The 3D architecture and design application AutoCAD, long missing from the Mac platform, is finally making its comeback. Autodesk plans to release a Mac OS X version in October, and versions for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch are in the works, too.

“The combination of this new version of AutoCAD and the extension of AutoCAD to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is a big step in Autodesk’s efforts to accelerate design and make design more accessible for an ever-greater number of people,” commented Autodesk senior vice president, Amar Hanspal.

AutoCAD for Mac OS X will support multi-touch trackpad gestures and Cover Flow, along with cross-platform DWG file format sharing.

Autodesk will also release AutoCAD WS for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch for free. The mobile version will let users edit and share AutoCAD files, but won’t offer the same level of controls found in the Mac OS X version.

Rumors that Autodesk was working on a new version of AutoCAD for the Mac surfaced in May, but the company didn’t offer any confirmation at the time.

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Minutes after Apple issued a security update Wednesday, the maker of a 10-day-old jailbreak exploit released code that others could put to use hijacking iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.

“Comex,” the developer of JailbreakMe 2.0, posted source code for the hacks that leveraged two vulnerabilities in iOS and allowed iPhone owners to install unauthorized apps.

Apple patched the bugs earlier Wednesday.

The exploits that comex used to jailbreak the iOS could be used for other purposes, including delivering malicious payloads to grab control of iPhones, iPads , and iPod Touches. All that would be necessary is for hackers to dupe users into visiting a malicious Web site or persuading them to click on a link in an e-mail or text message.

“Impressive. And dangerous,” said Mikko Hypponen , chief research officer at antivirus company F-Secure, on Twitter early today of the exploit code.

It may not be long before comex’s work is turned into a weapon for attacks that gain “root” access, or complete control, of iPhones and iPads.

“@comex thanks, using it to make malicious s*** now,” bragged someone identified as ”MTWomg” on Twitter shortly after comex published the source code.

Noted Mac vulnerability researcher Dino Dai Zovi, co-author of The Mac Hackers Handbook , chimed in with a warning of his own. “Now that @comex released his jailbreak source, any bets on how long before it is ported to Metasploit?” Dai Zovi tweeted Wednesday.

Metasploit is the open-source penetration testing framework that some use as a hacking toolkit.

Apple did not patch 2007′s first-generation iPhone or iPod Touch yesterday, delivering the update only to the iPhone 3G or later running the iOS 2.0 or later, and to the second-generation iPod Touch or later running iOS 2.1 or later. Lacking patches, those early models may be vulnerable to attack.

Also possibly at risk: Mac OS X. Like iOS, Apple’s desktop operating system includes the FreeType font engine, which may be vulnerable to the same or a similar exploit.

And users who have used comex’s code to jailbreak their iPhones have a decision to make. If they accept Wednesday’s update, they lose the ability to install and run software not approved by Apple. But by ignoring the update, they may be victimized by future attacks based on the public code.

Security experts urged everyone, jailbreakers included, to apply the update.

“We recommend that all iOS users, including those who have jailbroken their devices, would install the latest update now,” Hypponen said in a blog postWednesday.

Users can download the iOS update by connecting their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to their PC or Mac, running iTunes, clicking on the device in the listing on the left and then clicking the “Check for Update” button.

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While they haven’t issued an advisory, Apple has acknowledged the vulnerabilities being used in the jailbreakme.com site. They say they have already developed a fix and that it will be available in an upcoming update. As reported in the New York Times, the German Federal Office for Information Security, said it had identified two vulnerabilities in iOS. Apple was responding to their reports.

But the big story isn’t a vulnerability in iOS, hardly the first or last. This is the first vulnerability on the iPhone to be exploited, although not maliciously, in the wild. [Correction: I have been reminded that the very first iPhone jailbreak was based on an unpatched vulnerability in the libpng library.] The way it works proves that drive-by malware can be done on the iPhone and there’s almost nothing to stop it.

No doubt there are many more vulnerabilities like the ones at issue here. Software that parses complex data formats like PDF files is prone to such vulnerabilities, and Apple has fixed scores of them in OS X in the last few years. At least on OS X you can get antivirus and IPS software to protect against known attacks, but things are different on the iPhone.

Remember, in case you thought otherwise, that PDF is an open standard and, in fact, an ISO standard. Anyone can implement it and Adobe is out making sure that everyone knows that they didn’t write the vulnerable code in iOS.

