What do the Windows Phone 7 sales numbers mean?

Microsoft reported, finally, that 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 phones had been sold in six weeks Updated from original “months.”. But those sales, as the online interview made clear, are by handset manufacturers to carriers. So, is that figure evidence that Windows Phone 7 is a success or, as Business Insider’s Dan Frommer just opined,  “toast?”

The number was revealed in an online Microsoft interview, with Achim Berg, Microsoft’s vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones. (Nearly everything else in that interview is being ignored by pundits and bloggers; more on this below.) Plenty of opinionators point out that the business-to-business sales likely don’t correspond directly to Windows Phone 7 activations on AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S., and at other carriers globally.

Neither Microsoft nor its carrier partners have so far released numbers for activations, or for retail WP7 sales. The general attitude of many pundits is “what are they hiding?” It’s pretty clear that WP7 has not achieved the iPhone’s spectacular, and deserved, success. And it probably hasn’t yet achieved the uncompromising standard set by Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, when he told the Wall Street Journal in a revealing interview earlier this year: “Job one here will be selling a lot of phones, and if we sell a lot of phones, good things are going to happen.”

Microsoft has a long way to go, as executives there from Balmer on downward apparently know well. In the last quarter, for example, Apple and RIM each sold over 14 million handsets globally; and sales of smartphones running the Android OS are growing fast.

Dan Frommer, for one, flat out doesn’t think Balmer will sell many WP7 handsets. “Why not? Because there simply aren’t many reasons for anyone to buy a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone or an Android device.”

To me, it seems like you can turn that “analysis” inside out and come up with “There simply aren’t many reasons for anyone NOT to buy a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone or Android device.” Lack of copy-and-paste? Zillions of iPhone users didn’t get that until mid-2010 and seemed to have thrived without it. And for many of the common run-of-the-mill tasks for which you’d want to use copy-and-paste, WP7 takes care of that for you, intuitively.

What about the fact WP7 doesn’t yet enable multi-tasking? I think the question almost answers itself. My impression is there are relatively few first-time smartphone buyers who have “multi-tasking” – or any of the technical features beloved by those that love technical features – at the top of their “must have” list.

Microsoft has fewer apps? The company just announced there are 4,000 WP7 apps in the Zune Marketplace, more than triple the number available on October 30.  But plenty of pundits are dismissive even of that.

What IS different about WP7 is not, as Frommer mistakenly says, that it’s UI is pretty, or prettier than Android. What’s different is…that it’s different: it’s a different experience of working with an Internet device that’s always on. A good example of how Windows Phone is different is this detailed description  by Paul Dawson, with EMC Consulting, of his first two weeks living with a Windows Phone (he’s used iPhone, BlackBerry, and most recently, an Android phone):

“With other phones I have to think about which calendar my itinerary is stored in. I have to think about which phonebook my mum’s phone number is in. None of this with Windows Phone….Windows Phone feels flowing and linear. What I mean by this is that I’m not constantly thinking about menu structures. Any combination of operating system and applications has a means of navigation, to which each of us applies their own cognitive model – “go up to the top level” is an indicator of the type of mental map someone has made of a particular system for example. With Windows Phone, I don’t have a mental model of its hierarchies. Instead, it feels like I have an anchor – the windows button that takes me to the live tiles, but after that, I have no concept of what ‘apps are open’ and it doesn’t matter.”

As an example of how Windows Phone flows functionally, Dawson recounts his first-ever attempt to sync music on his smartphone. He entered a store, heard a song being played, and tapped the Shazam app on his Windows Phone (Shazam http://www.shazam.com/ “listens” to a song or score and then calls up information about the track, the album, and artist).

“Shazam listened to the song, then (much more quickly than my Android used to) told me what it was. Whilst I was thinking to myself “I must remember to go find that later” I saw a little Zune icon at the bottom of the app. I touched it. I was then in the phone’s music player, looking at the album art, a track listing and the first track on the album playing. I could have listened to the whole album for free (courtesy of my Zune pass) right there and then. Being a savvy geek though, I wanted it downloaded in my local collection rather than streaming, and one tap of the screen later it was all downloading….There were no walls in this process. There was no visibility of the fact that Shazam is an app built by a third party, no wait whilst the music player app opened, or even any acknowledgment that I had moved into the music player, or that it had to log in to Zune, or that the music was streaming, no retrying of downloads because the 3G connection dropped… none of that.”

