• Categories

  • Artist
    • .Design
    • .Fashion
    • .Movies
    • .Music
    • .Origami
    • .Shows
  • Geek
    • .Apple,Inc
    • .Astronomy
    • .Computer Science
    • .Gadget
    • .Games
    • .Petrolhead
    • .Sci-Fi
    • .Technology
  • Just For Fun
  • Thinker

• Archives

  Select Month October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 September 2007 August 2007

• Recommendations

  
  
  
  Itzhak Perlman
  Cinema Serenade
  
  
  
  Howard Shore
  Eastern Promises
  
  
  
  Claude Debussy, Leonard Slatkin, Frances Tietov , Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
  Debussy: La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Danse sacrée et profane
  
  
  
  Itzhak Perlman, John Williams
  Schindler's List: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
  
  
  
  Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard
  Gladiator
  
  
  
  Joe Hisaishi
  Spirited Away
  
  
  
  Paul Desmond, Dave Brubeck
  Time Out
  
  
  
  Johannes Brahms
  Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem
  
  
  
  BT
  This Binary Universe
  
  
  
  Johann Sebastian Bach, Emerson String Quartet
  Bach: The Art of Fugue
  
  
  
  Douglas R. Hofstadter
  Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  
  

This is not looking optimistic for Apple if it’s real. →Link “…is a concise indicator of where Apple’s industrial design is going. Less basic geometric shapes, more soft arcs.” And the MacBook Air too. →Link “iPhone 2.0 tip. If you tap-then-hold an image in Safari, an option pops up for you to save the image. Nice way to get new wallpaper or photos for your contacts.”→Link Free apps no longer dominating iPhone app store. →Link See for yourself in the link. And there’s also tip on saving battery life. Update: Endaget also did a battery test, indicating encouraging results. →Link to battery analysis | →Link to battery saving tips | →Link to Engadget test Cut and paste? GPS driving directions aka turn-by-turn? iPhone office suite? There you have it. →Link Staggering numbers. →Link →Link 2 Go no further than this one in the link. Interesting discovery: the new iPhone’s headphone gained one inch in length from the old headphones; the iPhone 3G’s camera is slightly recessed from the case. →Link By an iPhone liner. →Link “Apple Cancels All iPhone 3G Orders, Releases iBrick 3G”. →Link

I knew this was coming the first day Apple released iPhone SDK. The SDK package is around 2.1GB. Pretty huge. Unsurprisingly the server was overloaded and thus I couldn’t open the download page at all. I tried for numerous times, and failed all attempts. It was not until 8 hours later in the evening was I finally able to start downloading. The downloading speed was miserably slow, at around 3 KB/sec, whereas usually I can reach 700 KB/sec from Apple’s http download links. It’s unsurprising that the server couldn’t handle that huge swarm of traffic. What stroke me, though, is that Apple should have foreseen this coming. By which I mean, a 2.1 GB file being distributed via http server to millions of users at once is just as ridiculous as you can get. In fact, the only practical way to do so is to do it via P2P. And that’s not something new or unsecure. Blizzard has been distributing WoW updates, game trailers using P2P since long time ago.
While it might not be as fast as a normal loaded http server, it is however, light years ahead when distributing large files to a massive group, just as Blizzard has proved.
Tim added that http download only takes one step, whereas P2P download takes 2 steps(you will have to fetch the downloader(<1MB) at first). And normally http download is still faster than P2P. And that’s perhaps the reason Apple never thought of using P2P at all.
Am I missing anything here? Or maybe Apple is just overconfident with their servers?

Update: Found this from here.

Latest Mac vs. PC ad…

MAC: Hello, I’m a Mac
PC: And I’m a PC
PC: Hey Mac, I heard the new iPhone launched and version 2.0 of the firmware is out.
MAC: We could not complete your iTunes Store request. The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.
PC: uh, Mac, are you ok?
MAC: Sorry, not sure where that came from - I normally work so flawlessly…
PC: Thats ok, you’ve been ragging Vista for so long, its about time you got a dose of your own medicine…
MAC: This version of the iPod software (1.1.4) is the current version.
PC: WTF???

Que Apple logo…

Disclaimer: We do not support piracy of any kind. As developers ourselves, we know the effort others have put to make those apps available. We strongly encourage you to purchase legit apps from the App Store. Our intention, simply driven by curiosity, is to make sure Apple is taking enough measure to protect developers, not the other way around. We will delete this post if it ever directly leads to piracy.

