Apple announced this morning that it has sold over 1.7 million units of the new iPhone 4 smartphone through Saturday, only three days after its launch on June 24th. These numbers, touts the Cupertino-based company, make the iPhone 4 launch the “most successful in Apple’s history.” Oddly enough, it’s also the launch that seems to have had the most technical issues as well, given the antenna reception problems Apple confirmed both officially and unofficially last week. Holding the phone in a particular way leads to a weakened signal and sometimes even dropped calls, according to numerous reports from new users, testers, gadget blogs and mainstream media news outlets. Sponsor Despite these issues, consumers lined up for the new device in record numbers, proving once again, those who buy Apple are some of the most loyal customers a company could ever have. Sorry, Says Apple CEO “We apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted as saying in this morning’s release containing the sales numbers. The CEO, however, was not as apologetic a few days prior, when responding via email – his new unofficial channel to speak and react to public inquiry – to a consumer’s complaint about antenna performance. “Just avoid holding [the iPhone] in that way,” he suggested to the email’s writer . Meanwhile, officially, the company downplayed the antenna issues. “Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance,” a company spokesperson told media outlets last week. Another solution offered by the spokesperson was to buy one of the company’s $30 rubber bumpers instead. The bumpers, incidentally, represent Apple’s first foray into the accessory case business, arriving just in time for the iPhone 4. (Evil? Or evil genius?, one has to wonder.) Issues Aside, iPhone 4 Sells Today, unconfirmed rumors circulating through tech blog sites hint that Apple may be close to releasing a software update that will fix the antenna weakening issue, a problem previously thought to be related to the device’s hardware design itself. The new iPhone 4 places the antenna outside the phone, in stainless steel bands circulating the device. According to various sources, though, the hardware may not be at fault after all. Instead, forum postings on the Apple.com website (now removed, of course), supposedly confirmed that a software fix for the reception issues would ship early this week. Yet, despite these problems and other, less prevalent reports of screens with yellow streaks or the occasional misplaced volume button , the iPhone 4 has outsold not only its rivals, but other iPhones (and iPads!) too. To put the numbers in historical perspective, in 2008, Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G devices within the same time frame (3 days) as the iPhone 4. Last year, the company again sold 1 million of the 3GS model iPhones during its opening weekend. iPads, on the other hand, took a little longer to reach the million mark: 28 days, to be precise. After 29 days, Apple had sold 2 million iPads and then 3 million after 80 days. Discuss

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One of the iPhone 4’s most heralded new features is FaceTime video calling. For the time being, however, this only works for calls from one iPhone 4 to another, so if you don’t know anybody with an iPhone 4, you can’t really test it. Thankfully, though, Apple just set up a phone number for you to call: 1-888-FACETIME (1-888-32238463). A friendly Apple representative will answer your call, initiate a video chat with you and explain all of FaceTime’s features to you. Sponsor A Call to Apple We just tried this out and an Apple representative answered our call within seconds. After asking us if we were on a Wifi network (sadly, FaceTime doesn’t work over the cellular network yet), the customer service agent transferred our call to FaceTime and explained all of FaceTime’s features to us. The video and voice quality during our chat was very high. What We Learned Here are a few things we learned during our call: You can move the small window where you see the preview of your own camera around the screen. You can pause the video and multitask on your phone by clicking the home button. You can easily switch back and forth between the front-facing and regular camera by clicking on the camera icon at the bottom right of the screen. You can initiate FaceTime calls right from your iPhone contacts without placing a regular call first. For more details about the iPhone 4, also see: iPhone 4: Your Burning Questions Answered . Tip of the hat to iSmashPhone for alerting us to this. Discuss

