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TheAppleBlog
TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Secure iPhone Browsing
If you’re a security nut, browsing at a public hotspot can be like showering in a public bathroom. You might have no other option, depending on your circumstances, but you’re bound to feel a little creeped out and you’d probably rather have some flip flops on. Think of Hotspot Shield as flip-flops for your computer. And now for your iPhone, too.

AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield for computers installs a client on your desktop or notebook that sets up a virtual private network, helping to ensure that you stay anonymous and secure while browsing. Hotspot Shield for iPhone employs the same concept, minus the client, allowing you to browse securely from your mobile device.

I’ve used Hotspot Shield with my MacBook before, and found little cause for complaint. There are some hiccups when streaming large media, and an ad is displayed at the top of your window, though Hotspot Shield itself is free.
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Mac of All Trades II: Return of the Mac
It’s time for some more alchemy involving your beloved laptop or desktop companion. Just like last time, we’ll look at a few different apps that allow your Mac to perform some unusual tricks. That Apple is far from a one-trick pony, so forget about boring old internet browsing/photo and video editing/word processing. Prepare to add a “daddy” to the end of your Mac, and show all your friends just how cool you are. This batch will really help you “Bond” with your computer.

Saltwater Aquarium

Nothing says “international man/woman of mystery” like a saltwater fish tank. Whether you’re plotting to destroy the world, or just aiming to become a master of seduction, your lair should definitely house Finding Nemo and his buddies. Real aquariums are expensive and hard to maintain, but your Mac has you covered.

I know it has been around for a while, and it might not be the most useful software on the planet, but I still can’t get enough of SereneScreen’s Marine Aquarium. It comes in both pay and free editions, with the free version lacking the fish variety and customizability of the paid-for software. I set it up on my 32-inch LCD TV and let it run while working or entertaining.
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Final Vinyl Makes Sound Routing and Recording Surprisingly Simple
Being a big fan of my Griffin radioSHARK I was disappointed when the developers dismissed all plans on cranking out an HD Radio version of the device. Given the extensive source tagging in the digital stream, they could have integrated both recording to iTunes and purchasing from iTunes with little effort.

Still wanting to experience HD Radio as inexpensively as possible, I recently purchased a Sony XDR-F1HD HD Radio Tuner and, despite owning every cable known to human-kind, I lacked the RCA-male-to-3.5mm-female cable required to directly connect the tuner to my desktop speakers. Not wanting to trudge down to the family room to hook it up to the stereo for testing, I got out my trusty Griffin iMic but did not want to crank up anything as complex as Garage Band just to do listen to the radio. While I could have used something like Audacity, that program is overkill for the task I wanted to perform.
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Apple Pushing Green Notebooks in Ad Campaign
With their latest lineup of products, Apple is pushing the new environmental features in an aggressive way. Rightly so, they are proud of their achievement — going from a heavily criticized Mac and iPod lineup a few years ago, to a set of very environmentally friendly products today.

Their environment page states, albeit in a typically corporate way, a commitment to creating ‘green’ gadgets:

Apple recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually striving to reduce the environmental impact of the work we do and the products we create.

The new U.S. ad campaign was launched on Monday night, and is coupled with a new page on the Apple site providing more environmental information. Not only is it the first TV spot Apple has released heralding environmental progress with their products, but it marks the start of any major campaign for the new MacBook lineup.
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Black Friday for Apple Fans
On Tuesday, Apple sent out emails reminding everyone that the “best shopping event of the year” is coming up in the United States this Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally referred to as “Black Friday” by retailers.

Past Black Friday deals at the Apple Store have been limited to modest ($50 to $100) discounts on computers. Special pricing should be available in the online store and in retail stores around the U.S.. No word yet on what Apple plans, but we will post an update here as soon as the announcement is made. In the mean time, here are some other sales going on this week for the holiday shopping season.

Best Buy is having a sale on Apple gear through Wednesday, November 26. These deals to get $50 to $150 off a new Mac are available online and in retail stores. You can check the story on AppleInsider to get all the details.

