I have been using my iPhone 3G to access company email for months. I just upgraded to OS 3.1 today (from OS 3.0.1) and got an alert saying "The account <work> requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone." My phone will no longer access my work email!!! I know that nothing has changed on my company Exchange servers in the last 20 minutes, so OS 3.1 must be the cause. Why can't OS 3.1 access an Exchange server if OS 3.0 & 3.0.1 have had no problems?
Any way to know in advance if your exchange system requires device encryption? My wife and I both rely on our hospital email on our iphones. I upgraded without issue as I have a 3GS, but my wife has a 3G and if I upgrade her phone and her email doesn't work, I'm in big trouble. I know I can ask our IT helpdesk but they don't always know what they're talking about.
klamerus, your description of iPhone integration with Exchange is incorrect.
The iPhone syncs directly with Exchange via ActiveSync, it has nothing to do with Outlook (or Entourage). The encryption that is being enforced in 3.1 is encryption of the iPhone itself (not the communication, which is already encrypted), and that's only if it's required via ActiveSync by Exchange policy. Only the 3GS iPhone can do this, thanks to on-board hardware encryption.
cardsdoc, the iPhone configuration utility allows you to capture console logs from the iPhone, but I haven't mucked with it and don't know if it will show you the AS policies coming from the server.
On the other hand, it is relatively trivial for an Exchange admin to discover whether the "Require Encryption" policy box is checked for mobile devices.
I should note that my earlier post was incomplete, the iPhone Enterprise Deployment Guide indicates that in addition to iPhone 3GS, latest generation iPod Touches 32GB and larger also support device encryption.
My wife and I both have 3GS and until now have been syncing with exchange wireless just fine. We just both upgraded to 3.1 and although our contact and emails still sync well, our calendar is missing a lot of the data. It seems like it's syncing most of the recurrent events, but not the rest of the appointments. But even for the recurrent events it's pretty random. We've rebooted the phone, turned off and on calendar and even had our IT people work on it for about half a day on Friday but still no luck 😟
If my understanding of how the iPhone synchronizes with "Outlook" is incorrect, then how is it that I can (and have) synchronized with Outlook when I'm unconnected to Exchange.
There is no published API for synchronizing directly with Exchange. I'm sorry.
It's because OS 3.1 fixes a security hole which Apple left open to rush the Exchange support with iPhone 3G. If you company is using encryption on the exchange servers your iPhone 3G will not be able to connect.
This is a HUGE problem Apple has pushed out. They originally said support for Exchange (which I've been using for the past 2 years now) and now its been taken away. very bad. If they do not fix this within 3 months, I am ditching the iPhone.
Same here. Error message refers to encryption no longer available. I think it has something to do with the SSL setting. Help! I am using safari to access company webmail in the mean time but it just takes so much longer to do the same thing...
klamerus, I think you're refering to the ability of iTunes to sync with a local Outlook/Outlook Express install via USB. That's a different situation than syncing wirelessly with Exchange. As far as I know the ActiveSync issue should not impact a sync with a local Outlook installation, as ActiveSync isn't involved.
I am afraid Apple is using the iphone 3.1 upgrade as a way to limit the number of customers that will be using MMS when it comes out. In other words if you do not upgrade to 3.1 you will not be able to use MMS. A lot of customers will not upgrade because they do not want to lose Exchange email, thereby limiting the number of customers that will have MMS available. I hope this is not true, but since Apple has not announced that they will 'fix' the Exchange problem it makes me wonder!
That's the problem! This "fix" should have been implemented from the very first day the 3G was launched when Apple first touted MS Exchange support!!!
Rolling back the OS is NOT an option and shouldn't have to be!
On your computer at home, if you update your virus definition files and it breaks your internet connection does that mean the solution should be to remove the newer virus definition files??? Of course not!
If this wasn't intentional, then how can Apple explain releasing a newer version of the phone that supports hardware encryption but didn't notice that their existing 2.2 and new 3.0 OS was not accurately reporting encryption support back to MS Exchange Server???
Even if this whole "iPhone 3G false reporting" was by mistake, how is it possible that when they added true support for hardware encryption to the 3GS that no one at Apple noticed that neither the 2.2 or 3.0 OSes were correctly reporting whether or not their host device supported hardware encryption during the launch of the 3GS this past June?
Forget about the fact that even before 3.1 or even 3.0 the API to communicate with MS Exchange Server 2007 would have had to require some form of boolean value as a parameter to determine whether or not the device supported hardware encryption. As a software developer I know that they had to have been fully aware of the lack of support and were just hoping no one would notice just as long as everything appeared to be working!
MS Exchange 2007 SP1 was released in November of 2007 -8 MONTHS before the release of the iPhone 3G and 22 MONTHS before the release of the 3.1 update. That meant Apple had almost 2 years to implement this "fix". You can't tell me that in 2 years no one at Apple knew about the hardware encryption policy setting on MS Exchange Server 2007 SP1!
Lastly, adding the hardware encryption support for the 3GS definitely meant MAJOR updates to the iPhone 3.0 OS to properly utilize it with servers like MS Exchange. Why then didn't they implement those updates when they first released 3.0? Why wait until 3 months later? You can't tell me that they only realized that they forgot to update the software after the release because it takes a lot longer than 3 months to implement a change like this.
It was all pre-planned. They didn't want to push this update at the 3GS launch and risk having a whole bunch of irate 3G customers rain on their parade.
Even if they did only find out that the OS was inaccurately reporting hardware encryption support after the 3.0 OS release, it is Apple's responsibility to notify all of it's customers even before it released any updates because consumers have a right to know that the data on the phones that they thought was secure, really isn't.
Apple could have publicized the lack of support from the get-go but they chose to lie instead.
