Oct 18, 2007 Oct 20, 2007 Friday October 19, 2007
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★ The iPhone and Web Apps
There’s some speculation that Apple’s plan to release a native iPhone SDK is bad news, in some way, for the iPhone as a platform for web apps. I disagree. I see it as no more bad news for iPhone web app development than Cocoa is bad news for regular web app development. The weird thing about web apps vs. desktop apps is that they don’t really compete head-to-head. Most good ideas for apps only make sense one way or the other. It doesn’t make sense to think of, say, Basecamp as a desktop app. Because web apps are currently the only sanctioned way to develop for the iPhone, yes, there are some iPhone web apps that will be obviated by native apps eventually. (Games and IM clients, for example.) But even after the iPhone SDK ships, there will be far more iPhone web app developers than native UIKit developers. I see MobileSafari-optimized web development as the Visual Basic for the iPhone as a platform. Easier, more approachable, and wide open to everyone. An existing web application written using best practices — standards-based markup, separation of style from content — can be optimized for display on MobileSafari in relatively short order by any competent web developer. Not so with native iPhone app development. Apple, someday, is going to be all over “web apps” as first-class citizens for its computing platforms. Perhaps not in the form of HTML/CSS/JavaScript alone, or not only in that form, but in some way, in the future, first-class Apple software will be run over the network rather than being installed on the device. If you think of “The Web” as HTML rendered in a browser, “web apps” might be the wrong word to describe what I’m talking about; “net apps”, perhaps, might be more apt. Imagine, for example, an Apple-designed next-generation competitor to Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight — an embedded runtime for net-based apps that “kills” Flash not by replacing it or becoming more ubiquitous (which at this point probably isn’t possible), but by out-classing it, by enabling Mac OS X- and iPhone-quality user experience in apps that reside on a server, not the client. Or maybe just give WebKit and Moore’s Law a few more years, and it really will just be HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Net-based apps — in concept — suit Apple perfectly: they’re more convenient for users and afford tremendous control to the developer. (Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen is thinking along similar lines.) So, someday, yes. But that day isn’t today. It was never Apple’s intention for MobileSafari web apps, here and now, to be as good as native iPhone UIKit apps. If it were, instead of basing the iPhone environment around a mobile port of Cocoa, they could have simple based the UI environment around only the mobile port of WebKit. It just isn’t possible, today, to provide what we now know as the iPhone experience using WebKit alone. That’s why Mac developers were so irritated by Jobs’s description of MobileSafari web app development back at WWDC as a “sweet” iPhone SDK — if it were so sweet, then why wasn’t Apple using it for the iPhone’s built-in apps? But it really is sweet, in its own way, in that the iPhone is clearly the best handheld web client in the world. Let the web be the web and let native apps do what native apps do best — the iPhone does both better than any competing platform. Finally, a nomenclatural note: When writing about the native iPhone SDK and web apps written for MobileSafari, it’s both easier both to write and read to just say “iPhone” where I really mean “iPhone and iPod Touch”. Apple does the same thing. Long-term, I think the “iPod” brand has a stronger future than the “iPhone” brand. “iPhone”, to me, means mobile OS X on a device tied to a mobile phone carrier network. At some point in the future when ubiquitous long-range wireless IP networking is available, OS X-based iPods will be able to do everything iPhones can, with the same (or close enough) mobility and range. At that point the iPhone will just fade away — or at least slip beneath the iPod as the top-of-the-line Apple handheld.
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WebKit Does HTML5 Client-Side Database Storage
Surfin’ Safari: The current working spec for the HTML5 standard has a lot of exciting features we would eventually like to implement in WebKit. One feature we felt was exciting enough to tackle now even though the spec is still in flux is client-side database storage. This is huge news for web developers. ★
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Photos: Top 10 reviews of the week
Here are CNET Reviews' 10 favorite items from the past week, including a Mercedes, a camera bag and a snowboarding jacket that holds an iPod.
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TUAW Guide: Getting Ready for Leopard
Filed under: OS, Features, LeopardLike everyone else, we here at TUAW are excited and champing at the bit to get at Leopard. Unfortunately, we have about another week to go; however, that gives everyone time to get ready. In that spirit we present this TUAW Guide to Getting Ready for Leopard. Keep in mind that I don't actually have access to Leopard, so all of the following advice is based on past OS X upgrade experience rather than the actual upgrade to 10.5. Nonetheless, I'm reasonably sure these steps should ease the transition from Tiger. As always, reader comments and suggestions are welcome.Continue reading TUAW Guide: Getting Ready for LeopardPermalink | Email this | Comments
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Madden Sacked on iMac
We tried to run Madden NFL '08 on our new iMac. What we got was a jumbled mess.
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TUAW's new background for your computer
Filed under: TUAW BusinessEagle-eyed readers have noticed that TUAW's look has changed a little as of late. We've 'Leoparded up' the site just a bit, taking some design cues from Apple's soon to be released OS.As with any redesign the comments have run the gamut from "It is horrible!" to "Where can I download that Desktop?" We'll be refining the design over the coming months, so keep the comments coming. That being said, for those of you who want to decorate your Mac with a TUAW desktop head on over here and download it for yourself. It isn't the highest resolution, but it still looks good on my 24 inch iMac.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple Posts Leopard Guided Tour
Keep your arms and feet inside the computer at all times.
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Friday afternoon Apple links, now with more perks
On the table this week are new perks for Apple employees, more iPhone support woes, new iPhone ads, and finger condoms.Read More...
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iPhone programming 101: full header documentation released
Filed under: iPhoneWith a few months yet to go before the official, blessed, sanctified Apple SDK for iPhone makes an appearance, all TUAW readers know there's already a thriving community of iPhone developers coding away with glee and gusto. Getting into iPhone programming has been complicated, though, not only by the lack of a vendor-sanctioned toolchain, but also by the limited and scattered documentation of the headers for the iPhone's version of OS X, crucial information for anyone trying to write code for the device. If only someone would work up some header docs!It's not entirely clear how she found the time or energy to accomplish the feat, but our own Erica Sadun has posted a complete set of iPhone header documentation, running down every Objective-C class and file to give present and future iPhone/iPod touch developers the tools they need now, and a killer head start on the February release of Apple's SDK. If you've got a hankering to write the first great iPhone app, go check it out.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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On watching Leopard's intro video
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, LeopardApple has released another "guided tour" video, this time for Leopard. It's narrated by "John," a retail store employee who is evidently soporific enough to don The Black Mock Turtleneck and deliver a flawless demonstration. Seriously, Apple. The "uniform" thing is getting creepy. Even John's colleague Nicole was wearing one (though hers was a nice V-neck affair).Anyway, I jotted down some thoughts as I watched the video.Continue reading On watching Leopard's intro videoRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple releases Leopard guided tour video
Apple published a new guided tour that demonstrates some of Leopard's key selling points. It probably won't shock and awe the Mac nerds in the audience, but it's just what mom ordered.Read More...