This is what Microsoft is focused on: creating a user experience that flows out of what people want to do with an always-on mobile Internet voice-and-data device. You can see this focus in Berg’s interview, where he repeatedly emphasizes how consumers are responding to the phone. Here’s what he says: “…Early customer survey data on the overall software experience is very positive and the willingness to recommend our phone is very high.”

“With a new platform you have to look at a couple of things, first of all customer satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we’ve seen great response on the complete mobile phone experience.”

“We introduced a new platform with Windows Phone 7, and when you do that it takes time to educate partners and consumers on what you’re delivering, and drive awareness and interest in your new offering.  We’re comfortable with where we are….Our opportunity is to make sure people get to play with a Windows Phone. Once they do, they love it.”

“We have a different point of view than just delivering apps, and we have received great customer feedback on our approach. We are working on updates that will take us to the next level.”

Berg’s comments are only suggestive rather than definitive because, typically for Microsoft, he doesn’t provide either specific details or aggregations of this “customer feedback.” And I’ve been a critic from the start of Microsoft’s advertising/marketing campaign for Windows Phone precisely because, in my opinion, it doesn’t actually show the uniqueness of the Windows Phone experience.

I’ve seen very little written about how and why people buy smartphones; about the difference in buying a smartphone for the first time, compared to buying a replacement for a first smartphone purchase; about how people evaluate phones and value them, or what they consider important in terms of feature; or how those factors vary with demography and geography.

But recently, Asymco’s Horace Dediu analyzed the adoption of Android by handset makers and mobile operators, and smartphone pricing trends. One of his conclusions is that iPhone single-handledly reversed the chronic price erosion in mobile phones: his data shows the average selling price for smartphones, with any OS, is actually trending upwards. He makes two points: one, that iPhone has triggered “the shift to software as the component that drives price power;” and two, that “the competition is not between smartphone platforms but between smart and non-smart phones.”

He notes also that “iPhone’s traction was always in markets which had been seeded by some smartphones: the US with RIM and Europe with Symbian. Such a smartphone-soaked world will have better mobile broadband infrastructure, users with more demanding tastes and awareness of the value that a smart device can bring.”

It seems to me, if I understand him correctly, that those same dynamics could work in Microsoft’s favor, and more quickly than one might otherwise expect. If so, Steve Balmer will end up selling a lot of phones and some very good things will happen.

(For the record, Didiu elsewhere predicts http://www.asymco.com/2010/12/13/verizon-strikes-out/ that if iPhone comes to Verizon, the carrier could sell 8-12 million of the handsets in the first 12 months).

Windows Phone 7 – WP7 is good, but its not smart?

Your Windows 7 is the latest mobile operating system hit the scene and hands down the sexiest smartphone OS out there. WP7 is brand new. The user interface is like nothing you’ve seen elsewhere. Tile animations and transitions are smooth as silk. It is obvious that Microsoft decided to put emphasis on design and eye appeal of WP7, giving the operating system of the type of aesthetic you see in the glossy pages of magazines high-concept or in the hallways of the schools of design art /.

windows-phone-7

But what of your Windows 7, slick animations, clear text, and the refined style of room left for a high-level operating system that is able to go hand in hand with the best of what Google and Apple have to offer? Let’s look at Windows 7 Phone breaking features and pros and cons.

What better place to start than the beginning?
Good

* Responsible for user interface
* Crisp text and graphics (almost like e-Ink)
* Seamless integration of Facebook
* Quick Start from the camera to capture fleeting moments
* Interface clear
* Attractive aesthetic design that calls for a high concept magazine
* Easy Google, Facebook, installing Windows Live
* Did we mention that the elegant, new, eye-candy user interface?

