The Apple Blog

Since the App Store’s launch back in June, I’ve had mixed feelings about the overall level of quality of the applications for sale. Knowing that Apple has control over what does and does not make it in to the store initially had me with the mindset that they should indeed do a bit of quality assurance. If they already said they’d control the floodgates, then I just assumed they should make sure only quality stuff made it through the door.

But yesterday, news of an interesting event sort of shifted my mindset on things.

The basic gist of the story is that a completely legitimate application was submitted to Apple for inclusion in the App Store, only to be reject:

We’ve reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

Yes, Apple rejected an app that turns your iPhone in to a farting machine. Watch the video and you’ll see there is plenty of “utility” in this application…infinitely more than something like a beer simulator or a glowing ruby.

But arguing over whether farting or beer drinking with your iPhone is really not the issue…though that would certainly be an interesting conversation. The real issue here is where can Apple consistently draw the line? And should they even draw a line at all?

Apple lets just about anything in to the iTunes music store as well as the Downloads area of Apple.com. So why would they opt to have such a stronghold on the App Store?
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Tonight Microsoft aired its first ad featuring Jerry Seinfield. The ad (including Seinfield) is part of a new $300 million ad campaign Microsoft has put together to try and breathe new life in to the Windows operating system.

The 90 second ad spot is comprised mainly of shoe-banter between Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfield in a Shoe Carnival where Gates is a “platinum member.”

Interestingly enough, only 20 of the 90 seconds really have anything to do with Microsoft or Windows and of those 20 seconds, no time is spent actually touting much about Windows except that it is “The Future” and “Delicious.”

Microsoft has hinted that the new ad campaign is, in some part, a response to Apple’s successful “Get A Mac” campaign.

Personally, I’m not convinced this is starting on the right foot. My wife initially saw the commercial this evening and her response was basically “I don’t get it.” It’s one thing to try to be “hip”, but it’s another thing to try but completely fail at getting your message across. The attempt at humor is a nice change, though.

Check the new ad out below and let me know what you think. Is it effective or does its message get blurred?

Yesterday it was announced that Adobe will be announcing (gotta love announcements announcing announcements) Creative Suite 4 on September 23rd.

Adobe will be holding a special little event online showing all of the upcoming features of CS4 (which is rumored to be released as early as this Fall).

For those hip to trying out beta products, you can already checkout CS4 versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. Though, be warned, downloading and installing these could cause some conflicts should you need to re-install any CS3 software (I know it gave me some issues).

The current version of Creative Suite (CS3) was released on April 20, 2007.

All of the gaming love seems to have been directed at iPhone and iPod touch users for the past few months so it’s only fair that “regular” iPod owners get a piece of the pie.

Tricky Software has released Spore Origins. It’s currently only available for iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic and iPod (5th generation).

Using a simple single-finger control (via the click-wheel), you can navigate around 18 levels in six different worlds. The same premiss of the full Spore game applies here in that as you complete levels, you can evolve your creature to be stronger and faster.

The game is available in the iTunes store for $4.99.

Tricky Software is working on getting Spore Origins developed for iPhone/iPod touch and hopes to have it available in the coming weeks (no word yet on pricing).

The full Spore game is scheduled to be released in a matter of days on September 7th.

If you give Spore Origins a go, let us know!

Since the release of Office ‘08 I have been getting a lot of files with the .docx extension (the new standard for Word). Unfortunately, Office ‘04 does not natively support the .docx extension, but Microsoft has released a patch that lets you both open and save files in the open XML format.

If you have installed the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.0 Update and the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, you can use Office 2004 applications to open and save files in the Open XML Formats that were introduced in the 2007 Microsoft Office system for Windows and in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

To open files in the XML Format in Office 2004:

1. Download and install the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.0 Update Package
2. Download and install the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac package
3. Once both items are installed restart your computer just to be safe. You should now be able to open .docx with Word 2004 and other Open XML files

Note: I have not tried the following technique myself, but have been told it works. Please post results in the comments.

Another option to open Open XML Formats on a computer without Office 2008 is to convert the file down to the older format. To down convert an Open XML file:

1. Navigate to: Zamzar
2. Click “Browse” to browse your local computer to find the file you would like to convert
3. Select the format you would like to convert to



4. Enter your email address so Zamzar can send you download link for the file.
5. Wait…sometimes it takes a little while, but eventually you will get a download link for your freshly converted file.