MacMall is also running two sets of promotions — a Thanksgiving Blowout Sale and a 3 Day Black Friday Sale.

If you’re having trouble deciding where to shop, MacRumors has put together a nice chart showing the best discounts on Macs between the two sites.

If you’re shopping for discounts on accessories for your Mac or iPod, check out the great web site, bfads.net for searchable listings and scans of all the major retailers. For example, check out these hard drive, printer, and digital camera deals. Online, newegg.com and Amazon.com are having some great sales too.

If you know of other great deals, please share links in the comments below.

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Smartphones and Wi-Fi: Why This Should No Longer Be An Option
I was surprised when I first learned that the Blackberry Storm would not have Wi-Fi. This was especially surprising to me since the other recent new Blackbery, the Bold, does have Wi-Fi.

It seems more and more of the upper-tier smartphones include this feature, and it got me wondering if it should be a feature a potential user should insist on. For me it definitely is.

Keep in mind that if you think Wi-Fi as just a high-speed data pipe, then I believe you're underrating what Wi-Fi can do for your device. Here is why I'd insist on Wi-Fi in what, let's face it, are hand-held computers that happen to make phone calls.
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Nimbuzz: Free Multi-Service Messaging/VoIP Client for the iPhone
I have to admit, I paid 15 bucks for Beejive Messenger for the iPhone and haven’t looked back since. That said, I realize that not everyone has the budget or inclination to spend that much money on a mobile messaging app, nor should you have to. Free clients are also available, and the newest addition to the list is Nimbuzz! That’s not me getting really excited, there’s an exclamation mark in the product name. Not that I’m unfazed by Nimbuzz! either. The app supports all major messaging (text and voice) clients, and VoIP protocols as well, including Skype, so that’s promising.

At first, I mistakenly inferred from the app description that it supports only Wi-Fi connections. Not so. For voice chat and VoIP functions, you must have a Wi-Fi connection, probably to comply with carrier-imposed limitations, but for text chat, 3G and EDGE are fine. Like Palringo, Nimbuzz! requires you to sign up for a master account, but the process is relatively painless. You can do it from within the application, and the only information required is your desired username, password, and a valid email address. Nimbuzz! uses the account to store your saved services, so you can sign in to the PC and web versions with a single login and access all your IM networks.
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Handbrake 0.9.3 Brings New Video Sources

The video encoding and transcoding tool, Handbrake has been updated to 0.9.3. This latest release brings a number of substantial changes to this excellent video utility.

The two most fundamental changes make Handbrake more flexible and also more limited. First flexibility — Handbrake will now accept many different video sources and does far more than just DVDs. The second change is that DVD decrypting has been completely decoupled from Handbrake and you’ll need another app to do perform that step in the conversion process. This version has a number of other improvements for Mac, Apple TV, and iPod users. Read the release notes to get a full list of changes.

Video Cornucopia

Just in time to help us deal with our grief at the passing of Techspansion and its seminal video converter, Visual Hub, Handbrake now has the ability to convert all sorts of different source material to H.264 or MPEG4 video. This potentially allows Handbrake to transcode AVI video from digital cameras and other such files. This new flexibility comes as a benefit of incorporating the libavcodec and libavformat libraries from the FFmpeg project. Unfortunately, the AVI file from a Canon P&S camera I used to test this on resulted in great looking video with a bunch of static in the audio track.
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Laptop: The Computer to Have in a Power Blackout
One of the reasons I’m a die-hard laptop aficionado is that I live in a rural area where power blackouts are not uncommon. Late November usually brings at least one with the arrival of the first major winter storm. This year proved no exception, with a major gale roaring in off the Atlantic last Friday evening.

