The iPhone has a serious problem

Jerry Seinfeld's right,you can't slam an iPhone down, well not more than once!

Can I guess your iPhone passcode?

1234
0000
2580
1111
5555
5683
0852
2222
1212
1998

If your iPhone passcode is one of those then you are, according to recent research, amongst the 15% of iPhone users who use one of those codes...

Android phone or iPhone?

I am in the process of choosing a new smartphone and am trying not to buy an Apple iPhone as a) I want a hardware keyboard and b) I am not an Apple fanboi. I was looking at Windows Mobile 7 but there are some key omissions from its feature list:
No threaded e-mail
No universal search
No Internet tethering
No Twitter integration
Alphabetical-only app list organization

So I was amused to note the latest news of os failures for Android and iPhone. The first relates to iPhones and seems to be a variant of the Clocks changing alarm bug, in this latest instance one off alarms set for 2011 will fail. There is a work around - simply create a recurring alarm at the time you need to be woken up and then disable it once you are awake. The Android bug seems less clear cut, but it is claimed that:

'For at least the last couple versions, Android has been plagued with a couple extremely serious bugs in its text messaging subsystem that can ultimately end up causing you to text the wrong contact -- even contacts that you've never texted before.

...

More seriously, though, there's also an open issue in Android's bug tracking system -- inexplicably marked "medium" priority -- where sent text messages can appear to be in the correct thread and still end up being sent to another contact altogether. In other words, unless you pull up the Message Details screen after the fact, you might not even know the grievous act you've committed until your boss, significant other, or best friend -- make that former best friend -- texts you back.'

This Android bug seems potentially more serious to me but it has least made up my mind for me; I'll stock to WinMo 6.1 for the time being!

The first, but not the last, iPhone virus

The world's first piece of iPhone specific malware has targetted 'jailbroken' iPhones that also have SSH software installed and have not changed Apple's default root password of "alpine." These iPhones have fallen prey to the 'ikee' worm which shows a picture of Rick Astley as new wallpaper and displays the message "ikee is never going to give you up," a variation on 'Rickrolling'

It seems that the ikee malware, once installed, searches the mobile phone network for other vulnerable iPhones and when it finds one, copies itself to them using the the default password and SSH


It seems that the ikee worm is only infecting Australian iPhones and the infection does no more than spread the Rick Astely message but as the knowledge that this is possible to do spreads, others will follow suit. So the advice to all iPhone users who have 'jailbroken' iPhones is to change the password now.

If you want to change your password from 'alpine' then Google away - change iphone password alpine - for instructions. I am not an iPhone user and so cannot vouch for the reliability of any of the instructions that you find.