Dive into OS X

Apple’s iPhone is one of the most anticipated — and hyped — products ever. And with any huge product launch, the scammers come out in droves. So, if you want to make sure you don’t get ripped off, keep reading.

Secure Computing Corporation, a leading enterprise gateway security company, warned in a press release that socially engineered email spam, indicating that the recipient has won a new iPhone, is directing users to a malware hosting website. If the user clicks on a link, the users’ browser will attempt to connect to a Web site and install malicious software designed to take control of the victim’s computer. The criminals behind this scam are using sophisticated techniques. The Web site is loaded with more than 10 Active X vulnerabilities, each targeting a potential browser vulnerability. In addition, the website is tracking visitors on the site and then redirecting repeat visitors to a different, clean Web site in efforts to thwart security researchers as well as using XOR encryption to obfuscate the attack.
Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism for Secure Computing, believes that although this is the first iPhone-related phishing scam, it certainly will not be the last. “Because of the popularity of the iPhone brand, this is the first in what’s bound to be a series of scams involving the iPhone,” he said.

Sunbelt Software Distribution Inc. spotted a new Trojan horse that redirects unwitting iPhone shoppers to a bogus Web site when they surf to iphone.com, a legitimate address that normally takes users to Apple’s own iPhone site.
The Trojan horse, which has not yet been named by antivirus vendors, produces a pop-up when users on infected Windows PCs head to either Yahoo.com or Google.com. The pop-ups tout iPhone.com as “the only place to buy iPhone,” and use the Apple logo and the actual price ($499) of the 4GB model to add weight to the offer.”On this infected system, you get directed to a custom ‘iphone.com’ which actually is a fake site,” said Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt’s CEO, in a blog entry.
The Trojan horse pulls content from the infected machine and injects code into Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser to build what looks like an Apple-owned site. As the duped buyer makes his way through the purchase screens, he comes to the end and he is told to send the money via Western Union or MoneyGram. And I expect that you’ll never get your iPhone or your money back.

Playboy has just released a free-to-download package named ‘iPlayboy’ for the iPhone owners.

The 76MB package includes wallpapers, photos, video and a music track. Samples can be found on the site.

All the images are non-nude. But they look GREAT anyway!

A direct download link to iPlayboy.

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Apple has just posted 10 interesting iPhone tips on their site, labeled “finger tips“. So, you can check out some of the hidden features of the iPhone.

With only twelve hours left before the launch of the iPhone, pictures are finally starting to leak. These pictures were found on Flickr.

You can check it out here.

After Apple made an exclusive five-year deal with AT&T for the US iPhone distribution rights, it has been widely speculated that a similar single company deal would be sought for the European market.

Given the fragmented nature of coverage in Europe across regions in comparison to the US, a sole distributor may end up causing a lot of problems. So, maybe Apple wants to make a deal with more than one distributor.

For the moment, Vodafone is the frontrunner to carry sole rights to the iPhone in Europe. Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom’s Orange are also in the running to bring the iPhone to Europe. Deutsche Telekom is better known as T-Mobile in the mobile space.

Apple has a preference for Vodafone, probably due to their coverage. Vodafone is one of the few cell carriers with a presence in almost all of Europe. Orange European coverage is significantly less than that of Vodafone. And Deutsche Telekom network is even more limited than that of Orange.

The deal between Apple and Vodafone is not signed yet. Apple wants Vodafone to take a guaranteed number of iPhones off their hands, but Vodafone doesn’t want that. and Vodafone does want the ability to subsidize the gadget and influence its retail price, which Apple doesn’t like.

What’s interesting about this possible partnership is that Vodafone runs a true 3G network, while Apple has designed the iPhone to run on a 2G network here in the States. The iPhone would likely have to be upgraded to support the faster data network. And, funny enough, 5 million units of the 2nd generation iPhone are rumored to begin shipping from Taiwan in September.

Apple has not yet announced a European launch date for the iPhone. The price is expected to be around 500 euros with a two year contract required.

AT&T return policy normally gives you 30-days to decide. However, that’s not the case for the iPhone; you only have 14 days. And if you return the iPhone within the 14-day window you will only receive 90% of the money you paid. Apple is keeping 10% for restocking fees.

So, when you just want to buy the iPhone to test it out, you better think twice, because it can cost you 10%; which is a lot.

This type of auction scams are back, again!

iPhone auction scam on eBay

Last time we saw them was last year during the PS3 launch.

I don’t know how many people were ripped off but this scam appears to be to the scale of tens of thousands. So watch out, and DO NOT BUY!!

Check out the last secret features of the IPhone.
1 The ringtone exterminator

2 Pranks: a barrel of fun apps

3 iSpy suite

4 Tricorder

All revealed by Joy of Tech.

Apple has created a 20-minute video describing how to use the features of the iPhone in detail.

You can check it out at Apple’s site, or you can watch it at YouTube:
Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Apple has announced today that content from Google’s popular video-sharing Web site YouTube will be accessible via either Wi-Fi or EDGE networks for the upcoming iPhone.
Apple also said YouTube videos are now available on its Apple TV device. Until now, the Apple TV has mainly been able to show videos from the user’s iTunes library, and some movie trailers from Apple’s site.

YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format, which results in higher video quality and longer battery life on mobile devices. Because the iPhone will be the first mobile device to leverage YouTube’s encoding of video in H.264 format, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was right when he said in a statement that “iPhone delivers the best YouTube mobile experience by far”.

Initially, only about 10,000 YouTube videos will be available for the iPhone’s launch, but the complete video catalog will be available in H.264 format by the end of the third quarter of 2007.

To take advantage of Youtube, iPhone buyers will have to subscribe to a data plan from AT&T, which will be the only wireless carrier offering the iPhone initially. A plan with web and email access as well as unlimited data transfer volume is currently priced at $20 per month. Voice plans are available from $40 per month.