Ever since the iPhone supported Exchange, I’ve been a huge supporter. I’ve spent two good years on the iOS with my iPhone 3G. … When the iPhone 4 was announced, I followed the WWDC keynote with great anticipation. I ooh’d and aah’d at all the advances in design and software. … (after getting it) Taking it home that night, I started to notice something was a little off with my phone. … (antenna issues) I dropped a few calls that weekend, including one to my father who seem’d to have lost my mother, but I could make due. … The view from most of the people within the Apple world was that it was firmware related, and would be quickly fixed. Then Steve Jobs opened his mouth. … I found myself deeply disappointed in the device and the operating system. Enough so that I’ve made the switch to Android.

There, now that we’re all up-to-date, I’m happy to say that my Nexus One is activated and I’ve had the last couple days to play with it. Having had experience with many different mobile device styles and platforms, including Windows Mobile, Palm OS (the original, not the WebOS) and iPhone, I can honestly say that the Nexus One and Android OS is the best mobile experience I’ve ever had.

I say play, but really, I use my phone as a tool. It’s a tool for me to communicate with friends, family and co-workers. Not just through phone calls, but SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter and IM. I need that tool to work reliably all the time, because if its not, I’m going to miss out on the important events of my life. This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone with a smartphone. It’s pretty standard stuff.

I put a lot of thought into what device to make a switch to, so why did I choose the Nexus One? It’s been out since January, and can’t be considered a new device. In two weeks Motorola will release the Droid X and you can already get the HTC EVO 4G from Sprint, today.

• I needed a solid phone, now. Not on July 15, so that made the Droid X a non-starter.
• 2x I needed a solid phone now. Since the HTC Incredible is on backorder until the return of Jesus, it’s not an option, and thus Verizon was out since those were the only two phones I was interested in.
• Sprint’s network in Kansas City can be considered third world, in some areas. Having experienced this while living less than 2 miles from the Sprint world headquarters in Overland Park, while using a Treo 700wx, didn’t even allow me to consider the HTC EVO 4G.
• Everyone I know in this area is on AT&T, because unlike what you may see in San Fransisco or New York, they have the superior network in Kansas City. As a result, my entire family and a large chunk of my local friends are all on AT&T. Seeing as these are the people I communicate with most often, the free mobile-to-mobile made them an attractive network to be on. It’s also the same network I was with on my business account for the iPhone. This made transferring my number to a personal account a lot easier.
• I was attracted to purchasing an unlocked phone and keeping myself out of a contract. Since the Nexus One came direct from Google, and not tied to the provider, I can use it on any GSM network. I realize it would limit me to only two in the US, and if I used T-Mobile on it I’d only get EDGE speeds for data, but the ability is attractive and also the ability to travel outside the US and swap SIMs without any fuss was one I added into consideration.

Ordering & Delivery

The process of ordering the phone from Google was almost flawless.

I placed an order for the out-of-contract AT&T version on June 29, for $529, at around 9AM. The web store was very straight forward and easy to use. My only complaint is that the confirmation screen can be confusing for those who don’t know which bands the AT&T phone uses vs the T-Mobile, and it doesn’t clearly say on the receipt and invoice. However, this was my only complaint. Google gave me the option to engrave a custom message on the back of the phone, for free, but said it would delay the device by up to 72 hours in shipping. Since I needed the phone by next Friday, I opted not to. If I’d known how fast things would ship, I would have reconsidered. Overnight shipping via FedEx was free. I opted to purchase an extra battery for $25.

By lunchtime Tuesday, my phone had left the Googleplex and was on it’s way to my office. By 8AM on Wednesday, it was in our campus mailroom ready to use. Less than 24 hours after I’d placed the order. Already, I’m impressed at their speed.

Build Quality

Out of the box, the build quality of the Nexus One is obvious. In your hand, it feels lighter than an iPhone 4, about the same as the 3G/3GS. Size wise, it’s slightly longer and thicker than the iPhone 4, but looks smaller than the 3G/3GS. The face is glass, wrapped in an aluminum band which crosses over the back and bottom of the face. The slightly darker plastic feels very nice to the touch, and is much easier to keep a grip on compared to the all glass back of the iPhone 4, or even the slick plastic back of the 3G/3GS. The curves are attractive, and feel very natural in your hand, compared to the squared off and ridged feel of the iPhone 4.

