| Security Exaggeration or Real Threat: Is This the End of an Apple Era?
April 17, 2009 at 6:00 pm
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|  Security scares seem to be coming up all too frequently for Mac users these days. First, there was the devastatingly fast hacking of a Mac thanks to a Safari exploit at PWN2OWN, and now the first known botnet to exploit OS X appears to have been activated, according to two security researchers at Symantec. If true, it means the sense of security and superiority that so many Mac users maintain over their PC-using counterparts might be coming to an end.
The botnet is a result of users having downloaded and installed pirated copies of iWork ‘09 way back around the time of its initial release. Accompanying those pirated versions was a trojan called iServices, a variant of which was also packaged with a pirated copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4. iServices remained dormant until just recently, when it was implicated in at least one Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Though the install base of the trojan is at present not large enough to pose a major threat, the researchers warn that this is likely only the beginning. Symantec researchers suspect that software piracy will only trend upwards as the economic crisis continues, which is a very good thing for opportunistic hackers. The easiest way for them to distribute their malicious code is via pirated programs, since they aren’t QA’d or regulated in any real, consistent way. And if Macs continue to increase their presence, hackers will begin more and more to target OS X users, because it makes financial sense from their standpoint to do so. In response to the report, network security firm McAfee, another anti-virus maker spoke up. They claim that there’s nothing new about the iServices trojan that wasn’t already apparent and active in January, and that it represents only a low level of risk now, just as it did then. In other words, they think Symantec is blowing things out of proportion. Not that they’re saying you should just relax and pretend nothing’s wrong. Far from it. Instead, the solution offered by both the Symantec team and McAfee is the one you’d likely suspect: install anti-virus software in order to protect your computer. And it may be the best solution, although after years of running both Windows and Mac machines without any virus protection that wasn’t built into them, and with no major issues to report at this time, I’d say that safe and intelligent browsing (i.e., don’t download risk pirated files) is still your best bet for avoiding these kinds of attacks, Mac or not.        | Media Files
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| Thanks to TheAppleBlog Sponsors!
April 17, 2009 at 5:30 pm
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| Tweetie for Mac Due Monday
April 17, 2009 at 4:22 pm
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|  It quickly became one of the most popular Twitter clients for the iPhone, owing to its impressive feature set and fast, efficient performance, and now it’s coming natively to the Mac, too. I’m talking about Tweetie, by atebits. Tweetie impressed with the ability to follow and unfollow, integrated search, retweeting, and more when it was first released, and now sits near the top of the App Store’s best sellers list, occupying number 28 top paid app at the time of this writing.
News of the Mac app’s imminent released come yesterday (fittingly) via atebits’ own Twitter account, linking to a brief video on the atebits website previewing the app. The trailer reminds me a little of an Apple commercial, thanks to the look and the sexy soundtrack. What’s more impressive, though, is the functionality the preview shows off. Tweetie for the Mac already looks like a heavily favored contender for best native OS X Twitter app.  Screen grab from the preview The interface looks simple, but powerful, with a main window for displaying tweets and a sidebar on the left for quickly accessing your tweet stream, @replies, private messages, and search. You can switch between multiple accounts on the fly, just by clicking the appropriate profile icon in the same left-hand menu 
Other features include threaded conversations, that you access just by clicking on a reply, iChat style DM exchanges, easy nested navigation at the top of the app’s interface, drag and drop image sharing, in-app twitpic viewing, built-in searching, and link sharing via a bookmarklet for your browser. I’m sure there’s plenty more, but we’ll have to wait till this upcoming Monday to find out. I know I’ve got my day cleared.        | Media Files
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| App Review: Leaf Trombone: World Stage — Like American Idol But With Leaves
April 17, 2009 at 2:00 pm
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| App Quick Stats 
Leaf Trombone Learn to play the leaf trombone, perform your repertoire before a global audience, and prepare to be judged. Since the App Store’s launch last year, Smule has been steadily building an impressive portfolio of sound-based social apps for the iPhone. With Dr. Ge Wang — an assistant professor in Music and Acoustics — at the helm, among a smattering of clever and fun sonic toys, their biggest hit to date has been the multi-award winning Ocarina. Smule’s latest app, Leaf Trombone: World Stage, is a social musical instrument designed specifically for the iPhone. Players can download new songs and perform before a judging panel of other leaf trombonists. Leaf Your Troubles Behind In terms of igniting the musical imagination of touch and iPhone owners around the world, Smule’s standout moment has been the creation of Ocarina. The app is an enchanting recreation of the palm-size wind instrument, incorporating several features that take advantage of the iPhone’s tech to connect instrumentalists around the world. Leaf Trombone: World Stage takes the wind instrument concept even further than before. For musical beginners, Ocarina was a serious toughie, whereas playing the leaf trombone is a breeze for musicians and fresh starters alike. 