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iPhone Fingers Hype Generates Enjoyable Comments
No doubt you heard about the most absurd iPhone accessory, the Phone FIngers. These black finger condoms apparently work perfectly well with the iPhone’s touch screen and prevent smudges. Instead of me debating whether these things are really…
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Leopard Spotlight: Preparing for Time Machine
Filed under: LeopardOne of the most visible new features in Leopard is Apple's integrated backup tool, Time Machine. Taking backups -- a chore that few people do and even fewer do correctly -- and making them one-click simple is bound to improve the lives of millions of Mac users who, despite being practically perfect in every way, sometimes delete files they don't mean to delete. (I know, painful but true.)There is a lot of excitement about Time Machine, but also some confusion; reader Matteo wrote in from Switzerland to ask that we cover some basics for setting up Time Machine. Your wish; our command. Most of our answers are gleaned from Apple's feature page for TM, a worthwhile read.Continue reading Leopard Spotlight: Preparing for Time MachineRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Fixing iPhone signal loss
Filed under: Cool tools, Hacks, How-tos, Ask TUAW, iPhoneYesterday, Scott forwarded me along a question from TUAW reader John Stuart. He wrote in asking about his cell signal. When put on sleep/hold, the signal fades out and he can't receive calls. His phone is unlocked and in the UK, and this signal loss appears to be a common fault. As a temporary measure, John started playing back music on repeat, with the volume cut off. As you might imagine, this runs down the battery and prevents him from actually using the iPod features without having to do extra work.Continue reading Fixing iPhone signal lossRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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DeviceAnywhere lets devs play with 500 phones over the net
Filed under: Cellphones In one of the more impressive Frankenphone installations we've ever seen, a company called Mobile Complete has been operating a remote phone-testing service called DeviceAnywhere that allows mobile phone developers to test out their apps on any of their choice of over 500 different phone models. The phones are opened up and have their circuits wired directly into a server, so devs have access to every part of the device, just as if they were physically present. CEO Faraz Syed says that the networked handsets are "surprisingly reliable and robust, even though they look like we've cut them open and killed them." According to the company, all the major carriers and several large content providers are all customers, and only Nokia offers a similar testing suite -- and it's not as robust. Too bad the service starts at $200 and runs from $17 an hour up -- we'd love to spend a couple hours fooling around. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Firefox 2.0.0.8 includes Apple Leopard support
Update also fixes 10 security flaws.
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Firefox 2.0.0.8 includes Apple Leopard support
Mozilla on Friday released version 2.0.0.8 of its popular Firefox browser. The new release includes support for Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 operating system, Leopard. The new Firefox release also addresses several security flaws. One of the critical flaws (CVE-2007-5838) allows attacker-supplied javascript to ...
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Gedeon Maheux and the Marble of Doom
Filed under: HumorIt sounds like a horror movie, but it's much worse -- ask any Mac user and they'll tell you that the sight of the spinning rainbow wait cursor (the beachball, the Spinning Pizza/Beachball of Death) is enough to strike fear into the most hardened heart. If you're fed up with application pauses that are inexplicable and sometimes interminable, Gedeon feels your pain, and he wants you to stand up and be counted.Presented by iconfactory and ARTIS software and announced via Twitter: the new, hypnotic MarbleofDoom.com. Finding yourself becalmed while you wait for the bitbucket to fill up? Just add your time to the master counter and compare your sufferings with those of other Mac users. Sure, it's probably a waste of time... but since you're already waiting around...By the way, if you want to get Twitter updates from us on news items and what's going on at the blog, add TUAW's Twitter to your following list.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Three possible German iPhone plans revealed
The three rate plans that may be available for the iPhone in Germany have been leaked, and they look pretty decent. Assuming that they're true, that is.Read More...
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News: WeatherBug announces web app for iPhone and iPod touch
WeatherBug has announced a new web application optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch and allows users to access streaming neighborhood-level weather conditions and video weathercasts. The application also provides international weather information, detailed views of the 7 day forecast, radar, and camera images from WeatherBug's proprietary network of tracking stations. Additionally, the WeatherBug Web app allows users to set a variety of locations…
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Rumors: Nullriver to update iPhone Installer.app to 3.0
Filed under: iPod Family, Rumors, iPhoneShaun Erickson at psmxy.org has posted that Nullriver looks set to release the next major update of Installer.app. Installer.app is a program that runs on your iPhone or iPod touch and allows you to download software directly to your unit. He writes that version 3.0 should be released soon, perhaps as early as today. The updated features will include a redesigned interface, collapsed groupings (for less scrolling), new categories including "Recent" and local "More Info" pages--so you don't have to keep switching between Installer and Safari.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple Gazette Daily 141 - All Canadians are Thieves, iPhone #1 and More!
Apparently all Canadians are thieves, iPhone is AT&Ts #1 seller, and more You can subscribe via iTunes, or by RSS feed, or… you can directly download the episode right here. In addition to that, you should be able to play every episode of the podcast directly in your browser by using the widget which is now located in the side column of the site. Just click on the headphones to play the podcast inside the widget with full audio controls.
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The Incredible Disappearing Boot Camp, DRM-Free Tracks Prices Drop, Apple & AT&T Pat Each Other On The Backs & More
Free beta version of Boot Camp’s gone missing while iPhones prove to be damned near unstoppable, DRM-free tracks get cheaper yet and more.
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The Apple we know and love
A trio of developments this week has Dan Moren breathing a sigh of relief about Apple's decisions as of late.
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Leopard guided tour video posted at Apple.com
Filed under: Video, LeopardDid you enjoy watching those iPhone walkthrough videos last June? Every feature covered, every icon pictured... good times, good times. Now you can get that same sense of anticipation and "ooo ooo gotta buy it" excitement in a bigger-than-a-breadbox form factor with Apple's newly-posted Leopard guided tour video. The tour, narrated by Apple retail store employee "John," is streamed for your pleasure right here.The video can also be downloaded in iPod-friendly (108 MB) and 'large" (380 MB) sizes, if you're the type that likes to watch this kind of thing in private, nudge nudge.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple posts Leopard Guided Tour
Continuing their recent tradition, Apple has posted a guided Tour of OS X Leopard. You can check it out by clicking here.
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This poor iPod Touch thinks its and iPhone
This iPod Touch on display at a Best Buy seems to be a bit confused. Apparently it thinks its an iPhone. If that isn't solid proof that the two devices are merely copied and pasted from one another I don't know what is. Thanks Dan.
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News: iPodweek on its way, still time to sign up
It's Friday, which means that iLounge's weekly newsletter, iPodweek, will be available later this afternoon. iPodweek is a weekly summary of the best iPod news, reviews, and feature articles we’ve published, and it also features giveaways and iPod accessory discount offers from various companies. You still have time to sign up for this week's edition, if you haven't done so already — just use the simple form below to…
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How can I download YouTube videos on my computer?