Other than the glass front, there are no places on the Nexus One where I feel like normal use will damage or scratch the device. The back of my iPhone 3G over the course of 2 years had normal wear and tear, but the iPhone 4 I used for a week, after three days of use, had a large scratch in the glass on the back, right where my wedding ring sits. This scratch was easily visible and easy to FEEL. My tungsten band had cut into the glass after only a short term of casual use. Two days later, another scratch appeared.

I have no indication that the Nexus One will have any of those issues.

Hardware

Apple doesn’t like to talk about the internals of their devices, unless they actually have a technical advantage over their competition, except to say that their “magical” or “amazing” — that said, others constantly tear down and analyze their equipment, so we end up knowing a good deal about them. In contrast, HTC (who makes the Nexus One) and Google (who designed it) are pretty open about the hardware specifications. Reason being, the Nexus One was designed to push mobile devices (and Android) forward, something it has been pretty successful at doing. When the Nexus One came out, the only thing to compare it to in the Apple world was the iPhone 3GS, which in a hardware tear down, the Nexus One was superior in nearly every way. Now that the iPhone 4 is out, we have something else to compare it to… and in a side by side comparison they stack up pretty well against each other.

Processor
The iPhone 4 features a “custom” ARM chip called the A4, the same chip that is in the iPad. This chip is able to run at 1GHz but the current understanding is that it’s purposefully under-clocked by Apple to reduce battery consumption and the amount of heat that it gives off in such a small body.

In comparison, the Nexus One features a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. The chip is not underclocked and can actually be over-clocked using non-stock kernels. While Apple sets their chips down a notch to keep them from heating up, I always had issues with iPhone’s being warm in my hands after long periods of use. With the Nexus One, I’ve never had that problem.

Memory
Both the Nexus One and iPhone 4 feature 512MB of RAM. The previous 3GS only had 256MB, as does the iPad.

In terms of internal storage, the iPhone has the advantage of a built in 16GB/32GB of storage. On the flip side, it is non-expandable. The Nexus One only has 512MB of internal storage for the operating system and applications, however, with Android 2.2 applications can now be installed on the external micro-SD card, which is capable of going to 32GB. Bundled with the phone, is a 4GB card.

This is a double edged sword of sorts. Trying to find 16GB microSD cards is no problem, and a great SanDisk card can be found on Newegg or Amazon for as little as $30 plus shipping. However, the jump to the 32GB cards more than quadruples the price in some cases. To be honest, I wish Google would have included a larger card as 4GB is tiny when you start adding pictures, music and video to the device. For the $529 I paid, they could have easily ponied up for a little more memory. Add-in installed applications, and it fills up quick.

The best path I’ve seen is what Motorola is planning for the upcoming Droid X. 8GB of internal storage PLUS a microSD slot able to go to 32GB WITH a 16GB included at purchase. This equals 24GB of storage for the same price (with contract) as a iPhone 4 16GB. If you’re willing to go a little farther you could surpass the max storage of the iPhone platform at 40GB. (8GB internal + 32GB expanded) — it’s my hope that this is the model that every Android phone takes in the future.

Screen
Nothing beats the “Retina Display” of the iPhone 4. Nothing. It’s superior DPI, resolution and color clarity is unparalleled. It looks good in all lighting conditions even at low brightness. It’s the one thing about the iPhone that anyone can look at and compare the previous versions and instantly see massive improvements.

However, the Nexus One screen is still very nice. A lot has been said about the PenTile display and the color clarity, and while it’s not as nice as the iPhone 4, I find it to be superior to the 3G/3GS screen, and a lot better than most other devices. It’s also slightly larger than the iPhone 4 (3.7″ vs 3.5″) which isn’t a horrible thing. I will say that it takes a little adjustment, and for someone who has smaller than average fingers, any bigger and I’d be afraid it’d be too hard to hold. This is one thing where I worry about devices like the Droid X and EVO (4.2″+), that for most users it’ll be too large to comfortably hold and type on. Some people like the large screen, I feel that the Nexus One is about the biggest I could comfortably use.