There are two methods for tooting on your leaf trombone. For beginners, there’s touch mode. Simply tapping and holding on one of the vertical note-markers plays the note. Advanced players can take it further by blowing in to the iPhone microphone — ideal for adding nuance to a performance. Song Selection Despite having just been released, there’s already a stack of tunes ready to toot in the song library. The selection on offer is constantly growing, too, as Smule’s provided a song composition and submission platform on their site. 
There’s something for everyone in the library. Classical picks like “Ave Maria” and “Auld Lang Syne” sit alongside rock and metal renditions, such as “Iron Man” and “Through The Fire And The Flames.” Notably, there are video game tunes in the mix, too, with several pieces from Legend of Zelda already on offer. The only major drawback with the library is that there’s no way to differentiate between pieces for beginners and more accomplished players. If you’re familiar with rhythm action games like Rock Band or Tap Tap Revenge, it’s easy to get your fingers around performing the songs. Once the track begins playing, accompanied by a dainty Mario-esque music box, leaves begin floating towards the different note-markers. The note-markers glow when a leaf collides, meaning there’s a clear guide to playing the correct note at the correct time. 
There is, like any musical instrument, an initial period of getting comfortable holding and touching the leaf trombone and familiarizing yourself with the interface. However, actually playing a complex score should be surprisingly intuitive, even for non-musicians. World Stage - Judging & Performing Fire up your leaf trombone for more than a few minutes and there’s a good chance that your solo soliloquy will be interrupted with an invite to be a judge on the World Stage. As a judge sitting on an “American Idol”-esque panel with two other players, picked from across the globe, you’ll critically appraise a fellow leaf trombonist’s performance. 
Represented by three smiley-styled emoticons, the judging panel listens to the performance — posting comments and changing the emoticon to reflect opinion and mood. At the end of the song, you’re invited to score the performance and provide closing thoughts. Playing the role of judge is an excellent twist on traditional multiplayer gaming. There’s something deliciously addictive and downright fun about judging — whether you’re praising, encouraging, or just laughing at someone’s trombone tooting. 
Judging a performance also earns you Leaf Tokens, the currency of the budding Leaf Trombonist. Each performance on the World Stage costs one Leaf Token, an exceedingly cunning solution, on Smule’s part, to ensuring players are involved in both performing and judging, and also encouraging performers to practice a solo before playing online. Performing works slightly differently compared to the judging. After selecting a song from the library, you’ll perform alone. Once you’ve completed your performance, the judging panel is then selected to appraise it — meaning you’re able to initially perform without being distracted by a shower of praise, or worse, an onslaught of criticism. 
Summing Up Leaf Trombone: World Stage is everything we’ve come to expect of Smule. The instrument part of the game draws non-musicians in — it’s so easy to get satisfying results and is enjoyable to play (plus endearingly individual with its comedic tooting and parping). And it’s daring, too, linking players up for social fun a refreshing way: Being part of the judging panel is compelling fun and performing on the World Stage — and getting right — just feels good, too. Leaf Trombone is a wonderful instrument and an incredibly accomplished social toy. Furthermore, like any musical instrument, it’s something that you’ll delight in playing and growing with over time. Smule’s ability to manifest pure gold out of a downright silly concept, earns this app TheAppleBlog Gold Award.        | Media Files
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| App Roundup: 10 iPhone Weather Apps
April 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm
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|  In my line of work, I do quite a bit both indoors and outdoors. As such, it is crucial for me to know the weather forecast at the drop of a hat. The weather app built into the iPhone is a simple, no fluff, no garbage, weather app. It does its job well, but any weather app can give you the highs and lows for the day. Oftentimes I find myself needing to know the humidity, wind speeds, or sunrise/sunset times and other nonsensical information.