If you don't want to risk your favorite videos getting taken down, download them!
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Did Web-only development fail the iPhone?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, AppleA thoughtful post over at FactoryJoe.com asks whether the Web failed the iPhone. Apple's initial decision to support only Web 2.0 third-party apps on the iPhone gave the web-based community a huge shot of creativity and incentive to see how far they could push the iPhone and Safari in terms of delivering a new kind of third party development. Unfortunately the lack of persistent storage and local data, a la Google Gears, crippled the effort. Perhaps Apple's development model was simply a decade ahead of its time. Chris Messina's article calls on Web developers to improve what's going on inside the browser frame by designing and constructing new web primitives that make it simpler and easier to build for the web. He adds that "Steve was right" in that Safari development is the future of application development. If Apple had invested in richer and better Web tools, the outcry for native third party apps might never have taken off.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple posts Leopard Guided Tour
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops Apple's been all about the video guided tours lately, and with Leopard just around the corner, the company's gone ahead and put John, The Classy Salt-and-Pepper Apple Store Employee, in front of the camera to walk you through the new release. Nothing particularly new to report, but it'll keep the fanboys warm for another week. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Canada's Copyright Board slaps tax on music downloads
Filed under: Portable AudioJust a few months after it deemed it suitable to reinstate a levy on digital audio players, the Copyright Board of Canada looks set to to stir things up once again, with it now ruling that music downloads should be taxed as well. That decision comes after the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (or SOCAN) had pushed for such a levy, a position the Copyright Board appears to have sided with entirely. Under the new rules, online music stores will have to pay 3.1 cents for each individual track and 1.5 cents per track for entire albums sold directly to SOCAN, which will in turn distribute the funds to the artists. Sites that offer temporary downloads or customizable radio stations will also be facing taxes, although the board hasn't yet released a decision for those that offer music on personal websites. What's more, according to CanWest News Service, the levies will be retroactive all the way back to 1996, which is when the music industry first started pushing for the tariffs. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Mac OS X Leopard Guided Tour
Apple’s video tour of what’s new in Leopard. ★
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The Marble of Doom
Aggregated tracker for time lost to Mac OS X’s Spinning Pizza of Death cursor. ★
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The Last Inquiry Unicorn.
Rob Enderle opines: Changing of the guard: Sony waxes while Apple wanes Wouldn't that be "Re-changing"? And wouldn't that also be a load of crap? OK, Rob Enderle has been skewered to death (sadly, not literally) by many an Apple blogger, but sometimes it's nice to fall back on a classic. Something tried and true. Sort of like returning to an old friend. Just one that you hate vehemently. Enderle, as is his wont, throws about 150 unrelated items up on the wall in the hopes enough of it will stick to form the pattern of a frowny face. Which is what makes his bio slug so amusing. Rob Enderle is one of the last Inquiry Analysts. Inquiry Analysts are paid to stay up to date on current events and identify trends and either explain the trends or make suggestions, tactical and strategic, on how to best take advantage of them. Wow. He sure is boss, isn't he? In the portable music player market, Apple is weakening... Rob's definition of "weakening" is "a couple of anecdotes I strung together to create the impression of a problem." Even after the iPod launched, anyone suggesting Apple would reach the dominance they now have would have been branded an Apple Zealot and discredited. Yet, they would have been right. Unlike Rob. But did you know he's of the last Inquiry Unicorns? Analysts. Whatever. The Macalope is starting to wonder if the Inquiry Analysts are such a dying breed because they keep getting their heads stuck in those plastic rings that hold six packs together or keep getting hit by cars trying to cross the freeway or something. Before anyone gets too excited... Well, Rob, you do have a reputation for excitement. ...I'm looking at a set of trends which may or may not pan out. Mmm. If it's anything like the rest of your Apple "analysis", Rob, the Macalope's guessing, um, not. The Macalope would be inclined to give Rob some props for at least caveating that this balogna sandwich he's about to feed us may have rotten mayonnaise on it, but for Rob it's just an excuse to be lazy. And he does this all the time. He's constantly stating something as if it's conventional wisdom when it is neither conventional nor wisdom. There are articles on why you shouldn't take the latest iPhone patch, on how to recover a "bricked" iPhone (bricked is not a good thing), on how Apple's PR department was under siege, how the iPhone battle was unwinnable and would destroy Apple?s reputation and most recently a $1 billion lawsuit against the iPhone. "There are articles". In the realm of measures such as market share, stock price, units sold and cash on hand, "there are articles" doesn't strike the Macalope as a great bellwether. Rob then offers his opinion that HP's eating Apple's lunch in the cafeteria of marketing. Rob's been hot on HP for a while now. Why, back in 2004, Rob said it was all but a foregone conclusion that the (now defunct) HP-branded iPod would outsell the Apple-branded iPod. But with Rob, every day is Groundhog Day. I don't recall a time in my life when I've been able to argue HP is out marketing Apple. OK, HP's campaign isn't bad (although the Macalope finds it somewhat disconcerting to get a sales pitch from a headless celebrity) and Apple really has been relying on mostly the same ad for several years now. But, gee, maybe that's because it's worked so darned well to date. Apple has also made what appear to be major mistakes with a number of key products. Oh, Rob, honey, don't. The AppleTV didn't go anyplace... Well, it's gone someplace, but certainly it's a missed opportunity. ...the iPhone's price was initially outside of the market... Which explains why no one bought any iPhones. Huh? ...and AT&T as a launch partner was a really bad choice... Oh, geez, are you still on about that? ...and they've created some nasty product conflicts and made one ugly design choice in the latest iPod line. Do. Tell. The iPod Nano was the best looking product in the line prior to the refresh and now it looks chubby (even the Apple folks use that term to describe it) and competitively unattractive (though, in use it really is rather nice). Rob wants to hate the nano but having held one he can't. They've created a bad choice between their flagship iPod Touch and Classic products in that if you want capacity you can't have the cool new interface and if you want the cool new interface you can't get capacity and battery life (even according to Walt Mossberg) isn't very good (which means the Touch?s battery is also likely to fail relatively quickly). Well, let's just see how many iPods touch (that's the Macalope's preferred plural for the device) sell this holiday season, shall we, Rob? In their flagship all-in-one product the iMac, Gateway just brought out (you should see it in person) what appears to be a better designed and more advanced offering. The Gateway machine does look nice, if you liked the 20th Anniversary Mac. Now just hop in your car and head to Gateway Country and... Oh, that's right. Finally, there was an interesting move by Apple's top attorney who ran for Qualcomm after only a few months and was replaced by Oracle's top attorney who is likely the leading expert on getting CEOs out of really bad difficulties. This last suggests Apple is girding for war on the stock option scandal and that, at the very least, will be a rather substantial distraction. "Who is likely the leading expert on getting CEOs out of really bad difficulties"? What does that even mean? The fact of the matter is that Donald Rosenberg is an antitrust expert. He left Apple to join a company that is currently dealing with antitrust claims in the U.S. and Europe. Apple quickly hired a new attorney from Steve Jobs' buddy Larry Ellison. Jobs is not currently under investigation in the options scandal. It's funny that Rob can be so down on Apple and never once mention all the problems HP's executive team has had in the recent past. Maybe that's just how Inquiry Unicorns roll. Ride on, magic unicorn! Ride on.
