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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

iPhone v2.0 Software Includes Secure Data Wipe

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Apple is ensuring the secondary market success of iPhones by building secure data wipe into the 2.0 version of its software, according to AppleInsider. Several sources report the Gold Master versions of the software could be released internally at Apple and possibly to developers as early as Friday.

Citing “People familiar with the beta versions of iPhone Software v2.0,” the AppleInsider report says the upcoming release will employ a more foolproof method of erasing all personal data and settings from an iPhone. As is the case with the existing version of iPhone software, the function will be accessible by selecting Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings.

Unlike today’s iPhone software the revised function will wipe data in similar fashion to the “Secure Empty Trash” function of Mac OS X, by which all data is deleted, unlinked, and then overwritten several times to make it irretrievable by even the savviest of recovery tools.

This feature should be welcome to anyone looking to sell their first-gen iPhone and upgrade to the 3G model, as well as to those who will follow the same path with subsequent iterations of the phone.

The caveat is that the new method will take considerably longer than the method available by the current software version, but time seems a small price to pay for piece of mind.

About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

Email the author | Read more posts by Lonnie Lazar.

6 comments

    So the only iPhones able to be remotely wiped will be the Business Plan ones?

    I thought that would be a nice feature for everyday users in case your iPhone was ever stolen out from under you.

    This is pretty great news — again emphasizing the real value in the iPhone product.

    should be “peace of mind”—unless referring to the Iron Maiden album.

    Just how much is a piece of mind? ;-)

    Ken, a piece of mine can be had for next-to-nothing. :-)

    [...] des données aléatoires. Ça c’est pour les disques et je comprends le pourquoi du comment. <http://cultofmac.com/iphone-v20-soft…data-wipe/2160 > Maintenant Apple annonce que la version 2.0 de l’OS de l’iPhone saura faire de même. Mais il [...]

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