I’ve found that in low/no light, the AMOLED screen on the Nexus One is superior for long term reading compared to the iPhone 4. I like to sit in bed after my wife has gone to sleep, catch Jon Stewart or Letterman on TV and use my phone to read the news, Twitter, etc, and with the iPhone 4 my eyes would get tired and irritated quickly. With the Nexus One screen, it was much easier to use for long periods of time.

Camera
The camera on the iPhone is hard to beat. However, the Nexus One is pretty comparable. Both feature a 5MP sensor with an LED flash. However, the iPhone sensor has a lot more power behind it and as a result the color quality and speed at which the camera fires is superior. Although, the Nexus One seems to have a lot deeper depth of field and a slightly wider angle of view, resulting in images where more of it is in focus.

It’s a trade off, as an proamature photographer, the thought of having a great camera with me at all times is very appealing, and with my iPhone 3G it was my daily shooter for almost anything. There were times I’d find myself taking pictures of things where my Canon point and shoot or even my Nikon D200 DSLR would have been the far superior choice. However, as Chase Jarvis says (and wrote a book and iPhone app about) “the best camera is the one you have with you.”

When you look at color quality vs image sharpness/focus, it’s a tie. However, the speed at which the iPhone 4 is able to perform takes the cake, and when you add in 720p video out of the box (the Nexus One will do it with third party software) it’s impossible to do anything but hand it to Apple on this.

My ONE caveat in saying that, is that iOS 4 currently has a bug that adds a “green ghost” to the center of images taken under florescent lighting. However, I’m confident Apple will correct this and as pointed out to me, HTC has had issues like this in the past, and even the big dogs of Nikon and Canon who do nothing but make cameras have similar issues with their high end DSLRs that frequently require firmware updates to correct.

Android vs iOS

I could spend the next three days comparing these two operating systems, their features, multitasking abilities (or inabilities) and their quirks. But, there are already many reviews out there doing exactly that. However, I will point out a few key points that I find beneficial on each platform.

Integration
The Nexus One is probably the only fair comparison to the iPhone when it comes to the integration of hardware and software. It’s the only device that Google has had total control (along with their partner HTC) in building the device and designing the Android OS around it. Obviously this is Apple’s primary business model in all of their hardware products, and little explanation of the benefits they see from it are needed.

That said, Android is very well integrated with the Nexus One, and the entire process of using the device is nearly perfect end-to-end in terms of tie in with other Google powered services such as the Maps, Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Google Talk, Google Voice and of course Search. The fact that every text box or search field can be powered by voice commands that are highly accurate (as long as you speak clearly) is a huge plus. In contrast, Apple has to rely on a lot of third party technologies that are integrated with the iPhone like… Google Maps and Search. Even Apple’s implementation of MobileMe as an “all in one” provider of email, calendar and contacts is somewhat flawed. My wife uses MobileMe for her primary email after purchasing a 3GS and we’re just waiting for it to expire and switch her to Gmail or Live Mail after their ActiveSync service comes online. She complains constantly about MobileMe not pushing email and about calendar events disappearing. Problems I didn’t even have with iOS tied to Microsoft Exchange 2003/2007, which always seemed to work flawlessly.

The Nexus One is pure Google, end to end. For some people who worry about what Mountain View and their datacenters are up to, that’s scary, but the device is very well integrated into all their services. It’s a total Google package, or as they put it “the Google experience.”

Notifications
The funny thing about the iPhone notifications system, is that it didn’t used to bother me, until I used the Android system and saw how far superior it is. No more hunting for desktop icons with indicators, spread across multiple screens, with Android every system or program notification is displayed in a single drop down menu at the top of the status bar. They can all be cleared with the push of one button, or opened and flipped back to the app that needs your attention. No app can overtake another app you’re viewing with random status windows, they all cleanly take their place and await your attention in the top corner.

In this area, the Android OS is superior to the iOS in every way. Maybe for iOS 5, Apple can finally implement a real notification system.

