Linked List: January 6, 2011

Thursday, 6 January 2011

If I Bought Your App Already Can I Update It Through the Mac App Store? ★

Bookmark this one.

Without Proper Code Validation, Mac App Store Downloads Are Easily Bootlegged ★

Copy the App Store receipt from any legit Mac App Store download — including from any free app — and paste it into a bootleg download of Angry Birds, and it’ll run.

This isn’t true for all paid Mac App Store apps. For apps that follow Apple’s advice on validating App Store receipts, this simple technique will not work. But, alas, it appears that many apps don’t perform any validation whatsoever, or do so incorrectly, like Angry Birds. (Angry Birds checks for a valid receipt, but doesn’t check to see that the bundle ID for the receipt matches its own bundle ID.)

Apple should test for this in the review process, and reject paid apps that are susceptible to this simple technique.

Samsung’s CES 2011 Keynote ★

Samsung may be copying a bunch of things from Apple, but they’re sure doing some original work in terms of keynote presentation style. Choose “oldest first” in the sorting options, so you can read it chronologically.

Mark Alldritt on Find and Replace User Interfaces ★

The old way (e.g. TextEdit) is to have a separate find/replace window. The new way (e.g. Safari) is to do it inline, in a shallow horizontal bar atop the content area. The problem with the old way is that the Find window covers the content. The problem with the new way is that there isn’t much room for additional search controls. Mark Alldritt has some good ideas here. (Via John Siracusa, with whom I agree, as usual.)

Florida Professor Arrested for Having a ‘Suspicious’ Bagel on a Plane ★

Todd Wright, reporting for NBC Miami:

A Florida professor was arrested and removed from a plane Monday after his fellow passengers alerted crew members they thought he had a suspicious package in the overhead compartment.

That “suspicious package” turned out to be keys, a bagel with cream cheese and a hat. Ognjen Milatovic, 35, was flying from Boston to Washington D.C. on US Airways when he was escorted off the plane for disorderly conduct following the incident.

“Suspicious Bagels” would be a good name for a bagel store. (Thanks to DF reader Collin Bennett.)

‘Read the Fucking HIG’ ★

Best new site of the day: a collection of terrible UI design from the Mac App Store. Brings to mind the greatness of Ladd Van Tol’s old PerversionTracker.

Bloomberg: Apple Said to Have Approached Blackstone’s Laurence Tosi to Becoming CFO ★

C-level executive intrigue. Bloomberg reports:

Apple Inc. approached Blackstone Group LP Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi to become its finance chief, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

Tosi told Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman that he plans to stay, rather than join Apple, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, said the company is “not conducting a CFO search.” Current CFO Peter Oppenheimer “loves the company and is extremely happy in his role,” Dowling said.

Why might Apple have approached Tosi? Maybe they’re getting ready to spend some dough:

Tosi, 42, would have brought Apple more experience with corporate acquisitions. Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, made more than 30 purchases last year, according to Bloomberg data. Apple made four, the data show.

Remember when Apple was on the cusp of acquiring AdMob, but the deal somehow got blown at the last moment and Google was able to swoop in and snatch them? The explanation I’ve heard is that the negotiations between Apple and AdMob were slowed down because they had to go through Steve Jobs — and he’s busy. So I suspect Apple is looking for someone specifically to focus on M&A.

The Mac App Store by the Numbers ★

Richard Gaywood’s detailed analysis of the kinds and prices of apps that debuted in the Mac App Store:

As you can see, apps broadly fall into a few pricing categories. Almost half of the apps in the Mac App Store are in the cheap-and-free sub-$5 bracket; an informal survey reveals a lot of ports of iOS games falling into this area. There’s then a bit of a no-mans-land between $5-10; then huge numbers of apps in the $10-50 brackets. Again, informally surveying the store, these appear to be mostly traditional Mac software packages that have been ported over to the store and broadly maintained their price points.

How Your Tablet Can Compete With iPad ★

Great piece from Andy Ihnatko:

I’m a slave to my readers and I want them to have a wide gene pool of terrific hardware to select from. So I’m willing to explain to ASUS, Motorola, HP, RIM, and every other company how to build a slate that can answer the question “But why would I buy this instead of an iPad?”

