Last week all hell broke loose. An Apple iPhone developer went digging in his phone, and found several lines of code referring to “phoning home”.
The code linked to an Apple URL that contained a blacklist. This blacklist is at the heart of a lot of outrage over even more “big brother” involvement by Apple.
Today, Steve Jobs went on record admitting the kill switch, and explaining that Apple had no other option. The app blacklist feature was designed so rogue apps could be killed by Apple, if they started displaying bad behavior, like hacking into your contact list or sending your personal information to a third party.
Of course, Apples claim that they had no other option seems pretty bogus to me; Windows Mobile has done without this for years, and it has never been an issue. But then again, Windows Mobile users can install whatever they want, from any source, without having to go through an official Apple sanctioned repository of applications.
The funny thing, is that the iPhone has had access to applications since last year, albeit through an unofficial source; installer.app. Despite 100’s of applications being uploaded to installer.app without any third party controls, there have been no incidents of rogue apps.
On Blackberry devices, things are even tighter; but everything stays under the command of the device owner. The Blackberry application firewall controls every aspect of an application. When you install an app, you can allow or disallow anything from interaction with the phone book, to outgoing connections.
But once again, Apple shows it doesn’t trust its users, and implements something akin to parental controls on the cable box. It’s your phone, with applications YOU paid for, but they still want a little bit of control over what you do. Add that to the DRM already in place on these apps, and the DRM on your music and videos, plus a very vague and restrictive NDA for developers, and you’ll understand why many iPhone owners are not as happy as they were with the first iPhone.
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Several days ago, a “developer”, loaded a $999.99 application onto the Apple iPhone app store. He called it “I am rich”, and it was supposed to be for anyone who wanted to show off just how rich and impressive they are. Apparently, the ability to waste $1000 on an application that does nothing more than show a red orb is a good way to show how loaded you are.
So far, so bad. The app has already been pulled by Apple, but not until some idiot actually thought it might be funny to click the “buy now” button, just to see what would happen.
Of course, most people know about the Apple 1-click system, where, as the name implies, you click once, and the purchase is completed.
Needless to say, the system worked perfectly, and the guy got his $1000 useless app downloaded directly to his iPhone. Now he’s trying to find a way to wiggle his way out of it. Good luck with that.
Via Valleywag
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It had to happen sooner or later, I’m bringing you more insane news about the Apple iPhone. This news is a little different though, and might bring a smile to the face of anyone who has been trying to get their hands on the new iPhone in the past weeks.
For some reason, Amazon.com has the new phone listed on their site, despite not actually being one of the 2 distribution partners of the phone, or actually having any in stock. It could have been an overenthusiastic developer, or just a way to get even more traffic to their site.
There were already some rumors out there of Apple adding multiple resellers over time (including Radio Shack), so perhaps this is a sign that something will change when Apple is finally able to produce enough of them to go around.
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It has been less than three weeks since the new iPhone app store opened its doors. Apple envisioned the app store as a place where developers could sell their programs and iPhone users could buy stuff without the usual hassle most Windows and Blackberry customers have to go through.
Of course, the app store also wraps the applications in the Apple Fairplay DRM, which was intended to restrict people pirating iPhone apps.
As of today, all those restrictions are meaningless, because creative minds have once again found themselves one step ahead of Apple.
There are currently 2 ways to “re-use” an application; one involves using iTunes to copy the app onto another iPhone, just like music can be copied onto multiple iPods. The second method is more complicated, and actually involves removing the DRM completely. The first app to be shared with the community is the hugely popular “Super Monkey Ball”. Of course, the target iPhone has to be “jailbroken” and you’ll need to perform a couple of magic tricks to actually copy it onto the device.
It was inevitable, yet I’m sure it will be a disappointment to developers that their stuff has been hacked so quickly. I’m sure many of them will be sending their Apple contacts a nasty email this afternoon once they see their (no longer) DRM protected apps pop up all over the web.
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When Apple announced their new MobileMe service at the June 2008 keynote, it was said to be “Exchange for the rest of us”. But that description has vanished from all Apple sites.
I’m guessing that Microsoft was not too thrilled having their product name associated with something as unreliable as MobileMe.
People are claiming MobileMe has been the worst ever Apple product introduction. Clearly, those people were not around for the Newton, Pippin, Mac Cube and countless other flopped Apple products. There WAS a time when Apple did not make products like the iPod and iPhone.
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We are now on day 5 of the iPhone madness, and it appears that Apple is having some major issues keeping the thing in stock.
None of the AT&T stores in my area have received any new shipments since their initial batch, and I’ve been hearing similar reports from others. One even heard that Apple told them not to hold their breath waiting for a new box of iPhones and that in-store orders would take up to 3 weeks to ship.