I was prepared, but by the time I went to bed, although the lights had flickered a couple of times, the power was still on, and I was beginning to be a tiny bit optimistic that we would dodge this bullet. No such luck. I woke up around 4 AM, and the wind was screaming. Gusts had been forecast to about 45 MPH, but I would estimate we were getting more like 60 MPH sustained for about half an hour, at which point the lights died. I called the power utility and went back to bed.
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Why Make a Good App When You Can Just Pay People to Say You Did?
While annoying, the tactic of offering your app for free for a limited time prior to making people pay for it at least has the nice benefit of allowing a number of customers to actually get the software without paying for it. App Store manipulation hit a new low, recently when someone went a step further: paying people for high review scores.

Yes, in a frightening new low for Apple’s iPhone software distribution system, Wired is reporting that the developer of Santa Live, a Christmas-themed application aimed at children, seems to have been offering $4 in exchange for every 5-star review posted by people who download the $1.99 app. Since the Santa Live folks would be losing money in the deal, the obvious goal is to fix the ratings to encourage unwitting downloaders to fork over real, non-reimbursed cash.

The offer was listed on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and has since been taken down. Luckily, a TUAW reader snagged the screenshot above to preserve evidence of the shady move. The Turk listing even describes a sneaky secret code system by which plant reviewers can identify themselves without drawing undue attention, by including an extended, five-period ellipsis (…..) somewhere in their review. Six of the 22 reviews for the app at the time of this writing contain the code.
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Shields Up! Twelve Security Holes Fixed by New iPhone/iPod touch Firmware
Weldon did a phenomenal job covering the visible and functional changes in the iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 firmware release. If you are holding off on the update, or just haven’t gotten to it yet, you may want to pencil in some time with iTunes as there are a twelve security fixes in this firmware release, each of which leaves your device and/or data vulnerable to attack.
- CVE-2008-4228 & CVE-2008-4229 & CVE-2008-4230 – Passcode Lock – iPhone provides the ability to make an emergency call when locked. Currently, an emergency call may be placed to any number. A person with physical access to an iPhone may take advantage of this feature to place arbitrary calls which are charged to the iPhone owner. This update addresses the issue by restricting emergency calls to a limited set of phone numbers. Also, a person with physical access to the device had the ability (under certain circumstances) to launch applications without the passcode and if an SMS message arrived while the emergency call screen was visible, the entire SMS message would have been displayed, even if the “Show SMS Preview” preference was set to “OFF”.
- CVE-2008-2327 & CVE-2008-1586 – ImageIO – Viewing a TIFF image that was crafted to take advantage of poorly coded compression libraries could lead to attackers running any code they choose (i.e. arbitrary code execution) on your system or cause system instability/force a reset (Denial of Serivce/DoS)
- CVE-2008-2321 – CoreGraphics – Very similar to the ImageIO problem, this involves attackers using a specially crafted web site to achieve the same results
- CVE-2008-4227 – Networking – Your PPTP VPN connections may not be as strongly encrypted as they should be
- CVE-2008-4211 – Office Viewer – If you view Excel files on your device, you are susceptible to arbitrary code execution or DoS attacks
- CVE-2008-4231 & CVE-2008-4232 & CVE-2008-4233 – Safari – Nasty HTML TABLES (and, when are HTML TABLES not nasty?) and insidious IFRAMEs lead the list of Safari problems, but a particularly tricky bug regarding phone calls you did not deliberately make is now fixed by Apple properly dismissing Safari’s call approval dialogs when an application is being launched via Safari.
- CVE-2008-3644 – WebKit – Even if you were a good web programmer and disabled autocomplete on “sensitive” form fields, Mobile Safari may still have saved that field data in the browser page cache. Individuals with physical access to the device could pretty easily gain access to that information.
Organizations that allow iPhones to be used for business purposes should do their best to ensure all users are upgraded as soon as possible. Individuals should take note of the reduced security posture prior to the 2.2 firmware and make their own risk-based decisions (but upgrading gets you the cool new Street View, so go ahead and upgrade now!).

