Linked List: October 17, 2007

Wednesday, 17 October 2007

Jacqui Cheng, two weeks ago:

Apple is working on solutions that will help developers get more face time on the iPhone, but there are currently no plans to offer a “true” iPhone SDK that would allow developers to create native apps, a source at Apple has told Ars.

I strongly suspect her source was correct, however, that Apple is also working on significant improvements to MobileSafari’s web app capabilities, including offline storage.

More on the iPhone Ringer Switch ★

Clever bit of design I hadn’t noticed: the iPhone screen does turn on to show a sound icon when you toggle the ringer switch with the screen off, but only if the screen has been off for more than one minute.

Unlocked iPhones to Be Sold in France ★

Kevin J. O’Brien reporting for the International Herald Tribune:

The move, which ended a month of speculation, is a concession to a French law that forbids bundling the sale of a mobile phone and a mobile operator. Orange plans to sell both a version of the iPhone locked to its network in France for €399, or $560, and an unlocked version, which will cost more, an Orange spokeswoman, Béatrice Mandrine, said.

Amazon.com Interview With David Lynch ★

Pure DF fodder: topics include digital video vs. film, the Internet as a distribution medium, Stanley Kubrick, and the city of Philadelphia, which Lynch describes as “one of the sickest, most fear-ridden, corrupt, and twisted cities, which they call the City of Brotherly Love.” (He loved it here, really.)

Scroll down to get to the interview; it’s halfway down the product page under “Videos for this product”, inexplicably positioned as a peer to homemade video “reviews” from rando Amazon customers.

(Thanks to Mark Schrimsher.)

jQuery Crash Course ★

Nathan Smith’s nifty introduction to the jQuery JavaScript library.

iToner 1.0.3 ★

Now works with iPhone OS 1.1.1.

The Absolute Poker Cheating Scandal ★

The scary part is that the only reason the cheaters were caught is that (a) detailed logs were leaked (perhaps intentionally by a whistleblower); and (b) the cheaters were egregious — rather than using their knowledge of opposing players’ hole cards here and there, they played in a way that raised suspicion immediately.

Question of the Day ★

Dave Dribin asks something I’ve been wondering about, too — especially since our Wii showed up at DF HQ yesterday.

Synopsis ★

~~Star Wars: A New Hope~~

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone; synopsis. (Via John C. Welch.)

Leopard Wiki Server ★

One of the biggest new features in Leopard Server, and one of the best web apps I’ve ever seen — and by far the best web app I’ve seen from Apple — including an amazing web-based WYSIWYG editor.

AAPL Closes at All-Time High ★

For once there’s some correlation between a rise in Apple’s stock price and good news from the company. Wall Street sees platforms as lucrative.

Leopard iCal Server ★

Doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of attention, at least not yet, but this is pretty big:

Using iCal Server, colleagues can propose and set up meetings, book conference rooms, and more, quickly and easily. iCal Server is a full-featured, standards-based calendaring solution designed to make your life easier.

This is Apple’s rival to Exchange for scheduling.

Deck Q4 ★

Jim Coudal: “If you have a product or service that could benefit by being in front of millions of creative, web and design professionals, give us a shout.”

Glenn Fleishman on Apple’s iPhone SDK Announcement ★

Glenn Fleishman:

Jobs’s letter today was a bit in the tone of, “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn! We still have to get rid of the gophers, resod the grass, and finish the main house before we let you on it in a few months, you little...”

At the end, Glenn speculates about a possible “iPhone version of Leopard”, and assumes that the current iPhone OS is based on Tiger, but that’s misguided. iPhone OS X already contains technologies new to the Mac in Leopard. For example, the iPhone has LayerKit, which was an early name for the Cocoa framework now called Core Animation. (In Mac OS X 10.5, Core Animation is part of the QuartzCore umbrella framework, and there isn’t anything called “LayerKit”.) Better to think of Mac OS X and iPhone OS X as two sibling products derived from the same core technologies and frameworks than to think of iPhone OS X as a child of Mac OS X.

I’ll bet Glenn’s right, though, that there will be a signficant iPhone OS update before the SDK appears.

Metasploit: Cracking the iPhone (Part 2.1) ★

Detailed information on how to exploit the iPhone OS X TIFF-processing vulnerability.

From the Archive: ‘iPhone SDK, iPhone SDK! Wherefore Art Thou iPhone SDK?’ ★

Me, back on June 1:

Long-term, within the next two years, if not far sooner, I feel certain there will be various ways for developers to write iPhone software. [...] Downplaying the prospects for third-party app development in the meantime is a way of under-promising and over-delivering. By setting initial expectations that there might never be third-party software for iPhone, any future support for third-party apps will be treated as good news.

Pretty prescient, if I do say so.

Of course, I got a slew of messages from smart DF readers that my use of “wherefore” in the title was utterly wrong. (“Wherefore” means “why”, not “where”.)

The Unknown Leopard Features, and a Note Regarding Notes ★

Good list of previously-unpromoted new features in Leopard from Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz. Not sure where he got this one, though:

Mail’s Post-It-style notes synchronize automatically with the iPhone.

What Apple actually says is: “Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone.” That’s not synching with the iPhone Notes app. What they mean is that notes created in Leopard Mail are stored, behind the scenes, as IMAP messages, and that you can read them in a way that makes them look exactly like regular emails in the iPhone Mail app. Apple has announced nothing yet regarding any connection between Leopard Mail notes and the iPhone Notes app.

The Other New BusinessWeek ★

BusinessWeek deputy creative director David Sleight on the magazine’s print edition redesign. A strong design that emphasizes very clean typography.

Typographica: Grading the New Font ‘Features’ in Leopard ★

Stephen Coles: “Let’s look a little closer at the features in the Fonts category and give them snarky grades based on their potential value.”

Stupid Headline of the Day ★

Headline for Nick Wingfield’s Wall Street Journal story on Apple’s iPhone SDK announcement: “Apple Reverses Position on iPhone Software”. Wrong. Apple never stated there would never be a native SDK. Until today Apple hadn’t made a definitive statement regarding native third-party iPhone development. (Via John C. Welch.)

Update: At some point during the day, the Journal changed the headline to “Apple Eases iPhone-Applications Curb”.

Greenpeace Admits iPhone ‘Compliant’ With European Chemicals Rules ★

Tony Smith:

Greenpeace’s write-up doesn’t once compare and contrast the iPhone’s use of hazardous substances with that of any other mobile phone from any other vendor.

That would have been useful: a document that, rather than whining about one vendor not moving as quickly on this issue as Greenpeace and others would like, shows consumers which handsets on the market contain the least quantities of hazardous chemicals.

Steve Jobs: Native iPhone SDK in February ★

Steve Jobs on the Apple Hot News weblog (no permalink that I can find, alas):

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.

Looks like Glenn Fleishman really did have the scoop last week.

Amazon Cuts Price on Leopard ★

Amazon has cut the price of Leopard from $129 to $109, and the five-license family pack from $199 to $189. Still with free shipping.