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…

Nokia S60 beta release

Posted on April 15, 2009

Here at Devicescape HQ, we’re hard at work preparing our next software release for S60 handsets.  We’re not quite ready to share it with the whole world yet, but we’d like to show it to some of our more technical users to get their feedback and suggestions.  If you’re interested in helping us design new features and make our product better, leave us a comment and we’ll email you back with setup instructions.

WPA Supplicant Support

Posted on April 3, 2009

Devicescape is proud to announce that we’re now offering technical support contracts for any developers working with the open source wpa_supplicant software. As a developer, you know that there are times in a project when it is too late to switch from open source to a commercial product, but you are facing problems you just cannot resolve. The open source community is a great resource, and there are a lot of people out there who are very willing to help when they can, but sometimes you want a guaranteed response (or you don’t want to let your competitors know you’re working on a Wi-Fi device). Or maybe you just don’t need any of our advanced features (Wi-Fi Protected Setup, Cisco Compatible Extensions or remote management) in your current project, but would prefer the security of knowing that you had a place to turn for technical support should you hit a problem integrating the open source supplicant with your system. That’s where our WPA Supplicant Support comes in!

Connecting with Devicescape

Posted on April 2, 2009

Those who visit here regularly (that’s all of you, no?), might notice that we’ve added three big buttons to the sidebar inviting you to connect with Devicescape through three popular social networking tools: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. So, if you’re already a member of one or more of those services, why not click the link(s) and connect with us. Of course, you can still communicate with us through the comments right here in the blog, or for more technical questions through our support forum. We’re just trying to make it as simple as possible for you to keep up with all the exciting things we’re working on, and to be able to get us feedback on our products and service.

The Devicescape Wi-Fi Report

Posted on March 26, 2009

Having a user base in excess of one million enthusiastic members gives us a great opportunity to query the habits, desires, and problems facing Wi-Fi users today.  With that in mind, we’ve decided to conduct regular surveys of our membership, where we can ask insightful questions of this leading-edge community.  We plan to conduct the survey quarterly, and publish the results in a piece of original research that we call “The Devicescape Wi-Fi Report”.  Catchy huh? 😉 We conducted our first survey in January and have now published the first Devicescape Wi-Fi report for Q1, 2009.  Some of the things we learned were quite surprising, while others simply confirmed what we already knew.  Here’s a sample of what we learned: Most users want Muni Wi-Fi and (surprise!) they’d be willing to pay for it like a utility Most users prefer Wi-Fi to 3G and want it built into all phones and bundled with cellular plans People like iPhone Wi-Fi best while on the road (no surprise!) Now that the first one is done, we’re working hard on the Q2 report.  We plan on probing more deeply and hope to invite our friends in the industry to participate through crafting good…