The Bad

* Not compatible with external storage
* The lack of cut-paste functionality / (coming in early 2011)
* Does not have WiFi hotspot
* The lack of integration of Twitter (coming soon)
* Finnicky Google integration
* No unified inbox and e-mail thread
Applications * not persist in the background
* Most of the operating system is optimized for vertical view (horizontal orientation is not as ubiquitous as we would like)

Navigation

Only three navigation keys that have to be familiar. Microsoft has mandated that phone manufacturers must meet a design specification handset that requires a strict standard format, in three keys. You have the “new” on the left, moving, well, backwards. The central key is the “Start” key, which is similar to the “Home” button on Android and the iPhone. The startup key takes you back to the home screen (more on that later) and is the central point from which to navigate through WP7. The right key “search” key, and sends the integrated search application Bing. From this application you can search the web for web sites, local businesses, and any news that match your search terms.
Lockscreen

When you turn on the screen, which is received by the LockScreen. You get the information out-in signal strength, Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth connectivity, battery level, time, date, calendar of events, and missed calls and messages waiting. The good thing is that you can turn on the camera LockScreen, even when the screen is off, pressing the dedicated camera shutter.

You can change your wallpaper LockScreen going to the Settings menu and choosing a new splash image to LockScreen. You can also set a password for security LockScreen.

The best part of the LockScreen is that you can view pending messages and upcoming events calendar without having to start the e-mail applications or calendar. Just turn the screen and get quick access to important information.
Home screen / home screen

Windows 7 wp7 your home screen home screen FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete Slide your finger up the LockScreen and take you to the “Start”?. This is a home screen design completely new to Windows Phone 7. The home screen WP7 Start serves a variety of “tiles” that can rearrange your needs. The boxes on the Home screen gives access to everything from basic phone applications web page. You may dial “WP7 applications, contacts, websites, and even this OneNote startup splash screen – the idea is to give a single user interface and centralized that lets you navigate around the device in a way that minimizes the time it takes for you to dig and find an application or a favorite photo.

Kinetics of movement and touch sensitive controls are the name of the game here. All windows have kinetic scrolling enabled – allowing you to quickly scroll through a list with a flick of a finger, using the momentum of his film to scroll through the list. At the end of a list, icons / tiles / text that is moving around will “Smoosh” and recover, rather than abruptly stopping at the end of the list. It’s a subtle touch that goes a long way to give the user interface WP7 a very refined, high-concept feel.

The highest four pieces are always set your phone, people, messaging, email and tiles. The next group of four tiles are customized by the manufacturer of mobile phones and / or wireless service provider who sold you your phone WP7. You can rearrange tiles by tapping and holding on a tab and then move to the desired location on the home screen. Tile is not cleared automatically, so you can get a little irritating at times.

Music Videos

Windows 7 Review wp7 video phone FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete Zune integration?. That is the key to the music and video experience in WP7. The central idea behind the Music Video is that it serves as a central base from which you can access all media. If you have a subscription to Microsoft’s all you can eat music streaming services, Zune Pass, WP7 is the smartphone OS for you. You can stream music to your taste, and all you have to do is log on to Windows Phone with your Windows Live account.

What? You do not have Zune Pass? Do not worry, you can still transfer music (including playlists) from your computer to your Windows using the Zune client / application on a PC or plug your Windows for Mac can also buy songs on the Zune Marketplace, either your phone or PC (with credit card link to your Windows Live account). Unfortunately Mac does not get this feature. Mac can only sync songs and pictures to your Windows at this time.

You can play videos through the phone application Zune Player. These videos have to be transferred to a computer. Can not buy videos on the market using your phone. If you want to buy videos for your phone, you will need to purchase using your desktop and sync it to your phone.

The media player can play a variety of file types:. MP3, M4A (AAC), WMA, MP4, M4V, WMV, and jpg formats are compatible with the media player ……. Video playback almost instantly, with little waiting to begin playback. The controls are simple. Simply touch the screen to open the playback controls (play, rewind and fast forward). Unfortunately, the lack of a tedious debug toolbar to move to the end of a long movie. That’s a small-time con to WP7.
Games

Windows 7 games wp7 review your FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete as Zune Pass is tightly integrated with WP7, Xbox Live is also integrated into the platform?. From the middle of games, you can access all types of online games, downloadable games, game testing applications of friends who want to play with you in an online battle of wits, and even keep tabs on your Xbox Live account . All you have to do is access your Windows with your Windows Live ID to be connected to your Xbox Live account, and you will have full access to your avatar, its accessories and wardrobe full access.

