You Can Also Spy On Som...

Yesterday, Gizmodo ran a story about a supposed bug in iOS, specifically related to iMessage. The title:  The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy on a Total Stranger’s iPhone . Essentially, Gizmodo got ahold of an iPhone that was receiving iMessages not intended for that phone. The fact that some of these messages were quasi-sexual in nature and that the phone belonged to a teenage boy made the story more salacious. But here’s the thing, fear mongering aside, this “bug” is something that is so convoluted that it’s almost not worth even addressing. Almost. Here’s what happened: a kid was having trouble with his iPhone. His mother took that iPhone to an Apple Store. When there, an Apple Store employee screwed up. Rather than following protocol and using a test SIM to debug the phone (Apple has test SIMs in their stores for this exact purpose), he oddly used his own SIM. This essentially turned the kid’s phone into the retail employee’s phone. The employee probably thought this was fine since it would only be temporary while he fixed the phone. The problem — which one has to assume he didn’t realize — is that even after you take the SIM out of the phone, the pairing leaves behind an imprint of that SIM. In this case, the iMessage account. iMessage has made a lot of headlines in the past few months as it’s Apple’s brilliant way  of helping to destroy the rip-off that is SMS. One key element of iMessage is the ability to pin an Apple account to the service alongside your phone number. This needs to happen in order for users to take full advantage of iMessage. Because of this connection, Apple can automatically figure out whether to use standard SMS or iMessage within the iMessages app. And iMessages has a bonus: the ability to work with many devices at once, ensuring your messages stay in sync. These upsides — trying to make something that’s somewhat complicated as user-friendly as possible — lead to a downside like this. If you happen to be swapping SIM cards, you might transfer your iMessage credentials over to this other phone. But let’s be honest, how many people are going to do that? In the U.S., most people have no idea what a SIM card even is. And if they do, it doesn’t matter since most iPhones are locked. In other countries, SIMs are obviously popular, but this issue would involve you swapping SIMs with someone with an unlocked phone (and not wanting to set up your own iMessages account when you swap back). But none of that is even what happened here. In this case, an Apple retail employee simply made a mistake. Reached for comment, an Apple spokesperson acknowledged this: “This was an extremely rare situation that occurred when a retail employee did not follow the correct service procedure and used their personal SIM to help a customer who did not have a working SIM. This resulted in a temporary situation that has since been resolved by the employee.” The bigger issue here is if your phone is stolen. Ars Technica actually addressed this about a month ago. This is still an edge case (as the vast majority of phones aren’t stolen), but Apple should come up with a way to remotely disable iMessages on a per-device basis. The way to do it right now seems to be to disable your Apple account, which is unfortunate ( see: update ). Of course, having your phone stolen in the first place is unfortunate. And unless it’s remote-wiped immediately (which rarely happens), any crook can get access to things likely much worse than your iMessages. This is a downside of life and scumbags. Speaking of scumbags, it sure was nice of Gizmodo to run several of this Apple retail employee’s private messages and images along with the name that everyone knows him by. Part two of this story will probably involve kidnapping him, locking him in a basement, and liveblogging his emails — which were not secured because Apple doesn’t have a security feature to auto-lock and wipe phones when someone is hit over the head by a two-by-four. Update : Apple has pointed out the following things that can be done if your device is stolen to ensure the problems above don’t occur: Remote Wipe and then call your carrier/de-active your SIM (de-register must be within 24 hours after Remote Wipe) or Activate a replacement phone with a replacement SIM using your same phone number or Change your Apple ID password (only works if you use an Apple ID with iMessage) [photo: flickr/ anonymous9000 ]

E-Commerce Site For Hou...

Alice.com, the retail platform for household goods, has raised $3.6 million in funding from an undisclosed group of Spanish investors. This current round brings the total funding amount raised by Alice.com to $18.2 million. Launched in June, Alice.com’s retail platform allows consumer packaged goods manufacturers, like Procter & Gamble, to sell directly to consumers instead of going through retail channels like Target or Wal-Mart. On the consumer side, Alice.com lets users create a profile of their household (i.e. how many adults, kids, babies) and then the site will keep track of items and reminds users with emails when they are running low and need to reorder. Each shipment is bundled together in a single ‘Alice’ box, delivered directly to the consumer’s door, with no shipping costs. The e-commerce marketplace is now home to more than 600 manufacturers and thousands of household brands – from large household names, to smaller niche brands. In the past year, Alice says it has seen a 200% increase in the number of direct-to-consumer online storefronts the platform powers for CPG brands. These brands include Kellogg’s, Slim-Fast, BIC, Seventh Generation, 3M, Ecover and Solo Cup. Last year, the company announced a merger with spanish company Koto.com to expand the marketplace to an international European audience. Alice launched in Spain last year, and plans to debut similar sites in Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom in 2012 and 2013. Alice says it will use this latest round of funding to enhance its consumer offerings through site advancements and new features.

Paying To Serve: Micros...

