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Your Apple Watch can be reset pretty easily (update)
Apple's Activation Lock made the iPhone less desirable to thieves, since they'd also need your Apple password to use it. The Watch is supposed to be similarly unhackable, but the built-in security apparently doesn't work very well, according to a site called iDownloadBlog. It demonstrated that the passcode protection that's supposed to kick in when you take the watch off can easily be bypassed by "force touching" the power-off option, as shown in the video below. That will erase everything sans passcode, letting thieves pair your Watch with another iPhone and make it their own. Since the Watch is currently desirable and hard to get, Apple had better jump on the problem, stat. Update: The bypass is documented as a feature on Apple's support site, as a way in if you've forgotten the passcode, and don't have the paired iPhone around. While some sort of activation lock seems like a good idea in case of theft, Apple clearly knows this workaround exists, and has opted on the edge of convenience over additional theft protection for now. [Thanks, Glenn Fleishman!]
US carriers can now block activation of stolen smartphones if they head abroad
US wireless industry group CTIA has announced that a stolen phone database launched last year by T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon is now final, including integration with international carriers. That'll let foreign operators block stolen US device activations, a bone of contention for law enforcement officials stateside. They complained that the list was having no impact on thefts, since organized crime groups were simply dumping devices overseas where their serial numbers couldn't be detected. Police would prefer to also see kill switches installed in handsets to truly put a dent in phone-knapping, but carriers have strenuously objected to that idea -- strictly out of self-interest, according to some. For its part, the CTIA said that the completed database at least means there are fewer countries where gangs can hawk their stolen wares. Still, as the carrier group pointed out, if a stranger asks to "borrow" your phone for directions, just, don't.
Google's setup app makes bulk Play for Education tablet activations a breeze
Google is looking to make the task for schools looking to cash in on Google Play for Education a bit easier with a bit of mobile software. The Google Edu Device Setup app (for Android, natch) allows administrators with a proper account to activate tablets purchased through school-themed store in bulk. Once the app is downloaded from the regular Play Store and the slates are activated, age appropriate settings -- like disabling location sharing -- can be configured and when complete, only the Education Store can be accessed. As you might expect, this tool only works with Nexus tablets procured through the proper scholastic portion of Google's online shop.
AT&T: iPad activations this weekend up more than 200% compared to last year's launch
Perhaps it really will be an "iPad Christmas" for Apple this year. Though Apple hasn't yet released any iPad sales figures for the weekend, AT&T this afternoon issued a press release announcing that iPad activations this past weekend were up 200 percent compared to the fourth-gen iPad launch last year. iPad activations on AT&T increased more than 200% over the past three days compared to last year's launch weekend, driven by consumer excitement around the new iPad Air and the popularity of AT&T Mobile Share, which lets customers add an iPad to their existing data plan for just $10 a month. We also saw strong demand for AT&T Next, which offers customers an iPad for $0 down on the nation's fastest and most reliable 4G LTE network. While this is ostensibly good news, remember that the iPad fourth-gen launch last year did not include LTE-enabled models. Consequently, it makes sense that AT&T activations during this year's launch would be so much higher than last year's launch.
Verizon announces 9.8 million smartphone activations, more iPhones
Earlier this week. AT&T announced it had activated 10 million smartphones in the holiday quarter. Not to be outdone, Verizon chimed in with own figures in an SEC filing that suggests it activated 9.8 million smartphones during the last three months of the year. Though Verizon has an Android-dominated lineup of smartphones, the carrier did say it activated a "higher mix of Apple smartphones" this time around. This boost is likely due to the iPhone 5 which hit retail shelves in the second half of 2012 and a price-reduced iPhone 4S. [Via The Verge and ZDnet]
Telus nixing activation fees for new and current subscribers
Oh the ever-so-wonderful activation fees. For some lucky folks in The True North, however, these one-time, undesired carrier tolls will be a thing of the past very, very soon. Today, Canadian carrier Telus announced it's taking a cue from Consumer Cellular and waving goodbye to those activation fees you so love; meaning it'll no longer charge the accustomed $35 to new customers or even the $25 for current subscribers who have just recently snagged a new device. Still, the nice gesture doesn't come without a cost, as the carrier has also said it plans to start charging $10 for SIM cards in order to "cover the product cost that was previously included in their renewal and activation fees " -- that's if you don't already have a compatible one, of course. Regardless, the plan is set to go into full effect come the first of November, with Telus noting it is all part of its plan to continue the "journey to be fair and transparent and help customers understand when they are paying for tangible products or value-added services."