With a free download, you can enable all sorts of features of Xbox Live on your Windows Phone. You can see what your friends XBL are doing on their mobile, PC or consoles, and even messages via text message XBL. You can also show off their achievements to anyone on your friends list.

The play center is also where all the downloaded games are saved automatically. When you buy a stock game, you can not see the game in the list of applications. The game will be saved to your gaming center, where you can go to not only play your downloaded games, but also discover new games for download. The center also will notify you of any request for the game from friends who are waiting for you to play with them or when it is your turn to make a move.
Search

wp7 your search Windows 7 FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete in the search for your Windows 7 is sensitive to context – which means to search through different media depending on the task at hand?. There are two levels of “search” in WP7. You can choose to search the web for content related to search terms or search within an application. Tap the hardware button “Search” from the home screen and can search the Web for relevant web sites, local businesses, and even news related to the search term. In applications with a search field, a single tap on the hardware search button allows you to search words in the application. A second tap the hardware search lets you search the web, like the home screen.

The search tool will return results Bing search for web hits, local businesses, news and even shock. If you search for “sushi”, Bing will show results for “sushi” local companies serving sushi or sushi are related in some way, and even give you news about sushi. If you decide to dig into a local sushi-related, Bing serves business reviews, phone numbers, websites, hours of operation, and even tests and nearby businesses. That is what we call exhaustive search.

Your Windows 7 will allow you to find the definition of a word in a document. Simply touch the target word to highlight it, then press the search button hardware. WP7 automatically start searching the web for the results for the highlighted word. Is a characteristic small, but surprisingly useful to increase your vocabulary.

In general, the search is done very well in Windows Phone 7. We would like to be able to search terms to cut and paste into the search box, but seeing that the function will WP7 in early 2011, we will search for a solid two thumbs up.
Email

wp7 mail your review Windows 7 FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete e-mail is as good as anything the iPhone or Android can offer?. You get complete support HTML email, which means you can view emails with luxury-schmancy formatting and embedded images (you have to allow the email client to download images, thoughts – review spam). Emails can be updated at regular intervals or pushed to your phone as they come in. And, emails are integrated into live Tile sitting on the home screen and automatically update the inbox email without having read.

If you receive an email with an address or telephone number on the inside, WP7 recognize data and highlight it for you. Clicking (tapping) on the outstanding data automatically take you to the phone to call the number or Bing Maps to show where the address on a map. In early 2011, copy and paste will spread to your Windows 7, which lets you do whatever you want with phone numbers and addresses, but by the time the email client handles this type of data as well. That is, unless the address or phone number format is strange or is surrounded by several numbers – in which case, WP7 and not be afraid to dial the correct number or pull up the correct address (this should not occur too often).

Unlike the iPhone, you can attach pictures to an email from the email client. With the iPhone, if you finish typing an email and decide you want to attach a picture, you have to copy the text, the waste from your current e-mail, go to your photo, share it via email, then paste the text again in the email. In WP7, all you have to do is click “connect” icon at the bottom of the screen and you can choose the image (s) you want to attach.

If you need a unified inbox, WP7 will not meet at the time. There is no unified inbox. Microsoft may or may not release an update (which is tilted to the “may”) for the line that enables unified inbox for e-mail client on your Windows 7, so keep that in mind. Also do not threaded views of email, it’s a great thing for us.

Mail your Windows 7 is good. Is better than the iPhone or Android had nothing to offer in its early days, and is almost as good as anything they have to offer today. In some ways, e-mail in WP7 is better than iPhone today. That’s saying a lot.
Map

Windows 7 maps wp7 your FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete You do not get turn-by-step GPS navigation, but you get what we think is the more polished experience maps in the case? smartphone. With a fast connection of sufficient data, maps fade in the light of an organic way. The map data is displayed as if being covered by clouds, unlike the pictures of Google Maps which tends to cool the load. This is especially evident when zooming into a part of the map – it just feels softer and less irritating than the iPhone and Android

You can choose aerial view or map in Bing Maps. We prefer the view of maps, but if you like the “satellite view” look, then you’ll want to opt for the aerial view. On top of that traffic data can be superimposed on the map, which shows that in the worst traffic is where you can find free flow paths.