Even the Apple stores themselves barely see any new shipments. Yesterday I was told the tale of someone who waited in line for 4 hours, only to be told they were out of phones (doesn’t anyone at Apple count the people in line and compare it with their inventory?).
The only stores that seem to be able to keep getting restocked are the flagship stores. They’d better fix this soon, or people are going to be mighty disappointed, especially if this turns into the new Nintendo Wii.
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15 Jul
Posted by scottc as Mobile applications, iPhone
The newest iPhone software added a much needed feature; push email. And at the same time, Apple introduced their own push mail service; MobileMe.
The Apple version costs $99 for a year, but today I’ll show you a free alternative that is, in my opinion even better.
Mail2Web is a well established hosting provider that has been offering free Exchange accounts for years. I’ve been a very satisfied customer (with my Windows Mobile phone) for ages.
Their free Mail2Web Live service offers a basic Exchange push service with your own @mail2web.com address. You can forward your existing email to this address, or use their service to pull your own email into their system. The free service is ad supported and everything you send has your mail2web.com address in the “from field”.
For just $4.95 a month you can upgrade to Mail2Web personal; this allows you to use your own email address and access the service through Outlook Web Access. For just $59.40 you get a service that is essentially the same as MobileMe, but with TRUE push features.
You get a full 30 day money back guarantee and no setup fee is charged!
Update: I’ve been a little harsh on MobileMe, as commenter TivoBoy points out, there is a lot more to the Apple service than just Email.
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Over the past few days I’ve been keeping an eye on the inventory pages on Apple.com. This handy service shows which Apple stores have the new iPhone in stock, and which models are actually on the shelf.
One thing I’ve constantly seen is that the 16GB iPhone sold out almost everywhere, in both colors (with the black version selling out first).
When Apple introduced the first generation iPhone, they started with a 4GB and 8GB version, and just like now, the larger one was the biggest seller. Just 2 months after its introduction, the 4GB version was discontinued. due to lack of customer interest.
So I have to wonder whether Apple really learned from their mistake? Of whether they are doing this on purpose? Sure, they had to make some concessions to keep that magical $199 price point, but they could have anticipated that demand for the larger one would massive. Of course, knowing Apple, this is all part of their grand scheme. Either way, it’s pretty crappy because a lot of people walk into an Apple store and when faced with just one choice of iPhone (8GB), they’ll decide they don’t want to spend another 4 hours in line and pick the one they didn’t really want. That’s dedication for ya!
My guess is that in 2 months Apple will discontinue the 8GB 3G iPhone, and that by December we’ll see a new 32GB version show up. Just in time for Christmas…
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This evening I decided to check out my closest AT&T corporate store. The first indication something was wrong was the total calm and serenity inside. In the store were 9 reps and myself. People have either given up on the prospect of scoring an iPhone tonight, or they are just too tired to leave the house in this 90 degree weather.
Of course, they were out of iPhones, but when pressed how long it would take to get one, the guy acted pretty weird. At first he told me it would be 5–7 business days.
Then when I let him know I wanted 4 new lines (I bluffed), he let slip that he’d have more tomorrow morning. Of course, I dug even deeper asking what time they’d be delivered. And then he screwed up; he told me they already had them in the back, but that he couldn’t sell them yet.
Seems like Apple and AT&T took lessons at the “Bestbuy school for artificial Wii shortages”. Sleazy.
Update: The Boy Genius Report already reported on this: AT&T stores are getting daily allotments, so most stores will indeed already have their Saturday iPhones in stock today, with the Sunday ones arriving tomorrow. Still a pretty poor way of doing business.To tell customers TODAY that they are out of stock and that they need to order now and wait a week but then go ahead and sell them tomorrow to other customers is just pathetic.
FWIW; he says that AT&T stores will be getting between 20 and 150 iPhones, with most Apple stores receiving at least 2000!
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This photo is of my local Apple store. The estimated wait is currently over 5 hours (at 11:30am) and I counted at least 250 people in line. I chatted briefly with some of the people at the front of the line, expecting them to be latecomers, but it turns out they had been waiting since 8:15am (when they arrived they were around 35th in the line).
My next stop was an AT&T store, where things were not much better. The line is about 50 people long, and once again they only let a few people into the store at a time. The best part? They don’t actually have any more iPhones but the store staff are not telling anyone this (verbally or with a simple sign). Instead, you wait in line for 2-3 hours, order one, then get sent home with a “it’ll be here some time next week”. People walking out are leaving with nothing more than a printout of their order, but none of the folks in line seem to care.
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