Just like its big brothers, iPhone is also a platform that piracy will eventually take place. The question is how hard it can be to pirate softwares for the iPhone and what measures Apple will take to prevent it.
For now, Apple uses Signing Certificate as it’s been proven to be a secure standard(Vista, for example).



After poking around with the new App store, I discovered that, by renaming the downloaded app file from *.ipa to *.zip and unzipping it, you will be able to get the app package. Now if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can simply upload the app to your iPhone. As I’m sure you can’t just upload this file to your iPhone and simply run it, the FairPlay Version 2 DRM that Apple is using for these apps is not hard to hack. I tried to install Remote using this method, the app shows up in iPhone’s Laucher but it won’t run. I also purchased the game Enigmo, and tried to unpack it and upload it to my iPhone. It shows up in the Launcher but it still wouldn’t run.

But the failure might just simply because of my iPhone is still running on 1.0.2. I will later install 2.0 firmware and test it out. It will not work most likely, but trying to find a solution will be on my list.
Either way, the bigger the app store grows, the sooner Apple will have to fight piracy to protect the developers who are paying 30% of their revenues to Apple.
Update: A user at ipodtouchfans.com has found out that “application can be traded”.

I took my friends ipod, on HIS COMPUTER. NO iTunes account watsoever, and sync my MonkeyBall.ipa to his ipod and it works fine!!!!

No iTunes account needed! just the ipa! I am not encouraging this illegal behavior nor am i providing a guide on how to do it. just making you aware of apples flaws.

-John

This is truly terrifying.
Update 2: There is an iTunesMetadata.plist file in the unzipped folder, it appears to contain the app and your iTunes account information. It seems that iTunes checks your shopping list to determine if the app is transferable to other account. Which means *.ipa is probably for packaging reasons, iTunes extracts the *.app folder off it and loads them on your phone(which is associated with the same iTunes account, just like the way iPod handles the music you download from iTunes music store). So if they are DRM encrypted, the key to decrypt them must be available in the phone somewhere, just like cracking the FairPlay DRM of music from iTunes music store.
Also, every app packages appear to have two additional folders(see the picture above), a _CodeSignature folder(Signature key), and a SC_Info folder(don’t know what this folder is for yet). The CodeResources file is an XML file(Property list) that contains a signature for each file.
This means they are indeed signed, which also means it may be cracked by patching the iPhone OS to ignore signatures.

It may be reasonable for iTunes to check the apps everytime when you sync to make sure they are legit.
Still, the only way we suggest is to purchase from the App Store.

Update 3: It seems App Store has a lot of unsettled questions.

What exactly does Fairplay for apps mean?
Apple has stated that they’ll apply Fairplay protection to applications purchased through the Apple store, but we don’t know what that means. Will the software be tied to a single device, and if so, what happens when the user gets a new iPhone? Can this software be backed up and later recovered? As seen in Edward Spodick’s comment on my previous article, users are quite wary of their software being tied to one device.

How will developers get customer information?
Right now, when we sell software to a customer, we get all manner of information. We can track visitors, hits, downloads, and more. We also get a name and email address we can use to contact the customer later, if needed. Will we get any of this from the App Store? If so, what pieces of it?
How will support be handled?

What about trials?
We provide free trials of all our software for Mac and Windows. Just like test-driving a car, you can test our software, before you buy it. The goal here is to make sure our users know just what they’re getting, and that it will perform as expected. How will we accomplish this in the App Store? Can we have free software that’s just a trial, and then link it to a paid version?

How will refunds be handled?
Even with our free trials, we occasionally need to issue a refund to our users. As an independent developer, we can handle this on our own, but what happens with the App Store? Can we make this happen? Further, can users go directly through Apple to receive a refund, without ever interacting with the developer? For that matter, will there be refunds at all? With music and movies purchased from Apple, there’s no obvious way to get a refund. If a user has a problem though, we don’t want them to be left holding the bag and hating us.
How do we give out review copies?
We often provide free licenses to journalists and other people to whom we’d like to give a free copy of our software. To do this, we can just generate a license key and provide it via email to the recipient, then they can download our trial and unlock it with the key. However, it’s not clear how we can provide these sorts of review copies through the App Store.
What about other pricing concerns?
Currently, we have a coupon system in our store, we can offer upgrade pricing for users who’ve purchased old versions, we can offer volume discounts for large purchases, and much, much more. All of these things, and more, help our bottom line. We’ll want to do them with iPhone Apps, but will we be able to?