The problem is that it’s impossible to secure a device, any device, but including an iPhone, without some sort of manageable endpoint security software on the device. All the other mobile platforms have such products, but even though the iPhone as 1.3 zillion apps, it has no endpoint security software. I asked Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure about this. F-Secure has long been aggressive about moving into mobile device protection anticipating, as we all do, that it would some day turn into a real problem. Mikko said “Antivirus vendors can’t build a realtime antivirus system for iPhone without Apple’s help. So far, Apple has not been interested.”

This is completely in line with Apple’s general attitude that security is someone else’s problem. It’s why they take an appallingly long time to fix so many critical vulnerabilities (although researchers tell me they do listen and they do, eventually, fix the problems). But it also means that the “window of vulnerability” is long on the iPhone and on OS X, and that gives a big advantage to attackers.

I’m getting a feeling about this episode, that it could be the bootstrap for the real beginning of the Apple malware problem. Like mobile malware generally, it has been expected for ages because it just makes sense, but it hasn’t happened. Perhaps the answer is that the Apple malware writers will skip the Mac altogether and write their malware for the iPhone. It just makes sense.

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You know that 32GB iPhone 4 you just pre-ordered? The amount of internal storage is going to seem comparatively quaint if Toshiba follows through with its plan to mass produce 128GB embedded NAND flash memory modules by the end of this year.

That’s right folks, 128 awesome gigabytes of storage capacity could become standard on everything from high-end smartphones to tablet PCs, digital cameras, and everywhere else you find embedded flash chips. It’s the highest capacity yet achieved in the industry, part of which is the result of Toshiba’s 32nm manufacturing technology. The other part of the equation involves stuffing sixteen 64Gbit (equal to 8GB) NAND chips onto a dedicated controller into a package measuring just 17 x 22 x 1.4mm.

The implications here are huge, especially with competition ramping up in the mobile market. With 1GHz Snapdragon chips strutting through the smartphone scene and 2GHz chips on the horizon, smartphones are finally powerful enough to truly be considered handheld PCs. And with a spate of Android, WebOS, and Windows 7 tablets on the horizon, Apple’s flagship 64GB iPad could suddenly become far less appealing, and for reasons other than lack of Flash support.

Apple Inc.’s iPhone is outdistancing the pack of phones that use Google Inc.’s rival software, thanks to video-calling features, a sharper screen and its array of 225,000 applications, analysts said.

The iPhone 4, unveiled yesterday by Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, is thinner, has better resolution and adds a front- facing camera. It also sports a new type of glass and a stainless-steel band that Apple says is designed to improve network reception.

Apple is counting on the product to fend off mounting competition from Android, a smartphone operating system developed by Google Inc. The iPhone is evolving fast enough to keep competitors at bay, even if the new version lacks any major surprises, said William Kreher, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis.

“They remain the technology innovation leader,” Kreher said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “While nothing was really revolutionary in terms of the new features, I think that Apple took a nice step forward.”

Jobs, who unveiled the phone at the company’s developer conference in San Francisco, downplayed the threat from Android. The iPhone was the No. 2 smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter, with a 28 percent share, he said, citing Nielsen Co. data. Research In Motion Ltd. ranked first, with a 35 percent share, while Android-based devices accounted for 9 percent.

Gizmodo Leak

Though many of the iPhone 4’s enhancements were expected — a prototype of the iPhone was dissected and photographed by technology blog Gizmodo.com in April — the upgrade provides Apple with some exclusive capabilities, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Bros. LP in San Francisco.

“The new features and software further differentiate the iPhone from competitors,” he said. Wu recommends buying the shares, which he doesn’t own.

Even so, the new abilities come with caveats. The video- calling program, called FaceTime, will be limited to Wi-Fi networks for now. That means customers won’t be able to make video calls using AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. wireless carrier for the iPhone. And while the phone can tap fourth-generation networks, that technology won’t be ready from AT&T until the middle of next year.

In a reminder that Apple’s new features are dependent on the reliability of wireless networks, Jobs struggled to get some new tools to work during his presentation.

Wi-Fi Disruption

The trouble stemmed from a bad Wi-Fi connection, rather than AT&T’s service. Jobs asked attendees to shut off the wireless connections on their computers and mobile hot spots because of interference, saying, “I’d like you to look around and police each other.”

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fell $5.03, or 2 percent, to $250.94 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has gained 19 percent this year. The day’s drop mirrored a 1.9 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 information-technology index.

When Apple’s first iPhone appeared in 2007, its touch- screen design and app-based interface shook up the market. Research In Motion and other mobile-phone makers clambered to add similar features to their devices. Since then, the industry’s rapid-fire advancements have made it harder for an upstart to catch up quickly, said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc.

