Some owners of Apple’s new iPhone 4S have been hit with SIM card error messages, even if they are connected to a CDMA carrier that does not use SIM cards.

One reader contacted AppleInsider on Thursday to share their frustrations with error messages that read “Invalid SIM” and “SIM Failure” on their iPhone 4S. This person said the errors began occurring after they updated to iOS 5.0.1, though other users posting on Apple’s official Support Communities website, in a thread with more than 30,000 views to date, have experienced similar problems since the iPhone 4S first went on sale in October.

“This problem can only be solved when you reboot your iPhone,” the person, who is an AT&T customer, wrote in an e-mail. “Everything else fails — restore, removal of the SIM, etc.”

When users experience a SIM-card-related error, basic functions including making phone calls, sending text messages, and using mobile data become unavailable, as the handset cannot make a connection with the wireless data provider.

The iPhone 4S is a “world phone,” which means its redesigned antenna and internal components are compatible with both CDMA and GSM carriers. Micro SIM cards placed in the iPhone 4S are only used by GSM carriers to identify a subscriber and grant them access to a carrier’s wireless network.

But while only GSM carriers, like AT&T in the U.S., use the micro SIM slot on the iPhone 4S, users on CDMA carriers, like Verizon and Sprint, have also reported experiencing SIM-card-related errors. iPhone 4S units sold through CDMA carriers come with a “roaming SIM” installed, which allows CDMA customers to roam worldwide on GSM networks.

“No service on my white 32 GB 4S on Verizon,” user ‘racyb’ wrote in October. “Did a shutdown and reboot….it went into searching mode and finally found Verizon again after 1 minute. What is going on?”

Since the release of iOS 5.0.1 earlier this month, another thread at the Apple Support Communities website features more users who say the problems began occurring after they updated their iPhone 4S. Some say their iPhone displays full signal reception, yet error messages like “Call Failed” and “Invalid SIM” continue to display.

“Same problem here in Brazil,” user ‘GuiMedrado’ wrote on Wednesday. “Bought my 4S – 32GB unlocked in Switzerland and couldnt’ make it work after upgrading to 5.0.1. Any solution?”

The iOS 5.0.1 update was released earlier this month in an attempt to address battery life issues reported by some users. But some battery-related problems have remained, and Apple has publicly said it is still working to fix those issues.

One rumor this week claimed that Apple will issue a new update, iOS 5.0.2, no later than next week in a second attempt to improve battery life with iOS 5. There was no mention of any fixes for SIM card issues or error messages.

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Είναι γνωστό ότι το Android της Google βρίσκεται πλέον σε περισσότερες συσκευές από το iOS της Apple κατέχοντας το μεγαλύτερο μερίδιο της αγοράς. Ωστόσο, οι συσκευές της Apple παραμένουν οι πιο δημοφιλείς στις επιλογές των καταναλωτών σύμφωνα με έρευνα της NPD, η οποία δείχνει ότι το iPhone 4 και iPhone 3GS καταλαμβάνουν τις δύο πρώτες θέσεις στις ΗΠΑ για το τρίτο τρίμηνο του 2011.

Συγκεκριμένα, τα πέντε κορυφαία smartphones σε πωλήσεις στις ΗΠΑ για το τρίτο τρίμηνο του 2011 ήταν:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. Motorola Droid 3
5. Samsung Intensity II

Το κατόρθωμα αυτό είναι πολύ σημαντικό για την Apple αν αναλογιστούμε ότι το iPhone 4 βρισκόταν στην αγορά πάνω από ένα χρόνο ενώ και το iPhone 3GS έκλεινε πάνω από δύο χρόνια. Φυσικά, εκδόσεις των 8GB των δύο συσκευών είναι ακόμα διαθέσιμες στην αγορά με σκοπό να «χτυπήσουν» τις χαμηλές κατηγορίες.

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Apple continues its fastest iPhone rollout ever as the iPhone 4S is set to launch in India, the world’s second largest mobile market, through two separate carriers by the end of November.