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From Mac Classic to new Mini - an Awesome Mod
James Colby has created an awesome Mac mod. He had gutted a classic Mac, and replaced its inner working with an LCD display and a Mac Mini. He's using it for a Jukebox, but this could be your full blown Mac if you really wanted. He gives instructions in the article on 123macmini about how you can do this yourself: 1. Take one 17-year-old Mac Classic 2. Cut off front of CRT with diamond grinder to preserve full aesthetics of case. 3. Make custom mounts and air rams. 4. Modify front of Classic case to accept DVDs. Add hole for IR receiver. 5. Mount brand new 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini on rear of LCD unit. 6. Customize one ATX power supply. 7. Construct set of custom cables. 8. Add one USB to ATAPI adaptor for DVD drive. 9. Add extension connecters to existing holes in case rear: 2x USB, 1x HDMI, Ethernet, RCA audio 10. Mount power switch behind original side panel reset buttons. 11. Modify software so Mac Mini boots up into Front Row (disable Finder) and you have yourself a Classic Mini Jukebox. Simple! Sounds easy doesn't it? No, no it doesn't. It's not something I'll be trying anytime soon, but it is a pretty sweet mod.
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The 5 Best Ways to Entertain Your Kids With Your iPhone
As a father of three, I am frequently confronted with situations where I need to entertain them away from the comforts of my DVD equipped minivan and my toy-filled home. That’s why I turn to my trusty iPhone. And why not? It is so…
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FAQ on the anticipated iPhone software development kit
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, iPhone A couple of days ago, Steve Jobs wrote that Apple plans to introduce an iPhone (and P.S., also iPod touch) SDK by February. Concerns about viruses, malware, and privacy attacks will take time to address. Steve also confirms what iPhone programmers already found out through the back door: the iPhone really is the "best mobile platform ever for developers." The phrase "sweet solution" is notably and happily omitted from his letter. Since this announcement, I've been bombarded with questions, so I thought I'd put up a post to address some of the more common ones.Continue reading FAQ on the anticipated iPhone software development kitRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple raises price of Leopard Student Edition
When Tiger shipped, College students only had to pay $69 for it. That won't be the case when Leopard ships at the end of next week. Leopard will be setting them back $116, only $13 less than the retail price. The reason? Well, I can only speculate, but I would imagine that Apple sells A LOT of copies of Mac OSX through student outlets, and they decided to stop giving it away. Will some college students complain? I'm sure they will. If I was a college student I might…BUT…I'm not. from the Crunch Gear article: I seem to remember Tiger only costing $69 for college kids, kids who are notorious for spending the pennies they earn working at the campus library on beer and beer-related activities. As a student, I’d like to know what caused the price to shoot up by nearly 60 percent? Anybody else think he answered his own question? Apple wants your beer money.
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iTunes U Expands Curriculum
Apple is expanding the free educational content available on its online iTunes Store beyond lectures and videos from universities. Materials ranging from recordings of Supreme Court arguments and public radio broadcasts on the civil rights movement to video interviews with sculptor Richard Serra are among the offerings under a new category called "Beyond Campus." The section can be found within iTunes U, a free service which Apple has offered to universities since 2006 to distribute their course lectures or other digital content through the iTunes Store.
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iTunes U: Not just for universities anymore
Apple has added a new section to iTunes U that offers educational content that comes from outside academia. The Smithsonian Global Sound, the Museum of Modern Art, and Little Kids rock are just a few that have added content to "Beyond Campus."Read More...
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Apple's Growing Pains
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But we're part of the real-time transformation of Apple from the underdog to the leader. It's Rocky to Apollo. They both have their charm but they generate different types of fans. Michelle Quinn from LA Times wrote another story about this transformation. BusinessWeek looks at the growing pains from the perspective of servicing its customers. And I've said it here before. The amazing thing for fans of underdog or the hero is that we - all of us - get to help shape Apple's transformation. Apple hasn't pre-ordained its future. As it experiences these growing pains they are looking to us - its users and future users - to help it find it's way. I've spoken a lot about Apple being a great marketer. What we're seeing is Apple trying to become a great company. Keep sending those cards and letters. Apple - Steve Jobs in particular - reads them all.
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Forbes: Will Google crush the iPhone?
Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhoneDespite Google's close Apple ties, it looks more and more as if Google will announce its own mobile phone project as early as next week, according to Forbes. Google, which acquired mobile phone technology when it bought out Android in 2005, looks poised to create a smart, high-end handset to compete directly with iPhone. It's the iPhone's next-generation interactive technology and full quality data display (in Safari and mobile Mail) that really sets the device apart from the crowd. Will Google create a device competing head-to-head or will they continue their relationship with iPhone and focus on creating a separate ad-based information-rich platform?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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How-To Create a Cheap and Cheesy Horror Movie
The only thing more terrifying than your film is your budget.
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YouTube Find: Apple Ad - Which Computer is More Powerful?
This video is actually a collection of 4 ads from the late 1980s. The first one is an Apple ad. Apparently Apple was getting stomped power wise by other computers at the time. This ad asks the question, “Which computer is more powerful? The one with the best stats…or the one you actually want to use?” I mainly posted it for that wicked monitor. I want one of those. The other ads include the BMW 735i, Prestone, and Die Hard batteries.