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This week the engineers at Google remotely activated the so-called Android “kill switch,” a technology which allows the company to remotely remove applications installed on users’ phones. The applications in question, designed by a security expert for research purposes, were described as “practically useless.” They were not used maliciously nor did they access private data, or so says Android’s Security Lead Rich Cannings in a company blog post . Instead, the apps simply misrepresented their purpose to encourage downloads. “Most users uninstalled the applications shortly after downloading them,” Cannings wrote, dismissing the impact of these questionable apps. But if the apps were effectively harmless, why zap them? Sponsor Zap that App! Unlike smartphone rival, Apple, Google’s transparency in the matter is actually refreshing. Apple very seldom makes any official announcement regarding applications which are removed or rejected from its App Store, unless it’s responding to public outcry, such as was the case with the Pulitizer-prize winning satirist, cartoonist Mark Fiore’s app or the banned web comic version of James Joyce’s Ulysses , both of which Apple later admitted were mistakes. (Censorship is a slippery slope, is it not?) But with the Android kill switch situation, it’s still seems a little odd. If the apps weren’t malicious, were generally uninstalled by the duped users and were already voluntarily removed from the Market by the researcher in question, why zap them off everyone’s phones, too? The kill switch is designed to remove dangerous applications from phones – those that steal or access private user data, contain malware or viruses, or access system resources without permission… is it not ? Well, actually, no. The kill switch, per the Android Developer Terms of Service , may be used against any app “that violates the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies.” If that’s the case, then “Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your Device at its sole discretion.” Interesting Timing on that Kill Switch, Google… Very Interesting But what’s really interesting about this news is the timing. The Google blog post arrived only one day after news broke about a frightening, but perhaps inflated, report from security firm SMobile Systems that described how one-fifth of Android applications expose private user data. This means, SMobile decided, these apps could be used for malicious purposes . It was quite a leap, though, to claim that because an app accessed private info, it was dangerous. A contact organizer, for example, would have access to your phone’s address book, but is that really a concern? No. A Google spokesperson also responded to CNET ’s coverage of the news, refuting the report’s claims and reminding the public that Android apps ” must get users’ permission to access sensitive information,” something worthy of noting, to say the least. “Developers must also go through billing background checks to confirm their real identities, and we will disable any apps that are found to be malicious,” the spokesperson said, seemingly referring to the kill switch technology. And yet, in this case, Google removed “non-malicious” apps. Yes, of course there was the obvious misrepresentation by the researcher as to the apps’ purposes, the general uselessness of the apps in question and the need to enforce a Marketplace where developers play by the rules, but it’s still worth pointing out that Google has activated its kill switch for non-malicious applications the company itself described as “useless.” And it did so just one day after a security firm, albeit a questionable one which apparently has ties to AT&T , blasted the company for the growing number of spyware apps on the market. If anything, the remote app zapping looks like a response to those (reportedly bogus) claims, which is either a case of very coincidental and/or bad timing on Google’s part, or…well…could it be that there was actually some truth behind all that hype? Is asking for permission not really the panacea Google claims it should be on Android? After all, over the years, putting the onus on the user to be mindful of their own security concerns has led to pop-up ads that resemble computer error messages, Facebook “recommendations” that instantly publicize your private data, user agreements and EULAs that install spyware, adware and toolbars on your computer and a number of other undesirable situations for end users. It seems like, when it comes to Android security, there’s a fine line between safe applications politely accessing your private data with permission and those that could do a bit more, perhaps, than you had originally intended. The question is now, how much of this will be the user’s responsibility to manage and how much can the user rely on Google – and its Android kill switch technology – to manage for them? Discuss