There have been apps available on Windows Mobile for as long as I can remember it being in existence. When I had a Dell Axiom PocketPC in 2003, not only was I the coolest kid on the block, but I also had plenty of applications at my fingertips. I put a lot of games and other programs on there, but it never really did what I wanted it to. Eventually, I gave up on it and sold it on eBay.

One of my big complaints was that it was hard to find trusted, reliable, and working programs for the Axiom. There were all kinds of different PocketPCs that ran Windows Mobile, but had different processors, different specs, and the differences were great enough that it was not really worth the time and effort if you didn’t understand what your PocketPC could run.

So, Microsoft, who has been in the game for many years, has finally decided to follow Apple’s lead and offer nearly all of the 18,000 programs that work with Windows Mobile through one store, which will supposedly be called “Skymarket” (which brings back eerie memories of flying and browsing through the overpriced junk in Sky Mall). It will debut Autumn 2009.

Reportedly, Apple is raking in about $1 million a day on the app store, so it is clearly an exciting idea for Microsoft to join the party. Apple’s success certainly makes the idea enticing to try. It is also very rewarding for the average consumer to go to one place to get all their apps for their device. It makes it much easier for the person who is just trying to look cool, like I was when I bought my Axiom.

[Via PC World]

I hope all of you are having a glorious un-labor day and doing nothing but reading through all the past 2,100+ articles here on The Apple Blog. What? You’re not doing that? That’s unfortunate.

At any rate, if you aren’t doing that, you should definitely check out the new mobile version of The Apple Blog!

Just go to m.theappleblog.com on your mobile device and bask in the gloriousness of simplified article browsing.

If you have any problems with it, let me know. Enjoy!
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• Unzipping Files
• Settings to make IP address publicly accessible?
• My case from Interofficemac.com and power adapter for The Air
• Touchscreen ideas for Medicfusion EMR?
• Will SDK run on Mac mini with PowerPC G4?

In my ongoing search to finish the process of making my Mac the only object I need to do anything at all - a can opener is in development - I’ve been on the lookout for a good piece of software to manage microscopy photos.

Most microscopes come with software to do this, to be honest, but the big flaw with a lot of that software is that it’s either Windows-only, requiring Mac-using scientists to run some kind of virtualization or get a cheap Windows box to run it, or it simply doesn’t do all the things you need it to.

Enter Macnification, from Orbicule. With a whole host of features that I’ve been wishing for in current scope apps, and others I hadn’t even hoped were possible, Macnification is about to be a complete revolution in the way I work.

The most amazing part of Macnification is its support for stacks. In microscopy parlance, a stack is a group of images arranged vertically to either show different focal depths or time phases. A stacked image lets the viewer see the object in as close to 3D as flat photography is going to get. Macnification really highlights this, treating the stacks as if they were physical objects.

Z-slices through a stack are cake, with a realtime preview of what the section is going to look like that lets you rotate and angle the slice line to get the ideal cut. Extended focal imaging, or EFI, is also a breeze - a matter of two clicks - and fast, compressing a stack into a single image that features the sharpest parts of each component image.

All this image editing is also non-destructive, a huge plus in today’s increasingly-suspicious scientific imaging scene, with more and more journals requiring originals for analysis or forbidding image editing outright.

Another nifty bit is the ease of creation of time-lapse movies. I have a series of photos of the calcium flare across some neurons, and I’d been looking for a decent way to make this a time-lapse movie for presentations. Macnification did it in about fifteen seconds with only a couple of clicks. Brilliant - and everyone’s been asking how I did it. (Now I get to smile enigmatically again and point to my Mac.)

I do wish that this would run on anything besides 10.5, though - I’ve got some older computers in the lab that just are never going to cut it for Leopard. While I know it’s a sacrifice for all of the fancy features that require Leopard’s strengths, it’s still a drag.

Macnification is available in a free trial and for purchase starting at around $400 USD.

According to Apple’s latest iPhone ad, there are over 1000 apps in the App store (roughly 1500 if my simple math is correct). With the App store being only a month and a half old, that is a pretty impressive number. As with all platforms, the store has diamonds in the rough, and the rough is what makes those diamonds possible. I have two major beefs with iPhone apps that add to the roughage.

Paying for Web Apps

With the college football season fast approaching, I have turned into, as I do every year, a sucker for anything related to news, the rankings, and BCS. When I saw that the Associated Press released an app for tracking their top 25, I thought it would be a great idea to get it; it was only 99 cents, after all, and it was probably pretty good. The frustrating thing is that it is just a spiced up interface of a web app. I shouldn’t have to pay for something that is available in a better format on the web with no added functionality. In fact, if I save the web clip of ESPN’s rankings page, I get essentially the same thing with more information

iPhone apps should be about making the content available even if you don’t have access to the internet. That is what separates them from web apps. In addition, downloading the top 25 teams and info onto your phone or touch would make the coverflow of the top 25 teams more fluid and more like coverflow. Since it must constantly refresh from the internet, it is painstakingly slow in its current state.