Sony Ericsson: No OS Updates for Xperia X10 Beyond Android 2.1 ★

Vlad Savov for Engadget:

The farce that has been Sony Ericsson’s bungled, delayed, and deservedly maligned Android upgrade story for the Xperia X10 family is coming to a fittingly silly end. Questioned by Android Community on the possibility of a Froyo (Android 2.2) upgrade for its initial set of Android handsets, the SE team has just come out and admitted that there’ll be no future OS upgrades, at least in terms of Android iterations.

It was only released in the U.S. in August — five months ago.

Google Confirms Android Bug Where SMS Messages Are Sent to the Wrong People ★

These two bugs have been in the news this week:

When some users tap to open a message in the Messaging application, they’re seeing a different message appear instead. We don’t believe this issue is affecting many users, but we’ve developed a fix that we’re preparing to deploy. Of course, double-checking the displayed message before hitting “Send” will prevent any messages from being sent to the wrong recipients. We’ve found in testing this issue, it is more likely to occur if you tap on a message before the Messaging app is fully loaded, so we recommend waiting for all the elements to load before clicking on the message you want to display.

Separately, some users have reported that their SMS messages are being delivered to the wrong people. It took us some time to reproduce this issue, as it appears that it’s only occurring very rarely. Even so, we’ve now managed to both reproduce it and develop a fix that we will deploy.

This is where the slow deployment of Android OS updates to non-Nexus phones matters.

And if you enjoy the taste of claim chowder, you might like Chuck Falzone’s piece on the AndroidGuys blog from a few days ago: “The ‘Android SMS Bug’ Does Not Exist”. (Hint: “I don’t see the bug” doesn’t mean “the bug does not exist”.)

(Insert your own “Well, at least the Android alarm clock app worked on January 2” neener-neener here, if you wish.)

Restoring Angry Birds Saved Game Data ★

Christopher Breen on how to move your Angry Birds saved game data from an iOS device to the Mac, for use with the new Mac version of the game. PhoneView is a great utility for this sort of jiggery-pokery.

Panic (Inc.) on the Mac App Store ★

Cabel Sasser on what it’s like for existing Mac apps that are now in the App Store:

PS: If you’re a current customer, there’s no way to convert a previous purchase into a Mac App Store purchase — that requires a re-buy. But remember, what you have now will continue to work just fine.

UPDATE: The Mac App Store may show software bought from us previously as “Installed”, even though they’re two different licenses. You will not get Mac App Store auto-updates unless you purchase from the Mac App Store. To re-enable the “Purchase” button in the Mac App Store, just drag the app to the trash. Your preferences/sites will not be affected.

In other words, for apps that use the same bundle ID for both the Mac App Store and non-App Store versions, the Mac App Store will not install updates to already-installed non-App Store versions, but it will recognize them as being already installed. If you want to get updates via the Mac App Store, you’ll have to re-buy the app through the App Store.

Update: Daniel Jalkut (of Red Sweater Software) tweets:

Notes from support-land: the presence of some apps as “Installed” is making customers believe they are fully integrated into [Mac App Store].

Which kind of makes sense. If the Mac App Store “sees” the existing app, why not assume it’ll provide updates for it, too?

Again, Why the First iPhone for Verizon Won’t Use LTE ★

Another stream of emails today, in the wake of that leaked new iPhone enclosure yesterday, asking if maybe the SIM card slot means that the initial iPhone for Verizon will use LTE. I covered this back in August:

The whole point of expanding to Verizon is to gain market share in the U.S. It’s about high-volume iPhone sales, coast to coast. A big part of the reason there’s so much demand for a Verizon iPhone is that so many people aren’t satisfied with AT&T’s coverage and quality. Even if their LTE rollout goes exactly as planned — a big “if” — LTE is going to be a niche technology in January, available in a few dozen cities. There may well be tens of million of Verizon customers in those cities, but Apple would want a Verizon iPhone to be aimed squarely at all Verizon customers. The message: “Everyone waiting for a Verizon iPhone: here it is.”

And:

The original EDGE iPhone is also a good example of Apple’s relatively conservative pace of adoption of cell network technology. AT&T (née Cingular) already offered 3G service when the iPhone was announced. But coverage wasn’t widespread, and Apple was concerned about its effect on battery life.

LTE is untested, has spotty coverage, and consumes more power. There will be LTE iPhones eventually, but not soon. Trust me, take it to the bank: the upcoming Verizon iPhone won’t be LTE. I don’t even think the second iPhone to hit Verizon will use it.