It was reported on Monday that India’s Bharti Airtel, the leading telecom in the world’s second largest mobile market, has confirmed it will launch the iPhone 4S on the same day as rival iPhone carrier Aircel, according to The Times of India.

The news follows a Saturday announcement posted on Aircel’s Facebook page that stated the company would begin selling the device on Nov. 25, ending weeks of speculation as to when the handset would arrive in India, reports The Next Web.

The companies have yet to disclose a definitive price for Apple’s newest handset, though the expected cost is between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 ($693 and $792) for the cheapest unlocked 16 GB version. Previously, Aircel and Bharti Airtel both offered discounted call and data plans for the iPhone 4, and are expected to use the same reverse subsidy model for the iPhone 4S.

Bharti Airtel is India’s largest mobile and fixed line carrier and is the third largest in-country mobile telecom operator in the world, while Aircel is India’s fifth largest GSM provider and serves over 18 regions within the country.

Since its debut on Oct. 14, the iPhone 4S has seen a record-breaking multi-country launch, international sell-outs and continued high demand.

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A mobile developer investigating Apple’s Siri voice assistant has dissected the service’s protocol to develop tools for playing with the service outside of the iPhone 4S.

Testing by Applidium notes that iPhone 4S uses standard HTTPS network requests to communicate with Apple’s servers, but sends data using an “ACE” command rather than regular web GET requests.

Each Siri request an iPhone 4S makes also involves a unique host identifier that appears to be based on the hardware UUID, preventing unauthorized devices from sending requests to Apple’s servers.

Applidium reports some success in copying an iPhone 4S host identifier into requests sent from other devices, including a test Mac environment. By examining how iPhone 4S packages speech recognition requests, the developer was able to send a similarly packaged request and obtain a correct response.

The testing proves that Siri sends raw audio captures of the user’s voice, compressed with the Speex audio codec optimized for VoIP. Previously, it had been speculated that iPhone 4S was performing preprocessing of the audio and sending only the results to Apple’s servers.

While Siri may perform other preprocessing tasks that use the additional horsepower of the iPhone 4S, Applidium’s discovery indicates that any iPhone should be able to support at least Siri’s basic voice recognition features, although Apple has indicated that it has no plans to release such capabilities for earlier iOS 5 models, including iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

Both models can support third party speech-to-text services, but Apple offers no way in iOS to integrate such third party services into any app system wide, meaning that users have to dictate into one app and then copy and paste the results elsewhere. Both Android and Windows Phone 7 offer system wide, integrated voice recognition features.

Siri, however, goes far beyond simple voice recognition. Rather than just converting audio to text, Siri evaluates the meaning of requests and maintains a understanding of the user’s relationships with specific contacts and a contextual session of the location and other details of a request.

So far, Applidium’s investigation has revealed that Siri packages requests in compressed property lists, but further exploration of the protocol is hampered by a number of issues, including the complexity of requests, the fact that they are tied to a hardware key, and that they are subject to change.

Apple could at any time stop responding to a given hardware key were it to suspect that it was being used to exploit its servers; additionally, because the Siri service is proprietary to Apple, the company can change how it transmits data rather quickly by simply sending out a client update.

Applidium says “anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad!” However, in order to access Siri at all, a user would have to sniff out the unique user key of an actual iPhone 4S, and then reuse that key until it expired or was blocked by Apple.

Apple has been perfecting its Siri service as a “beta” feature exclusive to the iPhone 4S, but has experience some downtime in ramping up services to accommodate the demands of millions of users who have rushed to buy the latest iPhone model. The new service also makes use of hardware unique to the iPhone 4S.

It is expected that Siri will eventually find its way to new models of the iPod touch, iPad and perhaps even Macs, with some speculating that it could eventually server as a living room interface employed by Apple TV, doing away with the need for a button or touch-based remote control for navigating television programing.

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