One of the biggest complaints that people had about the iPhone has just been sorted. I am keeping track of Engadget’s coverage of today’s Apple iPhone event. According to Phil Schiller, Apple’s WW Product Marketing muckety-muck, says that Apple has integrated Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology into the iPhone making it complete compatible with corporate email infrastructures.

Now if you are a corporate drone, it is now possible for you to get your corporate email. That is a big deal because there is a huge number of potential iPhone customers out there who have averted purchasing an iPhone because it won’t work with their company’s email system. RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, has made its entire business model out of being business friendly. Now that the iPhone is corporate friendly, the mobile phone market is really going to change.

The iPhone has already gone a long way in changing the mobile phone ecosystem. It has shown people what is possible when you really put a lot of care in the design of your handset. Everyone I know who has ever purchased an iPhone loves it. The main sticking point is that it hasn’t worked with corporate email until now. Now that iPhone works for business world’s are colliding.

The event is still going so I don’t know if Apple has made any statements about 3G roll out, but if they do then the last of the major sticking points is gone. That will leave only the lack of a hardware keyboard as a problem. The keyboard issue will never go away, so you will either have to write that one off or buy a different product.

What what?? I am posting this using my cell phone as a modem. I finally got it to work! I tried for over an hour unsuccessfully to get my computer to see the Internet through my phone. It wasn’t until I went into the settings of the phone and change the USB’s default settings to ‘Modem’ instead of ‘ActiveSync’. Here is how I did it.

Before You Do Anything…
In order to use you AT&T 3G phone as a modem, you have to download AT&Ts Communication Manager. Normally, I try not to use third-party connection management programs because they are usually poorly written. In this case, you need it because it installs the correct drivers and creates the needed dial-up setting.

I have done some testing, once I installed the AT&T Communication Manager, I connected to the Internet without it, and my Samsung Blackjack kept dropping the connection. Once I turned the Communication Manager back on and used it to connect to the net, all was fine.

After you have the AT&T CM installed, you need to make these changes to your phone:

1. Click the ‘Start’ Button on the phone.
2. Click on ‘Settings”
3. Click on ‘Connections’
4. Click on ‘USB’
5. Set the ‘USB Connection setting:’ to ‘Modem’*
6. Open the AT&T Communication Manager Program on your computer
7. BEFORE you connect you phone, click on ‘Device Wizard’ in the ‘Tools’ Menu
8. Follow the instructions in the wizard.
9. Once connected to you phone, click the ‘Connect’ button in the AT&T Communication Manager and then…Boom, you should be up and running!!!!

* If you use ActiveSync, your phone will warn you that ActiveSync will no longer work. Just remember to change your USB back to ‘ActiveSync’ before you try to sync again.

I also went into the task manager and turned off the ActiveSync program just for good measure.

After I did these things, the AT&T Connection Manager saw the phone as a Modem and voila… here I am blogging using the phone as my connection to the tubes!!!

What a deal…

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I just tested the speed, and they are comparable to what I was seeing the other night when I tested the speed using the browser on the phone itself. I am getting around 750kbps down and 120 kbps up. Plenty fast for blogging and email and light browsing. I am ecstatic!

This post is no longer current. Check out this newer post on using a Samsung Blackjack as a modem.
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In the ongoing saga story of my new phone, I just used it to connect to the Internet. It works! What a deal. My BlackJack came with a USB cable, and I used it to connect it to my laptop. The laptop saw the phone, and loaded all the necessary drivers from the CD that also came with the phone.

I tried to set up a modem connection on my own, but failed. Next, I went to the Internet and did a search to find out how to do it. I went to a number of sites, each of which explained a different way to connect to the Internet using the BlackJack, and none of them worked. Finally, I found a link to the Cingular site which had a great tutorial as to how make the connection work. If you go to the above link, click on Connect device and laptop/PDA to access internet. The site asks you to detail your setup, and once you have, it takes you to a page that fully details how to make the connection work.

I am posting an excerpt from it for my own purposes of the part in the instructions where the rubber hits the road.

1. Click on Start, Settings, Control Panel and double click on Phone and Modem Options.
2. Click on the Modems tab.
3. Click to select the SAMSUNG CDMA Modem and click on Properties.
4. Click on the Advanced tab.
5. In the Extra initialization commands field, type at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”isp.cingular”
6. Click on OK twice.

Setting up the connection

1. On the PC, return to the Control Panel.
2. Double click on Network Connections.
3. Click on the link to Create a New Connection.
4. A Network Connection Wizard will appear, click on Next.
5. Tick to select Connect to the Internet.
6. Click on Next.
7. Tick to select Set up my connection manually.
8. Click on Next.
9. Tick to select Connect using a dial-up modem.
10. Click on Next.
11. Check the box to select only the SAMSUNG CDMA Modem.
12. Click on Next.
13. For the ISP Name, type CNG GPRS.
14. Click on Next.
15. Type *99# for the Phone number.
16. Click on Next.
17. Enter ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM in the User name field.
18. Enter CINGULAR1 in the Password and Confirm password fields.
19. Check to select from the available options below and click on Next.
20. Click on Finish to complete the setup.

Please don’t use these instructions but rather go to the Cingular site yourself and put in your details.

The long and the short of this is it works. Hooray!