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 disconnect from the Wi-Fi layer. Please let us know your experiences.

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:

1. Automated login to any carrier provided Wi-Fi networks (e.g. all of AT&T’s Wi-Fi locations here in the US);
2. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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 decision to remove them from sale in the App Store last night. That’s very disappointing for us as we’ve been ardent supporters of the iPhone platform since the beginning. We had a version of our app for jailbroken phones long before the SDK was ever announced. We even demoed that version to the iPhone management team at Apple to illustrate how important we felt public Wi-Fi access would become for the iPhone and iPod touch devices.

While we are obviously disappointed that our apps have been disabled by this new release, we’re also hopeful that the message about the importance of public Wi-Fi has been understood at Apple. Hotspot login clients are not as simple to write as one might think at first glance, especially not ones that must support thousands of different networks. It has taken us several years to get to the point where we can connect to that many networks, and even now there are still some networks that surprise us with a new trick.

The Future

For Devicescape, the fact that we don’t have an opportunity to help our valued users connect to their preferred hotspots effortlessly is frustrating. But, we’re not giving up on the iPhone platform! Far from it in fact. We have been working very hard since we discovered the problem to find out how we can re-enable our apps, and as soon as we can make them valuable again they will come back onto the store. We also have new features in the works, ironically enabled by the 3.0 version of the OS, that will make them even better.

In closing, we’d like to thank our iPhone and iPod touch users for their support to date, and ask you to hang on to your apps while we sort out what we can and cannot do in this new 3.0 world. We have big plans for our applications on all our platforms, and while we’re temporarily out of the App Store, we will be back. We’d also love to hear from you about your experiences with the Wi-Fi in the new OS, either via the comments here on the blog or through our forum.

Those of you who are Nokia phone users will likely notice a new version of Easy Wi-Fi making its way out to you.   There’s already a new version - 3.0.70 - available on the Devicescape download page, and we’d expect that the Nokia Download! folder will get updated pretty soon.

The biggest change for this new release is that it heralds that start of us charging new users for the Nokia application.  Windows, Mac, and Nokia webtablet versions remain free, for now, but the S60 will move to a paid model to match the Apple iPhone and iPod applications available at the Apple App Store.  We’ve set pricing at $4.99, which is on the low side for Symbian applications but seems to be a reasonable balance.

Nokia Download! has no e-commerce capability, so purchases take place via Devicescape’s website using Google Checkout.  As Nokia introduces their Ovi Store, we’ll migrate to use that too.

To be clear, it’s only new users who will have to pay.  The download is actually a 7-day, fully functional trial for them and needs to be purchased  to continue operation.  If you’re an existing Easy Wi-Fi user you’ll be able to enter your account information to immediately “unlock” the trial at no cost.   3.x versions at the very least will be free of charge (we haven’t decided about future upgrades).

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.

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!

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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 questions and help promote Wi-Fi issues exposed in the report.  Anyone can make use of the Report, provided that they refer back to Devicescape and don’t sell the data.

If you’re interested in reading more, check out the Devicescape Wi-Fi report at devicescape.com/learn/wifi_report …and do get in touch if you’re interested in participating in future reports.

For those who hadn’t already found it, Serengeti is a free app from Devicescape that includes the Easy Wi-Fi functionality and streamlines access to the web while in a hotspot that needs a web based login.

How does it work?

Serengeti is a very simple front end to Safari. On the cellular network, or your home Wi-Fi, it runs a quick check that you can connect to the internet, and then launches Safari with your selected home page (a side benefit is that you can now define a home page too).

The magic comes if you are on a hotspot network, like the AT&T one in Starbucks. When Serengeti encounters a hotspot network like that, it will use Devicescape’s Easy Wi-Fi technology to log you in before it launches Safari.

What do I need to use it?

You need two things to use Serengeti:

1. A free Devicescape Easy Wi-Fi account, which you can sign up for on the web, or directly from the app’s setup screen;
2. Access to the hotspots you plan to use. Devicescape can handle logging you at lots of commercial networks if you have an account that works for them (e.g. your AT&T iPhone number, which can get you free access at AT&T Wi-Fi locations from your iPhone); it can also get you connected at lots of free networks around the world, such as coffee shops where you normally have to click a button to enable access, and at university networks where there is a web-based log in form. And we’re growing that list all the time!

Can it start other apps?

Some other apps can be started instead of Safari, but not all. Applications that register themselves as a URL handler can be started. That list includes many popular apps like IM clients and Twitter clients, so you can start those by simply changing the Serengeti home page (in the main iPhone Settings app) to the appropriate URL. I use Serengeti to start my favorite Twitter client app, TwitterFon, which can be started using twitterfon:/// as the Serengeti home page.

Why Serengeti?

