Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (16 сообщений)

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  • BluePhoneElite 2 leaves beta
    For a long while I've been a fan of BluePhoneElite - a nifty piece of software that allows call (and SMS) management via your Mac if you own a phone that the software supported. For well over a year now, the next version of BPE has been in testing and finally now available for public consumption. So, what's new? Features include:
    • You can use your Mac as a a Bluetooth hands-free device,
    • Phone to computer call-log syncing,
    • Symbian and Windows Mobile support
    Before we go any further, be aware that the feature set of BPE is dependent on a supported handset and so your mileage may vary depending on the phone you own (sadly, the iPhone doesn't support most of BluePhoneElite's features). That said, I love the ability to send SMSes from the comfort of my MacBook Pro (and Aluminum Keyboard) and coupled with things such as Talk-thru (Bluetooth hands free) this is looking to be a pretty sweet update.

    BluePhoneElite 2 is a free upgrade to previously registered customers, whilst a new licence costs $24.95. If you're unsure your phone is supported, or simply want to give the software a whirl, a 14-day demo is available from the Mira Software site.
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  • An overview of Leopard for developers

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    If you haven't seen this roundup yet, Matt Gemmell's huge list of everything Leopard can do for developers is pretty amazing. It's a bit on the technical side, but worry not-- about 1/4 of the way down the page you'll think that this is a list only for developers, and if you keep scrolling you'll start to see that (somewhere around the "HUD windows" part) Apple has broken open almost all of their interfaces to developers of all makes and models. Everything from menus to date formatting is updated in Leopard's developer applications, and there's lots of "freebies" that will make even smaller programs better-- icons and images, an image editor, and a built-in grammar checker can all be easily implemented in any Leopard apps.

    As hot as this operating system is (and yes, despite the problems that folks are having with it), the really good stuff is yet to come. When talented programmers and designers get their hands on these tools, then we'll really see why it's so great to be a Mac user.

    Thanks, Tony!
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  • iPhone or Newton?

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    Many readers of TUAW have probably only bought Apple gear with the monochromatic Apple logo we have all come to know and love, but Apple's original (ok, second) logo was a little more colorful. Those of us who have been around the Mac for awhile have a warm place in our hearts for the multihued 'classic' Apple logo, and it would see that Mark at Geektechnique has that soft spot.

    Mark got his hands on an iPhone with a slightly cracked faceplate, so he did what any self respecting hardware hacker would do: painted it black and added an Apple logo from an old Apple Extended Keyboard he had around. The results, which you can see above or on his blog, are striking and harken back to Apple's first handheld computer.

    [via MAKE]
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  • New iPod touch ad was created by student, reuses Zune tune

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    As many, many readers noted, a new iPod touch ad appeared on TV over the weekend, and Apple has now posted it on their site. There's a long story behind this one that I hadn't heard yet, it would seem that the ad is a product of TBWA/Chiat/Day, just like most of Apple's ads, but the idea actually came from an 18-year-old English guy named Nick Haley. Nick created the ad (his original cut is above) back in September as a homage to Apple's new iPod, and it looks like someone in Cupertino noticed (or at least someone on Madison Avenue).

    This might be old news to most of you, but I hadn't heard it and it's a good story. Apple has a reputation for getting their advertising from other sources, and it's nice to see them acknowledge an ad that came from someone who really loves their products.

    Special thanks to reader running for figuring this one out for us: the song used in the ad is actually the same one used in this super weird Zune ad from last year. Even when Apple is completely upfront about the origin of their ad, they can't seem to keep from colliding with competitors in the same space.

    Update: Calling it the iTouch was completely accidental, and I apologize. You guys are right-- it's the iPod touch, and I'm sorry for mistaking it. I guess the word was sitting in my brain and just wanted to come out.
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  • NBC exec slams iTunes revenues/business model

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    The ongoing NBC Universal v. iTunes slap-fight has just become well, more slap happy. As reported in Daily Variety, Jeff Zucker (the President and CEO of NBC Universal), revealed some of the details of the NBC/iTunes impasse in an interview with the New Yorker's Ken Auletta.

