makes these plans significantly less cost-effective.

The iPhone 3G brought changes in shape, function, features, etc., but to the dismay of many cell phone photographers, the device retains the same 2.0 megapixel camera as the first iPhone. apple enhanced the camera via software improvements by coupling the camera to the GPS features of the iPhone 3G to enable photo geotagging, but this did little to calm the complaints about the camera’s resolution, lack of flash and other features available on a few other phones. However, users have developed exciting ways to use the camera, and there are several innovative third-party applications to help along the way.

Photographers Embrace the iPhone Camera

Despite hardware limitations, amateurs, hobbyists, professionals, etc. are enjoying the quick access to image capture afforded by the iPhone. The photos once captured can be immediately shared by different distribution methods. The camera coupled with the iPhone 3G’s amazing ability to connect to the internet in various ways opens up a whole new world of sharing photos and moments captured in time in only a few minutes. So just how are people using their iPhone cameras?

One example is a personal blog by, Morris Tsai. Tsai interviews Greg Schmigel of Annapolis, a talented photographer who uses his iPhone for a lot of his photography needs. You can see some of Schmigel’s amazing work on his website justwhatisee.com. According to the interview, Schmigel says:

“I used to shoot with a Canon 40 D and a pocket-sized Leica D Lux-3, but since I purchased my iPhone, the big guys have been collecting a bit of dust. As you can see from some of my photographs, I love to shoot street photography. The iPhone, because of it’s size and discretion, gives me so many more opportunities to capture interesting moments that I might miss with a big rig.”

iPhone Photography Awards

Now that you’ve been inspired it is time that you take your iPhone camera a little more seriously. Don’t miss an opportunity to catch that one rare photograph when it happens because with your iPhone you’ll be ready. If you’ve caught that one true gem of an iPhone photo what do you do with it? Consider the iPhone Photography Awards(IPPA).

The winners of the 2008 IPPA awards include some amazing examples of photos taken with the iPhone’s camera.. The categories for photos are listed as nature, flowers, landscapes, seasons, sunset, trees, wildlife/pets, people, children lifestyle, travel, food, still life, sport, and honorable mentions.

The next round of awards will be following the current contest deadline of March 21, 2009. Check the website for the IPPA for details and other information regarding the contest. You can enter your own photographic masterpieces using this link. Good luck!

iPhone Photography apps

Let’s examine some photography apps in the iTunes app Store that will help over come some of the cameras limitations, enhance the cameras value and make you a better photographer.

Read more…