Bing Maps is also integrated in the search. Tap the result of “local” search and you will be transported to Bing Maps, which shows exactly when a particular company or the address is located. You can then click on the address flag for more details on the location, business valuations, phone number, website, hours of operation. Go to the left of this screen to read the individual comments on the business. Go left again to see what is nearby.

Addresses embedded in emails and text messages automatically a link to Bing Maps. Most of the time, just click on the underlined address and move to the map application. Sometimes, however, if the address is surrounded by numbers or just the format of a non-standard way, WP7 will recognize the right direction. This is a case in which the lack of cut and paste into play nasty tricks.

Maps Bing is the new gold standard for mapping Smartphone. Which lacks some features – such as public transport management and step-by-turn GPS – but it’s mostly an amazing experience.
Internet Explorer

wp7 your web browser Windows 7 review FIX: Windows 7 Phone WP7 is sexy, but good enough to compete with Windows 7 Phone in hand, you do not have to worry about dealing with the Internet Explorer web browsers in recent days?. We will avoid commenting on the desktop version of Internet Explorer, because, well, that’s just going to make us all their states. Instead, we focus on the experience of Internet Explorer Mobile – some of you know the mobile web browser like Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) – and how it has grown in WP7.

Gone are the days when Internet Explorer Mobile for Windows Mobile that you were forced to use a stylus to navigate efficiently through the interface clumsy. The new Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile Phone 7 pass-tastically is optimized for contact entries. Shares DNA with the desktop version of Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8. HTML5 handled smoothly and serves the same crisp text, provided sub-pixel that makes the rest of WP7 will look as good. In summary, the IE Mobile in WP7 is light years better than they may have known since the days of Windows Mobile.

The browser support for tabbed browsing up to 6 different windows simultaneously. Unfortunately, they were not really able to see more than a couple of chips at the same time. Load multiple web pages simultaneously can be difficult for system resources, and it seemed as if WP7 had trouble keeping more than a couple of tabs loaded at the same time. Sometimes had to wait for pages to reload after the other navigation tabs. Not a big concern, but is annoying enough to mention.

Another irritating aspect of the web browser is the inability to lift the address bar when in landscape orientation. The browser works fine and dandy in vertical view, but if you turn the phone sideways for a panoramic view, you can not access the address bar.

On the positive side, the pages load in the background as the fire in a new tab and start browsing another website. This is a fundamental characteristic, and is one of the few cases where proceedings are still in the background. Windows 7 your not really multi-task – some applications will work in the background (such as FM radio, Pandora, Web pages load in the browser), but most simply close to return to the home screen.

Internet Explorer Mobile, its end is more or less on par with the iPhone and Android web browser. You may need a bit more polished, but the current state of Internet Explorer Mobile is good. Not the best, but good enough.
Will Windows 7 Phone more than just a pretty face?

Let’s start with the obvious. Your Windows 7 is the sexiest smart operating system we’ve seen so far. It is super sexy model. Have that itch factor contradicts undercover elegance and poise of its aesthetic design. Hands down, WP7 will webOS iPhone and a serious run for their money, so it is referred. But Windows 7 phone has what it takes to be more than a pretty face?

The answer depends on how you will use your smartphone. For most people, WP7 will be a great alternative to iPhone and Android. You can sync all your emails (with full HTML support) and let you know when you have unread mail sitting in your inbox. You can browse the full Web with the kind of interaction emerging multi-touch zoom to the iPhone, Android and webOS users have enjoyed for years. You get quick and easy access to information in their social networks. You can use the cube of Microsoft Office to do serious work done. You will enjoy a new user interface is a new beginning of the application for the iPhone and user interfaces based on Android – shingles, artistic and incredibly defined text. And, to top it off, you get unparalleled integration with Xbox Live and Zune Pass.

But here’s the kicker, if you are the type of power user who needs applications like Twitter to keep running in the background, is based largely on Google services (Google Calendar, Google Contacts) and not possible without a unified inbox, WP7 may not be for you. For those of you who belong to this group, make sure you know what you’re getting into.

For most people, your Windows 7 will be more than a pretty face is a smartphone platform fully competent and convincing. Is good, and it does not hurt that the UI is fresh and new.

* Note: The functionality of “cut and paste WP7 will be activated with an update in early 2011

What’s hot (and not) about Windows Phone 7

After more than a month of living with Windows Phone 7, I have to say, Microsoft’s new phone operating system is starting to grow on me.

