Looks like somebody really thinks the iPhone should have a physical keyboard. So much so, in fact, that they made one. The company is Mobile Mechatronics and the product in question is the iTwinge, a physical keyboard that plugs in to the dock connector on your iPhone and lays over the screen where the keys would normally be.

Why Mobile Mechatronics felt the need to make this little device is beyond me. It’s ugly as sin, and the fact that it draws power from the phone makes me cringe. There’s also the fact that it covers almost half your screen, meaning you’ll need to remove the thing and stuff it in a pocket for regular phone use. To cap things off, MM wants you to spend $30 on the thing. All I can say is good luck. It’s probably not gonna happen.

Reports are showing up all over the web today that iPhone MMS has been activated seemingly at random for many users. September 25th is supposed to be the official launch date, but users from locations as saturated as Manhattan and as far-flung as Iowa have reported MMS support on a variety of carrier and OS configurations.

This isn’t exactly a surprise. One of AT&T’s major concerns with MMS activation for a phone that has become the most popular camera on Flickr is network load. A slow and steady roll-out is basically a silent beta test – a way for users to get an experience they’ve been waiting for earlier than expected and give AT&T the network feedback they need. If this hadn’t been such a long time coming, I’d be inclined to say the carrier did something right.

And if so, how nigh? Apparently one of the CNet iPhones managed to pick up AT&T Carrier 5.0, which enables MMS controls in your SMS interface. There’s still no way to send the pictures, but it’s definitely interesting to see the controls reappear.

You may remember the control’s first appearance on the OS 3.0 developer build. All retail builds have had the controls disabled. When running OS 3.0.1 with Carrier 5.0, though, the controls reappear, making everyone wonder how soon MMS is coming. AT&T only has until September to make good on their “end of summer” promise for MMS capabilities. It’s also worth mentioning that 3.0.1 broke the hacked tethering we’d been enjoying. Could it be we’ll see both features sometime soon? I certainly hope so. I’m tired of seeing “I sent you a multimedia message” on AT&T’s flagship phone, especially since their message viewing sites rarely work as intended.

We made several cautionary posts about the iPhone’s SMS vulnerability over the past month, and it’s finally getting a fix. iPhone OS 3.0.1 is out today at a whopping 280MB.

Apple was apparently highly pleased with themselves for the fix:

We appreciate the information provided to us about SMS vulnerabilities which affect several mobile phone platforms. This morning, less than 24 hours after a demonstration of this exploit, we’ve issued a free software update that eliminates the vulnerability from the iPhone. Contrary to what’s been reported, no one has been able to take control of the iPhone to gain access to personal information using this exploit.

Nice to hear that no one has actually used the exploit to devious ends, but “less than 24 hours after a demonstration of this exploit” is Bushian in its absurdity. The two dates, the update release and the demonstration, are pretty clearly unrelated. It’s not like Apple just threw this thing together over the last 24 hours. If they had, I probably wouldn’t bother installing it. They’ve known about the problem for at least a month. I know that because I’ve known about the problem for a month.

Here’s to completely arbitrary horn-tooting!

If you are an iPhone user, or even if you know an iPhone user, you should be aware of a security hole where your iPhone can be hacked via SMS. This is serious stuff and you should share this knowledge with everyone you know. This hole could enable the hackers to take total control over your phone. Here are the details according to wired.com’s Gadget Lab:

Security researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner will publicize the exploit Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference, according to Forbes. The researchers said the hack involves sending a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that effectively hijack an iPhone. From thereon, a hacker could control all the functions on the iPhone, such as e-mailing, dialing contacts — and, most alarmingly, sending more text messages to hijack even more iPhones.

How can you know if you’re being SMS attacked? According to Miller, one giveaway is if you receive a text message containing a single square character. If that happens, he suggests you immediately turn off your iPhone.

“This is serious,” Miller told Forbes. “The only thing you can do to prevent it is turn off your phone. Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this.”

So until you hear otherwise from Apple, do as it says and turn off your phone immediately if you get a strange square text message. I would suggest taking your phone into the Apple store before turning it back on. Hopefully Apple will release a new iPhone OS patch soon to take care of this issue.