Easy Wi-Fi & iPhone OS 3.0 Update

Posted on June 18, 2009

We’re finding out a little more now, especially the reason why some people are not seeing any problem running the Easy Wi-Fi apps under iPhone OS 3.0. [Check out the MacWorld article about the new login capabilities of iPhone OS 3.0.] We’ve also found a case where the app can still be useful even without that workaround, so several of the Easy Wi-Fi apps will be returning to the store today as free apps! We’ll try to keep this blog updated with what we learn, as we learn it (within the limitations of any non-disclosure agreements). Re-authentication On the AT&T network we have noticed that depending on what you do once connected, you can be pretty quickly timed-out. In that case, when you try to access the web you’ll get the regular login form, and, of course, other apps like email just fail. You can make the built-in authentication work again by turning Wi-Fi off and back on, but you can also just launch Easy Wi-Fi to handle the re-authentication for you. We’re assuming that this will also be true on other networks where the access controller times out the client devices when they’re idle without actually forcing them to…

Hotspot Login, Easy Wi-Fi & iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on June 17, 2009

The Good News Today’s release of the iPhone OS 3.0 has added what is really two new features that will benefit public Wi-Fi users: Automated login to any carrier provided Wi-Fi networks (e.g. all of AT&T’s Wi-Fi locations here in the US); An integrated mechanism for logging in to other public Wi-Fi networks via a web form. Obviously, iPod touch users don’t benefit from the carrier network feature (they don’t have a carrier!), but they do get the integrated web form login mechanism. The Bad News As with the good news above, there are two bits of bad news here too: The integrated mechanism, at least for me, does not remember what I entered, forcing me to retype the information each time. The new autofill button is always unavailable even though I have the feature turned on in the Safari settings. When this form fails, or when you tap cancel to skip it, rather than leaving you connected the OS disconnects from the Wi-Fi network. That prevents you from using a third party smart-client like Devicescape’s Easy Wi-Fi. Disappointed Given that our apps are unable to serve their purpose in this new version of the OS, we took the difficult…