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Profile of an iPhone User: Interesting Statistics About Yourself

As a mobile device, the iPhone crosses several different user groups. From business users to media junkies, a wide range of people use the iPhone in a variety of different ways. The App Store is fueling this variation even further on account of the huge array of different applications available.

A few pieces of research have been conducted that give an interesting glimpse into the profile of iPhone users, and the main activities they choose to perform with their device. This post will summarize a few different results and draw some interesting comparisons between the uses of an iPhone compared to other mobile phones.
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How the iPhone Should Have Made the Blackberry Storm Launch Easier

There have been a lot of reviews lately regarding the new Blackberry Storm. I summarized a few myself, but things haven’t improved much. While there are some bright spots, the overall tone of the reviews is that the Storm is a disappointment.

Still, as a Blackberry on the Verizon network I suspect it'll do fine regardless. Instead of dwelling on the reviews, I want to disagree with comments I've read that say RIM should be cut some slack because it's a 1.0 product, which makes it the same as the iPhone's initial release.

No, not at all. RIM had it easy.

From the moment it was announced, while Apple faithful may have believed, most outlets spent time mocking the iPhone. Greasy screen! Fingerprints! Car crashes because you can't drive and text at the same time! Won't be able to dial in bright sunlight! And on and on. Most of them were kind of silly, and a few were downright asinine.

People's memories can be short, so let's go back in time and look at what Apple had to overcome with the iPhone.
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Using Preview's Enhanced Photo Editing Tools

For basic photo editing, if you’re running OS X 10.5 Leopard you don’t need Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator. Leopard’s Preview graphics viewer application is much more than a viewer; it now incorporates some very handy image correction tools that are not only user-friendly and intuitive to use, but also work really well.

Consequently, if you take digital photos or scan transparencies or prints onto your computer and want to optimize them, you may not need a traditional image editor application at all. Preview can do the job for you.
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Boxee is Back On Apple TV 2.3
And there was much rejoicing! I noted in my Apple TV 2.3 article that the latest Apple update broke boxee, but now the official boxee blog explains that they have got it working again. It took a little longer to get the USB Creator updated to work with Apple TV 2.3, but you can find the instructions on the boxee blog to make a patchstick installer that makes the whole process as simple as pulling the cord, plugging in the patchstick that you made, plugging the power back in, waiting, and then rebooting.

Some other things to be aware of…
New remote behavior:
- long “select” switches between now playing and ui
- long “menu” takes you home
- back on login screen takes you out
Known caveat: with the update to 2.3, Apple broke a few things, one being the ability of the app to consistently appear in the foreground. Until this is figured out, if you run boxee, and get a black screen, you need to back out of boxee by clicking menu on the remote, and try launching boxee again.
Apparently Scott and Stephan are working on this last bit to kill the black screen bug dead for good.

I like the new features in Apple TV 2.3, but I missed having access to boxee after I upgraded the other day. I’m was having minor issues with boxee and Hulu. Playback gets just a little bit jittery at times. I’m hoping the upcoming releases will help improve this situation.

Also, as a side note on boxee, the boxee team just released the results of a user survey they conducted to determine which media sources to add to boxee next. You can read all about the results on their blog. Personally, I’d be thrilled if they can deliver half of the sources on their list. Pandora on Apple TV would be amazing.

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Customizing Your Mac: Wallpaper Fun
The desktop wallpaper on your Mac is something that you may not pay a great deal of attention to. If so, you might be missing out on a great way to create a personal look and feel for your computer, revel in stunning photography, or even re-create the feeling of being somewhere thousands of miles away from your desk.

In this post on customizing your Mac I’ll be looking at a some sources of beautiful wallpaper, investigating a few of the effects and features pre-built into OS X, and showcasing two pieces of software for revolutionizing your desktop.
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GymGoal Lite: Trainer App and More for Those Who Need It
When embarking on a fitness regimen, it helps to have a goal. It also might help to have GymGoal Lite, a personal trainer app for the iPhone and iPod touch. GymGoal Lite puts a massive workout encyclopedia in the palm of your hand, allowing you to control and customize every aspect of your gym-based fitness routine.

