Linked List: July 31, 2007

Tuesday, 31 July 2007

Apple Schedules Media Event for Tuesday, August 7 ★

Invitation explicitly states product announcements will not be related to iPods or iPhone. New iMacs are a gimme; I think it’s time for revamped MacBook Pros, too.

Khoi Vinh: ‘Don’t Ever Leave the Airport’ ★

Reminds me of this old Letterman Top 10 list.

Safari 3.0.3 Beta and Security Update 2007-007 ★

Both are available via Software Update; release notes for both Safari 3.0.3 beta and Security Update 2007-007.

Apple: About the Security Content of iPhone v1.0.1 Update ★

All MobileSafari issues — cross-site scripting holes, a buffer overflow in PCRE (the regex library used by JavaScriptCore), anti-phishing measures, and more.

iPhone Software 1.0.1 Released ★

First bug fix and security update for iPhone. Get it via iTunes.

Anil Dash: Pixels Are the New Pies ★

Now that he’s pointed this out, I suspect I’ll notice this trend everywhere.

iTweet — iPhone Web App for Twitter ★

First third-party Twitter web app to offer “Older/Newer” links in your friends timeline, and, thus, now my preferred iPhone Twitter interface.

The iPhone Dev Wiki: UIKit Hello World ★

Sample program for iPhone, produced using reverse engineered header files and a jury-rigged set of developer tools. You can see how closely iPhone’s UIKit resembles Mac OS X’s AppKit.

Microsoft Mac BU Releases Remote Desktop Connection 2.0 Beta ★

Universal binary update to Microsoft’s free utility for connecting to Windows machines via RDC. They’ve also updated their free Mac OS X converter for the new “Office Open XML” file formats.

Fox News Updates Cavuto Transcript ★

Where he was previously quoted as saying:

Lo and behold, we’re told 146,000 iPhones were activated in the day and a half between the phone’s launch and the most recent quarter’s end.

He is now quoted as saying:

Lo and behold, we’re told 270,000 iPhones were sold in the day and a half between the phone’s launch and the most recent quarter’s end — trouble is only about 146,000 were actually activated.

The transcript still claims Apple had projected “half a million” opening weekend sales (they didn’t), and still uses the adjective “hotsy-totsy”.

FaceSpan 5 Alpha Weblog ★

Mark Alldritt, whose Late Night Software is behind such terrific scripting tools as Script Debugger and Affrus, took over development of FaceSpan about a year and a half ago. FaceSpan 4 is an interesting improvement, at least in some ways, over Apple’s own AppleScript Studio — but the downside is that because it’s fundamentally based on AS-Studio, it is also in many ways limited by AS-Studio’s own limitations.

Alldritt, with the help of his long-time co-conspirator Matt Neuburg, is hard at work on FaceSpan 5, a ground-up rewrite completely untethered from AppleScript Studio. I’m lucky enough to be be alpha testing it, and even at this early stage it is extraordinary. Testing is private, but Alldritt has launched a weblog to document its progress and show off some of the ways it works. If you’re interested in scripting and development tools, you’ll want to keep an eye on this.

Bill Walsh, Genius Coach of the 49ers, Dies at 75 ★

I rooted against Bill Walsh’s teams passionately. No single game has ever broken my heart like the 1981 NFC Championship (a.k.a. “The Catch”). (An eight-year-old Cowboys fan just isn’t equipped emotionally to deal with a game like that.) But the man was a genius, both strategically and in terms of his uncanny ability to spot genius in players. At least three of his draft picks — Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Ronnie Lott — are in my opinion the best to ever play their positions in the NFL. That is not a coincidence.

Bill Walsh personified what makes football a glorious sport.

iLounge Reviews Apple’s Bluetooth iPhone Headset ★

Jeremy Horwitz:

Apple’s new iPhone Bluetooth Headset ($129) takes a nearly opposite approach: made largely from black anodized aluminum and designed to look less geeky than the vast majority of its predecessors, its appeal is almost entirely in its shape, size, and simplicity, rather than any major performance advantage it offers over competing options. Consequently, though it may appeal aesthetically to some users, it’s not as impressive as we would have expected for its relatively high price, and offset mostly by an interesting packed-in item in its box.

Bejeweled Comes to iPhone ★

Wow, a game with no sound whatsoever. Sweet!

The Register: ‘Apple’s [sic] Takes Flak as AT&T Drops iPhone Bomb’ ★

The Register:

AT&T’s declaration that only 146,000 Apple iPhones registered on its network in the first two days it was on the market has led to widespread shock at what is now being seen as the device’s failure and a down period for Apple shares, sliding 7.5 per cent over a few days last week, a fall of some $10bn in total market capitalisation.

What is it about this “146,000 activations” number that has rotted out the minds of the business press? If you care about opening weekend iPhone sales, the number that matters is 270,000, which is how many phones Apple sold. As for the effect on Apple’s stock price since the iPhone went on sale, the stock is up. It closed at $122 on June 29; as I type this it’s at $137.

iPhone Troubleshooting Assistant ★

When in doubt, restart. (And if you have a frozen app, you can press-and-hold the Home button for six seconds to force quit.) (Via Jeffrey Zeldman, who also linked to an interesting tip to use iSync (remember iSync?) to reset iCal synching if you’re having problems getting calendars to your iPhone.)

David Chartier on NetworkLocation 2.0 ★

David Chartier at TUAW is impressed by Network Location 2.0:

In addition to automatically changing settings like system volume, opening a webpage, playing an iTunes playlist or switching Mail servers all based on the wired or wireless network you connect to, this new version adds a great new feature that users have been dying for: the ability to auto-detect which network you’re connecting to and begin changing any settings you prefer with no effort on the user’s part.

Shawn Blanc: ‘Be a Better Designer’ ★

Shawn Blanc, with good advice for anyone:

That was the first and last time I ever acted like a high-and-mighty graphic designer who treats his clients as if they were perpetually inconveniencing him. Now when I receive a job-request the first sentence in my email reply starts with “thank you.”

Neil Cavuto of Fox News, Jackass ★

It was inevitable that this clown would eventually win a Jackass of the Week:

The company announced its hotsy-totsy iPhone was going to revolutionize the world — bad when you start out using that word “revolutionize,” by the way.

That it would sell 10 million in the first year and half a million of those in the first couple of days — days!

Lo and behold, we’re told 146,000 iPhones were activated in the day and a half between the phone’s launch and the most recent quarter’s end.

Apple has stated — and reiterated several times — that they hope to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. I think they’re on pace to beat that. But neither Apple as a company, nor any Apple executive speaking on the company’s behalf, ever speculated on opening weekend sales. That “half a million” estimate came from outside analysts, not Apple. And if he hadn’t botched this enough already, the “146,000 activations” number was from AT&T; Apple announced last week that 270,000 iPhones were sold in the first two days.

And, lastly: “hotsy-totsy”?

Update: Fox News has since updated their transcript of Cavuto’s remarks.

iTunes Store Sells Three Billionth Song ★

They hit 1 billion back in February 2006. They hit 2 billion 11 months later in January 2007. Only seven months later, they’re at 3 billion. (Via 2lmc Spool.)