Serengeti is named after the large grassy plain in Africa that includes the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Maswa Game Reserve, the Maasai Mara Reserve and more. The Serengeti region of Africa is perhaps the world’s most popular destination for safari vacations. So, the Serengeti is where your Safari begins.

We just released a brand new product called Serengeti for iPhones and iPod touches.  Shockingly, Apple moved it through the approval process in just a few days, catching us quite by surprise!  We’re pleased about the app because we think it’s a neat workaround to the “Black Hole” problem that John mentioned a couple of posts back.  But, more significantly, it represents a new capability for us:

Easy Wi-Fi for Application Developers!

Serengeti is the first application that’s Easy Wi-Fi enabled. It embeds a small Easy Wi-Fi library which is used to ensure you have a network connection and log you into your Wi-Fi provider if it’s necessary.  Serengeti does this to streamline your web surfing, but it’s easy to think about the applicability of this approach for many other iPhone apps that benefit from Wi-Fi.

Integration of the library is very easy.  The binary itself is small and simple to use.  Each user of an enabled application needs to have an Easy Wi-Fi online account so there is an initial process to link the application to the users account.  That can be done by showing a simple form for signup/signin or - more likely - by throwing the user to our signup/signin web forms directly from the device.  Pretty simple.

At this point in time we plan to approve any app developers who are interested on a case by case basis, before rolling this out more broadly.  Licensing is free.  If you’re interested, please get in touch with us at dsbizdev@devicescape.com.

With a lot of (much appreciated) help from our enthusiastic user base, Devicescape’s network list is growing every day. New networks from around the world are being added all the time; everything from campus networks to small coffee shops; independent hotspot network operators to aggregators.

Most of the time we can get these networks added and working quickly once the required information is sent to us, but every once in a while we come across a network that is either harder to get working, or very rarely impossible. When we contact the operators of a network like that for help we get mixed responses. Some are incredibly receptive and get it straight away, others less so, sometimes with good reasons (which we’ll get into later). So, I wanted to write up something that explains the value of Devicescape to a smaller network operator, and also lets you know how you can get your network added to our list and working easily.

If you’re a network operator, whether you understand the advantage of Devicescape or not, this post is especially for you!

Why Be Part Of Devicescape’s Network?

Increasingly, people are getting online with devices other than their laptops. When they’re picking up coffee in the morning, or hanging out in a bar or restaurant after work they may not want to get their laptop out, assuming they even have it with them (who takes a laptop to a bar?). Their smart phone or iPod touch is right there in their pocket or bag, but getting it connected to the internet is another matter.

The web portal is OK on a laptop, but try it on a handset and it is much more frustrating. Enter Easy Wi-Fi - a one tap solution to getting connected for networks we know about. Your customers can get online and enjoy the Wi-Fi service your providing painlessly, and that means they’ll come back again (especially those iPod touch users who need Wi-Fi to get online).

What About My Venue Information Page?

We hear you, and we’re working on something that we think will resolve this. If you’re a network operator (free or otherwise) who has concerns about smart clients bypassing their information landing page, please get in touch so we can discuss your requirements in this area.

How Much Does It Cost?

Nothing. Nada. Nil. Being added to Devicescape’s network list is free. All it takes is a little time to send us the information we need, and to test it once we’ve set you up.

How Can You Get Your Network Added?

Submitting the information about your network through our web form (account needed) is one way. But if you have a lot of locations, or support inbound and/or outbound roaming, get in touch directly.

The basic information we need is the SSID (or SSIDs if you have more than one), a list of locations and how to log in on your network. The how to log in can be one of two things:

1. If your network supports the WISPr protocol, then all we need to know is the suffix and/or prefix information for each of the credential types your network accepts;
2. If your network uses only web form log in pages, then send us the HTML from each of the pages that the user sees, and tell us the path they follow through them (i.e. what links or buttons they need to click on).

It’s that simple.

Oh, if your credentials roam onto other networks too, then let us know that list and we make sure we add those as well so your users can get online anywhere their account lets them.

What Should I Avoid When Setting Up a Network?
We can handle most things these days, but there are a few things that will make it impossible for Devicescape to support your new network:

• Having more than a user name and password to be entered;
• Having a captcha string that needs to be entered when the user logs in (and, yes, we have seen a network do this - as if getting connected wasn’t hard enough already);
• Using JavaScript in the pages to either add elements to the form, or to modify the user’s input somehow;

In general, if you can support WISPr (and most of the commonly used hotspot access points and controllers out there can do this), then do so. It makes it much faster to add support, much faster for your users to log in and also makes it easier to join an aggregator network, like Boingo or iPass, in the future if you want to.

Can I Get A Custom Client?

Sure, if you’re interested in getting a custom branded client, or clients, for your network contact us through dsbizdev@devicescape.com.