GymGoal Lite's home screen is divided into Workouts and Exercises. Each section contains subcategories, and both offer you the ability to assign favorites. The bottom of the screen is occupied by the "Tip of the day" field, which provides useful tidbits of information about either keeping fit, or building muscle. From the home screen, you can also access various fitness-related calculators, and an online glossary of workouts housed at GymGoal.com.

In the Workouts section, you can either find a pre-set workout by selecting from a variety of criteria, including type of equipment and difficulty, or you can choose one from your favorites or history. Each workout can be copied so that you can have a basic template to work from when creating your own custom routine. Once a workout is selected, you can view its subsets and select individual exercises from a list to view more info.

Exercises can be found using the useful Body Map, which allows you to pick specific muscles or muscle groups from an anatomical drawing of the human body. It's definitely a nice feature for those who know what they want to work out but don't necessarily know its name. Alternatively, you can search by name, or select from a list of all exercises arranged in alphabetical owner. Unfortunately, you can't add custom exercises to GymGoal Light, but the included library is extensive.

The calculators included in the app are a nice addition to the basic personal trainer functions. GymGoal Light allows you to calculate your maximum single repetition, body mass index (BMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), body fat percentage, and track your weight history. You'll have to do the measurements yourself, of course, but all the math is taken care of. Your weight history is displayed only as a simple list, and the lack of even a simple graph takes away from the feature.

This app has a lot of nice features for beginner to moderate users. The body map exercise locator is a great help if you're not sure exactly what you're looking for, and the calculators allow you to monitor your fitness in a number of useful ways. At $4.99, it's a little on the pricey side for this category of app, but its unique feature set make it worth the money for users with very specific needs.

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Testosterone for the iPhone: iPump Total Body
Anything that makes going to the gym easier has to be a good thing, right? The iPhone might be just the kick in the gym shorts you need, depending on how you equip it. iPump Total Body aims to provide you with a pocket-size personal trainer, via an iPhone app that allows you to plan and log your workouts.

PumpOne, makers of iPump Total Body, have a clear interest in promoting the iPump brand on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. There are no less than 16 apps bearing the iPump name currently available in the app store. Since iPump Total Body claims to provide a more balanced approach, I thought it the best candidate for review. I couldn't help but wonder whether PumpOne might've spread themselves too thin with so many apps.

Total Body provides 4 levels of pre-set workouts, each intended to be a step up in intensity. An individual workout is basically a rich-media slide show, combining pictures, audio, and video to guide you. I opted for Level 1: Foundation, for my trial, since I was intimated by all the pictures scattered throughout of intimidating hardbodies.

Level 1 is broken down into a four-week cycle, and each workout is meant to be prefaced by a 5-minut cardio warm up of your choosing. The workout features 10 exercises, spread out over a variety of body areas such chest, legs, abs, and back. Individual exercises feature photographs of models demonstrating the workout, along with detailed text instructions. You swipe to move to the next exercise, and at the end you can press "Complete" to log the workout. Rotating the iPhone enables landscape view, in which the photos are displayed, with the text instructions overlaid when you tap the screen.

Truth be told, I was not very impressed by iPump Total Body. The information was useful, yes, but it was presented in a drab way that feels canned and doesn't, in my opinion, take advantage of the unique characteristics of the iPhone/iPod touch platform. I also didn't once find an exercise that had a video demonstration. Finally, it was incredibly annoying that I couldn't customize workouts according to my preference, which is going to be a deal-breaker for more advanced users. At $2.99, you probably want to skip this one unless you really need the reference material.

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Count Those Calories With LIVESTRONG.COM
It's been a chart-topper for a little while now, so I decided to check out LIVESTRONG.COM's Calorie Tracker. I have to admit, I was a little put off by the use of all-caps in the app's name, but I suppose it's primarily meant as a promotional tool for "LIVESTRONG.COM", and if aggressive branding is the price you pay for an otherwise free app, it's no big deal.