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Wait, what the heck is geofencing ? No, it’s not some virtual sword fighting app for your phone. Geofencing, or a geofence, is exactly what its name implies – a virtually fenced-off geographic location. When this concept is applied to mobile phones, it refers to a device’s ability to receive automatic alerts or notifications when entering, leaving or moving within a specific geographic area. Location Labs , providers of location services for mobile developers, announced earlier this week the release of its library that will allow iPhone developers to build geofencing apps thanks in no small part to new features included in the new iOS 4.0. Sponsor Location Labs’ Geofence Library for iPhone As the company points out, location services on mobile devices have been hindered both by differences in location technology standards, and the significant drain on the device’s battery caused by its use. With the introduction of background applications with iOS 4.0 and increased battery performance in the new iPhone, Apple has created a fitting platform for geofencing apps, the company says. One aspect of background location capabilities in the new OS is and API that notifies apps “based on configurable accuracy and distance change filters,” which is a highly-accurate “always on” battery drainer, says Location Labs. A new service, the “significant change location service,” uses less power but the lower accuracy and frequency makes geofencing useless, delaying notifications by several hours. “With the iPhone, we employ a combination of the standard and significant change location services, intelligent interaction with the iPhone backgrounding and suspending logic as well as local awareness of proximity to the geofence boundaries,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday. “Together these allow us to offer a high quality firing latency guarantee (measured in minutes) while keeping impact on battery life to a minimum.” What This Means for Location Apps To get an idea of how geofencing technology could improve on existing location-based applications, just look at the current popular apps. Apps like Foursquare and Gowalla could implement this infrastructure to allow users to automatically check-in when entering the geofence of a particular location. I can’t even count the times I’ve been out and forgotten to check-in at various locations, robbing myself of precious Foursquare points. With geofencing, I could have been automatically checking in as I went from place-to-place, or perhaps a push notification would have reminded me after I was within the perimeter of the geofence for a certain amount of time. Additionally, geofences could allow for a feature of location apps that Robert Scoble advocated for earlier this month . As Scoble points out, it is helpful to location app users if they can tell if their friends are still at a location, and determining how long users spend in businesses can have a significant impact of location-based marketing. “For instance, I hate shopping so I’ll only spend four minutes inside the Gap, if I go at all. But there are many people who will linger there for hours,” he said. “If you are another clothing store, which customer is more valuable to you to get to come to visit your store? Me or that other customer?” Other interesting ideas for geofences include connecting mobile devices to house lights or air conditioning units to automatically activate them when users approach their homes. Friends could even be notified when they are within a certain distance of one another. The possibilities for geofencing applications are enormous with this new library from Location Labs. Photo by Flickr user KWDesigns . Discuss

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As mobile phone penetration continues to surge, the years-old hype about the mobile Web being the next big thing is no doubt coming true. But despite all of the industry gurus, conference keynotes and trade magazine articles imploring you to get your business ready for the mobile space, it’s not always easy to know where to begin. Sure, you could hire a team of top-notch mobile developers, but not every business owner has that luxury, especially with the economy still in limbo. Here are a few tools to get started: Sponsor Make Your Website Mobile Friendly Your company’s website may be getting you noticed on the desktop, but what happens when people try to access it from their phones? Probably a lot of pinching, scrolling and squinting. There are a few ways to get your existing site ready for mobile display with minimal coding and development required. One such tool is a hosted solution called Mofuse , which offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface from which to manage mobile content, design and ads. Plug in an RSS feed URL to pull content in from your company blog (or any source), or simply publish static pages with the most pertinent info. When it’s ready, Mofuse provides several flavors of code snippets for redirecting mobile users from your full-size desktop site to the more mobile-friendly version. Another option is Mobify , a freemium service that takes your existing website and strips it down to only the essentials you want your mobile users to see. The result is a clean, highly usable design that displays for the users who visit your site from their phones. Although they have different pricing plans and feature sets, both Mofuse and Mobify come with custom domains, analytics, ad server integration and e-commerce options. Get Started With QR Codes Although not yet as common in the U.S. as they are in Japan, QR (quick response) codes are popping up more and more in commercial and marketing contexts. These square barcode-esque patterns can be printed on any page or real-world surface to enable users with a QR-equipped mobile phone to scan it and then be be redirected to any URL. These could be used in print advertisements to send users to your mobile site for more information or for special promotional offers. While the jury is still out on if and when QR codes will see widespread adoption in the West, it’s easy to get started using one of the many QR code generators that are out there, including Kaywa QR Code , Delivr and QR Stuff to name a few. Keep it Social This may seem like a no-brainer and the last thing the world needs is somebody else espousing the magic of the social Web, but we would be remiss to discuss going mobile without touching on the most obvious and simple way of getting your brand onto people’s phones. Let’s face it: people access sites like Facebook and Twitter from their phones all day long. If your company has a social media strategy, then it already has the beginnings of a mobile strategy. Phone photo by Thiago Felipe Festa . QR photo by cocreatr . Discuss

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