Safari 4 & 5 AutoComplete Vulnerability Exposes Email Addresses, Phone Numbers
Phil Nelson As described by Jeremiah Grossman, this is pretty nasty. See the proof-of-concept demo here, and be creeped out. (via Shawn Medero)
Apple Bans Adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses from App Store
Banned due to a scene which features a nude man diving into the ocean. It isn’t even well-rendered generalia, nor is it sexual in nature. It’s just a little lump below his belly. It’s just a penis, which takes up maybe 1/64th of one panel of a comic book.
I guess comic adaptations of James Joyce don’t fit Apple’s definition of “liberal arts.”
How To Enable Extensions For Safari 5
If you, like me, have tried to install a Safari 5 extension such as Coda Notes, and were met with the following dialog:
and then spent 5 minutes looking through Safari’s Preferences window to no avail, this is how you enable Extensions on Safari 5:
- Open Preferences
- Click Advanced
- Click Show develop in menu bar
- Close and reopen Safari
- Click the Develop menu item
- Finally, click Enable Extensions
Viola.
Adam Lisagor: iPad TV
The Sandwich has some thoughts on the iPad, TV, and the rumored new Apple TV. I like what he’s thinking:
Could it be that Apple has chosen to separate our video content and store it temporarily in this ghetto because there is something new and awesome on the horizon? Here’s what I think: Soon enough, that placeholder app called Videos will go away, to replaced by a new app called Apple TV.
The current iPad videos app is a real turd in the iPad’s otherwise beautiful punchbowl. This makes a lot of sense.
Apple – HTML5
An Apple-sanctioned HTML5 demo site. This is a good first step towards getting serious about HTML5, in the sense of actually building things.
Things of note: Most of these aren’t HTML5 per-se, and they won’t work in other browsers that don’t use webkit, due to Apple only using their vendor-prefixed CSS attributes (-webkit).
Wikipedia Is Broken In Dictionary.app
I’m not sure if this is due to Wikipedia’s new skin (with the “usability” enhancements), some other MediaWiki update, or if the problem is on Apple’s end (Update: It is a problem with Wikipedia’s new skin), but this is another good example of why Apple doesn’t want to rely on third-party vendors for anything.
The image above is what I get when looking up the word “Dictionary” in Snow Leopard’s built-in Dictionary application, and clicking Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page is very long, and should have vertical scrollbars, but there are none.
Update: Mac OS X Hints has information on how a “fix” which involves logging in to Wikipedia and setting your skin to use the previous one.
Hat tip to Shawn Medero.
For The Uninitiated: Web Video Fracas 2010
Adobe wants people to use Flash to play videos, primarily because they own the technology behind it (which makes them lots of money), and have enjoyed the majority of video on the web being played via Flash for quite some time. Adobe, by virtue of owning Flash, is the only real player in the Flash playing and video encoding game. They want Flash on every device in the world, so they can sell their tools to author Flash. Adobe as a company still makes most of their money on selling people tools to make things with. Adobe has spent a lot of money making Flash and their Flash editing tools.
Apple wants people to use H.264 to play videos, primarily because their mobile devices (which make them a ton of money) can decode the video stream in hardware which is a big win in battery life .vs. decoding in software like Flash. Apple controls the decoding of H.264 on the Mac and iPhone/iPad lines, so they don’t have to wait for anyone else when they want to do something new with it. Apple has spent a lot of money and time making H.264 work great on their devices.
Google just wants people to play videos. They’d prefer it if the technology used to encode and playback those videos didn’t belong to anyone, so they don’t have to deal with the politics of being nice to some other company because they need their support vis-a-vis video. They bought a company called On2 and open sourced a video codec and container format (which may have some severe patent problems) to accomplish this end and try to diffuse the situation. Google is the only company in this tug-o-war who actually makes money selling videos, or more precisely, renting the eyeballs of people who are viewing videos to advertisers.
