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WWDC '08: Interview with Todd Ditchendorf
Filed under: Software, WWDC, Developer
Kicking off our WWDC 2008 interview series is a chat with Todd Ditchendorf, developer of Fluid. We caught up with Todd shortly after the Keynote and offered him a penny for his thoughts. We covered thoughts on the iPhone, Mobile Me, the future of Fluid and more. The interview took place before our last post on Fluid was written, so there's no mention of the Safari 4.0 seed that was distributed shortly after. Video after the jump.
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Firefox 3 release date announced: June 17
Filed under: Software, Internet

Mozilla announced Wednesday that it plans to release the final version of Firefox 3 on Tuesday, June 17, less than a week away

"After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we're proud to announce that we're ready," Mozilla said in a post on its Developer Center blog.

You can help Mozilla meet its goal of breaking the Guinness World Record on June 17th, becoming the most downloaded software in a single day. Over one million people have pledged so far to download the software in the first 24 hours it's available.

In related news, Mozilla also published Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 on Wednesday.There was one fix, and it was for Mac users on 10.5.3 -- a correction for unkillable hangs related to the VerifiedDownload plugin. Glad they got that cleared up!
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Hivelogic Enkoder is back and better than ever
Filed under: Software
The talented Dan Benjamin brings us Enkoder 4.0, a nifty utility that allows you to create JavaScript links to your email address that scavenging robots have a hard time reading, thus (hopefully) reducing your amount of spam.

Of course, as Benjamin notes, there is no perfect way to prevent spam altogether. Even so, using tools like this, especially on behalf of your clients, can make you look like a hero.

The code ("kode"?) it generates appears to be more robust than prior versions as well, with every character in the email address very well obfuscated. With the old version, I could pick out three or four characters in a pattern that looked vaguely like the email address, but this one generates code that's practically unreadable. In a good way.

One nit-picky problem with this 4.0 release is the tab order of the fields, which I'm sure can be corrected in a snap. Enkoder fields even save your prior entries so you can quickly re-use them later.

The technology behind Enkoder is also available as a web form, if you prefer.

Enkoder is donationware, and works with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
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AirPort Utility 5.3.2 available for Leopard
Filed under: Airport, Software Update

Apple has released AirPort Utility 5.3.2 for Leopard. According to the release notes, the package includes AirPort Base Station Update 2008-002, and applies general fixes and compatibility updates for AirPort Utility and AirPort Base Station Agent.

The update is available via Software Update, or from Apple Support Downloads.

Thanks everyone who sent this in!
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What does "ad hoc" app distribution mean for users?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
In the din of announcements from WWDC on Monday, one of the underreported features for iPhone apps is "ad hoc" app distribution: registering up to 100 iPhones, and distributing your apps yourself.
Macworld's John Welch has a good overview of Ad Hoc and enterprise distribution, and what it means for IT departments. "[H]aving your applications distributed from your own servers on your own network just makes sense," he writes. "It makes security issues simpler, saves on external bandwidth usage, and simplifies the process of adding, updating, and removing applications."

Webmonkey, on the other hand, completely missed this part of the keynote, writing a review of the App Store that omits the ad hoc distribution plan and calls the App Store's exclusivity "yuck." Plus, it neglects to mention the still-thriving jailbreak community, and the legions of Installer.app users.

Ad hoc distribution means great things for proprietary apps for teams, classrooms, and large organizations. Sure, a 100-client limit might be a little small, and it remains to be seen how clients will be certified (that is, if you have to connect to the Mothership).

Do you plan on using ad hoc or enterprise distribution for your organization? Sound off in comments.
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New iPhone SDK build shows video playlists, portrait-mode playback
Filed under: iPhone

An anonymous tipster sent us a short video showing new capabilities of the iPhone 2.0 software. ~~It's a little hard to see around his building's attractive fluorescent lighting, but hopefully you get the gist.~~

It appears that videos will be easily playable in portrait or landscape orientations, using data from the iPhone's accelerometer. (Though it's been possible to play embedded QuickTime videos through Safari in the vertical orientation since firmware version 1.1.1.)

Also, mercifully, it looks like video playlists are in our future.

Update: The video has been updated with a far less glarey version. Thanks, anonymous tipster friend!
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Snow Leopard might not be the best code name
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, OS, Apple, Leopard, Apple History
The great Mental Floss blog actually did the research on something that occurred to me as soon as Steve said "Snow Leopard" during the keynote -- naming an OS after a cat "sometimes known as the ounce" might not be the best idea.

