Linked List: November 23, 2009

Monday, 23 November 2009

BBC News on the latest jailbroken iPhone attack:

Users who have installed SSH and not changed the password are especially at risk.

By which they mean that users who have installed SSH and not changed the password are the only ones at risk.

Update: They’ve fixed it.

AdMob’s October 2009 Mobile Metrics Report ★

The full report, in PDF format, is here. Page 7 is where the interesting numbers are. The two most popular handsets are the iPhone and iPod Touch. Most interesting to me is the column showing percentage share change in the list of top device manufacturers:

Apple’s is great (+6.9%).
HTC’s is good (+1.2%).
Nokia’s, Palm’s, and Sony Ericsson’s are bad (-2.6%, -1.0%, and -0.8% respectively — particularly ominous for Palm, I think, in terms of traction for the Pre).
Everyone else, including RIM, is pretty much just treading water.

Also interesting on p. 7 are the pie charts comparing device market share with OS market share. The two charts are nearly identical. That might change if Android takes off.

Apple Joins AT&T/Verizon Spat With New iPhone Ads ★

Two new commercials from Apple tout the iPhone’s ability to access the AT&T data network while on a voice call — something Verizon’s CDMA network doesn’t allow.

This is a much more effective response than AT&T’s own. Attack with your strengths rather than defend your weaknesses.

Airfoil Speakers Touch 1.0.2 Now Available, Restores Previously Disputed Apple Icons ★

New version of Rogue Amoeba’s iPhone app is already available in the App Store, restoring the previously-disputed display of icons showing the type of Mac and the application from which the audio is being sent.

I hate to say I told you so (where by “hate” I of course mean “love”), but I told you this was not about violating the terms of the SDK agreement, but was about trademark protection. In plain English, the SDK Agreement says you can’t misuse Apple’s trademarks. It’s clear that Apple agrees that Rogue Amoeba was not misusing Apple’s trademarks.

Today’s ‘Not Invented Here’ ★

The App Store is getting more efficient.

International Blue Beanie Day ★

Zeldman:

Don a blue toque to show your support for web standards.

Phil Schiller Talks About the iPhone App Approval Process With BusinessWeek ★

The most interesting thing about Arik Hesseldahl’s interview with Schiller for BusinessWeek isn’t anything that Schiller says, but that the interview exists at all. The debate about the App Store review process is expanding into the mainstream press, and that’s a good thing. Apple cares far more about how customers perceive the App Store than developers (which attitude is probably exactly right).

Some of the details of the interview are interesting, too, including talk about Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil Speakers Touch rejection on trademark grounds:

Schiller didn’t directly address Airfoil Speakers, but he says Apple is trying to make trademark guidelines more sophisticated. “We need to delineate something that might confuse the customer and be an inappropriate use of a trademark from something that’s just referring to a product for the sake of compatibility,” he says.

That sounds exactly right.

AOL Reveals New Brand and Logo ★

They should have just renamed the company “lol”.