SMS

Software developer Promptu Systems has released ShoutOUT TXT, an application that lets you dictate messages to your iPhone and send them as a regular SMS text message.

The application allows users to set up an account and begin texting via their contact list or any phone number that can be texted. Users receive the first 25 text messages for free and can make in-app purchases of $4.99 for 250 messages, or $1.99 for 50. AT&T currently charges $15.00 for 1500 text messages, which would retail for $30.00 on ShoutOUT TXT.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a sizable stack of approved Apple patent applications this morning, several of which dealt with software for the iPhone. The different patent applications paint an interesting picture, showing that they are considering things like object and face detection and recognition, text message filtering and interface changes, and voice output customization.

Yesterday we reported on a security vulnerability found in the iPhone OS that could potentially allow an attacker to gain access to your phone via a flaw in the SMS application/protocols. Today, the UK's Telegraph tells us that Apple is in the process of preparing a fix for this security risk.

Security researcher Charlie Miller claimed at the SyScan conference in Singapore that he has discovered a new significant exploit in the iPhone's SMS system. The flaw may "allow an attacker to remotely install and run unsigned software code with root access to the phone."

App Store developer Inner Fence said today that Google would be blocking their app from accessing an experimental service for sending an unlimited number of apps at their expense. Google explained that their reasoning for cutting them off was because of it's incredible popularity and their inability to keep up with the costs they created.

MobileSpy, a tool for monitoring a smartphone user's SMS chats or call information, has been ported to work on the iPhone and iPod touch. Suggested uses include a parent monitoring a child to keep them out of trouble, or an employer monitoring an employee to make sure they are keeping within their Acceptable Use Policy on company-provided devices. Doing so is as easy as logging in to a website. While this may be comforting to some, it will undoubtedly make others a bit uneasy to know they may be being watched. More information is available at their website.

For you diehard jailbreakers, iRealSMS 2.0 has been released in Cydia for the iPhone 2.x software. iRealSMS serves as a paid replacement for the standard SMS app on jailbroken devices. It offers a few advantages over Apple's app, like landscape mode for everything in the app, the ability to organize messages into folders, save drafts, search messages by the sender's name and more.

AT&T's free Wi-Fi for subscribers to their iPhone data plans sounds great and all, and goodness knows we've been waiting for it long enough, but you have to jump through quite a few hoops to access it. Now it turns out that not only do they require cell data access, but the complicated process may make some users unable to use it.

Yet another security flaw in the iPhone's software had been found, and while it's probably not particularly harmful to the majority of users, it is pretty interesting. Karl Kraft posted the exploit on his blog, but he wasn't the one to uncover it. No, despite his skills with a computer and knowledge of the software, he didn't find it. Instead he says it was found by his 12-year-old son.