Applications
One of the things I was really worried about after making the switch, was that the applications I’d grown to love on the iPhone, wouldn’t be there on the Nexus One. I was wrong.

While the Android Market features a fraction of what the iTunes App Store has, it’s only been around a fraction of the time. The built in Twitter and Facebook applications for Android are top notch, and beautifully integrate into the Contact list on the phone, as well as flow with the rest of the Android interface. While the Twitter application lacks some of the advanced features of the official iPhone Twitter App (aka Tweetie 2) it’s still a great application. The upcoming social networking platforms like Foursquare all have their official applications, as well as many others. To my great surprise, I’ve yet to be unable to find the app I was looking for in the Market. In many cases, the application developers have ported their programs to Android and in other cases, a nearly identical program exists. I don’t do a lot of gaming on my phone, so I can’t speak to the Market vs App Store in that respect, but there are plenty of other resources that can if you know where to look.

One thing the Market has that Steve Jobs would rather die before he allows is a open submission process. There are apps in the Market that require your phone to be “rooted” to function. (For you iPhone users, root = jailbreak+) — And beyond that, with the click of check box, non-market approved applications can be installed from any source.

Updates
Because the Nexus One is the Google flagship phone, it’s been updated pretty frequently since it’s launch. Other Android phones have not been so lucky and official 2.2/Froyo updates for devices like the Droid and EVO have yet to be released, and some devices such as the Hero and Moment may never get official updates. My Nexus One came with Android 2.1 installed, and since then has been updated twice. Once as a full upgrade to Android 2.2 soon after unboxing, and again last night with a security patch. While the frequency of updates for all devices leaves something to be desired (and Apple has Google beat in this department) the method in which updates come really shakes Apple’s tree.

The over the air update process for Android is something Apple should be looking into right now, if they’re not already. I have known too many iPhone owners who’ve never even plugged their phone into a computer, let alone sync’d and updated with iTunes. As a result, people on the iPhone 3G can still be running 2.0 firmware when there is 3.1.3 or 4.0 for their consumption.

The manual update process for Android is fast, and fairly simple. On the Nexus One it’s simply a matter of copying the updated firmware to the SD card, rebooting the phone while holding down a magic button combo, and selecting the firmware update. The upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 took around 5 minutes, and the patch last night was about 2 minutes. This includes copying the file to the card and booting the device into the update mode. Most times it takes iTunes/iPhone this long to even begin the process syncing to tell you there is an upgrade for the phone. Then there is a process of writing the entire upgraded firmware to the phone (300MB) instead of just what needs updating (900KB) — in my view, Android wins. For anyone technical enough to read this website, the manual update process should be a cakewalk.

For the average non-technical user who actually does sync, and stays up to date, the iTunes method is probably superior to the manual update method… but nothing beats over the air updates.

Final

In conclusion, I have found the Nexus One to be superior for my needs as a power user. If you’re the type of person who buys an iPhone just to jailbreak it soon after, or finds themselves restricted by Apple’s methods, then Android is the obvious choice to switch to. The Nexus One, while not fully superior hardware wise to the iPhone 4, can hold it’s own in processing power, and when combined with Google’s fully integrated and yet open platform, is a win-win.

I’ve been very happy thus far with my choice to switch, even from the latest and greatest that Apple has to offer.

Ever since the iPhone supported Exchange, I’ve been a huge supporter. I’ve spent two good years on the iOS with my iPhone 3G. My job bought it for me back in 2008 and I got it shortly after launch. It was a solid phone with a lot of good things to say about it. I evangelized to everyone I knew about how they should get an iPhone, how it’s the best smartphone around. I got a 3GS for my wife, I’ve told countless other family members to get one. In most ways, when it was introduced, it was the best thing around. But things have changed.

When the iPhone 4 was announced, I followed the WWDC keynote with great anticipation. I ooh’d and aah’d at all the advances in design and software. When pre-orders started, our company bought 11 to start, and we waited until last week when they finally arrived (early) from AT&T. I rushed across campus to rip open the box and activate my new toy (err) tool. There it was, the iPhone 4, before most anyone else on the planet had their hands on one. I took pictures, I tweeted about how amazing it looked, how the screen was fantastic (it is) and how fast it was compared to my 3G.

