Blog entry October 2009

Thousands of Mobicip users are Moms, no surprise that. Whether you love your iPhone/iPod Touch or not, here is a forum where you can join other Moms and tell Apple what they should do to make it better.

TheiPhoneMom.com (BTW, an excellent blog where she reviews apps for Moms everyday) seeks your feedback. Here is a blurb:

Here at the iPhone Mom’s house we’ve been talking about what Apple could do to make the iPhone (and iPod Touch) more “Mom Friendly”. They’re already great devices for keeping our kids entertained and even educated. There are some great apps for tracking our pregnancies, babies, bills and shopping, but what else would you like to see? Any apps you’ve been looking for but so far been unable to find?

Follow this link to read the full article and post your comments.

We started supporting Cut, Copy and Paste right about the time the feature was made available by Apple. We get questions from users sometimes on how exactly it is done on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Here is an excellent video by Gary from MacMost Now that demonstrates the feature.

We are happy to announce that the latest version (2.1.0) of Mobicip Safe Browser for iPhone and iPod Touch has been approved by Apple and is now available on the App Store. This is a major update and we have worked hard to make this version clean and stable. The new version has several new features, from the superficial to the internals.

New Icon - Believe it or not, this was the top requested change from parents. Older kids found the icon with smiley faces patronizing, while younger kids loved the eye candy. So we agonized over a replacement icon and finally settled on a generic one. Hope everyone likes it this time.

Tabs / Windows - Anyone who has used Safari Mobile would have grown to love the tabs or windows. Now you can have multiple tabs open at your fingertips and switch between them with ease. Sites like Google News will automatically launch in another tab, hold down any link to open it in a new tab, and you can always use the New Tab button to open one.

Save Images - Press and hold any image and these buttons should pop up, allowing you to copy the image and paste it elsewhere or email it. 

Persistent Cookies - Login at your favorite websites and the Mobicip browser will remember the login information between sessions so you don't have to login again. 

Copy & Paste - Have fun with the new copy and paste features in iPhone OS 3.0 within the Mobicip browser. Copy links from emails and paste it in the Mobicip Browser's URL bar. Select and copy content, and paste it in your email.

Blazing Performance - Ignoring all the features, the most valuable update in this version is subtle and will be perceived rather than seen. The Mobicip browser should now be as fast, if not faster, than Safari Mobile in terms of speed.

Please update the app and let us know what you think. Your feedback helps shape our solution. Thanks especially to the beta users, especially Dylan and Eric, for your enthusiastic feedback and participation.

The AWPG/CUPS Phishing Education Landing Page Program delivers online safety education - free - to consumers who`ve clicked on links in phishing mails by redirecting them away from the URLs of decommissioned phishing websites onward to a page of Internet security and safety instruction hosted by the APWG. The goal of this initiative is to instruct the most at-risk consumers about online safety at the "most teachable moment" when they have just clicked on a link in a phishing communication, a key moment of error discovery in which one is more receptive to instruction - and better able to retain its essential messages. The Phishing Education Landing Page is here: http://education.apwg.org/r/

To read the entire article, go here http://bit.ly/3HillW

Even if you have only disabled Safari and enabled Mobicip, it may not be enough. The App Store has several browsers today, some of which offer features like private browsing or browsing without showing the history. How can you protect your child from circumventing Mobicip using one of the alternative browsers?

If you have followed our tutorial to setup parental control restrictions on the iPhone or iPod Touch, you are likely to have set it up correctly. For good measure, Check out  this FAQ that we just added after a user posed this question to us.

We are excited to announce that a new version of Mobicip Safe Browser is being reviewed by Apple. We have several users trying out the new version as part of a limited private beta and giving us some excellent feedback. Some of them even posted reviews on iTunes. We have tried really hard to address the critical issues and respond to top requests from our users.

At this time, we are expanding the beta program to all interested Mobicip users. If you can't wait to get your hands on the next version that includes a lot of the great features that you have been asking for, don't mind a little bit of hassle in setting it up, and would be happy to pass on your feedback to us, please let us know. Please include the device UDID in your request (instructions below).

- To find your iPod Touch's UDID, just plug it into your computer and wait until iTunes recognizes it.
- Select your iPod Touch from the Devices list in iTunes.
- Click the "Summary" tab.
- To see your UDID, click on the word "serial number" beside the picture of the iPod Touch.
- You should see the word "identifer" and an alphanumeric string – this is your UDID.
- To copy it, just press command + C on your Mac's keyboard (or control + C in Windows).
Paste the UDID in your email.

In a surprisingly reluctant acknowledgement of the iPhone's leadership among mobile phones, PC Magazine reports results from its Readers Choice survey. Read the original article here. Excerpts below.

Like the dude, our readers' love affair with the Apple iPhone abides, as it was the only phone brand they rated significantly better than average, making it the clear Readers' Choice with a SBA 9.0 out of 10. Amusingly, the iPhone's overall score went up between 2008 and 2009 even though individual ratings for coverage, call quality, and sound quality all went down! The iPhone didn't rate spectacularly as a phone, but it received great scores as a messaging device, music player, video player, and gaming device.

This from an article on Chic Mom Magazine:

Today's children have sophisticated desires for high tech "toys" such as mobile phones, iPods and netbooks. These mobile devices offer the convenience of full Internet browsing capabilities from anywhere, but they also open the door to a number of dangers. Unsuspecting children may be exposed to inappropriate content, cyber bullying and online predators. With mobile technologies changing as quickly as the minds of children, parents can hardly keep up with what the devices do, let alone know how to protect their children using them.

Luckily, there are parental control solutions available to help parents safeguard all of their children's devices to provide a secure, enjoyable online experience. One solution developed by Mobicip, a provider of Internet child safety products for mobile devices, allows parents to regulate and track their child's Internet usage of any of their mobile devices from the convenience of a single Internet site.

With the company's Mobicip.com Premium service, parents simply download the application onto each device and create an online account to customize the parental controls. Parents can choose from pre-defined age appropriate content filtering levels, build their own list of allowed/disallowed Websites and track their child's Internet surfing history.

Leveraging four stages of content filtering technology, the service blocks inappropriate content and tagged photos even on allowed Websites, putting parents at ease when their children are browsing. Because Mobicip.com is an Internet-based service, changes and updates are effective immediately with no need for parents to download software updates.

With parental controls in place, parents can rest assured that their children are protected when surfing the Internet, no matter where they are or what device they're using.