Apple cracks down on site selling iOS 6 betas
MacStories has a follow-up to a Wired report that details the practice of selling access to Apple beta software. The Wired article profiles several websites that'll add your UDID to a developer account so you can download and activate iOS betas on your device. Each site charges a small fee, usually under US$10, for this service. According to the MacStories report, Apple responded to this Wired report by sending DMCA notices to these sites and their hosting providers. As a result, sites like activatemyios.com and iosudidregistrations.com are being shut down one by one. You can read more about this take down, including the response of one website owner, in the MacStories article. As of the writing of this post, there is no indication that Apple is targeting users who have purchased an activation.
Google's Andy Rubin: Android activations up to 900,000 a day, I'm staying put thank you
It's been awhile since we learned how many unique Android devices were switching on every day; the last time was at Mobile World Congress, when Google's senior mobile VP Andy Rubin confirmed 850,000 activations a day just as we were fruitlessly practicing our Catalan. He's now chiming in with word that the daily rate is up to 900,000 cellular-enabled phones and tablets as of June. That's a ways off from the breakneck pace of growth in 2011, but it certainly shows that Android is no shrinking violet just yet. Rubin's answer is ostensibly prompted by a need to debunk a rumor that he might be leaving Google -- there's "no plans" for that, he says. All the same, we're sure he doesn't mind ever-so-slightly deflating Apple's balloon before WWDC 2012 kicks off tomorrow. [Image credit: Jon Fingas, Flickr]
Consumer Cellular axes activation fees, retirees rejoice
Now here's a trend we can really get behind. Consumer Cellular, the "exclusive wireless provider for AARP members" (and a company that caters to the 50+ crowd), has announce that it will no longer be gouging charging its customers the dreaded activation fee. New and current customers looking to procure a phone qualify for the waiver and CC is extending the free activation offer to SIM-only patrons as well. Hopefully, this is the start of a grassroots movement in the wireless industry. The full press release is after the break.
Apple's Tim Cook says 'pipeline is full of stuff,' AT&T affirms record sales of new iPad
Apple's 'cash balance' conference call this morning was mostly uninteresting for folks not immediately involved with Wall Street (the actual thing and the Shia LaBeouf masterpiece, as it turns out), but CEO Tim Cook did let loose a few nuggets of interestingness for those hoping for insight into the future. For one, he stated that Apple's pipeline is "full of stuff," further impressing upon the masses the message he planted at the tail-end of the new iPad keynote on March 7th. He also stated: "I think our customers will be incredibly pleased with what they see coming out." Hardly a surprise, but Apple rarely hands out confirmation of boom times unless it truly has something significant in the labs.He also confirmed that Apple had "a record opening weekend" in regard to the new iPad launch, but stopped short of handing out actual figures. In fact, we could be talking about a record low -- we jest, we jest. At any rate, AT&T has stepped in to announce that on Friday, March 16th, the carrier "set a new single-day record for its iPad sales and activations." Again, no hard figures, but something tells us the number crunchers (and auditors) are hard at work to bring us precisely that. Ma Bell's laughably brief press release can be found in its entirety after the break -- all 45 cliffhanging words of it.