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Informance shades give athletes a heads-up display
Filed under: Displays, Wearables For every gimmicky workout product that comes along like the push-up counter or talking grip master, there's also one such as the Nike+iPod or Entertrainer which actually seem to prove useful or motivational. Well you can add the upcoming Informance sunglasses from German lenscrafter Rodenstock to that list, which take your regular sports shades and tack on a tiny LED display that shows stopwatch or pulse data from a wirelessly-linked watch. Developed in cooperation with the UK's Cambridge Consultants, the display projects a 160 x 120 pixel image through a wedge-shaped prism, occupying 12% of the left eye's field of view in a reportedly unobtrusive manner when peering straight ahead. Look for actual products to hit the market sometime in 2009, for an estimated €700 to €1.000 ($990 to $1,400). Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Another FlickrExport 3 sneak peek: photosets
Filed under: iLife, Software, Internet ToolsFlickrExport is one of my must have Mac apps. This little plugin for iPhoto, or Aperture, makes it a breeze to export photos from iPhoto/Aperture to Flickr. Getting your photos on Flickr is only part of the joys that FlickrExport offers up, it also makes tagging your photos very easy (and this is coming from a lazy tagger).Fraser Speirs, the developer behind FlickrExport, has posted a sneak peek at Flickr Export 3 on the Connected Flow blog. This screencast shows off FlickrExport 3's advanced set creation abilities. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on this version of FlickrExport as I make tons of sets on Flickr, and this will save me lots of time.No shipping date has been announced for FlickrExport 3 and update details are not known, though you can get a license for FlickrExport 2 right now for iPhoto (£12), a lite version for Aperture (free), or Aperture (£12).Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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FFOSS (Freeware/Free & Open Source Software) Friday
AbiWord: Multi-Platform Word Processor Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:36:29 AbiWord 2.4.6 is a multi-platform Open Source word processor. I recall using it for a few months on a notebook running Microsoft Windows several years ago. I tried out an early version (1.0 beta release I believe) of OpenOffice.org and have not revisited AbiWord since then. It’s interesting that AbiWord is available for Windows and Mac OS X (as well as Linux) while the OpenOffice.org project still can’t figure out how to build a native Mac OS X version yet (even though the NeoOffice Project has a solution for them ready-to-go). Windows Live SkyDrive Grows from 512MB to 1GB Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:54:35 Windows Live SkyDrive (Microsoft really needs to come up with shorter product names) bumped up its online storage capacity from 512MB to 1GB. Um, ok, this is better. 5GB would be nicer though :-). According to the SkyDrive Team Blog, three other features were also just added. (1) RSS Feeds are now available for public folders. (2) You can share a file with someone by just typing in an email address (vs. selecting from a Hotmail address book). read more Jaiku Becomes a Google Site of the Lost Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:39:38 Google acquired the Twitter super-clone Jaiku. Jaiku is the twitter-like social network micro-blog presence (enough buzzwords yet???) web service. Like other sites before it acquired by Google, it will remain available to existing users but is essentially closed to new members. Google has developed a habit of buying great web services and then closing its doors for a long time. Remember the JotSpot wiki service? read more Findbyclick: User Contributed Map Locations Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:43:31 Findbyclick.com advertises itself as The easiest way to find interesting places, add new ones and share maps with your friends. But, most of the so-called interesting places seem to be Starbucks and Kinkos locations. Still, its an interesting idea. And, I suppose as more people contribute, we’ll see other, umm, interesting things located on its maps. Senuti 0.50 Beta 2: Copy Media Files from an iPod to a Mac Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:04:18 I mentioned recently that my Mac mini bit the dust. Although everything should be backed up to an external Firewire drive, I decided to get a second option for my iPod data just-in-case. Senuti 0.50 Beta 2 read more
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10.4: A simple way to copy the path to a file or folder
Here is a very quick method to find the path of a file or folder. Press Command-Option-Space to open an empty Spotlight Results window. Drag the file or folder whose path you'd like to copy to the Search box in the Spotlight Results window. Copy the resulting path. That's it.[robg adds: Works as described!]
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Deleting large files
You may have problems deleting large files. In my case, with OS X 10.3.9, I could not delete a 2.49 GB database file created by Entourage. It would cause a kernel crash, which can be very disheartening.The problem may be journaling, that useful file system tool that keeps your data relatively safe from major corruption. It turns out that it cannot handle large files. Turn journaling off temporarily by opening Disk Utility (normally in the Utilities sub-folder of the Applications folder). Select the partition on which the large file has been "trashed." Then, under File select the Disable Journaling item, or just type Command-J to disable it. If there is an Enable Journaling option under File instead of Disable Journaling, then journaling is not your problem, and this hint won't help.Return to the Finder and try emptying the Trash again. You can re-enable journaling by returning to Disk Utility, and sele...
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View info about files downloaded by Firefox
If you're a Firefox user, you probably know about its Downloads window (press Command-J to open it). But did you know that if you select one of your downloads in the window and press command-I, you can see where the file was downloaded from and where on your system it was downloaded to?Pretty simple, but useful.[robg adds: I had no idea this functionality was there, and there aren't any visible Command-I keyboard shortcuts in Firefox's menus with the Downloads window frontmost.]
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News: PDO intros aluminum cases for iPod classic, nano 3G
PDO has introduced its Aluminum V2 for iPod classic and Aluminum N3 for iPod nano (with video) cases, along with screen protectors for the new iPod line. Adapted from the fifth-generation iPod model, the Aluminum V2 for the iPod classic is made of aircraft grade aluminum, and features both screen and Click Wheel protection, neoprene interior lining, and cut-outs for access to the Dock Connector, headphone jack, and hold switch. It is available…
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EA finally ships Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Madden NFL 08
Well, they were supposed to ship in July. Some other EA titles shipped in August, and now, here in the latter part of October, EA is finally shipping Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 and Madden 08 for Mac according to MacNN. Both titles require Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later and a 1.83GHz Core Duo Processor, at least 1GB of RAM, a DVD-ROM drive and a Nvidia (7300 or better) or ATI (x1600 or better) graphics processor…Oh, and they are INTEL ONLY. So Power PCs need not apply. The games also note that they take information to provide online, in-game advertising. Yeah, you read that right. Frankly, this online in game advertising (which these games are not the first to do by a long shot) is an immediate deal breaker for me. If you're going to subject me to advertising, the damn thing better be free. You don't see us charging a subscription fee around here do you? If you want them, you can get them at the Apple store.
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Keep iPhone clean with iPhone Fingers
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Odds and ends, iPhoneWait, this is a joke, right? Our friends at Engadget reported on this crazy product with plenty of snark, but no actual "haha we're kidding this isn't really real" hints. So is it true? Can you really buy black latex "fingers" to keep from getting smudges on your iPhone? And if so, what's up with the weird ending to the video above? It starts off with Love Actually and ends in CSI.Personally, I'm calling shenanigans on the whole thing-- I've been using my iPhone for about a week now, and while my old Razr was covered in smudges and splotches by this point, the glass on my iPhone's front is clean as a whistle. A really clean whistle. Oh sure, there have been smudges-- nobody's perfect. But anything I've seen on there has been easy enough to wipe off with just a smooth cloth. It's impressive, really.Still, if you can't be too careful (and if these aren't fake, which I'm not convinced of), you can get 25 of them-- in small, medium, large, and Wozniak-- for just €9.90, or for €3, they'll send you five to try out. Because sometimes, even the iPhone needs "protection."Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Survey: iPhone taking bite out of other handsets
The latest survey from ChangeWave confirms that people are happy with their iPhones, and also suggests the iPhone is pinching business from other carriers and manufacturers.Read More...
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Two new OS X 10.5 polls posted - vote now!
New polls up! We're just over a week away from OS X 10.5's release, so I thought it might be interesting to see what your plans are relative to when you'll be buying it and how you'll be installing it.Spread the word; I think it would be interesting to get a large number of votes prior to the release (no registration required to vote) to get a sense of the community's plans. My plans? Well, I think I need to be running it ASAP (to test the hints, natch), and I typically always do clean installs of major OS releases.-rob.