I must admit that a great feature is streaming the AP’s podcast about the rankings, which makes it more beneficial. But, yet again, it sure would be better to have that downloaded for when you don’t have your internet connection.

Poor Commercialization Attempts

I fully support good efforts to make money in other areas by offering content on the iPhone. It bothers me when applications show up in the App store which are clearly designed to help sell a different product that is good, but the iPhone app is worthless. Here is an example. Audi’s A4, a sweet car, is promoted by this iPhone app.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not the worst game out there, but there are a couple of things that just make it seem like all they wanted was an app with Audi’s name on it (and maybe that is all they wanted). I think of excellent quality and attention to detail when I think of Audi. And that is not what we get here.

First, the only orientation you can have is landscape, and it is opposite the default for movies and most other things in landscape (you turn the device to the right, instead of the left). You have two choices for speed: 60 MPH, or 0 MPH. If you stray from the course, it snaps you back onto the course, facing a direction that causes you to grossly over-correct, because you are turning the phone to stay in bounds and that causes you to go almost perpendicular to the track and careen off to the other out-of-bounds area.

What It Means

I am sure that everyone out there would be overjoyed if all the “bad” applications were not in the app store. While it would be a good idea, we all see the qualities we like in apps. Surely, there is someone out there that loves every app in the store. I am sure some of you are thinking, “Dude, it’s 99 cents! Why are you getting all bent out of shape about it?” That is ok, we are all entitled to our opinions.

What I am really saying is: Apple needs bad apps in the store. If Apple pulled apps that weren’t perfect, there would be a huge uproar from people who thought they created a good app, but got kicked out when “someone” decided the app wasn’t good enough.

We need an open marketplace, where people can make poorly-designed products right next to amazing products. We have already seen furor over slow app updating and quick app removals for no reason.

Even though we may not like those weak apps, we (and Apple) need them.

Ryan Naraine reported over at ZDNet Zero Day on a new iPhone vulnerability which lets anyone have full access to the majority of iPhone functionality despite your clever 4-digit passcode lock.

As mentioned by “greenmymac” and covered by The Register, full access to contacts (and, hence, browser, e-mail, SMS…) is as simple as a press of the “Emergency Call” key from the passcode entry screen, followed by a double-tap on the home button, which – as The Register puts it – “takes the miscreant into favourites…” (why we in the States leave out the “u” is a sad mystery).

As Alex Hutton points out, you can mitigate the threat by disabling the “home button double-tap” feature of your device.

Ryan gave the CVE database a scan and noticed that this is not Apple’s first encounter with this error. CVE-2008-0034, which was identified back in January and fixed in the 1.x series firmware, noted this issue and is yet-another sign of Apple’s lack of commitment to security on the iPhone (guess they should have fixed more than just bugs in 2.0.2).

It would be greatly appreciated if any readers in an enterprise configuration (i.e. with a stronger passcode and a centralized provisioning environment) would drop a note in the comments letting me (and other TAB readers) know if you are impacted by this vulnerability as well. All TAB readers are invited to post your your thoughts in the comments on Apple’s latest security faux-pax.

I emailed my brother a picture of us when we were little to use as the picture that pops up when I call him, but when he received it he wasn’t sure how to save it to his iPhone (which you need to do to assign to a picture to a contact).

To save a picture to your iPhone library from Safari or an email:

1. Click and hold on the picture you want to save to your iPhone
2. Click “Save Image”



3. Now when you navigate to your photo album your newly saved picture will be there to do with it what you please

Spotlight importers aren’t the only symbols of Mac-generosity coming from the fine folks over at Google. The Google Gears project has released a beta of their browser code which enables developers to make web apps that behave more like local desktop apps and allow some – or complete – functionality even when you are not connected to the Internet (Google Reader being a very good example). When you come across a “Gears-enabled” application, your browser will prompt you to see if you trust this particular application enough to let it have access to your local filesystem:

It appears to store data in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Google Gears for Safari, so this would be a good folder to check from time-to-time (remember lsof is your friend) and the database files that are stored use SQLite, so you can peruse them from the command-line or via various GUI’s (one mentioned just recently).

Being a beta release, there are issues and you can add your own newfound bugs to the list as you come across them.

