iPhone Security Vulnerability

Numerous Mac news sites are reporting a vulnerability in the iPhone software that could give unscrupulous types access to much of the data on your iPhone. TUAW shows how it works and how to work around it. Long story short, if you set your Home button to bring up iPod (Settings>General>Home Button) you should be okay. Check out the TUAW story for more info.

Joe

New Nano and iTunes 8.0 Coming Soon

Kevin Rose of Digg is claiming to have information on significant, soon to be released Apple products including the iPod Nano and iTunes 8.0. Rose claims the Nano will undergo a fairly radical form factor change and included a larger elongated screen. See a picture of the new Nano over at MacRumors.

As for iTunes 8.0, Rose says its a major update and includes new features. Could one of those new features be the rumored iTunes Unlimited subscription service? Although he doesn't go into detail Rose says the update is worthy of a full point. Sounds good to me but I have to say I have no interest in s subscription service.

Joe Henry

Business Week Talks Apple's iPhone Rollout

Peter Burrows, writing for Business Week, reports on Apple’s rollout of the iPhone to more and more countries. Prior to today, the iPhone was offered in 22 countries which, according to this MacDailyNews article, put it in front of 320 million potential subscribers. Today, Apple expanded that number by 21 more countries and another 290 million potential subscribers.

According to Burrows’ article a person familiar with Apple’s production plans has stated that Apple is planning on manufacturing 40-45 million iPhones through August of 2009. This represents a 52% increase over the estimates of Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray. Given that Munster’s predictions are significantly more optimistic than most analysts, Apple is indeed planning an ambitious rollout.

Burrows’ goes on to say that Apple’s success with its ambitious expansion plans hinges on :

1 Apple’s and AT&T’s ability to speed up in-store activations.
2 Apple’s ability to address usability problems, the most significant of which is the problems some users are experiencing with the 3G network.
3 Apple’s ability to address component supply issues.

There are signs that all of these constraints are being addressed and Burrows concludes that even if Apple can’t meet its own lofty goals, it is likely to meet the average of most estimates.

The article is a good read and you can read it in its entirety here.

Joe Henry

Firmware Update 2.0.2 Targeted To Fix 3G Problems

Jim Dalrymple writing for MacWorld is reporting the iPhone 2.0.2 firmware update was targeting communication problems with 3G iPhones. There has been quite a surge in the number of people claiming to experience dropped calls, spotty service and constant switching back and fourth between the 3G and Edge networks.

According to the AP Apple Spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock confirmed that the update “Improved communication with 3G networks”. Bowcock gave little else in terms of details.

We’ve been watching the wire here a AYAAW and haven’t seen or heard anything that might indicate that the update did in fact fix some of these issues.

In other iPhone related news, and in response to iPhone users experiencing problems with apps freezing their phones, halting the boot process and failing to start altogether, Uncle Steve, in a briefly worded response to a customer email, stated that “This is a known bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September”. Perhaps there will be a little more 3G goodness included in this package as well.

Stay tuned kiddies.

Joe Henry

Analyst Says Apple Shipping "Massive" quantities of Macs

AppleInsider's Sam Oliver is reporting that Royal Bank of Canada analyst Mike Abramsky is predicting a record smashing quarter for Apple and for Mac shipments to be well above predictions. The record setting pace would put Apple inline to show a 44% year-over-year growth and 3.04 million Macs shipped in the quarter ending in September.

Specifically, Abramsky pointed to "unprecedented intentions" on the part of consumers during what has historically been only Apple's second strongest Mac quarter. His firm's study found that 34 percent of respondents intend to purchase a Mac notebook in the next 90 days, while another 30 percent plan to buy a Mac desktop."We forecast Apple's global PC share to rise to 4.2 percent [in 2009], from 2.9 percent [in 2007]," he said, adding that every 25 basis points of market share gain will equate to $1 billion in incremental revenue and $0.15 in per share earnings

The report sites two probable causes for the growth: Apples back to school promotion that offers a $299 rebate for a free iPod Touch to qualified educational customers purchasing qualified Mac system, and the so called "iPhone Halo Effect".

Oliver reports that of the analysts AppleInsider tracks, Abramsky is one of the most accurate. For more details read the full AppleInsider article.

Joe Henry

Retail Channels Getting Ready For September iPod Refresh

If you're considering the purchase of a swanky new iPod Touch or Nano you might want to wait a month. AppleInsider has information from some of its retail sources that current iPod Touch and Nano's are going from an in-stock inventory status to discontinued. AI's sources also claim to be in possession of iPod point-of-sale merchandising materials hinting at price cuts and possibly a redesign of the Nano.

Check out the original AppleInsider story for more details.