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The 5 Things I’m most looking forward to in Leopard
So, Leopard is 7 days away. I can't wait. I had a chance to use Leopard shortly after WWDC this year and I really enjoyed the experience. I'm very much looking forward to having the final copy on my Macs come Oct. 26th. There are a lot of new features in Leopard…some big…some small. There are over 300, in fact - but I thought I would write up the 5 that I'm most looking forward to. I'm curious to know what your Top 5 are too, so please feel free to leave your Top 5 in the comments below, or post about them on your own blog, and leave us a link. 5. The Desktop While I don't really dig the semi-transparent menu bar, I love the look of the Dock, and I find Stacks to be incredibly useful. I am the world's worst about desktop clutter, and I cannot wait to have all of that automatically placed in my downloads stack, so I can get to it easily, without having to look at it on my desktop. The Spring-loaded Dock feature sounds interesting, but I'm already sold on Stacks and the new look of the Dock. 4. Auto Font Activation Yeah, I know…WHAT? It may sound stupid, but I'm a graphic artist too. I have over 4,000 fonts on my Mac, mainly because I get artwork from people sometimes that need one of those fonts. Do I use them? Hell no. I don't use 1,000 of them commonly, but it's nice to have them all there, so that when I do need one, I have it. What sucks is having to wade through all of them to get to the ones that I commonly use. With Auto Font Activation, I'll be able to disable about 3,000 fonts, that will only pop up if I need them in the future. That's AWESOME! 3. Dashcode I love Dashcode. You might remember this little video tutorial that I did a while back with the beta. At the time the beta didn't support the kind of hosting we are using for the podcast. The final version should have that corrected, and I'll be able to make an Apple Gazette Daily Widget. I'm looking forward to making all kinds of widgets and trying to really get into the Dashboard, which is something that I don't really use very often. 2. Multipage PDFs in Previews You know the thing that sucks the most about Adobe illustrator? The fact that you can't make multipage PDF documents with it. It's insane that you can't do that (and by the way, if someone can tell me how, I'd LOVE to know), but Preview for Leopard makes it so easy you won't believe it. It creates beautiful PDFs, and all you have to do is drag and drop your pages in. 1. The New Finder I HATE the Finder in Tiger. HATE. HATE. HATE it. The new Finder in Leopard is fantastic. I even found Coverflow to be extremely helpful when trying to find an image file that I had forgotten the name of (which happens to me a few times a week). The new Finder is, to me, the best innovation of Leopard, and the thing I'm looking forward to having the most on my machine.
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News: Analyst: iPhone AT&T's top selling device, #4 in US sales
Researchers for Strategy Analytics claim that the iPhone could become the best-selling handset in the US within the next six months. In addition, the handset has already become the best selling device for AT&T, according to reports. “The iPhone has become AT&T's top selling device, commanding some 13 per cent of AT&T's overall handset sales, and the fourth top selling handset in the US market,” said Barry Gilbert,…
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Videogames and the iPhone SDK
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Odds and ends, Apple, Developer, iPhoneNow this is what I like to see-- Wil Shipley's mind is already working overtime dreaming up fun stuff to do with the iPhone's SDK when it drops in February ("times nicely," he says, "with my being done with Delicious Library 2 and looking for something to do before I start on v3"). As good as a game like Battlefleet is (and it is good-- I finally got my iPhone last weekend, and I've been playing Battlefleet quite a bit), browser games aren't going to cut it. We need games that take advantage of that multitouch screen to track dynamic input, games that take advantage of the fact that we're carrying little computers capable of great graphics around in our pockets, and games that take advantage of the fact that these phones can network like no other.A platform like the iPhone was made for casual, persistent gaming. I want a little virtual pet in my iPhone, ready for me to take care of and level him up at a moment's notice, polished with quality and creativity. I want awesome little pick-up-and-play games that save my progress and track my stats. Shipley's idea of a virtual collectible card game, or the networking game in which "pets" on iPhones close to each other start fighting is perfect.I like what the iPhone devs have done so far-- the NES emulator was one of the first iPhone apps that really "caught on," and as soon as it can be done "legally," it probably will be. But this is a system that, if given the right software, could compete with the most popular handheld systems. Even the DS doesn't have multitouch. If the right folks have the right ideas and implement them the right way on the iPhone (and why wouldn't they?), this little gadget is going to become one of the best handheld software platforms (for gaming or anything else) ever made.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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News: iPod classic update causing disk-spinning bug?
A number of iPod classic owners are reporting an issue where their units' hard disk spins endlessly after applying the 1.0.2 update. The problem was first discovered by a group of users complaining of poor battery life, which is a result of the disk spinning and draining the battery in an abnormally quick fashion. Although the exact cause of the bug is still unknown, some users have found that turning off the device's Cover Flow feature…
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DragThing 5.9 with Leopard support and full dragabilty
Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Leopard DragThing, which could have my favorite Mac app name ever, is a launcher that will open up anything you (surprise!) drag to it, and can also work as a Dock alternative and a visual clipboard. The idea is that everything you need is just a click (or a hotkey press) away.And now, this thing has hit version 5.9, with full support for Leopard (an entire week early!), and a host of other updates. Actually I'm not sure how much a "host" is, but there's a lot-- a new look, icon reflections (optional, in case you don't want things too shiny), new themes, live previews, and the ability to insert and rearrange items in the Dock using just the eponymous dragging action. Very slick.DragThing is available over on the website-- a single license is $29, and you can get five and ten packs of licenses for $99 and $149. Trust me-- it's a real drag.[via DF]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Shareware Alternatives to Expensive Creative Suites: Web Design
Diving in to a site redesign? Is your Dreamweaver getting a little long in the tooth? You'll want to check out this week's featured HTML design tools - created exclusively for the Mac and with the... [read more at MacMerc.com]
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A Real Interview With Fake Steve Jobs
Since it was launched in the summer of 2006, "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" has fascinated Silicon Valley. Purportedly offering the innermost thoughts of the mercurial Apple chief executive, the Fake Steve Jobs blog is actually a viciously funny parody by Dan Lyons, a Forbes technology writer who lives in the Boston area. Lyons has never met the real Jobs, but he was having so much fun pretending to be him that he spun the idea into a short novel, "Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody," which goes on sale Monday.