Although I liked the general look of the operating system, I suspected its simplicity was only skin deep and that over time I would uncover both annoying glitches and places where the phone was all too much like a little computer.

Instead, there are hidden delights. In the past week I’ve found the cursor, voice recognition, and other things that I missed in my first days playing with the phone. Here are just a few examples of features that I only recently noticed: if you are in an e-mail or other place where one might want a cursor, hold a finger down in one place and a cursor pops up that you can then drag to the place you want to go. Click to the left of an e-mail and it brings up the check boxes that can be used to delete multiple e-mails–one of the most common tasks people do on their phones.

Holding down the camera shutter button lets you take a picture–even if the phone is locked. As for the voice recognition, holding down the Windows button brings up an array of voice-controlled features that draw on Microsoft’s Tellme technology.

A decent case can be made that these features should be more obvious, but what’s nice is that these features are discoverable through serendipity as well as from a manual.

Microsoft often throws around the phrase “it just works” as a design goal for a new piece of software. In practice, however, the products rarely live up to that billing. That said, Microsoft appears to be pretty close with Windows Phone 7. Although the software is not final and it is running on prototype hardware (in my case the Samsung Taylor), its clean look isn’t interrupted by error messages, hiccups, or other form breaks.

Above all, Windows 7 is–dare I say–elegant. Even my foreign-language spam looks beautiful on the device. It almost makes me wish I understood all those messages in Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.

Its beauty is more than skin deep, too.

One of the things I demand in a phone is that it behave like a portable consumer electronic device, not like a tiny computer. It should be instant on, easy to navigate without too much thought, and hide nearly all its complexity. To me that’s what made the original iPhone and all its successors such a hit. (It’s also why I think the iPad poses a serious challenge in the market for highly portable computing, but that’s another story.)

With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft doesn’t make up for all of its years of lost ground in this area, but what it does, it does very well.

The camera application makes it easy to take photos and videos and share them to Facebook or send them via e-mail or multimedia message (MMS). The mobile version of Internet Explorer adds pinch-to-zoom and other features that put it in the same league as other mobile browsers.

I’m not a huge fan of virtual keyboards in general, but the one built into Windows Phone 7 is pretty good, especially when accounting for how good it is at making suggestions for what one mistypes.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though.

Most of what I don’t like about Windows Phone 7 traces back to the fact that this is–despite its polish–what amounts to a new first try for Microsoft. There are some key things missing that one finds in rival products. High up on that list for me is the fact that copy and paste are missing. I do a lot of e-mail on my phone, and one thing I like to do is copy chunks out of one e-mail and paste them in another. On occasion I even write whole stories on my BlackBerry. I can’t do that on Windows Phone 7.

My biggest gripe is battery life. Despite being a vast improvement over the hour-and-a-half life it once got, my Windows Phone 7 device won’t get me through a busy workday–and that’s without listening to music or playing games (I still don’t have any third-party apps on the device).

That said, I’m told that Microsoft and its partners have made further gains in battery life and that the shipping devices should at least reach my goal of being able to be used hard for a full day (and I’m not talking just an 8-to-12-hour workday here).

I hope so, because the built-in Zune player–particularly streaming music over the Web–is one of the selling points of the phone. And, although we haven’t heard a lot about Microsoft’s app strategy, Windows Phone will launch with a whole lot of programs; and it would be a shame if one has to ration use of those programs to conserve battery.

One of the key yet-to-be-answered questions is just how good the final hardware will be. Microsoft has said that the Samsung Taylor units are meant only to show off the software and aren’t indicative of what the first crop of real phones will be like. Several models that are aimed at the market–including phones from LG, HTC, and Samsung–have gotten regulatory approval, but we have yet to get time to see how they stack up to both Android rivals and the iPhone.

40 Windows apps contain critical bug, says researcher

By Gregg Keizer at Computerworld

Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:01am EDT

About 40 different Windows applications contain a critical flaw that can be used by attackers to hijack PCs and infect them with malware, a security researcher said Wednesday.

The bug was patched by Apple in its iTunes software for Windows four months ago, but remains in more than three dozen other Windows programs, said HD Moore, the chief security officer of Rapid7 and creator of the open-source Metasploit penetration testing toolkit. Moore did not reveal the names of the vulnerable applications or their makers, however.