    Some of the highlights:
    • In the last year, NBC U reported only $15 million in revenue from the deal with iTunes
    • NBC U programming accounted for 40% of iTunes video sales
    • NBC did want to experiment with higher pricing, albeit for only one show and on an experimental basis, but Apple refused.
    • NBC U also wanted a cut of Apple's hardware sales (presumably iPods) to supplement revenues from the iTunes Music Store.
    I'm sure it was just a coincidence that these remarks were given on the day of the launch of the Hulu.com beta, NBC's attempt to answer iTunes.

    Issues of profit sharing and price flexibility aside (I'll refrain from sharing my own opinions regarding those issues), the conclusion I find most interesting in this saga is that Zucker's figures (along with figures Apple has reported in the past) back up what many analysts have been saying all along: demand for television content via iTunes is pretty underwhelming. Think about it, NBC says they made only $15 million in revenue off of media sold via iTunes last year; even in the softening TV on DVD market (where the cost per episode is on average, the same, for the consumer), that's peanuts compared to retail revenues of those same shows.

    Additionally, if NBC represents 40% of all iTunes video sales, and assuming that the other media companies have a similar revenue split agreement with Apple, that would put total revenues by the content providers for the video/TV sector of the iTMS at approximately $38 million. Strictly looking at the situation in those terms, I can understand why media companies might be reticent to offer up their programming on iTunes. I mean, really, what's the point? If the content is going to be essentially given away, web-based services like Hulu make a lot more sense.
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  • iPhone Hacks: Running out of Application space on your iPhone or touch?

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    Both the iPhone and the iPod touch include relatively limited space on the OS partition (the part of your iPhone's memory that stores the operating system and associated files). It's where Apple, by default, adds its factory-installed Applications but you can save space by installing your Apps on the Media partition instead (that's the part of your your touch or phone that contains your iTunes musics and videos). Here's how:

    Your iPhone or iPod touch knows about a folder called "/Widgets". Any Application installed into /Widgets gets recognized and loaded into SpringBoard, just like any app in /Applications. You can fool your iPod or iPhone into thinking you've added a Widgets folder by creating a symbolic link between your media partition and /Widgets.

    To do this, you create a folder in your root directory called Applications, or more specifically, /var/root/Applications. You can then add a "symbolic link", a kind of alias, that connects /Widgets with /var/root/Applications. If you install my Erica Utilities and the BSD subsystem, you can create and remove this link by running my xwidg utility.

    At this time this is a command-line only operation, however, if you have ssh installed on your system and connect from your computer, just issue the following command: ~/bin/xwidg. The utility looks for an existing symbolic link. If it finds one it removes it, if it does not it creates it. So running xwidg repeatedly just toggles the connection on and off. After each update, it restarts SpringBoard so it reflects the updated link.

    The downside is some Applications use absolute paths in their code: Labyrinth and Crossy are two prime examples (They should be using NSBundle calls but that's a completely different matter). Most Applications will run as happily in /Widgets via /var/root/Applications as they will in /Applications and you will save yourself a lot of OS partition space.

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  • T-Mobile posts iPhone rates for Germany

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    Für allen Sie Deustchen readers out there, here's some timely news from TUAW reader F. Duane. T-Mobile has posted its monthly iPhone pricing. Plans start at €49 for 100 minutes per month and 40 SMS up to €89 for 1000 monthly minutes and 300 SMS. Yikes, that sounds expensive. Let me remind you guys that T-Mobile Germany allows you to send SMS messages for free using their phonenumber@t-d1-sms.de address.

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  • Removing .DS_Store files from archives

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    The marvelous Shaun T. Erickson tipped me off on a sweet way to remove .DS_Store files from your folders before you archive them. Those are the "invisible" files added by Finder on your Mac. He writes that it doesn't matter whether you zip or tar: if they are in the directory tree, they get picked up by the archive. He suggests running the following command from terminal, substituting the appropriate directory for "your_dir":

    find your_dir -type f -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm

    After, just tar or zip up your tree.

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  • Check out Check Off for a simple to do list

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    Check OffCheck Off is a free little tool that sits discreetly in your menu bar and pops open with a single click to display a basic to do list. I wasn't a big fan of Tiger's native to do list so I started using this a few months ago and it's been a pretty handy little app. Though it looks like Apple finally got its act together by incorporating a to do list into Mail.app, but I don't think I'll give up Check Off entirely since its bare bones functionality has come in rather handy sometimes.