Good Technology report shows Apple still dominates enterprise activations
Good Technology's quarterly report on device activation statistics among its Fortune 500 clients has been released. Just like previous quarters, the results show a marked dominance of iOS device activations in enterprise environments. In the consumer arena, Android has been running away with the marketshare lead for most of the past couple of years, but iOS continues to rule the enterprise roost. According to Good's analysis, the relative percentage of Android device activations decreased over the quarter. iOS devices made up 71 percent of net activations in Q4 2011, while Android dropped to 29 percent; these numbers compare to 68 percent for iOS vs. 32 percent for Android in Q3. The iPhone 4S was a major factor in Apple's smartphone gains for the quarter, accounting for 31 percent of all device activations -- the single most popular device for the quarter. During September and October, Android smartphone activations were steadily closing in on iPhone activations, but that trend sharply reversed in November. By December, iPhone activations were crushing Android phone activations; in fact, during December the number of iPad activations exceeded the number of Android smartphone activations, something not seen since July. The iPad accounted for 94.7 percent of total tablet activations for Q4, a negligible decline from its 96 percent statistic in Q3. Android tablets accounted for no more than 1 percent of overall device activations in the enterprise, with a 5.2 percent share of overall tablet activations. "For now, the iPad and iPad 2 remain the de facto enterprise tablet standard -- especially when it comes to the large company-driven deployments in verticals such as Financial Services, Business and Professional Services, Life Sciences, and Healthcare," GT reports. The Financial Services sector in particular had an iPad adoption rate four times higher than any other industry. Together, Apple's iPhone and iPad models accounted for the top five out of ten most popular devices activated in the enterprise, with the device breakdown as follows: iPhone 4S iPhone 4 iPad 2 iPad iPhone 3GS Android smartphones rounded out the top 10. The most popular Android-powered device, the Samsung Galaxy S II, accounted for 1.7 percent of overall device activations. GT's summary of 2011 as a whole shows a marked lead in iPhone activations over Android smartphone activations, especially in the last quarter. Meanwhile, the iPad is stomping Android's tablets in the enterprise; Android's tablets barely show up at all on Good's graph of 2011. It's worth noting, as Good itself does, that the numbers for Q4 do not reflect holiday sales. Good Technology expects yet more gains for iOS devices in the enterprise once workers bring their newly-acquired Christmas gifts back to work with them over the first quarter of 2012. Good does not report on BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device activations. However, given what we know about RIM's increasingly dismal performance and Windows Phone 7's lack of traction in the consumer market, it's unlikely that either platform is making a meaningful contribution to the overall trend in device activations.
Android and iOS share a merry little Christmas: seven million total device activations
Google's SVP of Mobile just provided us with another glimpse inside the horse's mouth, claiming that Android scored 3.7 million new device activations over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. To put that in context, Flurry reported that total Android and iOS activations on Christmas Day alone totaled 6.8 million. If we can accept a very high margin of error, and if we assume that the vast majority of Rubin's activations were on the 25th, then we might extrapolate a roughly even split between the two rival platforms. Considering where Android was just a couple of Christmas's ago, it's no wonder that Mr Rubin is in the tweeting mood.
Google's Andy Rubin defines 'Android activation,' trumpets 700,000 per day clip
Looking for growth? You've found it. If you'll recall, Google's own Senior Vice President of Mobile Andy Rubin confirmed that over 500,000 Android devices were being activated back in June, and during last month's Galaxy Nexus reveal, we learned that said figure had increased to 550,000 per day. In just over a month, the tally has now climbed to 700,000 per 24 hour period. That's according to a post by Andy himself on Google+, which he followed with this: "For those wondering, we count each device only once (i.e., we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device [and] put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service." In other words, there are many, many more Android devices being ushered into use every single day that don't connect to any monitored wireless service, but naturally, keeping track of those is something even Google isn't about to attempt. Any guesses as to what this figure jumps to after the holiday season concludes?
Discarded iPhones in the US
Horace Dediu of Asymco is good with numbers and his latest work uses this skill to look at discarded iPhones in the US. Dediu takes monthly comScore data and quarterly activation data provided by the wireless carriers to calculate the install base of the iPhone in the US. His number crunching and resulting graph shows the number of new activations and the calculated number of iPhones being put out of service each quarter. According to Dediu, the discard rate, which is the number of phones being discarded over the number of new phones, is 50% in the US. Most of these discards are coming from AT&T as Verizon has not carried the iPhone long enough for customers to begin replacing their handsets with a new model. Dediu claims most of AT&T's reported activations were from customers replacing iPhones and that the carrier only added one million new iPhones thus far this year. He also points out that AT&T's discard rate has skyrocketed to 81% since Verizon introduced the iPhone 4 earlier this year, a figure that suggests AT&T is adding fewer new iPhone customers now that people have a choice in wireless carriers. It's an interesting look at the iPhone that goes beyond unit sales. You can read the full report at Asymco's website.
