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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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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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Examining the Battery/AC Performance Gap on MacBooks and MacBook Pros
Back in the dark ages, when I used to have a Toshiba laptop, I would always remove the battery when running off of AC power, out of what may have been misguided superstition. I was told, and I fervently believed, that doing so would extend the life of my battery considerably by reducing the total number of cycles. When I got a MacBook, I just stopped the curious practice cold turkey. I didn’t have a reason for it at the time, but it looks like I was right to do so, as users are reporting significant drops in performance on Apple notebooks with the battery removed.

This issue is getting a lot of virtual ink around the blogosphere. Most of the scuttlebutt is actually misleading, too. ZDnet blogs, the Apple Gazette, and TrustedReviews all feature articles that reference the problem as affecting new model MacBooks and MacBook Pros, which is true, but only tells half the story. In fact, the issue is not limited to the aluminum and glass model machines. Gearlog, who ran the tests, doesn’t mention any limit to the models affected, and the Apple Support article officially noting and explaining the issue is actually dated from before the release of the new notebooks, so it must reference previous models as well.
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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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iPhone Remote: Your Mac in Your iPhone
Not to be confused with Apple’s Remote app for iTunes, iPhone Remote is an application for Mac OS X that puts the contents of your Mac within easy reach of your iPhone or iPod touch. With iPhone Remote, your Mac is in your iPhone.

Developed by Telekinesis, the folks behind the ubiquitous Quicksilver, iPhone Remote brings VNC-like funtionalities to the iPhone and iPod touch.

The front-end of iPhone Remote is the web browser. Simply type the IP address provided by the iPhone Remote service running on your Mac into Safari on your device and you will be greeted with a page of icons. You can bookmark this page and add it to the Home Screen.
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BDEmailer: This App Doesn't Do What You Think it Does

Engadget, Gizmodo, and 9 to 5 Mac seem to be puzzled about an app called BDEmailer, and why it’s allowed on the App Store. I think this is because they’re giving the app more credit than it’s due.

Engadget says Apple “violates its own policies” because the app’s SMTP feature “duplicates an exact function of Apple’s Mail application on the iPhone and touch.” I disagree. The product’s own demo video states that if “there’s more than two [email addresses] it will send them to Apple’s Mail, the SMT[P] only sends one address at a time.” That’s hardly a duplicate of Mail’s send feature.

Gizmodo says Apple’s app store policies are a “crap shoot.” This may very well be true, but I’m not sure you could prove it by this app. They want to know “just what the hell is going on.” Well, what’s going on is this: BDEmailer is an enhancement to Apple’s Mail, and there are already plenty of those on the app store (e.g., Easy Mail, TouchType).

9 to 5 Mac says the app “goes up against Apple’s own email app,” which is the furthest from the truth because this app relies on Apple’s Mail app.

In addition to SMTP, I believe some confusion stems from the app’s write-up in the app store. It talks so much about what you can do, it can give the impression it’s a Mail replacement. But it does not receive mail, and the limited sending is obviously an issue. Bottom line is that while this Mail enhancer seems more extensive than others — which duplicate some of BDEmailer’s features — it’s still just a Mail add-on, not a replacement.

Finally, none of this is meant to judge the app itself, or its potential usefulness as a Mail helper. This is not a review; I leave it to readers to use the app or read existing app store reviews and make their own determination. I’m simply responding to articles questioning why Apple did not disallow this app from the Store.

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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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