    Check Off is mainly for jotting down quick notes on tasks you need to complete so don't expect it to do a lot of heavy lifting. If you just need something to keep you on track or are looking for another way to send a to do list to your iPod, though, then Check Off is just the thing. It's also somewhat tweakable -- you can drag and drop to sort folders, color-code your entries, and attach notes to each to do, if you're so inclined. Version 3.7 has just been released with Leopard compatibility and a few bug fixes.

    [Thanks Justin!]
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  • Leopard Love: "Go To" in TextEdit

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    TextEdit doesn't get much love. BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, and so forth grab the spotlight and all the attention. But I'm a TextEdit gal. I love the Emacs-like support and the price tag. For years now, I've resorted to Lorax's textextras to get "go to line". It's critical when you're debugging and you need to check out, for example, line 572.

    Enter Leopard. A new standard option in TextEdit allows you to select by line using the same Command-L, I've been using for years. You don't have to use the mouse. Type Command-L, the line number, and and press return.

    Sure, the error message for a bad line number is geeky ("Out of bounds line specification") but who cares? Line jump! Joy!

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  • Woz on iPhone and Leopard

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    Laptop Magazine has posted a nice long interview with the Woz about all things Apple from Leopard, to iPhone to, well, laptops. It looks like Woz is looking forward to using Leopard and supports third-party iPhone apps. He says, "[I] am really for the unlockers, the rebels trying to make it free. I'd really like it to be open to new applications. I'd like to install some nice games. Why in the world can I not install a ringtone that I've made?"

    We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Rock on, Woz.

    Thanks to John Coxon

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  • Leopard: Should you upgrade?

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    Last night, during our weekly podcast, we ended up having quite the heated discussion about whether people should upgrade to Leopard now or not. In the end, we pretty much all ended up agreeing that many people should not. Here are a few of the points brought up.

    If you have only one computer and it's your production machine, don't upgrade. The 10.5 upgrade is a big one--not a small update, not a few bug fixes. Lots of stuff gets broken and if you need to keep getting your work done, just wait. Let a few dot releases ease things out.

    If you work with Adobe software and need your software to work reliably, don't upgrade. Apple didn't get its gold master out to third party developers in time for the upgrade path to proceed smoothly. Everything was rush, rush, rush. Developers simply did not have the time to work with the final product and make sure their apps would be compatible. If you need Acrobat (and I do) or In Design, you need Tiger. Don't upgrade to Leopard.

    If you work with Windows, don't upgrade. Windows networking isn't working so good, according to several of our panelists who need to connect to Win machines on a regular basis.

    If you have a lot of system customizations, don't upgrade. Many customizer tools like APE (application enhancer) are broken with the Leopard upgrade. You can do a clean Leopard install but you probably don't want to upgrade at this time.

    So what do you do if you really want to give Leopard a spin? I recommend dual booting. Keep your Tiger installation now for the real work and add a Leopard partition to play.

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  • Confirmed: Jailbreak/AppSnapp fixes TIFF Exploit hole in iPhone Safari

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    For everyone worried about malicious TIFF exploits, you might want to take a few seconds and re-read those jailbreak features listed on the AppSnapp page. See number 6? Not only does the team jailbreak your phone, add Installer.app and fix YouTube, but they also repair patch Safari's TIFF exploit hole. Yes, you read that right. These amazing hackers have done Apple a huge favor and fixed the very same exploit they used to jailbreak.

    For those of you asking about unactivated phones, if you use the Safari access trick I posted about a few weeks ago, you will even activate your iPhone and bypass the whole "connect to iTunes" screen.

    Is it possible to love these guys any more?

    Thanks to Nicholas "Drudge" Penree.

    Update: If you have already jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch and want to patch Safari, head over to Installer.app and look under 1.1.1 Tweaks.

    Update 2: Just a reminder that the jailbreak is due in large part to the efforts of "rezn"

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  • iPhone 101: Will jailbreak unlock my iPhone?