Taking it home that night, I started to notice something was a little off with my phone. In Kansas City, AT&T really is the top carrier, and with my 3G, reception was never an issue. I can think of only one place in the city where coverage is any type of issue, and it’s not an area I frequent. So with the iPhone 4, the fact that I was only holding 4 bars at maximum, and typically 3, seemed a bit odd.

Later, I realized I was on EDGE service with hardly a bar to see, for most of my time before I jumped on my home wireless. As I started reading the news on various gadget blogs, I quickly realized I was suffering from the antenna problems that were plaguing almost ever other early adopter.

I dropped a few calls that weekend, including one to my father who seem’d to have lost my mother, but I could make due. The view from most of the people within the Apple world was that it was firmware related, and would be quickly fixed. Then Steve Jobs opened his mouth.

“You’re holding it wrong.” … or something to that affect.

Excuse me?

Beyond that, one of my co-workers (our telecom manager, of all people) got an iPhone with a totally non-functional home button. The only way she could close apps, is to reboot the phone. Since the Apple stores and AT&T were slammed that week, and the SIM cards are a totally different size, she was stuck with a broken phone until today when she was able to get a new one. I’ve also seen issues with the new camera, taking pictures of solid color backgrounds (especially in florescent lighting), where a green ghost appears in the middle of the image. Many I’ve talked to online (although non of my co-workers) cannot sync their iOS 4 devices to Exchange. My bosses phone started making a horrible clicking noise (what inside this thing moves?) yesterday although it seemed to be a one time event. I could go on and on, but just read Engadget, Gizmodo, or any other gadget blog for the daily iPhone/iOS bug.

Not to mention, simply holding the device in my hands for a couple days already allowed my wedding ring to put a scratch in the back glass so deep you can feel it with your finger.

My point is. Any one of these single events, may be something small and not worth getting upset about. Combine them together, and you have a product that is far from 4th generation and an operating system that already is flawed. Now, I’ve been around IT long enough to know major software releases have bugs, and that major hardware refreshes require driver and firmware updates to correct issues. But maybe I’d come to expect more from Apple, with their integrated platform, to expect something that would be near flawless by version 4.

While I don’t expect perfection in anything man-made, I found myself deeply disappointed in the device and the operating system.

Enough so that I’ve made the switch to Android. Yesterday I announced on Twitter and Facebook that I’d be leaving the job I’ve been at for over 4 years now. As a result, I’m turning in my iPhone 4 and going rouge. My new weapon of choice?

Nexus One

Ordered it from Google this morning, unlocked and out of contract, for AT&T bands. It has shipped, and arrives tomorrow. While I know there are other more interesting phones out there, and some like the Droid X soon to come, I will reserve my explanation for choosing the Nexus One for my next update … after I’ve made the switch and fully integrated later this week.

But this decision has some ramifications. Up until last week, I was all set to pull the trigger on the purchase of a Apple computer, something I’d never done before. I had a bright and shiny new iMac all picked out, and was waiting for some news on the job front to come through before giving Apple my credit card info for my own iPhone 4 and that iMac. But now, given my recent burn by Mr. Jobs, I believe I will be rethinking that decision.

Maybe one of those new AMD 6-core processors or a Intel i7, running something other than Mac OS X, is in my future as a home desktop replacement?

Microsoft has also announced that it will be providing full support for HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9, and will be doing so using the H.264 protocol. Recently Apple has also been throwing support behind H.264 as the HTML5 video codec of choice for Safari. Apple has somewhat famously taken on Adobe in recent weeks saying Flash video is no longer the preferred option for Internet users going forward. Awkwardly, Microsoft agreed.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was released on April 29. The latest version is a long term support release, meaning updates will be published for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server versions, compared to only 18 months with standard Ubuntu releases. This makes LTS a great platform for business deployments where doing full release upgrades every 6 to 12 months can be a major hassle. The latest version is lighter on features than normal Ubuntu releases are, but still sports the latest stable and public versions of GNOME, X.org and the Linux kernel. It also features a refreshed theme, ditching the brown and orange for a purple and black theme. There is also a new optional “lighter” theme that has a hint of brown instead of the standard Ubuntu color scheme. Boot times, especially on SSD drives have also been dramatically improved.