You’ll need Safari 3.1.1 at a minimum (and OS X 10.4.11/10.5.3). I’ve confirmed that it works with Safari 3.1.2. No word on Safari for Windows compatibility (let us know!) and don’t count on Mobile Safari support anytime soon.

If you give the beta a go, let us know your experiences and if you are a developer with a Gears-enabled application, drop the URL in the comments for all the TAB-world to see!

It occurred to me tonight that OS X isn’t getting any new features in version 10.6 of this amazing operating system. It really sunk in. You know, geeks hear these announcements at WWDC or in the blogosphere and its only when there is enough time to reflect before it sinks in. That’s what happened to me anyway, and if you’re thinking the same thing then the next question applies. Does no new features bother anyone? I think I said a while back that 10.5 ‘could be the bastard child in a a long line of fine operating systems’ and thankfully 10.5 has been pretty good to the world. Granted it had a rough start, but Apple has delivered more significant updates than its peers in the same business. 10.5 is certainly far from perfect though, and it’s still good that the strategy moving forward is one about quality and design.

It finally sunk in for me what no new features meant. Being greedy and always wanting more, I pause in moments to remember a favorite quote.

“Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Yet I still can’t stop thinking of ways to make 10.6 better. Sure we all suspect major changes in the way we interact with computers using a multitouch platform. All of the multitouch goodness on an Internet device, on my desk or in my pocket, and one that uses standards-based browsers has me very excited to be alive and geeky.
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Yet again, an Apple update steals the show with the release of iPhone OS 2.0.2. Strangely enough, you may have been a recipient of the following text message (ostensibly from Apple) even if you upgraded:

For a release that just “fixed bugs,” I find it difficut to believe that the motivation behind the SMS (if it was from Apple) is not more related to a security issue than Apple’s desire to ensure iPhone users are well-informed.

Apple also released a MacBook Air update (full disclosure: this one I did not install as I do not own an Air) which fixes issues with video playback and processor core idling. Apple makes note that third-party software that modifies processor operating characteristics such as frequency and voltage is not supported and should be removed before installing this update.

However, Apple is not the only one gettin’ busy with the late-summer updates:

• Adium 1.3 - So, while this technically was released on Monday, August 25th, I could not let this slip away for a whole week. The Adium team did a phenomenal job in the betas and 1.3 sports Facebook chat support, enhanced MSN support (including personal messages), a much improved “contacts” interface with excellent Address Book support and significantly enhanced searching. A definite must-install.
• NewsLife - 1.2.1 - I gave NewsLife (yet another RSS reader) a try this week, since I’m a sucker for shiny, new toys. It did not import the OPML groups from NetNewsWire, but does support grouping of feeds. Mouse tracking in the article list window kept working even with the Preferences dialog having focus (bug? feature?). It’s a clean, simple app that is charging ~$15.00USD for something you can get for free in many other ways, but it may have a visual & functional style that appeals to you. Requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5, PPC/Intel
• NetNewsWire - 3.1.7b4 - Speaking of RSS readers, NNW fixed an issue with a startup crash and some proxy compatibility problems and tweaked some UI color indicators for clippings and unread items counts. One of the more interesting updates, though, is the inclusion of an AppleScript command to evaluate the JavaScript for the current page. Most users will probably not find that useful, but it was a feature asked for and provided by NNW users. Gotta love the community! NNW is free and requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5; PPC/Intel
• AppleScript, Interface Builder & Xcode Project Spotlight Importers - Whether you like or loathe Apple’s built-in filesystem search interface, you have to give a nod to the Google Toolbox folks for helping out budding Mac developers by creating some handy importers. The AppleScript Importer imports source and description from AppleScript .scpt and .scptd files, the Interface Builder Importer imports custom class names, bindings, outlets, actions and localizable strings from .xib and .nib files and the Xcode Project Importer imports file names and project comments from .xcodeproj files. (I’d appreciate comments from Apple developers who have real projects and sources they can toss at these as my tests worked, but I hardly have an extensive personal library). Free, but check the web page for compatibility.
• Transmission - 1.33 - This most excellent torrent client for the Mac (and other platforms) fixes a security issue as well as some other bugs. You probably missed this if you are an infrequent user, but as school season is upon us, you may want to ensure you keep this app as up-to-date as possible. Not that I’m suggesting you kids are sharing files as opposed to attending classes. It’s all for Linux distributions. Gotta get those Linux distributions… Transmission is free (open source, actually), OS X 10.4/10.5 & Universal.

Let me & other TAB readers know what you’ve been checkin’ out by posting a note in the comments!