“Apple and its competitors are steadily bringing better and better technology and software to go with it to the market,” he said. “In that environment, it’s difficult to leapfrog the competition in the same way the iPhone did when it was first introduced.”

Top Seller

The iPhone is now Apple’s top product, generating 40 percent of revenue last quarter — more than the Macintosh computer. The company has three products that work with its App Store: the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. All together, Apple will have sold 100 million of those devices by sometime this month.

Jobs said yesterday that there are more than 225,000 apps available. The company has paid out more than $1 billion to developers, who get a 70 percent share of the programs sold through the store, he said. Android developers, meanwhile, have only created about 50,000 apps, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

The iPhone 4 adds a camera for capturing high-definition video, as well as software that makes video chatting possible. Its so-called retina display packs four times as many pixels in the 3.5-inch screen, delivering higher-resolution text, photos and videos. New iPhone operating-system software, called iOS 4, supports features such as multitasking — the ability to run more than one application at the same time.

‘Razzle-Dazzle’

The iPhone 4, set to debut in the U.S. and four other countries, also is about 24 percent thinner than its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS. A 16-gigabyte model will cost $199, and a 32-gigabyte version will sell for $299.

“It will have enough razzle-dazzle,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos. in Minneapolis, who attended yesterday’s gathering. He rates Apple shares “overweight” and doesn’t own them.

Apple, which has delivered a new iPhone every year since it first came out, sees the fourth-generation device as “the biggest leap” in design and functionality in three years.

An advertising system called iAd will be built into the new iPhone software, giving creators of apps a new way to make money. Software developers will get a 60 percent cut of revenue from ads placed within their apps. After eight weeks of taking orders, Apple said yesterday that it has commitments for $60 million in advertising for the second half of the year.

With iAd, Apple is less concerned about making money directly from the system, Kreher said. It’s more about making its software and mobile devices more attractive for developers — and creating one more way to distinguish itself from Google.

“They just want to cultivate a better ecosystem for developers and advertisers to be comfortable in working with them,” Kreher said. “It’s really just about getting more people on board then driving the bottom line.”

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The mobile phone market is up big for the first quarter of 2010 after sales declines during 2009, according to the latest sales figures released by market research firm Gartner. Smartphones are also growing faster each quarter as they continue to replace feature phones for many users. No surprise that the iPhone and Android-based phones saw the biggest gains, as the two platforms were the only two in the top five to gain market share year-over-year.

Worldwide, mobile phone vendors sold 314.7 million phones—smart and otherwise—in the first quarter, a 16.9 percent increase from the first quarter of 2009. Nokia, Samsung, and LG continue to grab most of the market with little year-over-year change, while numerous other vendors battle for small parts of the remainder. However, the importance of smartphones can be seen in the overall mobile market. Big market share drops for Sony Ericsson and Motorola allowed BlackBerry maker RIM to move into fourth place globally, making RIM the first smartphone-only vendor to crack the top five.

Data source: Gartner

Apple has moved up to seventh place overall, more than doubling first quarter shipments from 2009 to grab 2.7 percent of the mobile phone market. “Growth came partly from new communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement. 

Global smartphone sales grew even more than last quarter, with 54.3 million units sold for a 48.7 percent year-over-year increase. Smartphones now represent 17.3 percent of all mobile phone sales, up from 13.6 percent in first of quarter last year.

Symbian still commands a large, though continually eroding, market share among smartphone platforms, shedding another 4.5 points of share. BlackBerry is holding strong at number two, losing about one point year-over year. With little innovation in its current incarnation, Windows Mobile also shed a few points as well. WebOS’s poor showing left it lumped in the “other” category with other niche platforms.

Data source: Gartner

The big winners are, as is becoming commonplace, iPhone OS and Android. iPhone OS market share improved considerably year-over-year, with its 112 percent unit growth enough to move it up to 15.4 percent among smartphones globally. However, a staggering 806 percent unit growth pushed Android well ahead of Windows Mobile into fourth place. Both iPhone OS and Android are poised to catch up to the BlackBerry platform in short order. Apple will have its work cut out for it to stay ahead of Android globally, even as the open source mobile platform has by some accounts surpassed iPhone OS-based smartphones domestically.

“To compete in such a crowded market, manufacturers need to tightly integrate hardware, user interface, and cloud and social networking services if their solutions are to appeal to users,” Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, said in a statement. “Just adding a QWERTY keyboard will not make a device fit the communication habits of today’s various consumer segments.”