Hey, you can wait a month can't you?

Joe Henry

Apple "Surges" In Customer Satisfaction

In a new report authored by ASCI and the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business (report opens as a pdf once you click on the link in the right hand column of the page), Apple is surging ahead of all competitors in customer satisfaction. The report states:

The personal computer industry suffers a second consecutive drop in satisfaction, falling 1% to 74 and losing all gains made since 2005. Apple defies the industry by moving in the opposite direction and posting its largest gain ever to 85, a new all-time high for the industry. The 8% leap puts 10 points between Apple and its nearest rival, one of the largest gaps between first and second in any industry measured by ACSI. As Apple’s satisfaction improves, so too have its sales, market share, net income, and stock price. “It’s hard not to be impressed with Apple,” said Prof. Fornell. “This is product extension at its best where the new products, iPod and iPhone, are helping bring new customers to existing computer products. The fact that Apple is not dependent on the Windows Vista operating system hasn’t hurt either.” The industry aggregate decline is largely for Windows-based machines –Hewlett-Packard (73), Gateway (72), and Compaq (70) each sink 4%. The exception is Dell – up 1% to 75.

This shouldn't be news to anyone but with Windows users switching in droves it is worth taking note. I do love the last par there about how the industry aggregate decline is due to Windows. That makes me smile.

:) :)

Joe Henry

New iPhone 3G Survival Guide

Hey readers!

Is your iPhone acting a little funky?
Has it locked up on the gray Apple logo screen?
Are apps crashing over and over again?

We may have the answer for you in our new iPhone 3G survival Guide. Right now there are only four entries but we plan to keep adding more as we come across useful iPhone tips, tricks and troubleshooting advice. One thing we all know is that the 3G is a great device. We also all know it can be a fickle creature and until Apple whips the iPhone's firmware into shape, we are sure to encounter rocky roads ahead. So don't despair when your iPhone goes wonky on you oh, intrepid reader; you are in good company.

Oh and if you come across any tips or tricks yourself, let us know and we'll add it to the guide.

Send us your tips and tricks!

Joe Henry

So Far So Good With 2.0.2 (My iPhone Woes Part II)

As the title says, so far so good. I haven’t had a whole lot of time yet to put it through its paces but I’ve also not run into any issues either. I take that back, I am having weird backup behavior. First a little background.:

Since buying my new iPhone in July and loading it up with lots of apps, I’ve suffered through incredibly long backups. You know, when you plug your iPhone into your Mac for a sync, iTunes will automatically start backing the contents up. My first gen iPhone’s backups were a scant 1 to 2 minutes. With my new phone and firmware 2.0 backups have been multi hour affairs. It’s gotten to the point where I just plug it in and leave it overnight. Its so annoying that I even posted to the Apple Support Forums hoping there was a fix. Not!

So I was eagerly awaiting an update to the iPhones firmware even secretly hoping that last nights 2.0.2 update would help. Well, it sort of has: now iTunes doesn’t back it up at all. Before updating to 2.0.2 I plugged my iPhone in and manually had iTunes do a backup. It only took an hour or two and I confirmed that it had in fact backed my iPhone up by checking for the backup in Preferences>Syncing. Sure enough there was a backup for yesterday at 10:54pm. I then proceeded with the update.

Since last night I’ve manually backed up my phone twice and neither are showing up in the Syncing preference window. What’s up with that? iTunes does say that its backing my phone up and it does go a lot faster. Too bad it isn’t acually doing anything. I don’t know what to think now. I’m probably in danger of losing all my app data because I’m not backed up and it seems I’m always this close (imagine me holding my thumb and index finger about a half an inch apart) away from the dreaded “My iPhone froze at the gray Apple Logo screen and now I have to restore it from a backup” crash and burn.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. ):

Joe Henry

Apple Issues iPhone Firmware 2.0.2

Apple released the next version of its iPhone firmware yesterday. Apple’s description for the update is “Bug Fixes”. Well that explains a lot. I suspect its the recently rumored 3G reception patch. As I can’t get 3G where I live its not an issue for me. Hopefully some of my issues will be addressed but I’m not holding my breath. I’m downloading the 248.7MB update as I type this and will report on anything that jumps out at me right away.

Keep your fingers, toes and any other applicable appendages crossed! ;)

Joe Henry
AYAAW

Apple Gives MobleMe Subscibers 60 More Days

I just received an email from Apple stating that they're giving me an additional 60 day extension to my subscription because of all the problems they're having. This is in addition to the 30 days they gave us a few weeks ago. Although I haven't had nearly the problems many MobleMe users have had I'll take the 90 day extension. Here's the text of the email:

We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around.