A commenter said Apple will presumably use exactly the same way as they did for Fairplay for music and videos. I.E. unlimited iPods (iPhones), tied to your iTunes account.
For reviewer, Ad Hoc distribution wouldn’t work in my opinion, and developers haven’t got the official word from Apple on this matter yet.

It seems App Store has to a lot to questions and problems(naming mechanics, for example) to deal with.
[Read:Open Questions for The App Store]

Just found this app BibleXpress. $29.9(while online Bibles are mostly free and other Bible apps are selling for $2.99 or so) to replace your Bible. Imagine a church of people reading their iPhones in Sunday morning. Update:as one commenter kindly pointed out my poor choice of the title, I changed it from “Retarded app of the day” to “Greediest iPhone app”. My thanks to HShore for pointing out my mistake. Indeed, that was not my intention. Read more Don’t know how “RIM’s almost ready to counter”. →Link “iPhone Configuration Utility lets you easily create, maintain, and sign configuration profiles, track and install provisioning profiles and authorized applications, and capture device information including console logs. ” →Link “digging through Apple’s XML files has revealed the url to the iPhone 2.0 Firmware that is presently available on Apple’s servers.” [Via Macrumors][Firmware download Link(225MB)] Funniest(or dumbest?) video review of the iPhone 3G.[Link]

(Click on the image to see larger picture)
This is a screenshot I took at around 7:00 am July 10th.
It seems a lot of countries that do not appear in Apple’s “July 11″ and “Coming soon” list get App Store as well. For example, Pakistan, Vietnam, Korea, China and Russia are not in the big party yet. A hint that those countries will get iPhone 3G sooner than expected? Very likely not really. But more importantly, it seems that App Store is going to be a global iPhone app store unlike iTunes Music Store which is only available for a few countries in the world. And this App Store, as Steve Jobs puts it, “The biggest launch of my career.” The profit from app selling will be quite something, or something even bigger, considering how many iPod Touch have been sold in addition to the sales of iPhone.
This is the Apple’s promised list:

Update: Now Apple changed it to this:

Update 2: well, it seems if you click the drop down list of “My store”, you can always choose one of the stores that is not in the “big party” yet. Then after you changed the store, click on the flag button next to the drop down list and you will be able to see the 62-country list rather than 22-country list.
Update 3: Now it seems it will always return you the 62-country list. A global App Store indeed as Steve has promised. Every country has their own app store. That is, just like the way iTunes Store was handled, each country will have its own rating system and ranking system.
There’s something unusual about these two lists. If you noticed, there are 71 countries in Apple’s promised list in total, and no signs of Korea, Russia and China. However, they do appear in the App Store list even though they don’t get the “legal” iPhones yet. On the other hand, some countries that are in Apple’s 71-country list, for example, Botswana and Macau, do not have their own App Store yet. There’s no doubt that iPhone will one day come to China, Korea, Vietnam and Russia, the open of their own App Stores maybe a sign of earlier release of the iPhone 3G, or perhaps it’s just for the iPod Touch(and unlocked iPhone) owners in those countries. But some part of me are also wondering if it’s also a sign of the coming of their own iTunes Music Store, since the pop music industry in China, Korea and Russia are all pretty huge and they have been waiting for the iTunes Music Store for ages.

John Paczkowski at AllThingsD wrote “Cupertino is said to be refusing to sell the iPhone 3G through its own retail stores in Canada. So come Friday, Canadians looking for a new iPhone will have to head over to a Rogers Wireless outlet to buy one”. This is hilarious. A nice pose by Apple? Not really if you consider there are only six Apple Stores across Canada. Wake up fanboys. Update: TUAW reports: “it looks like you won’t be able to buy an iPhone in any non-US Apple Stores.” →Link The title pretty much says it.[Link]

• Sponsor

  

• Discovered

  TopGear available in iTunes
  A favorable move by BBC. I personally would buy it if it’s updating fast enough. →Link

  Steve and Bill's pumpkins
  “That would be the perfect pumpkin, if only it had firewire.” →Link

  Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Paris
  France’s most iconoclastic designer maps out his favorite places in the City of Light. →Link

  The Dark Bailout
  Hilarious. →Link

  Rockbox 3.0 released
  Long time fan of this. It’s recommended to any iPod classic(the order versions too) users. It does literally everything. And yes, that includes playing Doom on your iPod. →Link

  The Godfather Trilogy blu-ray version is out
  To buy it, follow the link. →Link

  Another detailed look at Yacht “A”
  Remember the Yacht “A”? Now here is a more detailed look at it. For some reason I wish it can fly. →Link

  Adobe releases CS4
  “The new version of Adobe’s flagship software product takes its first steps in using the graphics processing unit, or GPU, said John Nack, principal product manager for Adobe Photoshop. For example, the graphics chip helps Photoshop CS4 fluidly zoom in and out, rotate the canvas so artists can reorient an image for the best sketching angle, display and manipulate 3D objects, and handle color correction.” That’s THE photoshop we were waiting for. →Link

  "I'm a PC" ad created by Mac?
  No, I liked those ads, I think they are great. But Appleinsider is reporting that they are created using Macs. Perhaps they got it wrong. It’s the advertisement studio who are using Macs, not Microsoft. Or tell me if I’m wrong. →Link

  Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’
  “One new Microsoft commercial even begins with a company engineer who resembles John Hodgman, the comedian portraying the loser PC character in the Apple campaign. “Hello, I’m a PC,” the engineer says, echoing Mr. Hodgman’s recurring line, “and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”” For some reason this just sounds like an extreme poor idea to me. It will eventually draw more attention for Apple.→Link

  NYTimes: The iPhone Travel Apps Guide
  Next time when you travel, be sure to check if those apps for your iPhone. →Link

  JRDesign's great Leopard folder icons
  The aluminum ones look great on iMac, black ones look amzing on black MacBook. →Link

  Prada's Fallen Shadows video
  “Created by visual effects master James Lima, Prada’s new “Fallen Shadows” video brings to life the Autumn/Winter 2008 collection with an animation sequence that references surrealist artists like Dali.” →Link

  The Vivienne Westwood Opus
  “The Vivienne Westwood Opus offers a startling insight into Vivienne Westwood, her manifesto and her stunning designs, which reflect the passion of her collections. Since it is a very personal and special project for the Grand Dame of British Fashion, only a very limited number of 900 copies will be available to the public worldwide.” →Link

  Ten Striking Parallels Between Microsoft and John McCain
  Quite long, but he got some points. →Link

  New Leica cameras get detailed
  3 new models. →Link

  Undocumented features/fixes in iPhone 2.1 firmware
  With screenshots. →Link

  7,000 bhp car
  “It’s an 8-litre, supercharged V8 with 7000bhp that uses about 65 gallons of fuel a minute” “This isn’t an engine. It’s a bomb” →Link

  Who has time for complicated watches?
  David Colman:”It was one thing when the cellphone replaced the cigarette. But now killer apps have replaced killer abs, and the chicest parties throng with guys showing how they can make their iPhones look like Magic 8 Balls. It’s enough to make a man long for the days when all you heard from even the costliest accessory was the faint tick of a sleek watch.” →Link

  Leica's new cameras
  No spec yet. →Link

  CERN day 1
  I’m still here. You? →Link

  Does iTunes 8 sound better?
  I noticed so. Thought I was being delusional. But surprisingly a lot other people noticed as well. →Link

  Apple trailer website got a new look
  My favorite place for trailers. →Link

  Ars Technica Guide to Virtualization
  A comprehensive article on virtualizaion. →Link

  The evolution of Olympic torches
  Interesting to see how the torches evolved in a century. →Link

  Tutorial: Turn Your iPhone Into a Wireless Modem
  Guide on “turning our iPhones into wireless modems with the $10 NetShare application” →Link

  First iPhone Application
  Easy to follow guide for your first iPhone app. →Link

  Goosh.org:Google for the command line zealots
  I adore it. →Link

  Large Hadron Collider nearly ready!
  Too many times I’ve read about the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) in science fictions. It still strikes me as one of the most brilliant thing man has done. “The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. ” →Link