Despite Apple’s enterprise nod with the iPhone OS 2.0 feature set there are two fairly glaring omissions that make it difficult to use the iPhone in a corporate setting: the lack of encryption of the file system as a whole (or even just the message store) and the lack of available on-board virus scanners for the device (despite promises from prominent vendors). Without the former, it is nigh impossible to store client or customer data on the device, unless you are comfortable with the risk of financial penalties and reputation loss in the event you lose your iPhone. The latter is not as gnarly, but would require a policy exception at most mid-to-large companies and may prevent the device from being on the preferred list.

Intego has come up with a creative solution to one of those two remaining problems with VirusBarrier X5 10.5.3, their award winning virus scanner for OS X 10.4 & 10.5. Virus barrier has all of the traditional, crunchy goodness of system virus scanners, including real-time/on-demand scanning, heuristic/behavioral analysis, quarantine & trusted zones, event-based & scriptable scanning and the ability to detect & eliminate Windows viruses (very handy for BootCamp users). VirusBarrier can also integrate with your e-mail workflow and scan mail before you send and/or as you receive messages. The product developers realized just how vulnerable users of the iPhone are and came up with a creative way for their product to protect these new mobile devices as well.
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If you’re like me, you have more to do than you could realistically get done in a month. How do you keep up with it all? There are dozens of productivity applications for your Mac, and a few for your iPhone. But there’s one application that’s available on both your Mac and your iPhone… OmniFocus.

I’m sure most of you have read, or at least heard of Getting Things Done by David Allen. He started a real productivity movement, and has millions of dedicated followers. He has excellent and practical advice for organizing your life and work, and there are a lot of tools available that you can use to take advantage of his recommendations… some specifically designed around his methodology. OmniFocus is one of them. At its core, OmniFocus IS “GTD” task management. Don’t worry if you don’t know what GTD is, fortunately you don’t have to know anything about it to become more productive using OmniFocus. For more information about Getting Things Done task management, check out David Allen’s website.
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• Airport Express & Non-Wireless Routers
• DVD Conversion Best Practice?
• Old iPod, New screen?
• Search File Size (*.* on pcs)
• RSS feeds and “Bloglines.com” - do you use it?

For those of you who don’t know, Mailplane is an application that combines the best of two worlds: Gmail and your Mac. Mailplane is essentially Mail.app for your Gmail account. It allows all of the functionality of regular Gmail, but adds a lot to make life easier.

You can compose, save and send email like in a regular browser, but application buttons allow you to compose, send, browse, reply, forward, and Mailplane even includes all of Gmail’s shortcuts. Sending pictures is way faster with drag-and-drop functionality and a media browser. Mailplane also incorporates your contacts from Address Book, which makes sending group emails a piece of cake. The difference between Mailplane and a regular desktop mail client is that Mailplane doesn’t download all your emails, it leaves them on Gmail’s servers.

If Gmail’s settings aren’t optimized for Mailplane, it will let you know, and then take you to the settings page that will enable the feature that you don’t have turned on, in my case, it took me to the Gmail shortcuts settings page.

Uncomplex gmbh added more than 30 improvements to the program. Here are the highlights:

• Auto-completion for adding and removing labels
• Hide the Spam count and invitation boxes in the sidebar (nice touch, removes an annoying bold spam folder and invites box)
• OmniFocus “clipping” integration (plugin links OmniFocus task to your conversation)
• Do Not Disturb mode keeps Mailplane from interrupting your intense GTD time (when you turn off this mode, you are notified with Growl, sounds, and message counts)
• Copy and paste images and files from Finder to Mailplane.

Current users of Mailplane 1 will be upgraded to Mailplane 2 for free (very gentlemanly of them, don’t you think?), otherwise it is only $24.95. Mailplane works on Tiger and Leopard.

The UK security consulting firm Corsaire has just published a new whitepaper on securing Mac OS X Leopard (you may remember them from their similar Tiger whitepaper). Written by Corsaire’s head of training – Daniel Cuthbert (whom you may remember as being in a fairly public and silly court case a few years back and may also recognize as one of the founding members of OWASP) – the 54-page guide expands upon Apple’s own Mac OS X Leopard Security and Common Criteria guides through practical “how-to’s” and also includes references to additional, third-party tools (free, open source and commercial) which can aide your efforts to harden your systems.

This is a good tool to keep in your OS X security arsenal, but I’m curious as to what other resources TAB readers are using to keep their systems secure? Let us know what you’re reading and what you think of Corsaire’s guide by dropping a note in the comments!