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    You've heard about the one-touch jailbreak exploit. You think it's something you might want to try, but then you worry: what about iBricks? Will the jailbreak unlock my phone? Fear not. Jailbreaking reassigns the root of the iPhone's file tree. It in no way affects your iPhone's telephony functions or baseband/modem areas. Once jailbroken, you can run any of the unlocking applications but jailbreaking itself has nothing to do with unlocking. If you want to un-jailbreak, just restore your phone. It will not affect your upgrade path the way the older unlocks did.

    And what about iPod touches? Will the next firmware upgrade turn it into a brick? Almost certainly not. And if you're worried, just restore your touch to a pristine state before you upgrade.

    Thanks to everyone who wrote in to ask.

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  • iPhone 101: You've got iPhone or iPod touch jailbreak! What next?

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    You've run the TIFF exploit jailbreak and your iPhone or iPod touch now has Installer.app on your main page. So now what? Here are some tips and ideas for you.

    Add Community Sources. Most third party applications are found under Community Sources in Installer.app. Until you add this feature, you won't see most of the dozens and dozens of available applications from repositories like SMXY and Conceited Software.

    Try out some great apps. My personal favorites include my own Voice Notes recorder (for iPhone only), Apollo IM instant messaging client, and Mobile Colloquy for irc. There are productivity apps, games, and utilities, all available for your mobile device.

    Add direct file access. Install the BSD subsystem and (in Community Sources) Open SSH (both from NerveGas). Once you've installed ssh, you can use any sftp client to transfer files onto and off of your unit. On the Mac, you can also install MacFuse and sshfs to gain Finder access to your units. Remember that the new iPhone and iPod touch 1.1.1 password is "alpine", not "dottie". Many GUI sftp clients may not see the entire directory tree. In this case, you may want to enable afc2.

    Know when things go wrong. The latest Installer.app has been hammered by new users. If you get a "package" error when trying to install, just do a re-install. You may need to uninstall first, depending on the progress when things failed. If you touch an app icon and it launches, pauses and quits, make sure you've installed the BSD subsystem. Failing to install BSD is the number one reason most app launches fail.

    Know about restoring. If you ever change your mind about a jailbreak, just restore your iPhone or iPod touch using iTunes. Assuming you haven't unlocked, your iPhone or touch will be identical to one shipped from a factory.

    When things slow down A number of people have reported system slow-downs after jailbreaking. Unfortunately, a roughly equal number have reported the same problem without jailbreaking. If this happens to you, just restore your iPhone or touch and re-jailbreak.

    OMG, OMG, OMG restore failed This isn't that uncommon. Try restoring again once or twice. If iTunes fails to see the iPod or iPhone, google for iphuc dfu mode.

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  • Instant Jailbreak for iPhone and iPod touch

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    A crew of hackers (including hdm/metasploit, rezn, dinopio, drudge, kroo, pumpkin, davidc, dunham, and NerveGas) have introduced a one-touch instant jailbreak for both iPhone and iPod touch. The jailbreak opens your iPhone for full disk access and installs Installer.app so you can add pretty much any third party application you like.

    To use it, open Safari and point your browser to jailbreakme.com (which we aren't linking to so folks won't install this by accident, but you are prompted to confirm). Once there, read the directions, scroll to the bottom, and tap Install AppSnapp. If Safari disappears and you return to the main Home screen, you're good. Just wait a minute more for your unit to restart--don't touch anything until you see the slide to unlock screen. If Safari hangs, just quit out (press and hold Home for 4-8 seconds) and try again.

    Once you get to slide-to-unlock, go ahead and unlock your iPhone or iPod touch. You'll return to your home screen which will contain a new Installer.app icon. If you'll want to ssh into your unit, install the BSD subsystem, Community Sources, and then install Open SSH--you may need to upgrade Installer.app (thanks Ste). With Open SSH and sshfs (part of Mac Fuse), you can open Finder windows that offer direct drag and drop access to your phone or touch.

    The jailbreak really is as easy as it sounds. I restored my iPod touch and jailbroke it just a few minutes ago and it worked great.

    UPDATE: Please try to do this using WiFi rather than EDGE. Success rates are much higher!

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