Yesterday, after Facebook accidentally leaked their long-overdue official iPad app, the blogosphere erupted with instructions on how to unlock the hidden app. Facebook quickly responded by blocking Facebook for iPad. Clearly there is a lot of interest in the app, because today hacker chpwn released a tool called FaceForward that re-enables the hidden feature.
Google's annual developer conference kicked off today with an unsurprisingly sweet Android announcement. The next mobile OS, Android 3.1, will be dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich and has a fittingly cute logo to boot. Among the new developer API goodies are an impressive 3D display system that can detect spatial movement, ala Microsoft Kinect. ICS devs will apparently be able to use minute facial gestures, such as eye movement, as input. The practical usage of which (beyond being totally future-y) remains to be seen.
A major update to Apple's iOS IDE was released a few days ago and so far Xcode 4's weaknesses greatly outweigh its strengths. After having spent a bit of time with Xcode 4, I am strongly considering going back to the old version. Google "i hate xcode 4" and you'll see I'm not the only one considering an IDE downgrade. Here are just a few of the reasons Xcode 4 may end up being the Windows Vista of Apple IDEs.
The next major iOS update is slated to be released this Friday, March 11, alongside the ultra-hyped iPad 2. One of the key features is a little something called iTunes Home Sharing, which allows users to stream music, podcasts, movies and more from PC to iOS device.
It would be hard to imagine a world completely devoid of PCs. But as smartphones continue to skyrocket in popularity and some people have already abandoned their desktops in favor of their do-it-all handsets, rumblings of a PC-free future abound.
The solution I came to was to write my own "NetShare"-like app for personal use. After poking around the web for some jumping off points (and a tip from the developer of the controversial "Handy Light" app), I stumbled on a GitHub project called "iProxy". While it does not use true "tethering" (thus the quotation marks) but rather HTTP and SOCKS proxy, it turns out that is exactly what NetShare used.
The other night, I was using the Netflix app on my iPhone 4 and had a shocking revelation: this is one of the worst designed, "professional" apps I've ever seen. Yes, I can stream video over 3G. I can search for movies and manage my queue. In most areas of functionality, Netflix for iPhone delivers. It is relatively new and I'm sure a work in progress but as of the current version, it is a prime example of what not to do in terms of iOS app design. Here are some reasons why.
The shiny new iOS 4.2 Golden Master was seeded to developers yesterday.
In the world of Apple, 2010 has been the year of mobile. The iPad has become such a household name it's amazing that it was only first announced 10 months ago. It's hard to imagine using an iOS device now without multitasking. And let's not forget about a little something called iPhone 4. There was in fact so much activity on the Apple mobile front, you might have forgotten they were once a computer company. That's why Apple's special media event being held tomorrow is aptly titled "Back to the Mac"- to remind us that "Hey, we still make computers too!"
Yesterday, Apple released a statement highlighting significant changes to their iOS Developer Program license, re-opening the platform to third-party development tools such as Adobe Flash. Additionally, Apple posted their full App Store review guidelines. The move has already been touted as a positive step towards App Store review transparency- which in the past has been criticized for its ostensible inconsistency. But why now? And what does this mean for Flash developers?
Hot on the heels of the U.S. Copyright office declaring jailbreaking smartphones legal, a new web-based iOS jailbreak tool has surfaced. The new tool makes the jailbreaking process leaps and bounds simpler than past PC-based tools.
Late last week, an Australian hacker dubbed ikee deployed the Rickrolling worm - a harmless and humorous worm that installs a picture of 80s one hit wonder Rick Astley to affected users' home screens. Rickrolling serves not so much as malware but as a warning to jailbreak users who have installed SSH in order to gain root access to their iPhone's file system from the internet but have neglected to change the default password, even though not doing so is clearly warned against in the installation documentation.
In a new study conducted by Pear Analytics of San Antonio Texas, approximately 40% of posts on Twitter can be described as "pointless babble." According to SFGate's "The Tech Chronicles," the study sampled the Twitter stream every 30 minutes from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for 10 days.
If Twitter is voyeuristic, then TweetPsych takes it to a whole new level. Based on your last thousand tweets (or those of someone you're interested in knowing a deeper understanding of), TweetPsych builds a psychological profile, indicating a score and in some cases an interpretation of your score within various cognitive or emotional parameters.