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Don’t break my third-party iPhone apps

Macworld logoDear Apple:

Please ignore my prior request regarding opening up the iPhone for third-party development. At the time I wrote that request, I was convinced that some Apple-approved method of running true third-party applications (and not just nicely-formatted Ajax Web pages) was a key missing feature in the iPhone's capabilities. Well, I've had my iPhone for a couple months now, and I've changed my mind: Don't worry about coming up with a third-party iPhone SDK. Really. Just pretend I never wrote that piece.

Instead, I have a new request. Just do nothing at all regarding third-party application development on the iPhone. Nothing to encourage it, and most importantly, nothing to discourage it, prevent it, shut it down, or otherwise stop it from happening. Thank you.

So why would I (fictitiously, of course) write the above letter to Apple? Is it because I no longer feel third-party applications are important to the iPhone? No, that's not it at all. Is it because nicely-formatted Ajax Web pages really do get the job done? No, that's not it either. So why am I no longer concerned about Apple providing an official third-party SDK? Quite simply, I'm not concerned because a number of very bright, talented, and motivated individuals have managed to actually do the job themselves, without any help from Apple.

Read my Macworld blog entry, Don't break my third-party iPhone apps, for the rest of the story...



The Great iPhone Price Drop Uprising of 2007

Macworld logoAs probably everyone other than Bill Gates probably heard, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone by $200 yesterday. And, very shockingly to me, this somehow upset a number of those who bought iPhones back in June. Over on the Macworld forums, I've been involved in some interesting discussions on the matter. Basically, my position is as follows:

  • Nobody was kidnapped, dragged to an Apple Store, and forced to spend $599 on an iPhone. Everyone who bought on June 29th did so freely of their own will. (Note that I'm a possible exception to that statement, as I was asked to stand in line by my employer. But since it was their money, I didn't really mind.)
  • Whenever you buy any piece of technology, it is a known fact that it will get faster, smaller, more feature laden, and cheaper in the future. Knowing this, I have always treated a technology purchase as a pure sunk cost--whatever you pay, whenever you pay it, it's gone. If the item's price changes in the near future, oh well. I made my decision, I have the piece of technology, and I don't really care if it's cheaper.
  • People are claiming the "value" of their iPhone took a $200 hit yesterday. There's only one way I see that as a true statement: if the user was planning on selling their iPhone on eBay today. However, since we're all on two-year contracts, I don't see that as a big market at the moment. So if you were going to keep your iPhone and continue to use it, your phone's value is unchanged: it's just as important to you today as it was yesterday.

So basically, I'm amazed at the number of complaints over this issue. In one of the forum threads, I asked those who felt this was an issue to explain what they would have done had Apple announced a $200 price increase instead of a drop. Would they have all rushed out to their mailbox to drop a check in the mail for Apple? Not surprisingly, it seems that wasn't a popular suggestion. People want something for nothing, basically.

You've probably also read by now that Apple has decided to grant a $100 store credit to all those who bought iPhones prior to the price drop. Hopefully this will silence the criticism, but I doubt it since it leaves $100 "missing" from the pockets of those who are complaining. From my seat, though, Apple didn't have to do this at all. When you choose to buy something, you're basically fulfilling a contract with the product supplier: I agree to give you this much money, and you agree to give me the product. Anything that happens after that (outside of normal "price protection" windows, which are not 60+ days in length) is just something that happens.

Anyway, am I all wet in my thinking? This demand for a credit due to a price drop seems unprecedented to me; nobody complained when iPod Photos plummeted $200 a few short months after their introduction. Why is the iPhone different?



Install third-party apps on the iPhone

iphoneSo the iPhone has been out for a couple months now, and I've pretty much left mine alone--no hacking of any sort, beyond trying out Ambrosia's new iToner. Then today, fellow Macworld staffer Chris Breen pointed me to Nullriver's Installer.app beta. Using this program, "hacking" your iPhone is amazingly simple. Run the Installer.app on your Mac, then switch to your iPhone and use the new Installer icon on the home screen. From there, choose which packages you'd like to install, and you're off and running.

So what's available? Quite a lot, actually. There's a screenshot app, which I used for the images you see here (click on each for a larger version). In the shot of the main screen, you'll notice there's a new row of icons on the phone; those were all added with the Installer.app program. There's a BSD subsystem, so you can ssh into your iPhone, and use scp (or SFTP in something like Transmit) to get files to/from the phone. There's a functional NEC emulator, complete with sound. The Apache web server. A terminal emulator. Perl, python, and ruby for the ultra-geeks. And lots more.

appIf something goes wrong (and it hasn't for me yet, but I tested the following to make sure it works), you just use iTunes to restore your iPhone, and you're back to a fully functional (and non-modified) iPhone. However, you are responsible for your own actions. I am not responsible for any damage that may result to your iPhone if you choose to try this out!

We'll have a lot more to say about this over on our iPhone Central blog next week, so tune in for much more detail. But if, like me, you've been waiting for iPhone hacking to get easier, a bunch of very very very bright people have made it so--if you've used a package manager on Linux (or something like Fink or MacPorts on OS X), you'll be right at home with Installer.app.

In a way, this work really could be considered embarrassing for Apple: a bunch of volunteer hackers have created a fairly amazing, professional-looking, and very easy to use third-party applications manager for the iPhone--all without any help from Apple, and it's done before Apple has even announced anything about official third-party application support.