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MacNotables #766: Adam & Tonya Engst on Producing the TidBITS Podcast, the iPhone in France, the iPod touch and More
Adam and Tonya Engst talk about their foray into the world of podcasting and some of the lessons learned along the way, comment on the most recent iPhone announcements including the unlocked iPhones to be sold in France, the February arrival date of a Software Developers Kit and a new view of why “official” third party development may decrease unlocking hacks. The Macintosh Power Couple talk about why the iPod touch didn't measure up for them, what they want from AT&T to become iPhone owners, the obsession with iPhone news, production vs. consumption on the Macintosh and why Tonya is channeling Columbo. Tonya Engst Adam Engst Chuck Joiner Links: TidBITS podcast RSS link iPod touch Take Control of Troubleshooting Your iPhone by Ted Landau Take Control of Upgrading to Leopard: Early-Bird Edition by Joe Kissell Take Control Style Guide
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Mac OS Ken: 10.19.2007
O2 â Limiting the Unlimited / Class-Action Suit Over iPod Storage Capacity / Apple Posts First Support Docs for Leopard / College Bookstores Offer Best Deals for Students and Leopard / Apple Takes iTunes U Beyond Campus / iJailBreak Updated to 1.0.3 / Vermont City Cannot Buy iTunes / An Interview with Victor Cajao of the Typical Mac User Podcast
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Getting Ready For Apple Week
Today, I'm under the gun to deliver a presentation and some analysis reports to a client, so I'm just going to point readers at a few interesting bits in Apple (AAPL) news instead of writing any detailed analysis.
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★ Let the Tea Leaf Reading Begin
The best thing about being an Apple observer is that even when the company does make a long-awaited announcement, it inevitably leads to new questions regarding what exactly they mean. Apple punditry is the Kremlinology of the tech world. So it is with this week’s announcement from Steve Jobs1 that, yes, “We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.” We now know two new things: (1) that there will be “native third party applications on the iPhone”; and (2) that the SDK is scheduled for February. That leaves a long list of questions. Whither Widgets? For one: What exactly is a “native third party application”? The obvious answer is the sort of UIKit-based Cocoa-ish applications that underground iPhone hackers have been creating over the last two months — the exact sort of native apps that Apple has itself already written for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For all we know at this point, though, it could be something more like Dashboard widgets — but I think that’s unlikely. Jobs wrote: > With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful > hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we > have created the best mobile platform ever for developers. JavaScript, HTML, and CSS are cool in that they’re widely-used, widely-known coding standards — but they’re not a good way to create user experiences that take full advantage of the iPhone, and would be pretty hard for Apple to pass off as an SDK for “native apps”. Third party developers want access to the same dog food Apple’s own iPhone engineers are eating. Plus, there’s the issue of performance. Iconfactory developer Craig Hockenberry, who has been tinkering with the unofficial iPhone developer tools to create an iPhone-native version of Twitterrific, wrote a splendid weblog entry titled “Benchmarking in Your Pants” regarding the lackluster performance of JavaScript code running in MobileSafari compared to compiled Objective-C code running in a native iPhone app. Function calls, for example, were 226 times slower in JavaScript. (Hockenberry also benchmarked JavaScript running on the iPhone compared to the same code running in Safari on an Intel-based iMac; the code ran about 80 times faster on the iMac.) Back in January at the iPhone’s introduction in the Macworld Expo keynote, Jobs described some of the apps on the iPhone, including Weather and Stocks, as “widgets”. My somewhat-informed understanding is that Apple’s original plan was for the iPhone to ship with its major apps written in Cocoa and with a handful of smaller apps written as Dashboard-style HTML/CSS/JavaScript widgets — but that this plan was scuttled for performance reasons, and the Weather and Stocks widgets2 were rewritten as UIKit Objective-C apps sometime this spring.3 My guess is that they ran into what Hockenberry documented: JavaScript on the current iPhone just isn’t fast enough to provide an iPhone-caliber user experience. So my money is that the iPhone SDK that Apple plans to release this winter is the real thing — Cocoa-style UIKit apps written in Objective-C. Security? Jobs wrote: It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target. External security — the threat of vulnerabilities that would allow malfeasants to compromise a victim’s iPhone — is a serious matter. There have already been several published exploits against the iPhone, including an as-of-this-writing open vulnerability in TIFF-processing code in the current iPhone OS. So clearly there is some merit to Jobs’s stated security concerns. As it stands in the current iPhone OS, all processes run as the root user; in broad layman’s terms, any process has access to everything else on the phone. So when a buffer overflow can be exploited to allow remote code execution, that code can do anything. To allow third-party iPhone apps to run today would be to trust those third-party developers not to write code with any security flaws. What the iPhone needs before Apple will allow third-party apps to run is some sort of sandbox, a way to prevent application processes from being able to access things they shouldn’t be allowed to access. But iPhone Cocoa apps are no more inherently susceptible to buffer overflow vulnerabilities than Mac Cocoa apps. And the hysteria over the iPhone’s current “everything runs as root” situation is overblown.4 Applications on your Mac don’t run as the root; they run under your user account. But all of your data — your email, your address book, your documents, everything your apps can read or write without administrator authentication — is vulnerable to any sort of hypothetical buffer overflow exploit on the Mac, and would be on the iPhone, too, even if iPhone apps didn’t all run as root. Sure, root privileges allow an exploit to do anything, but the most important thing on your system is your personal data, and an exploit doesn’t need root privileges to access that. I’m thinking Apple is more concerned about internal security — about having third-party apps limited to a sandbox so that user-installed code has no access to things like, say, the phone network modem’s firmware (the component that you need to diddle with to create SIM unlocks). That’s the key difference between the iPhone and the Mac, security-wise. Which Third-Party Developers? Mac OS X is pretty much completely open to development; even the developer tools are free, and anyone is free to write whatever software they want for the Mac. It seems unlikely that iPhone OS X development is going to be like that. One possibility is that the iPhone SDK will only be available to developers with ADC Select ($499) or Premiere ($3,499) accounts. (Premier and Select ADC members are the only ones with access to pre-release Mac OS X seeds, for example.) If that’s the case, it’s not going to be popular with hobbyist developers, but most professional Mac developers already have paid ADC memberships, and, let’s face it, we all know most iPhone apps are going to be written by Mac developers. Interviewed via email, Craig Hockenberry told me, “If there’s a simple way to get third party apps on the iPhone, you keep 90 percent of the developers happy and jailbreak/unlock has much less momentum. Sure, there will still be people that want to ‘buck the system’ but they’ll be in the minority rather than the majority.” The most intriguing part of Jobs’s announcement was this section, regarding security: Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,â€? we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs. It’s hard not to interpret the scare quotes around “totally open” as a reference to Nokia’s recent “Open to Anything” ad campaign — sort of a you guys aren’t completely open either call-out. This seems like a pretty clear indication that Apple is working on a similar signing system for iPhone apps. Restricting development to paid ADC members would instantly allow Apple to associate app signatures “back to a known developer”. Here’s more information from Nokia on the signing program Jobs mentioned; here’s similar information on the Symbian site. Which Apps? Another question is whether Apple is going to allow participating (trusted-by-Apple) developers to write whatever apps they want, signing the apps themselves, or if apps will