File this stuff in the "didja know" column: snow leopards aren't actually leopards -- they're actually closer in family to cheetahs, which means that the new OS might be a little closer to Aqua than we're all comfortable with. Also, they're pretty timid -- not only can they not roar (so new audio features in the OS are out), they're known to hide behind their fuzzy tails. We'll put it this way: you wouldn't exactly want to call your football team The Snow Leopards, so we're not quite sure why Steve decided to use the moniker.

Finally, the weirdest tie here is that the snow leopard as a symbol is already taken -- by the Girl Scouts of Kyrgyzstan. Of course, Steve's naming capabilities haven't really been up to snuff lately, and maybe he just didn't want to go with Cougar -- even though Apple owns it, they may not have been ready to take on all the connotations associated with that particular nomenclature. Then again, maybe this will be good for the snow leopard's image -- after seeing all these pictures of cool cats, if you feel you'd like to help them out, we're sure the Snow Leopard Trust would be happy to hear from you.
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Survey: 70% of all iPhone Apps May be Free
Filed under: WWDC, Developer, iPhone
Yes, you read that headline right. According to a survey of developers conducted this week at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, and highlighted over at Apple Insider, many of the potential applications being developed for the iPhone will have an average cost of $3.00 or under -- and many others may be completely free. The survey, conducted by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster right after the Steve Jobs Keynote on Monday, revealed some other interesting information besides potential application pricing.

The survey also found that 50% of the developers plan on building applications only for the iPhone while the other 50% were going to make application for the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and for Macs as well. In addition, Munster found that many developers were also authoring what he called "Enterprise apps" as well as entertainment apps, location-based apps which take advantage of the iPhone's GPS capabilities and video games.

According to Munster: "We see this as a positive indicator of the potential for Enterprise adoption of the iPhone. We found the average cost of iPhone apps on the App Store to be $2.29, with 71% being free." So, if you love the iPhone or iPod Touch and plan on putting lots of applications on them, if the survey proves correct, this is good news for you.
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Firefox 3 under the hood
Filed under: Software, Internet
Firefox developer Josh Aas has an interesting technical discussion about what's new in Firefox 3 for Mac OS X. Chiefly, he talks about Gecko 1.9, the updated rendering engine for Firefox 3.

The most significant change, he notes, is that Gecko 1.9 is now written in Cocoa instead of Carbon. Also, Gecko 1.9 uses Core Graphics and ATSUI instead of QuickDraw. QuickDraw is deprecated and the writing is on the wall for Carbon, so moving to newer APIs was a priority for the Gecko team.

Firefox 3 release candidate 2 3 is available in over 45 languages. Mozilla has not yet announced when the final release of Firefox 3 will be available.

Update: 6:00 p.m.: Release Candidate 3 is now available due to a bug related to Mac OS X 10.5.3. Check out the Macworld story for more details.
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Safari 'carpet bombing' attack code in the wild
Filed under: Internet, Security
The Safari "carpet bombing" blended-threat vulnerability discovered in May could be more dangerous for Windows users with exploit code available online.
Mac users are not affected by the threat.

The exploit takes advantage of the fact that the Desktop is Safari's default download location. Pair that with a flaw in Internet Explorer that allows files of a particular name to be automatically run, and you have a situation where Safari downloads a file and IE runs it.

InfoWorld notes that the source code and demo were posted on Sunday. Apple, so far, has not commented on the InfoWorld story, and has no plans to alter Safari. Since downloading to the Desktop is Safari's only involvement in the threat, there doesn't appear to be any problem to correct.

Microsoft's problem, on the other hand, has to do with automatically running files that just happened to be named something IE cares about, which Microsoft has known about since 2006. Microsoft has not commented on the story either, but their suggestion is still to avoid using Safari for Windows.
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Widget Watch: iPhone 3G Day
Filed under: Widget Watch, iPhone
It was bound to happen, and Matthew Raskin was the first (to my knowledge) to do it. That's right, Matthew whipped up a widget that counts down to iPhone 3G day: July 11th.

That's about all this widget does, but I'm sure lots of people are aching to know exactly how long they have to wait until they can get their hands on a new iPhone.
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