  On Daniel Day-Lewis and his lucidity
  “..in the US the social balance of things was exceedingly delicate and almost ‘behind closed doors’, with the only indication of a social blunder being a slight change in conversation and your phone stops ringing. ” →Link

  Apple DNS Patch Fails To Randomize - Users Still At Risk
  “For Apple, it matters most that they patch the client libraries since there are so few OSX recursive servers in use. The bottom line is that despite this update, it appears that the client libraries still aren’t patched.” [Via: TUAW] →Link

  NetShare's undecided fate
  It appeared. Then disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared again. →Link

  BBC has gone mad
  I just can’t believe this is real. →Link

  Transmit icon ripoffs
  →Link

  Alan Jaras Light Photography
  What most interesting is all these images are created by using a beam of light passing through a transparent object. →Link

  Security update 2008-005 released
   ”The update patches several vulnerabilities including a much-publicized DNS/BIND server vulnerability where an attacker could cause a Mac OS X DNS server to direct clients to forged websites.” →Link

  Small-Car Styling
  They missed Mini Cooper. And the beloved Peel P50. [Via: DesignObserver] →Link

  Coolest skyscraper ever made
  Just found this. →Link

  Disable IE/Firefox autofill
  “Use autocomplete=”off” in either < form >(for all boxes) or each specific input box.” →Link

  Why Apple won't drop Intel chipsets any time soon
  So Ars tried to prove that Apple won’t move away from Intel chipset. →Link

  What's new on Delicious 2.0
  A much better improvement. →Link

  An ATM in your living room
  I like this idea of having a little ATM at your home. →Link

  Guides to cables by Giz
  Kind of useful. →Link

  iPhone native interface vs the remote app
  Apple should make the native interface just like the remote app’s. Here’s why. [via ★]  →Link

  Apple ARM licensing?
  It’s interesting if Apple manufactures its own chipset instead using Intel’s, which will make Apple “Different” again. Also, it can potentially eliminates the possibility of Hackintoshes(Psystar). →Link

  Dynolicious iPhone application
  “..it uses the accelerometer in your iThingy to measure 0-60mph times, lateral Gs and even horsepower.” →Link to introduction | →Link to App Store

  Mac Mini Vs Dell Studio Hybrid?
  I need the Blu-ray option for Macs. Badly. →Link

  iPhone 3G white developing cracks?
  This is not looking optimistic for Apple if it’s real. →Link

  Pixar's Presto
  The short film appeared before Wall·E. →Link

  Lightroom 2 is out
  Be sure to read this Lightroom 2 vs My Lightrrom 2 wishlist. →Link

  Randy Pausch dies; His ‘Last Lecture’ continues to inspire
  A great lecture. “He did, however, mention that he experienced a near-deathbed conversion: he switched and bought a Macintosh computer.” →Link | →Link to YouTube Video

  Steve Jobs Opening Line Generator!
  Hilarious stuff. [Via RealDanLyons] →Link

  Interesting analysis of the "Steve's Health" NYTime article from FSJ
  “If Apple lies in a press release, or if its CEO lies in an on-the-record statement, the company has problems. But if everything was off the record, who’s to know? ” →Link

  Photos of Jupiter
  Absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. →Link

  Darren Aronofsky confirmed to direct RoboCop
  Coming 2010. Can’t wait. →Link

  Microsoft seeking a new strategy
  I wonder if some day Microsoft just simply make their own PCs, say “MS Box”. →Link

  DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it
  “Yahoo e-mailed its Yahoo! Music Store customers yesterday, telling them it will be closing for good—and the company will take its DRM license key servers offline on September 30, 2008. ” →Link

  Mechanical wooden elephant
  Can’t help to post when I saw “mechanical” and “wooden” in a single sentence. →Link

  Aurora Feint game de-listed from App Store
  This was one of the free games I liked. “Aurora Feint looks through your contact list, sends it unencrypted to their servers, and matches you up with your friends who are currently playing right now.” Scary. →Link

  Game rating system should learn from movie rating systems
  Nice thought from Ars. →Link

• Recent Posts

  • TopGear available in iTunes
  • Steve and Bill’s pumpkins
  • Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Paris
  • The Dark Bailout
  • Rockbox 3.0 released
  • The Godfather Trilogy blu-ray version is out
  • Another detailed look at Yacht “A”
  • Adobe releases CS4
  • “I’m a PC” ad created by Mac?
  • Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’