However, Cozza said, “mobile OS ecosystems are developing and will move beyond smartphones to continue to deliver consumer value and a rich user experience.” Apple strengthened its iPhone OS platform by using it to power its iPod touch and iPad mobile devices. Android runs a few similar devices, mostly e-book readers, but it has yet to make a big move into the tablet or PMP space. However, Android will also face competition with Chrome OS in the tablet market. HP announced that it will definitely expand the webOS platform into the tablet space after its acquisition of Palm, but the desktop PC market leader has its work cut out for it.

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For a little $1 iPhone app, Line2 sure has the potential to shake up an entire industry. 

It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T’s (T) signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.

And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.

Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number — a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that you’ll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. Your second line can be an 800 number, if you wish, or you can transfer an existing number.

To that end, Toktumi offers, on its Web site, a raft of Google (GOOG) Voice-ish features that are intended to help a small businesses look bigger: call screening, Do Not Disturb hours and voice mail messages sent to you as e-mail. You can create an “automated attendant” — “Press 1 for sales,” “Press 2 for accounting,” and so on — that routes incoming calls to other phone numbers. Or, if you’re pretending to be a bigger business than you are, route them all to yourself.

The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhone’s own phone software. The dialing pad, your iPhone Contacts list, your recent calls list and visual voice mail all look just like the iPhone’s.

(Let’s pause for a moment here to blink, dumbfounded, at that point. Apple’s (AAPL) rules prohibit App Store programs that look or work too much like the iPhone’s own built-in apps. For example, Apple rejected the Google Voice app because, as Apple explained to the Federal Communications Commission, it works “by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls.” That is exactly what Line2 does. Oh well — the Jobs works in mysterious ways.)

So you have a second line on your iPhone. But that’s not the best part.

Line2 also turns the iPhone into a dual-mode phone. That is, it can make and receive calls either using either the AT&T airwaves as usual, or — now this is the best part — over the Internet. Any time you’re in a wireless hot spot, Line2 places its calls over Wi-Fi instead of AT&T’s network.

That’s a game-changer. Where, after all, is cellphone reception generally the worst? Right — indoors. In your house or your office building, precisely where you have Wi-Fi. Line2 in Wi-Fi means rock-solid, confident reception indoors.

Line2 also runs on the iPod Touch. When you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, your Touch is now a full-blown cellphone, and you don’t owe AT&T a penny.

But wait, there’s more.

Turns out Wi-Fi calls don’t use up any AT&T minutes. You can talk all day long, without ever worrying about going over your monthly allotment of minutes. Wi-Fi calls are free forever.

Well, not quite free; Line2 service costs $15 a month (after a 30-day free trial).

But here’s one of those cases where spending more could save you money. If you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot most of the time (at work, for example), that’s an awful lot of calling you can do in Wi-Fi — probably enough to downgrade your AT&T plan to one that gives you fewer minutes. If you’re on the 900-minute or unlimited plan ($90 or $100 a month), for example, you might be able to get away with the 450-minute plan ($70). Even with Line2′s fee, you’re saving $5 or $15 a month.

Line2 also lets you call overseas phone numbers for Skype-like rates: 2 to 5 cents a minute to most countries. (A full table of rates is available at toktumi.com.) As a handy globetrotters’ bonus, calls home to numbers in the United States from overseas hot spots are free.

All of these benefits come to you when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, because your calls are carried by the Internet instead of by ATT. Interestingly enough, though, Line2 can also make Internet calls even when you’re not in a hot spot.

It can, at your option, place calls over AT&T’s 3G data network, where it’s available. Every iPhone plan includes unlimited use of this 3G network — it’s how your iPhone sends e-mail and surfs the Web. So once again, Line2 calls don’t use up any of your monthly voice minutes.

Unfortunately, voice connections on the 3G network aren’t as strong and reliable as the voice or Wi-Fi methods. Cellular data networks aren’t made for seamless handoffs from cell tower to tower as you drive, for example — there’s not much need for it if you’re just doing e-mail and Web — so dropped calls are more likely. Fortunately, if you’re on a 3G data-network call and you walk into a hot spot, Line2 switches to the more reliable Wi-Fi network seamlessly, in midcall.

Whenever you do have an Internet connection — either Wi-Fi or a strong 3G area — you’re in for a startling treat. If you and your calling partner are both Line2 subscribers, Line2 kicks you into superhigh audio-quality mode (16-bit mode, as the techies call it).

Your calling partners sound as if they’re speaking right into the mike at an FM radio station. It’s almost too clear; you hear the other person’s breathing, lip smacks, clothing rustling and so on. After years of suffering through awful cellphone audio, it’s quite a revelation to hear what you’ve been missing.