Each affected program will have to be patched separately.

Moore first hinted at the widespread bug in a message on Twitter on Wednesday. “The cat is out of the bag, this issue affects about 40 different apps, including the Windows shell,” he tweeted, then linked to an advisory published by Acros, a Slovenian security firm.

That advisory detailed a vulnerability in iTunes for Windows that hackers could exploit by persuading users to download and open a malformed media file, or by duping them into visiting a malicious Web site, where they would fall to a drive-by attack.

Apple patched the iTunes for Windows bug last March when it updated the music player to version 9.1. According to Apple, the bug does not affect Mac machines.

Acros’ advisory insinuated that the vulnerability was in more than just iTunes. “Additional details are available to interested corporate and government customers under NDA, as public disclosure would reveal too many details on the vulnerability and unduly accelerate malicious exploitation,” the warning said.

It would have been odd for Acros to note the possibility of exploitation if the bug was iTunes-only and had been patched months earlier.

Moore confirmed that the flaw “applies to a wide range of Windows applications,” and added that he stumbled across it while researching the Windows shortcut vulnerability , a critical bug that Microsoft acknowledged in July and patched on Aug. 2 using one of its rare “out-of-band” emergency updates.

Moore declined to name the applications that contain the bug or to go into great detail about the vulnerability. But he was willing to share some observations.

“The vector is slightly different between applications, but the end result is an attacker-supplied .dll being loaded after the user opens a ‘safe’ file type from a network share either on the local network or the Internet,” Moore said in an e-mail reply to questions. “It is possible to force a user to open a file from the share, either through their Web browser or by abusing other applications, for example, Office documents with embedded content.”

Some of what Moore described was reminiscent of the attacks using the Windows shortcut vulnerability. For instance, hackers were able to launch drive-by attacks exploiting the shortcut bug from malicious sites via WebDAV, and could embed their exploits into Office documents, which would presumably be delivered to victims as seemingly innocuous e-mail attachments.

His advice until the vulnerable applications are patched was also taken from Microsoft’s shortcut bug playbook.

“Users can block outbound SMB by blocking TCP ports 139 and 445, and disable the WebDAV client in Windows to prevent these flaws from being exploited from outside of their local network,” Moore recommended.

Both workarounds were among those Microsoft told users they could apply if they were unable to apply the emergency update.

But although Microsoft was able to plug the shortcut hole with a patch for Windows, Moore was pessimistic that the company would be able to do the same with this vulnerability.

“Solving the flaw requires every affected vendor to produce a patch,” he said. “There may be other workarounds available, but the core issue is with the application itself, not necessarily the Windows operating system. There may be fixes that can be applied at the OS level, but these are likely to break existing applications.”

Microsoft did not reply to a request late Wednesday seeking confirmation of Moore’s claims, and asking whether any of its applications contain the bug. According to Moore, at least one Microsoft executable — “explorer.exe,” the Windows shell — includes the flaw.

Moore said that Rapid7 would release more information about the vulnerability next week, and added that an exploit module has been written for Metasploit but has not been released.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is [email protected] .

Read more about app security in Computerworld’s App Security Topic Center.

Original story – here

iTunes 9.2 For Windows Fixes 40 Security Holes

40 security vulnerabilities in older versions are fixed in iTunes 9.2, just released by Apple.

The advisory gives the impression that the vulnerabilities are only in the Windows version of iTunes, but this seems unlikely, especially in as much as many were recently listed as being patched in Safari on OS X. The advisory does list a download file for the OS X version of iTunes 9.2. For the moment, the advisory has yet to be published on Apple’s security updates page.

The vast majority of the vulnerabilities are in the WebKit HTML engine, the basis for Safari and other browsers and which is incorporated into iTunes. Many of these and two other vulnerabilities are critical bugs which could result in remote code execution.

iTunes 9.2 also contains new features. Quoting Apple:

• Sync with iPhone 4 to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on-the-go
• Sync and read books with iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 and iBooks 1.1
• Organize and sync PDF documents as books. Read PDFs with iBooks 1.1 on iPad and any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Organize your apps on your iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes
• Faster back-ups while syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Performance improvements make scrolling much faster