‘I Expect to Make the Best Movie Ever Made’ ★

Letters of Note has a 1971 unfinished draft from Stanley Kubrick to MGM about Napoleon:

It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made.

And they’ve got a letter from Audrey Hepburn to Kubrick, politely turning down his offer to play Josephine. Imagine that. (Via Coudal.)

Horace Dediu on the Real News From CES ★

Horace Dediu:

At this year’s CES two unthinkable things happened:

The abandonment of Windows exclusivity by practically all of Microsoft’s OEM customers.

The abandonment of Intel exclusivity by Microsoft for the next generation of Windows.

Many of Microsoft’s customers chose to use an OS product from Microsoft’s arch enemy. Some chose to roll their own. Microsoft, in turn, chose to port its OS to an architecture from Intel’s arch enemy.

These actions confirm the end of the PC era.

Twitter for Mac (a.k.a. Tweetie 2) ★

My new favorite Mac Twitter client.

AT&T Cuts Price on iPhone 3GS to $49 ★

A low-end iPhone is the only advantage AT&T has left against Verizon, and even that will only last for six months or so. Here’s how I see it playing out: Verizon starts selling the iPhone 4 at the end of this month or early February. It costs the same as it does on AT&T, $199/299 for 16/32 GB models. Then come June or July, when Apple releases the 2011 iPhone, it debuts on both Verizon and AT&T at the same time, the iPhone 4 drops to $99 (or less?) on both carriers, and the iPhone 3GS goes away.

Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.6.6, Including the Mac App Store ★

Apple PR:

Entirely new apps, as well as current Mac favorites, are available from developers such as Autodesk, Ancestry.com and Boinx. iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand apps from Apple’s popular iLife ’11 suite are available individually in the Mac App Store for $14.99 each, and Pages, Keynote and Numbers apps from iWork are available for $19.99 each. Aperture 3, Apple’s powerful photo editing and management software, is available for $79.99.

Before today and the App Store, Aperture cost $199.

The Talk Show, Episode 23 ★

While you’re waiting for the Mac App Store to launch, why not listen to this week’s episode of The Talk Show? This one turned out pretty good.

Brought to you by two excellent sponsors: Zendesk and Shopify.

EU Standard Phone Charger Regulations Allow for an Adapter ★

Ben Rooney:

The common charger will be based on the “Micro USB,” already widely used as a connector for computers and peripherals. Although the new standards only apply to the 27 states of the EU, the Commission hopes that with some 400 million potential consumers in that market, it will drive manufacturers to adopting the standard world-wide.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the 14 manufacturers does provide some wriggle room for companies like Apple that have their own bespoke leads. The agreement does not prohibit manufacturers from having their own nonstandard plugs as long as they make available an adaptor.

So Apple doesn’t have to put Micro USB ports on their products to comply with these regulations in Europe.

R-UIM ★

Wikipedia:

Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM) is a card developed for CDMA handsets that extends the GSM SIM card to CDMA phones and networks.

So maybe this explains the SIM slot in those purported photos of the CDMA iPhone 4.

Microsoft’s Tablet Strategy ★

Matt Rosoff:

Earlier today, computer maker Asus kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show a day early by announcing four upcoming tablet computers. Three of them run Google’s Android operating system. One runs Windows 7. See if you can guess which one is the outlier:

Eee Pad MeMO: starts at $499

Eee Pad Slider: starts at $499

Eee Pad Transformer: starts at $399

Eee Slate: starts at $999

I get the feeling Microsoft knows they have a big problem here. They need to shut up, get to work, and build a real tablet OS — and they know it. The problem is they can’t completely shut up. The iPad is too big a sensation, and is attracting a bunch of competitors, almost none of which are using a Microsoft OS. But they were way more blustery about “slates” at last year’s CES than they were at this year’s.

Mac App Store Launches at Noon Eastern? ★

Jim Dalrymple:

According to my sources, the Mac App Store will be available at 12:00 pm (noon) ET on Thursday. That puts it at about 9:00 am PT where Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif.

Microsoft Sold 8 Million Kinects in 60 Days ★

Very impressive. Seems like Xbox has taken a decided lead over PS3. But announcing this makes it all the more glaring that they still haven’t released any sales numbers for Windows Phone 7.

Engadget Hands-On With BlackBerry PlayBook ★

Looks impressive, particularly the multitasking. But still no word on pricing.