Due to the above, video on the web is a nightmare right now. There is no video format you can encode to that will play in the big three: Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, unless you want to use Flash to play the video. Which means users will need to have Flash installed on their device, in which case it will not play on the largest mobile device market: the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, or even current releases of the smaller ones, like Android, which also do not support Flash. If you encode to H.264, it won’t play in Firefox or the current version of Internet Explorer (8), but will work in Safari, Chrome (on the Mac), and the upcoming version of Internet Explorer (9). Adobe has pledged to support WebM in it’s Flash products.
There is no way Apple is going to support WebM for their mobile platform unless it can be decoded in hardware. Broadcomm, a major producer of chips for mobile device, has announced a chip which will decode VP8 in hardware, but this is fairly new development. It is not unreasonable to consider that Apple has plenty of so-called “skunkworks” projects to play all kinds of Video content on iPhone and iPad, but it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see any new video support in the upcoming new iPhone model.
Lulu.com Offers iPad Publishing
Huge news for people who self-publish. This makes it a much more viable option for me personally, as well.
The App Store: Revenge Reviews
Garret Murray, developer of the Ego app for iPhone, on what he calls “revenge reviews”: Reviews posted to the App Store by users who accidentally purchased an app, misread it’s description, or otherwise made a mistake. I hadn’t thought of this:
People brought up a great point the last time I complained about App Store customers—they’re all children. Not metaphorically, but literally. Most of these customers are kids with iPod Touches. So of course they act like children.
But it rings true. I’d go further and say that the ones that are not literally children, are probably emotionally stunted in some way.
Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Flash
An actual post by Steve Jobs on why the iPhone doesn’t support Flash, and why it’s not likely to in the future. Well-written, and covers pretty much every logical base.
Transmit 4
Panic releases the newest version of their FTP client, and it’s a doozy. The website is, as I’ve come to expect from Panic, completely awesome.
CNet: Lost iPhone prototype spurs police probe
Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws, a law enforcement official told CNET on Friday.
I believe the whole thing was a case of common theft and the sale of stolen goods. Looks like Apple is treating it just like that, at least externally.
Lukas Mathis on iPhone OS 4.0
Likes folders, doesn’t see the point of task switcher, worried about file management. Lukas has quickly become a dude whose output I read every single word of.
Apple’s Use Of Private APIs In The App Store, iTunes Music Store
John Gruber notes, vis-a-vis this talk given by Bertrand Serlet on Apple’s API Lifecycle, that:
Apple doesn’t disallow the use of private APIs out of spite; they disallow it because their private APIs are not fully baked.
It should be obvious, but: Apple’s intentions are utterly unimportant in this matter. Using private APIs for system-level applications is one thing, but iBooks is in the App Store. iBooks uses private, Apple-only APIs that are not available to other developers. iBooks directly competes with any number of other applications that sells things to read. iBooks is using an unfair advantage given to it by Apple’s engineers. There’s nothing ok about any of that.
Adding to this, there is the potentially coming storm of a United States .vs. Microsoft situation regarding the iTunes Music Store. There are other music stores out there, after all, and Apple has not put them all on equal footing. If using special features that no other developers have access to isn’t an anti-competitive practice, I’m not sure what else qualifies.
The more iPads, iPhones and Macs that Apple sells, the closer they’re coming to an antitrust showdown.
Opera Mini “Countup”
Opera submitted Opera Mini to the App Store 6 hours ago, and this page is tracking how long it takes Apple to approve it. The closest guess wins a new iPhone. This is pretty clever. Everyone knows the App Store approval process is bunk, why not have some fun with it?
“Made, Is Making, or Will Make?”
David Barnard on the sales fluctuations in the App Store, and how hard is it to gauge future success/sales on same.
Apple sues HTC for infringing 20 iPhone patents
Engadget has the documentation. I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of people decrying the use of “user interface” patents. This kind of thing can be pretty vile. For example, one of the patents is for:
“Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,”
Which is absurd.