Common cellular software should have opened San Bernardino shooter's iPhone

The felony showdown over U.S. needs that Apple Inc AAPL.O release an iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook could have been avoided if his enterprise, which owns the tool, had prepared it with unique mobile smartphone software program it troubles to many employees.

San Bernardino County, which employed Farook as an environmental fitness inspector, requires a few, but no longer all, of its people to put in mobile-tool management software program made by means of Silicon Valley-based totally MobileIron Inc MOBL.O on government-issued telephones, in line with county spokesman David Wert.

That software is designed to comfy corporate statistics. It additionally permits facts era departments to remotely free up telephones, even without help of the smartphone's customers or get right of entry to to the password had to open the smartphone and unscramble the information.

"If that particular iPhone become using MobileIron, the county's IT branch should unlock it," MobileIron vp Ojas Rege instructed Reuters.

The hassle is that the MobileIron software program turned into no longer mounted on Farook's phone due to the fact his department did not use it. "The app become no longer installed on that tool," Wert stated.

If it were, the high stakes legal battle that has pitted Apple and lots of the generation industry against the U.S. authorities might have been averted altogether. The branch of Justice, in court docket filings, has said there may be no manner to get at the facts inside the phone without Apple engineering a special software solution.

Apple, that's refusing to conform with a choose's order to release the smartphone, could not be reached right now for comment.

Wert said he did not recognise why some departments opted out of using the cell-management software. He said that the county may evaluate the policy after the debacle over gaining access to Farook's phone.

"I suppose all and sundry who's within the business of offering mobile gadgets to their employees might be taking a sparkling appearance after those past couple days," he said.

County leader information Officer Jennifer Hilber couldn't be reached for comment.

other main cellular tool management software program makers encompass BlackBerry Ltd BB.TO, worldwide commercial enterprise Machines Corp IBM.N and VMware Inc VMW.N.

David Goldschlag, a mobile-safety professional with Pulse cozy, showed that MobileIron is able to unlocking phones without the user's passcode, and he stated the enterprise's most important competition have similar features.

Representatives with BlackBerry and IBM declined remark. A VMware spokesman said he had no instantaneous remark.

To make certain, cell safety experts warned that Farook may want to nevertheless have avoided the county from remotely accessing his phone through virtually deleting the MobileIron software from his phone. 

however this type of deletion would at a minimum have alerted managers to a trouble, safety experts said.