The perks of getting into a top startup accelerator just got a little better. Microsoft is now offering startups in its new BizSpark Plus program $60,000 worth of costs for using its Azure cloud computing program. This includes any company that’s a part of TechStars  or its affiliated Global Accelerator Network , as well as Seedcamp , Dogpatch Labs , and a list of others. Let’s say your hot new startup has just launched to the public, gotten TechCrunched, and is dealing with its big first wave of traffic. This deal will let you quickly scale up to meet the demand without blowing your seed funding on emergency virtual machines. An open cloud services platform , Azure works with major development languages including node.js, java, php and Microsoft’s own . net, among others — the point, from Microsoft’s perspective, is to get in with the next batch of companies before they get hooked on offerings from rivals like Amazon. Or let’s say you’re working on an enterprise app, that also needs to get in front of lots of potential clients. Beyond the broad technical options available in Azure, there’s another selling point. Microsoft will work to connect Plus startups with its many enterprise and mid-market customers, corporate vice president Dan’L Lewin tells me. BizSpark has already been around for a few years, with the general goal of supporting startups while introducing them to .net and other Microsoft-backed languages and resources. The Plus branch of the program, which is officially launching today, is planning on offering other services in addition to Azure. But, per the asterisk in the headline, you should note that the $60,000 doesn’t last forever — according to the Plus web site, the first year is free and the second year is half off the retail price. TechStars, which is headlining the Azure announcement today, has previously worked together with Microsoft on a variety of other projects, including an incubator focused on its hit Kinect devices . The deal, generally, is another example of accelerators upping the benefits they can provide startups. TechStars began offering $100,000 convertible notes to each of its accepted companies last fall, on top of its initial seed funding. Y Combinator partnered with Yuri Milner, SV Angels and Andreessen Horowitz last summer to provide $150,000 notes .

Signature Launches To B...

As I wrote in December , brick and mortar retailers will need to personalize and make the in-store shopping experience unique to compete with online e-commerce sites. Today, Signature is launching to help retailers deliver a more personalized experience for consumers at retail stores. The Signature mobile app is essentially a personal shopping assistant, providing a curated shopping experience, with up-to-date product information, and customer service. Signature, which is available as an iPhone app, will deliver notifications around shopping events and information such as updates on preferred items and brands, or when new arrivals hit the floor. Customers will also get an in-store greeting with a summary of what’s new, the latest fashions on the floor, and any relevant sales or events. The app will also deliver real-time visibility into when preferred sales associates are in-store, along with the ability to make appointments and leave messages for associates. And sales associates, using their own app, will tailor the shopping experience to shoppers’ preferences, favorites, and sizes. On the retailer side, Signature provides sales associates with iPad apps which allow them to access customer information and product catalogues at their fingertips. Sales associates can see when a customer has entered a store, and what items the customer is looking for. Already, Signature has signed a handful of top retailers as paying customers, including Seven For All Minkind. The company is rolling out pilot deployments nationwide, and plans to launch publicly with a number of well-known retailers in Spring 2012. As CEO David Hegarty explains to me, the value add for both retailers and consumers is clear. Signature provides a more personal, and mobile shopping experience for consumers, and offers a way for retailers to improve in-store engagement and conversion, which is going to help differentiate the experience from online purchasing. Already, startups like ShopKick are catching on to this trend. Hegarty says that the startup offers a universal iPhone app for consumers (instead of branded store apps) because most consumers don’t want to download several different apps for different stores. This way, consumers can open one app and simply choose the store they wish to shop in. The startup is definitely onto something when it comes to helping retailers provide a more personalized experience to consumers. Basically, Hegarty wants to be able to recreate the experience you receive at an Apple store at other retail stores, he explains. Signature has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Triangle Peak Partners, Amicus Capital, Don Hutchison, and Dave Pell.

Apple Talks Retail: 110...

I’m not a huge fan of schlepping around needlessly when I can do most of my shopping from the comfort of my chair, but Apple fans don’t seem to have much trouble going to their local Apple store when the urge strikes. According to their recent earnings call, 110 million people went to an Apple store in Q1, which breaks down to roughly 22,000 customers per Apple store per week. It looks as though those stores have been pretty busy to boot, as $6.1 billion of Apple’s insane quarterly revenue came courtesy of their retail stores. In case you were interested, that breaks down to just over $17 million coming each of the company’s 358 retail stores. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer also noted that in-store iPhone sales have doubled, and sales of the iPad were up “significantly.” Not too shabby, especially moves from players like Amazon have people foreseeing the demise of brick-and-mortar retail as we know it. Apple pegged the continued success of their retail operations on endeavors like in-store pickup and their relatively new EasyPay system , which allows customers to effectively ring themselves out for products without having to flag down employees. Of course, Apple didn’t hit their record-breaking sales figures by selling at Apple stores alone — CEO Tim Cook notes that Apple has around “130,000 points of sale in the world” for the iPhone and that they’re continually adding new points of distribution. Think big box electronics retailers, carrier stores, and the like. With the company’s popularity in China, CEO Tim Cook also had little to mention on expansion on that front, but noted that Apple would continue to “look at how to grow” that particular market.