Seems like they're really trying to make things right with their customers. I'm happy with that.

Joe Henry

My iPhone 3G Woes Part 1

Since upgrading to iPhone Firmware 2.0 (including 2.0.1) I've been unable to use Wi Fi to connect with my iMac. The real kicker is that this issue only happens with certain iPhone apps: iTunes Store, YouTube, App Store. I can use Wi Fi to transfer files to my iPhone using File Magnet and I can also sync shopping lists between SplashShopper and SplashShopper desktop. What's the deal here? The only Wi Fi problems I have are with Apple created apps. Third party developers seem to know a little more about coding for the iPhone than Apple. Who'd a thunk it?
:)

Joe Henry
AYAAW

I've made a decision...

I'm not going to do the iPhone App of the day any more. I was thinking about it today at work and although I know this will be as startling a revelation to you as it was to me, if I did an iPhone App of the day blog entry every day for a year, that'd be 365 iPhone App of the day blog entries. 1x365=365. The math boggles the mind. ;)

Seriously, I just don't have the stamina. Besides, I really don't want this site to become "And Yet Another Apple iPhone App Weblog". So, the new plan will be to try and do an iPhone App of the week or every other week. Perhaps if I could just stop fondling my iPhone I could actually pay more attention to the rest of the wonderful world of Apple. Perhaps...

BannerZest Standard $29 at MacZot

BannerZest, the easiest way to create Flash banners for your website, is on sale for two days at software discount site MacZot. It's regularly $49 so this is a great deal. I use BannerZest Pro regularly for creating fantastic and professional looking banners that I use on my websites. Its drop-dead simple to use and really does create stunning banners.

The standard version, which is the one on sale at MacZot, doesn't come with all the bells and whistles but does come with all the major ones. Aquafadas, the development company that makes BannerZest has kindly put up a comparison page that shows the differences between the standard and the pro version. The biggest difference between the two is that you get "Pro" themes with the pro version (no really?). A notable second feature included in the pro version is the ability to create clickable links from the images used in the banner. There are other differences but those were the two biggys for me. If you have the need or the desire to include beautiful Flash banners in your websites you owe it to yourself to check BannerZest out. Especially if you're like me and a total dolt when it comes to Flash.

Hurry, though, this deal only lasts through Sunday night at midnight. Did I mention it's only $29?

Joe Henry
EDIT: FYI the BannerZest Standard license does not allow banner creation for commercial purposes. The Pro license does but not the Standard. Just wanted to make that clear for anyone taking advantage of this MacZot deal. It's still a great price for a slick piece of software. Who knows, if you asked Aquafadas nicely they might even allow you to upgrade to the Pro version from the MacZot Standard version.

OS X 10.5.5

Appleinsider's Sam Oliver is reporting that Leopard 10.5.5 has been seeded to developers. It looks to squash more than a few bugs and weighs in at a hefty 330 Mb's. The report states the build, 9F13, comes with no know issues and focuses on maintenance and stability. Apparently there are tweaks to iCal, Mail, Address Book, the MobileMe Pref pane,  the BSD Kernel itself and more. 

I can't say that I suffer from any of the bugs mentioned in the article, so although I'm always ready to jump on just about any Apple update, this ones a ho-hummer for me. ;-) No doubt those afflicted will welcome the update and you can be assured that as soon as its available I'll be installing it and reporting back here. I'll take the bullet for ya'll. 

Now would Apple please, pretty please, pretty pretty please, update iPhone 2.0.1? More on my iPhone 3G saga will follow in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Joe Henry

Inaugural Post!

Hi and welcome to the inaugural post at "And Yet Another Apple Weblog"! 

Hmm... Well now, that's a mouth full. I think from here on out we'll just refer to ourselves as AYAAW. That's kind of catchy, isn't it? Oh and by the way when we say "we", we really mean I. Yep, this is a one guy operation at this point. Perhaps sometime in the future AYAAW will grow and need another writer(s) but that's a long way off at this point. One Mac/iPhone/iPod/Apple geek is more than enough for the present.

So what do we hope you, our (my) intrepid reader will get out of this? Don't know and can't say if I did. As the monicker implies most will probably find this place "just another Apple weblog". Substitute just for and yet and there you are. Hopefully you'll find an interesting bit if Apple related news or information now and then. We (I) might even throw in a review every once in awhile to spice things up. We’ll taint, contaminate, pollute (choose your verb) any and all news and reviews with our own slightly off brand of humor. Hopefully you'll find our, and by our I mean my (okay I'll stop now), brand of humor, well humorous. 

That's it then, it's in the books as it were and so to speak. Thanks for reading. :-)

Joe Henry