Now, this all sounds wonderful, and Line2 generally is wonderful. But there’s room for improvement.

First, as you’ve no doubt already concluded, understanding Line2 is complicated. You have three different ways to make calls, each with pros and cons.

You miss a certain degree of refinement, too. The dialing pad doesn’t make touch-tone sounds as you tap the keys. There’s no Favorites list within the Line2 app. You can’t get or send text messages on your Line2 line. (The company says it will fix all this soon.)

There’s a faint hiss on Line2 calls, as if you’re on a long-distance call in 1970. The company says that it deliberately introduces this “comfort noise” to reassure you that you’re still connected, but it’s unnecessary. And sometimes there’s a voice delay of a half-second or so (of course, you sometimes get that on regular cellphone calls, too).

Finally, a note about incoming calls. If the Line2 app is open at the time, you’re connected via Wi-Fi, if available. If it’s not running, the call comes in through AT&T, so you lose the benefits of Wi-Fi calling. In short, until Apple blesses the iPhone with multitasking software, you have to leave Line2 open whenever you put the phone to sleep. That’s awkward.

Still, Line2 is the first app that can receive incoming calls via either Wi-Fi or cellular voice, so you get the call even if the app isn’t running. That’s one of several advantages that distinguish it from other voice-over-Internet apps like Skype and TruPhone.

Another example: If you’re on a Wi-Fi call using those other programs, and someone calls your regular iPhone number, your first call is unceremoniously disconnected. Line2, on the other hand, offers you the chance to decline the incoming call without losing your Wi-Fi call.

Those rival apps also lack Line2′s call-management features, visual voice mail and conference calling with up to 20 other people. And Line2 is the only app that gives you a choice of call methods for incoming and outgoing calls.

All of this should rattle cell industry executives, because let’s face it: the Internet tends to make things free. Cell carriers go through life hoping nobody notices the cellephant in the room: that once everybody starts making free calls over the Internet, it’s Game Over for the dollars-for-minutes model.

Line2, however, brings us one big step closer to that very future. It’s going to be a wild ride.

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In June, Apple’s smartphone was the editors’ choice at CNET UK. How times have changed.
CNET UK’s award

“The iPhone may be the greatest handheld surfing device ever to rock the mobile Web, and a fabulous media player to boot,” writes CNET UK’s Flora Graham in a mock award citation posted Tuesday. “It may be the highest-rated mobile phone on CNET UK, rocking the pockets of half of our crack editorial team. It’s certainly the touchscreen face that launched a thousand apps. But as an actual call-making phone, it’s rubbish, and we aim to prove it.”

What follows is a litany of complaints no iPhone owner hasn’t heard — or expressed — before. But to read them in a publication that four months earlier named Apple’s (AAPL) device the “world’s best touchscreen phone” is unexpected. And in Ms. Graham’s voice, sort of fun.

To quote a few of her sharper lines:

* Say what? Call quality on the iPhone is pathetic, and it’s mostly because of the tiny speaker. It has to be aligned with your ear canal with the accuracy of a laser-guided ninja doing cataract surgery, or else the volume cuts down to nothing as the sound waves bounce uselessly around your ear shells.
* Dropped calls and data gaps. If, like Will Smith in Enemy of the State, you’re trying to avoid the eagle eye of Big Brother, the iPhone could be for you. It drops calls, fails to connect and doesn’t even ring sometimes — not for everyone, but more often than any other phone we’re currently using.
* You can’t answer if it doesn’t ring. Perhaps the worst of the iPhone’s problems is its ability to sit there stealthily and ignore incoming calls. With no ring or vibrate to clue you in, your friends and family are redirected to voicemail… or just treated to silence. If you’re in a two-iPhone family, it can be a case of the deaf leading the mute.
* The iPhone might burn your face off. According to our ultra-sciencey test, it is extremely unlikely that the iPhone will burn your face off… Nevertheless, pressing a large, flat surface to your cheek is always going to be sweaty… Thus the current trend for people to walk down the street with their phones on hands-free, yelling into the mike at the bottom while they hold the rest of the phone away from their faces.
* iPhone battery life. A couple of hours of Google Maps over 3G and you’ll be lost in the woods without even the possibility of phoning for help. Compare that to the good old days when your phone would last a week without charging, and you’ll wonder why you ever bothered to switch.
* The iPhone sucks — so what? If the iPhone is inaudible, unconnected, on fire and out of battery, why is the thing so popular? The fact is, although the iPhone is the worst phone in the world, it’s the best handheld computer there is.

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