Palm is dead. Well, actually, HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion.  The only hope for the WebOS platform now rests with HP and their commitment to “double down” and release new and improved hardware. Pending regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to close rather quickly in July of this year. Hopefully we’ll start seeing some HP branded WebOS devices starting this fall or winter.

Microsoft has released MED-V 1.0 SP1 and App-V 4.6. The big update to MED-V is full support for 32-bit & 64-bit Windows 7 hosts, but it also includes support for Japanese versions of Windows. Chances to App-V are mostly centered around language support. MED-V is an enterprise desktop virtualization management system that allows administrators to deploy and control Windows XP or Windows 2000 deployments running inside Windows 7 or Windows Vista host operating systems.

For all five of our readers with a Zune HD, you’ll be happy to know the Zune 4.5 firmware was released last week. It features an new Smart DJ mix with personalized recommendations, Zune Marketplace for TV, and better video codec support. Microsoft will also be releasing a new Zune HD 64GB model soon. To get the update, plug it in and sync with the Zune software on your desktop.

For all five of our readers running Windows Server on Itanium processors, you’ll be disappointed to know that after Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft will no longer be releasing versions for Itanium processors, and will focus on the x64 platform going forward. There was no 2008 R2 version released for 32-bit processors, either. Microsoft will no longer develop other software for Itanium, and SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 are also the last versions to support it. Mainstream support for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems (and R2) will end, in accordance with that policy, on July 9, 2013, while extended support will continue until July 10, 2018.  That’s roughly eight more years of support.

Just so that our entire update isn’t focused on Microsoft today… If you’ve been living under a rock since last week, we just wanted to remind you that the iPad came out on Saturday. It’s magical, especially when you watch Harry Potter on it.

Yet again, someone has come forward with another rumor that a CDMA iPhone is coming this summer. This time, it comes from the Wall Street Journal. The new iPhone would work on Verizon Wireless, as well as Sprint Nextel in the United States and a handful of carriers in other countries including South Korea and Japan. The current iPhone is designed to work on the vast majority of carriers world-wide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, using a signaling technology called GSM.

It would seem that SSL isn’t as secure as once thought. The problem isn’t the encryption, but the certificate providers. Ars has a breakdown of how governments are working with the CAs to “subvert the entire system to allow them to spy on anyone they wish to keep tabs on.”

Apple has released a major update to OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” — fixes in version 10.6.3 include enhancements to USB, OpenGL, DNS, QuickTime X, AirPort, iCal, Mail, MobileMe, Time Machine, and numerous other areas of the operating system. Choose Software Update from the Apple menu to check for the latest Apple software via the Internet, including this update.

Future versions of the Ubuntu Linux operating system will change the way units are measured in the operating system and enforced throughout applications used in the OS. Starting in Ubuntu 10.10, coming this October, SI prefixes (base-10) will denote 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so on. This is similar to the way OS X started measuring data in Snow Leopard. Neowin has a full breakdown of the measuring guidelines.

You will soon be able to jailbreak an iPhone over the air, instead of having it tethered to a computer. Your move Apple.

Need help running Linux as a guest OS in Microsoft Hyper-V? Sounds strange, but Microsoft has released a best practices guide to do just that. Download it off their website. Don’t blame us if you create a black hole in your datacenter though. In related news, Hypervizor.net has a great article on anti-virus exemptions in Hyper-V. Proper configuration of your antivirus can prevent performance issues, but also keep your VMs from being eaten alive by an aggressive scanning engine.

“We’re making significant process with Palm’s transformation, and our culture of innovation is stronger than ever. We’re launching more great Palm webOS products with more carriers and turning our sights toward growth,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and CEO.

This move comes as a blow to Microsoft, which is struggling against up and coming smartphone OS providers in the business sector like Palm webOS, Google Android, Apple iPhone and the continued fight against Research in Motion’s Blackberry.

