Stories by John Cox

Vendor tests and very early 802.11ac customers provide a reality check on "gigabit Wi-Fi" but also confirm much of its promise.

Vendor tests and very early 802.11ac customers provide a reality check on "gigabit Wi-Fi" but also confirm much of its promise.

"Gigabit" Wi-Fi has reached a point where it's now being deployed by some early adopters. There are more 802.11ac resources – test data, anecdotal observations, hands-on experience – and more products than ever before.

The iOSphere knows so much about the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 that it's easy to overlook how little it really knows.

Identifying and using vacant "white space" spectrum for Wi-Fi may get simpler, more efficient, and cheaper thanks to a new project by Microsoft and a team of Chinese researchers.

The iOSphere this week was filled with iPhone 6 demands, revelations, assertions, and advice, most of it aimed at Apple.

Apple yesterday released an iOS 7 software update that fixes a security flaw that let users bypass the iPhone lockscreen to access a range of onboard information and online accounts.

With the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 widely expected next month, the iOSphere still isn't willing to admit that it doesn't know anything about what will be in them, apart from iOS 7. Perhaps that's why colours and pseudo-analysis loomed large in the past week.

With the official announcement and release of iPhone 5S and 5C, the iOSphere returns to its regular iPhone 6 rumor nomenclature. But things would be simpler if Apple simply used "iPhone 2014."

BlackBerry shares plunged 20% late Friday afternoon as the company announced plans to fire 40% of its employees and eventually cut expenditures in half over the next nine months. The actions were in response to the company's warning of a collapse in second fiscal quarter earnings.

The tear-and-repair enthusiasts at iFixIt jetted to Australia, traveling forward in time by 17 hours, to buy a new Apple iPhone 5S before anyone in the U.S. today. And then destroyed it.

Apple's iOS 7 is the first large-scale use of a newly-minted Internet protocol, called multipath TCP. It lets computers send and receive data across different network paths and interfaces at the same time, such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 3G.

Education networks yesterday experienced massive spikes in wireless LAN and Internet traffic as thousands of students toting iPhones and iPads tried to download iOS 7, which became available at 1 p.m. EDT.

The iOSphere is thrilled to a report, or more accurately to gossip that forecasts October 15 as the date on which the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 will be revealed in all their glory. Last year, the first iPad mini was unveiled October 23, so Halloween comes early this year.

There are endless blogposts and debates on when and whether and how to update iOS 7. Here are some steps suggested by Mike Reed, a solutions engineer who works with enterprise customers for MobileIron, a mobile device management vendor.