need to be approved case-by-case by Apple before being signed. Mac OS X Leopard includes a new “application signing” feature, described by Apple thusly: A digital signature on an application verifies its identity and ensures its integrity. All applications shipped with Leopard are signed by Apple, and third-party software developers can also sign their applications. That same page describes a “sandboxing” feature that seems applicable to the iPhone, too: Sandboxing prevents hackers from hijacking applications to run their own code by making sure applications only do what they’re intended to do. It restricts an application’s file access, network access, and ability to launch other applications.” The prototypical example of a potentially popular app that Apple might refuse to approve would be a VOIP app like, say, Skype, in that it would undermine the need for the phone network, which in turn undermines Apple’s revenue sharing with the iPhone’s exclusive network partners. Or, say, instant messaging, the omission of which from the current iPhone is seen by many as a concession to the fact that heavy SMS users pay handsomely for extra monthly messages. (Personally, I suspect iChat for iPhone simply didn’t make the cut for 1.0 but is planned for a future update.) “Nokia’s model is to run as trusted/untrusted,” said Hockenberry. “Trusted apps get to access more than untrusted ones. This model could be extended to allow different levels of access based upon whatever Apple wants (as owner of the root certificate.) Basic access for Wi-Fi, extended access for EDGE, hardware access for deep pockets, etc.” That makes sense, and strikes me as a likely course for Apple. Development There’s a question, then, of how developers will write the apps in the first place. If iPhones only run third-party apps that have been approved by Apple, how do you develop an application in the first place before it’s been approved? Steven Frank — who, as co-founder of Panic and an unrepentant gadget hound, may well be the single most interested person in the world in a supported iPhone SDK — described to me via email the development process for the Danger Hiptop/Sidekick: “The Hiptop/Sidekick platform has a Java SDK that abstracts away all the low-level hardware stuff so you can’t touch it, while still providing everything you need to write an application.  You test and debug in an emulator/virtual machine that can simulate edge conditions like loss of cellular network availability and so on.  When you’re almost done, and ready to try on real hardware, you apply for a ‘developer key’, which is a small certificate that you install on the phone that enables you to run third-party apps that didn’t come from the on-device for-purchase catalog.  To get the developer key, you have to prove to them you actually have an almost complete app, and aren’t just some kid who wants hot Yung Joc ringtones by submitting a build of your application.  You also have to sign a waiver that says you are no longer eligible for support from your cellular carrier.” The iTunes App Store? Which leaves us with the question of distribution and installation. The obvious route is the same one Apple has taken with iPod games: the iTunes Store. Apple, in this case, would likely get a cut of every sale. From a user’s perspective, it’d be easy and obvious: shop and pay for apps in iTunes, and iTunes takes care of installing the software, and, perhaps, synching data. This is similar to the Danger model — where apps must be approved, and can be sold only through the official channel. Limiting, to be sure, but as Frank put it, “The process [of developing for Danger] is somewhat tedious, but still an order of magnitude better than not allowing third-party applications, period.” Frank also pointed out the most glaring downside of Danger’s pay-to-play development model: “One drawback to this approach from the user’s perspective is that there is basically no free third-party software. Everything costs at least a couple bucks.” The announcement appeared on Apple’s Hot News web page, but with no permalink, so it’s likely to disappear from Apple’s web site in a week or two as newer items appear. I’ve saved a plain text copy here for posterity. ↩ I wonder if the Calculator app was originally a widget, too. UI-wise, it’d certainly be a cinch, because just like with the iPhone’s Weather and Stocks apps, it more or less looks and acts exactly like the corresponding widget in Mac OS X. So my theory is that when Apple made the decision to rewrite the iPhone widgets as native iPhone Cocoa apps, they used the widgets as the specs for the apps. “Make a native app that looks and acts exactly like this widget,” more or less. One thing that makes me think this is that the iPhone Calculator app doesn’t make any sounds when you press the buttons. Pure JavaScript/HTML widgets can’t make sounds when you click or tap buttons. I find typing on the iPhone keyboard to be much more satisfying with the sound on; with the sound off, because the keys are virtual, there’s no sensory feedback at all. The Calculator app would feel more real if it simply made the same button-clicking noises as the iPhone keyboard. ↩ That this change was — I believe — made rather late in the game might explain why vestigial references to “widgets” remained in the shipping iPhone 1.0 software. (It could also mean, of course, that Apple plans to re-expose this feature at some point in the future.) ↩ It certainly is a curious question why all iPhone apps run as root. I don’t know the answer. But I’ll bet there’s an interesting engineering trade-off involved somewhere. If you think the reason is laziness or ignorance on the part of the iPhone OS X engineers, you’re an idiot. ↩
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Strange Bedfellows
I have been asleep, apparently, at the big switch. This is according to former Harvard Business Review editor (and technology pundit in his own right) Nicholas Carr, who said as much this week in his very nice blog, Rough Type (look to your right, it's in the links). The opportunity I've missed, according to Carr, is explaining what the heck Apple and Google (or is it Google and Apple?) are actually doing together. With Google CEO Eric Schmidt sitting on the Apple board they must be up to something, those guys, and Carr was counting on me to 'splain it, only he ran out of patience. So in my absence Carr blurts out his truth, that Apple is the king of all interfaces and will shortly sell cheap devices uniquely suited to accessing the huge Google Brain wherein all knowledge and even some humor will be stored, ready to be served up complete with ads or perhaps for a monthly subscription. And thus will the world be changed. Oh, if it were only that simple. Here, thanks to Carr's quote of a quote, is what we have to work with. When Wired's Fred Vogelstein asked Schmidt why he had joined the Apple board, this was the Google CEO's answer: "Google's architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We're a perfect back end to the problems that they're trying to solve. And they have very good judgment on user interface and people. They don't have this supercomputer I'm talking about, which is the data centers." You can see how easy it is, then, to gin up a strategy whereby each company plays to its strength. Google handles the back end and Apple the front end. Google runs the macrocomputer while Apple supplies the microcomputer. But instead of taking this easy way out, let's run to the other side of the room to get a longer view of this relationship. If we do we'll see that it is actually quite classical in its form. I wrote many years ago that the best start-ups are composed of symbiotic combinations of hippies and nerds. Hippies have the grand vision while nerds mind the details. Each is less without the other. Think of Jobs and Woz in 1976 and now Jobs and Schmidt (or, more properly, Apple and Google) in 2007. Apple is driven by design, which is entirely subjective, even emotional, while Google is driven by the almighty algorithm, which is only following orders. So why haven't we seen the fruit of this cooperation? Other than placing Google in the first position on the Safari search bar, there doesn't seem to be all that much Google yet in Apple's work. And I challenge anyone to find evidence of the hand of Apple in anything now coming from the Googleplex. Maybe these things just take time. Or maybe (obviously I think this is a LOT more likely) Eric Schmidt has never before had to deal with anyone as brilliant and vexing as Steve Jobs. Look at Schmidt's background. He went pretty much straight from academia to becoming an early employee of Sun Microsystems, where he grew up with the company and became a star. Then Schmidt went to Novell, an established and dysfunctional company in crisis, and failed miserably. Now he's at Google and again a star. What can we learn from these earlier experiences that will help us predict what comes next? Plenty. Eric Schmidt succeeded at Sun because everyone else there cam