I was greeted with another minor nuisance when I opened the app for the first time, since I was prompted to sign up for a LIVESTRONG.COM account in order to use the Calorie Tracker. Registration grumbles aside, once signed up I began to see why the app had climbed to such heights in the iTunes rankings. Calorie Tracker does much more than its name implies, and actually combines the functionality of a number of other apps in the same category.

First, the app does indeed track calories. At the "My Plate" or home screen you can see your progress towards you daily calorie total, as established by your height, weight, activity level, and weight loss/gain/maintenance goal, which you enter when you set up your account. The progress bar is calculated based on foods you've eaten and exercise you've done over the course of the day. Foods and exercises logged are displayed underneath the calorie tracker.

The app also provides weight monitoring, charting your progress towards your goal. You can see your graph in the "My Weight" screen, accessible through the bottom nav bar. Each day you can return to the app and enter your current weight, accurate up to one decimal point.

Calorie Tracker provides two more functions as well: nutritional and workout information. For both, you can search for items using LIVESTRONG.COM's online database. From your search results, you can choose an item, review its details, and select the one that most accurately reflect the food you actually ate or exercise you actually performed.

LIVESTRONG.COM's Calorie Tracker app has a lot going for it. It combines the functionality of a lot of other individual applications, provides access to a large database of foods and exercises that is constantly being updated by users, and presents all of this in a package that is pleasing and user friendly. Still, it has its downsides as well. You must register for an account, something I'm really tired of doing for iPhone apps, and the app places annoying calls home to update information far too regularly. Also, if you're not able to connect to any network, you're out of luck, as none of the information is stored locally. While I can see how useful this is for people looking for an all-in-one solution, it will never have a permanent place on my home page because of usability issues.

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Peer Inside That Burger With Restaurant Nutrition
Have you ever been curious about what's in that burger you're about to bite in to? In general, I'd probably rather not know, but if you're watching your waistline or concerned about the possibility of potentially serious medical problems, Restaurant Nutrition for the iPhone (FREE) could be the app for you. It provides nutritional information for 37 popular American restaurant chains, allowing you to browse a list of menu items from each.

The sheer volume of information stored in this app (which is kept locally, so network connectivity is not required) might seem intimidating, but good organization and accessible design makes it a simple and easy to use program. Upon launch, you're asked to enter a user name, which can optionally be linked to an online account at the Personal Health Record online site. Linking your account can allow you to tie your information to a prescribed diet and health plan. Don't worry if you don't have a thePHRnetwork.com account, you can still use Restaurant Nutrition in standalone mode.

Clicking on any restaurant's name brings up a list of general categories specific to each chain. For example, McDonald's list contains things like "Beverages," "Breakfast," and "Sandwiches," but not "Appetizers," which you can find under "Chili's" and other more sit-down type restaurants. Once in the "Sandwiches" sub-menu, I quickly navigated to the Quarter Pounder with Cheese entry, since that's always been my go-to Mickey Dee's burger. I was actually expecting far worse. The number of "Calories from Fat" was the most terror-inspiring figure.

From this screen, you can adjust the quantity of items to multiply the informational totals. You can also record the mean using two buttons at the bottom of the screen, specifying that you ate this either today or on a past date, and the meals are then recorded in the log attached to your profile. You can access your history from the button in the upper left corner of the home screen or from the bookmark icon on the bottom navigation bar. It's organized by date, and lists the nutritional information for every food item you recorded for that day.

Overall, it's a handy app, especially if you eat a lot while traveling or just love fast (and medium-paced) food. There's multi-user support, and the item database is regularly maintained. You can download updates from within the app through the settings screen. Of course, it only tells half the story, since it only tracks the food you eat at the restaurants listed. If you're concerned about your chain restaurant eating habits, this is good download, especially since it's free, but if you want the total package, Restaurant Nutrition alone won't cut it.

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