Apple

Apple has made it official, sales of the white iPhone 4 have been postponed until spring 2011. Spring 2011? Why would anyone buy a white iPhone 4 right before the iPhone 5 is launched? Speculation is rampant that Apple might just cancel the white model. In a first since June, the photo and ordering information for the white iPhone 4 has been removed from the Apple online store.

Reports about why the delay has taken so long have varied but most involve some type of manufacturing issue. Problems cited range from CEO Steve Jobs complaining about the home button not matching the white-colored glass to technical difficulties with light leakage into the camera sensor. Whatever the case, Apple's suppliers have been struggling to come up with engineering procedures for the white glass.

Call centers connected to Apple and cellular carrier Verizon Wireless have begun hiring in earnest, with rumors and speculation flying that the staff additions could only be in preparation for a Verizon iPhone launch. One company, Ryla is hiring 1,700 people in four states on behalf of a "major wireless cell phone service retailer."

Further evidence points to Teleperformance in Salt Lake City, who has a history of working closely with Apple and Verizon Wireless in the past. The company has advertised hundreds of positions in six states related to wireless, communications or cell phone support. One ad states that job applicants will offer technical support for personal computers and portable devices including MP3 players and smartphones.

AT&T beat its previous iPhone sales record by activating 5.2 million iPhone units during the third quarter of 2010. A whopping 3.2 million iPhone were activated in the previous quarter with the launch of the iPhone 4. A full quarter of iPhone buyers this time around were new customers to AT&T.

Overall, the company activated 8 million smartphones including the iPhone. AT&T now has 92.8 million subscribers in the US, but still lags behind leader Verizon Wireless. Over 57 percent of AT&T customers carry a smartphone or other device with a full integrated keyboard.

Sources at Apple have told the Boy Genius Report that a revised iPhone 4 model is currently in the final phases of field testing before release. This model revision is known as "iPhone3,2" and may be launched ahead of Apple's typical summer iPhone refresh cycle. Speculation is rampant over exactly what revisions are coming to the iPhone 4.

The leading contender is a CDMA-compatible version of the iPhone 4, which could be offered by either Sprint or Verizon Wireless in the US. Although this would make sense given the impending end of AT&T exclusivity, BGR also reports that the new iPhone 4 retains a SIM card slot. SIM cards are used on GSM networks like AT&T and T-Mobile.

You've probably never asked the question, "What is an Apple UDID?" This acronym stands for Unique Device IDentifier, and every iOS device has one. The UDID itself is a 40-character string including numbers and letters that is unique to your iPhone hardware. Apple sets standards for how the UDID should be used by application developers to protect user privacy.

A new study by Bucknell University security researcher Eric Smith has found that third-party app developers may not be following the rules. Some apps send private data such as name and location data from your iPhone in plain text along with the UDID. Some secure the transmissions with SSL, however this also means that the data being sent to external servers is unknown.