According to Garner, at the end of 2008, the estimated market share for Windows Mobile, worldwide, in the smartphone market was 12.4% — currently many of the those phones are made by Taiwan based HTC, however they’ve began releasing many of their new phones with Google’s Android platform, so it remains to be seen what their continued commitment to Windows Mobile will be.

However, the move could backfire on Palm, as some businesses continue to see devices like the Pre as more of a consumer oriented device and will opt for Windows Mobile and Blackberry which provide better support for Exchange and more enhanced and native device security.

Yesterday Palm, together with Sprint, revealed they’d only sold around 810,000 Pre devices in the last quarter. (In comparison the iPhone 3GS sold over 1 million units in the first week and over 5 million in the quarter.) Palm also announced yesterday losses for the quarter reached $164.5 million, compared to a loss of only $41.9 million last year. However, this did beat industry expectations for the company. Palm says they expect revenues for the next quarter to be even lower than their last.

“It’s the exact same ASLR as in Leopard, which means it’s not very good,” Miller said, “Apple didn’t change anything. I don’t understand why they didn’t. But Apple missed an opportunity with Snow Leopard.”

When OS X 10.5 (Leopard) was released, Miller and others were critical of Apple not fully implementing ASLR. While there is ASLR present in both Leopard and Snow Leopard, they fail to the heap, the stack and the dynamic linker, the parts of the operating system that are most open to attack. Linux also has what many consider a weak implementation of ASLR since kernel version 2.6.12, although some distributions include better ASLR then the stock kernel based on third party code.

Miller did say that there are elements of Snow Leopard that show Apple did do some things to improve security, most notably the inclusion of data execution prevention or DEP, which utilizes both processor-hardware and software based security programming to help prevent buffer overflow attacks by blocking code from running in memory spaces that’s supposed to contain only data.

However, Apple may be late to the game with implementation of DEP, as it has been present in Windows operating systems since Windows XP Service Pack 2, with further refinements made in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

By incorporating both technologies, Miller says it becomes extremely difficult to craft memory attack exploits. “If you don’t have either, or just one of the two [ASLR or DEP], you can still exploit bugs, but with both, it’s much, much harder. Snow Leopard’s more secure than Leopard, but it’s not as secure as Vista or Windows 7.”

Freelance technology journalist Tim Anderson digs into the Exchange capabilities of Snow Leopard in its out-of-the-box state, and reveals that it’s not a full featured Exchange experience, but may be more reminiscent of Mail support pre-Snow Leopard. While previously Apple OS versions only supported basic e-mail connections to an Exchange server via IMAP, Snow Leopard offers support for Exchange Web Services. However, EWS is not a feature complete service, and is only available to those connecting to an Exchange Server 2007  with Service Pack 1, Update Rollup 4. Even then, some features, such as public folder support will require an Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 2.

As Tim points out, there are many Snow Leopard users experiencing a myriad of difficulties in connecting their systems to Exchange servers. The saving grace looks like it will come from Microsoft, who in it’s next version of Microsoft Office for Mac, will be replacing Entourage with Outlook for Mac, which promises to deliver a more complete Exchange experience for Mac users.

The desktop version features enhanced Exchange support, enabling programs like Mail, iCal and Address Book to communicate directly with our Microsoft Exchange 2007 servers. Both versions also feature enhanced support for x64 based computing, and have a x64 based kernel.

As we reported earlier in the week, 10.6 also includes built in malware scanning, something not mentioned anywhere on the Apple website.

The server version also includes a new SSL based VPN service, as well as new versions of iCal server and Address Book server, as well as updates to the built in Mail server.

Order: Client | Server

Update: Be sure to check the recently published 10.6 application incompatibility chart before upgrading. A few popular anti-virus programs as well as versions of Parallels Desktop are listed as restricted during install. Aperture 2.1.1. is also listed as unable to load after installing.

Currently the Security page on the Apple website makes no mention of the feature directly, but it does highlight some of the other security measures in place for Snow Leopard, and anti-phishing technologies built into Safari. At the bottom of the page Apple does acknowledge that “since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, antivirus software may offer additional protection.”

OS X 10.6 will be shipping this Friday, August 28.