Apple’s New Features in iPhone 3.0

Releasing the iPhone 3.0 Apple announces to continue the developing of the platform for enterprise use in its firmware. The company has issued a distribution guide for system administrator to incorporate the iPhone or iPod touch and a variety of features to be used in business department.

The updated functionality is added tools for restricting device usage, as well as configuration profiles that can be encrypted and locked, these needing a password to be removed. Features to control the camera or to specify the duration of time the handset can stay unlocked are also available.

The devices can be registered over the air through the use of Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) servers and the iTunes backups saved in encrypted formats. The protection against theft is ensured by the possibility of remote wiping of the data from the device itself.

Last year in ‘Wall Street Journal’ Apple highlighted the iPhone’s enterprise features which made the handset to be ranked as the leader in customer satisfaction. The minis-site that the company has been running is dedicated to bringing the device into corporate environments. Initially the iPhone was viewed with the deficiency in that that it missed a number of business features, but lately Apple has strived to cover the gaps and since then it enacted itself as a leader in the enterprise field. As a result the market shows a growth in demand for Palm and Apple and a decline for RIM devices.

Applications that have been recently patented indicate that business-centered technology may be on the way; the relevant example being “biometric authentication”. Biometrics, generally speaking, refers to methods that enable unique recognition of humans based on one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In information technology, in particular, it is used as a form of identity access management and access control. On March 2009, the Apple patent was published to present an application related to biometric authentication security system that is meant to be incorporated in all the Apple’s future hardware, from iPhone to MacBook. Through this application the users, as owners of the device, are the only persons to operate the unit.

Methods of this application include detecting the information of identification with the one existing in the stored library of the device, fingertip technology, face and voice recognition, ear canal sensory, a system operative to detect and authenticate a user according to the features of a user’s eyes, or movements of the user’s eyes. and so on. Combining temporal and visual patterns for authentication is another method based instead or in addition on a received temporal pattern of the data introduced by the user.

Another way to provide security is a device that is time-based and ensures the user that the application would be shut down after a specific time is set up for shutting. Apple’s new features in iPhone 3.0 introducing also the biometric security system options offer world class applications that will enable Apple to move further into enterprise market.