The Beatles on iTunes: Tomorrow never knows

Macworld logoSo if my esteemed coworker Philip Michaels is correct, next week we'll see the release of The Beatles' catalog on iTunes. This news has literally been years in the making, and the excitement surrounding this potential announcement seems to be huge. Crowds are (virtually) forming outside the iTunes Store already—well, OK, maybe not. But you'd have to be sleep-surfing not to have seen some mention of "Beatles," "iPod," and "iTunes Store" over the last couple of days on hundreds of sites, including ours.

And here I sit, a child of the Beatles era—literally a child, as my first exposure to The Beatles came from hearing it played on my parents' record player. (Anyone else remember those?) While there are clearly bigger Beatles fans in the world, I do enjoy their music, and presently have something over 30 of their songs in my iTunes collection. (I'm what you might consider a fair-weather fan, as I tend to prefer their more popular songs to the remainder of their catalog.) The Beatles created some amazing songs, and definitely helped change the future of music—with over a billion units sold worldwide, they have definitely left their mark. So with that background, you think I'd be thrilled to hear they're on their way to iTunes.

The truth is, my reaction to the rumors has been more along the lines of "Umm, why does everyone seem to care so much?"

Read my Macworld blog entry, The Beatles on iTunes: Tomorrow never knows, for the rest of the story...





Time travel is possible!

This morning in my inbox, I had two bounce messages--nothing unusual there, it seems to happen quite often when I try to email users of macosxhints.com (lots of people have changed their email addresses but not changed their account info, it seems).

These two messages, however, really caught my eye; here's a snippet from one of them. Note that I've modified the email address, but that's all:

Subject: DELIVERY FAILURE: 5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-
'5.1.1 No such user 10si9367260nzo' (delivery attempts: 0)
From: [email protected]
Date: August 24, 2007 8:20:25 AM PDT
To: robg

The following message to <[email protected]> was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:
5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'5.1.1 No such user'

From: Rob Griffiths <robg>
Date: February 24, 2002 7:04:21 PM PST
To: Some User <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Mac OS X Hints Redesign
. . .

Yes, that's right: two messages I sent over five years ago finally bounced early this morning! Not knowing the first thing about how email actually routes between machines, can someone explain how this might be possible? It seems too bizarre to believe, but the messages are mine, and I did try to send them to the specified person back in 2002. Very weird! Explanations welcomed, please...



On our declining attention span

In my last post, I discussed a couple of issues with the cinematography in The Bourne Ultimatum. However, while writing that post last night, I reminded myself of another movie-related issue I wanted to talk about: trailers.

I find most of today's spy, thriller, and action movie trailers basically unwatchable: there is simply too much action packed into every two-minute trailer. I know they're trying to grab our attention, but to a large extent, they've simply gone too far. In a modern trailer for movies in these genres, you're simply not allowed to actually watch anything; instead, it appears the objective is to see how many different shots of your movie you can fit into a two-minute window. So the "scenes" are incredibly short, leading to tons of cuts from one scene to another.

Just how bad has it gotten? I thought it might be enlightening to compare the Bourne Ultimatum trailer with some similar movies from the 1970s, and then one completely different type of movie from 1980.
[continue reading…]



Cinematography and The Bourne Ultimatum

Last night, my wife and I had a rare night out. With two kids, we've really only got one non-family babysitter we trust, and she happened to be available on a Tuesday, so we took advantage of the situation. After a nice dinner (it's amazing how roomy a restaurant table is without all the stuff that accompanies a couple of young kids!), we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum (Flash-enabled loud site, sigh).

We both enjoyed the first Bourne movie, though we found the second disappointing (too much like a two-hour MTV music video). But we'd heard good things about the third, so we were anticipating a couple hours of decent entertainment. And generally speaking, that's what we got: I'd rate the third movie as the best of the bunch; there are some amazingly well done scenes, including a tense seen in London's sprawling Waterloo Station. If you enjoy spy/action movies, this one is worth seeing, even in light of what I'm about to discuss.

[continue reading…]



iPhone desired features poll

So if you're an iPhone user ... or an iPhone maybe going to be a user ... what features do you find lacking? This poll lists a number of possible features; it might be interesting to see what the results are if the sample size gets large enough.

Personally, iChat is the most-glaring omission on my list, with syncable notes a close second and a true third-party application API as the third (as that would solve pretty much everything else on my list :) ).

-rob.



Review: Numbers

Macworld logoSlowly, but surely, Apple's iWork is turning into a full-fledged office suite, as iWork '08 gains Numbers, Apple's latest foray into the world of spreadsheet programs. So what is Numbers? Is it at long last a replacement for the spreadsheet component of AppleWorks? Is it a direct competitor to Excel? Will it enable users looking for alternatives to finally move from either AppleWorks or Microsoft Office to iWork?

The answer to these questions is any of yes, no, and maybe, depending on your specific spreadsheet needs. Those with basic needs will be impressed with Numbers' ability to make short work of their projects. People with more complex requirements, and those hoping to migrate from Excel or AppleWorks, will find the transition more difficult. And some people—scientific users, students, and advanced Excel users in particular—may find that certain details in Numbers make it impossible to use the product in its current form.

Read my Macworld article, Review: Numbers, for the rest of the story...