iPhone 4S welcomed by AT&T activation delays, iCloud stumbles out of the gate
If you've unboxed a shiny new iPhone 4S from AT&T today, you've most likely had an experience similar to many others who made the same purchase: frustration. It seems that the surge in activity from the release of Apple's new handset has reduced activation traffic on Ma Bell's network to a crawl. This isn't the first time the carrier has had issues on launch day -- but back then, it didn't have any competition. Now that Verizon and Sprint have joined the iPhone party, the pressure's on and AT&T's not looking good compared to the other carriers who don't appear to be having issues. As if that weren't enough for the folks in Cupertino, iCloud had a rocky debut this week as well -- from absent verification emails to an inability to backup data. Apple has documented all five of the new service's foibles via the coverage link below, but it appears everything's been peachy since early this morning. So, have you been waiting for your new iPhone to be more than a shiny new paperweight? Leave a comment, and let us know. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Daily Update for October 14, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Today's Zen moment brought to you by AT&T's iPhone 4S activation (Updated)
A few days ago, we reflected on how a calm and patient attitude could help you weather the crises of iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 updates. The same advice holds true today. With AT&T and Apple struggling to handle the overwhelming demands, you may experience some delays while trying to activate your iPhone 4S. We have reached out to both AT&T and Apple for comment, but in the meantime let us suggest that you try again late tonight or tomorrow. Life is too short to waste on struggling with overloaded servers. Have some fun instead. We'll be thinking of you. Update: TUAW reader Jim P. writes in telling us about a disturbing reaction from his local AT&T Store. I've owned all the iPhones and this is the first time I've had trouble activating. I've had the 4s for about four hours now. Everybody in the office has gone back to work, all deeply disappointed that the iPhone 4s couldn't be demonstrated. So much for being an early adopter. Surely AT&T has know for days how many phones it would need to activate today. My AT&T store refused to help me with the activation saying they had word from on high that they couldn't help people who bought their phones through Apple. AppleCare apologized profusely but was unable to help. An AT&T spokesman confirmed that this store's response is not AT&T's policy, stating "We provide support to customers who have an AT&T iPhone no matter where they purchased their device." In regard to activation issues, the spokesman added, "As of 4:30 pm ET today, AT&T had already activated a record number of iPhones on our network – and is on-track to double our previous record for activations on a single day. These record volumes may produce slower activations for some customers, though our systems continue to run at record levels." Not exactly good news for everyone waiting for activation, but not unexpected either. Apple has not replied to our request for a statement.
HP: TouchPad will receive OTA update for added 'functionality'
HP may have abandoned the TouchPad, but that apparently won't stop the company from issuing a post-mortem OTA update for its webOS tablet. Yesterday, an HP spokesperson confirmed to CNET that "HP TouchPad owners can look forward to an over-the-air update that will enhance the platform and add functionality and a growing applications catalog." The rep didn't offer any specifics, but reaffirmed that HP remains "fully committed to the ongoing support and service of customers who purchased webOS devices." The news comes on the heels of a Quickoffice HD update that dropped yesterday, and at a time when TouchPads are selling like hotcakes -- which probably explains HP's decision to issue a tweak. Indeed, the company went on to say that it's seen "huge spikes in activations and between 3-5X downloads of apps," since the TouchPad fire sale first launched.
Japan won't allow Sony to turn PSN back on until it's assured it's safe
Sony may be busy flipping the PlayStation Network switch back to the "on" position around the globe, but one locale where it won't be doing so just yet is its homeland of Japan. The Dow Jones newshounds report that the Japanese government refuses to allow Sony to reactivate its ailing network until satisfaction is reached on a couple of outstanding issues. The first is that the company's promised counter-hacking measures announced on May 1st have not yet been fully enacted -- though details of what has or hasn't been done yet are understandably unavailable -- and the second is that Japan wants to see further preventive measures taken to ensure users' credit card numbers and other private data won't be exposed through their use of Sony's online services again. These sound like rational demands to us, and Sony is already in talks with the authorities to make sure it lives up to their expectations.
Google reaches 100 millionth Android activation, 400,000 Android devices activated daily
36 OEMs, 215 carriers, 450,000 Android developers all over the world, Google wants to say "thank you!" Android has recently crossed its 100 millionth activation milestone, and is also growing at its fastest pace yet: 400,000 devices activated each and every day. There are now 200,000 Android applications in the Market, which have accumulated a total of 4.5 billion installs, at a rate which Google actually says is accelerating. These figures have all been cited as a way to illustrate Google's mobile momentum, which is evidently not even thinking about slowing down.