Below is a roundup of weather apps for the iPhone, with features ranging from video forecasts to airport delays.  Features: Video forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, and Weather Indices
This app’s user interface was by far my favorite, but at times it still felt a bit flawed. AccuWeather should have integrated typical iPhone gestures into the application as I often found myself wanting to swipe or enlarge something, only to discover that those features had not been implemented. Despite this app’s shortcomings, AccuWeather still impresses me by the plethora of weather and climate information it provides. I love when things give me more than I need, it doesn’t matter what the product is. If I get more than I asked for, I am a happy customer, and AccuWeather sees to this. One of my favorite features is its risk monitoring system, which breaks down severe weather conditions (rain, ice, fog, wind, etc.) and shows the chance of each of them happening over the course of the next 8 hours. Another feature that set AccuWeather apart was its indices feature, which shows UV, Air Quality, Flu, and Arthritis indexes for the day.  Features: Severe Weather Alerts, Weather Cameras, Radar, and Maps
I’ve always been a fan Weatherbug’s desktop variants, and was pleased to find that the iPhone version was comparable. Weatherbug has all the typical bells and whistles you would expect from a weather app, with a few extras, one of which is a real-time wind tracking, which is updated every few seconds, showing wind speed and direction. I don’t fly many kites or participate in many nautical activities, but I still find this to be a cool feature. It has the simplicity of Apple’s Weather app, but with a few extras, and unlike other free weather apps, it isn’t ad-supported.  Features: Location-based Forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, Video Forecasts, and Traffic Cameras
Being the No. 1 free weather app in the App Store comes with a bit of scrutiny. But what can I say? They are The Weather Channel, and they know what they’re doing. This app doesn’t give any more information than the Weather Channel web site, but it’s great to have such information at your fingertip while on the go. The map feature of this app uses Google Maps with a live update of radar, clouds, temperature, precipitation and UV index. I have very few complaints about this app, but my biggest is the large banner ad on top of the application. I understand that it’s a free app and they have to make money, but it’s a bit obtrusive at times.  Features: Weather Alerts, Hourly forecasts, Traffic Information & Cameras, and Radar
This app is brought to you by The Weather Network, which is a Canadian company. Therefore, this app doesn’t have many of the smaller U.S. towns and cities. Regardless, I still liked it. It’s very similar to Apple’s Weather app in that it is as easy as “swiping” your finger across to switch locations. However, like many of its counterparts, Weathereye is ad-supported. This app does a great job of covering Canada as well as larger U.S. towns and cities. If you live in rural America…sorry, you’re out of luck.  Features: Altitude, Wind Speed/Direction, Sunrise/Sunset Times, Location Awareness, and Runway Reports
I have dabbled in aviation in the past, and have always found it interesting. In the end, my pursuit of aviation was a short-lived one. When I was up there, I could only imagine how crucial knowing the weather could be — literally life or death. Pascal Dreer took this into consideration by giving us AeroWeather, an iPhone weather app designed with aviation in mind. AeroWeather is a full-service app that displays wind speed/direction, altitude, sunrise/sunset times, runway reports and more. This is the perfect weather app for anyone in the aviation field.  Features: Displays Time/Location, Elevation, Coordinates, and Zulu time for aviation
I like this weather app simply because it displays an exorbitant amount of information in an easy-to-read way. There’s no complicated user interface, no gestures, just a page of information, some of which is fairly irrelevant most of the time. Skipping the bells and whistles of other weather apps, this one leaves little to be desired. One feature I would like to see in upcoming versions would be the ability to customize the way NavClock displays the information.  Features: Wind Direction/Speed, Local Time, “Actual Feel” Temperature, UV index, Dew Point, Visibility, and Humidity.
Deluxeware Weather is a pretty basic app for the weather genre. That means no radar, no maps, no airport delays, or wind direction/speed. What it does have is all of your basic weather information, such as 7- and 14-day forecasts, current time, the “actual feel” temperature outside and UV index.  Features: Location Awareness, Wind Speed/Direction, Radar, and Satellite Images
When released last October, Weather Pro had more than its fair share of bugs, many of which seem to be fixed now. This app did crash on me a couple of times, while the other apps in this list did not. However I kept coming back and retrying Weather Pro. What brought me back to it time and time again were the small things, such as a great-looking interface, 3-hour climate monitor and up-to-date wind speeds for all locations. So for $3.99, I suggest giving this one a try.  Features: Landscape Forecast Mode, Sunset/Sunrise, Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Barometer, Visibility, and UV Indices
There were three main features in Fizz that set it apart from its competition. One of those was the slick user interface, the other was the creator’s decision to include reported and predicted airport delays. The third feature that appealed to me was Fizz’s landscape mode. If your iPod touch or iPhone is turned sideways, you have the ability to browse through several informative charts and graphs displaying weather-related information, which was a huge plus. Overall this is a decent, feature-heavy weather app, however there are a few shortcomings. As most of these weather apps have a built-in radar feature, I found Fizz Weather’s to be the most lacking, which is surprising for one of the more expensive apps.  Features: Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Landscape Mode, and Satellite View
The term “perfect” has earned a certain point of exclusivity in my vocabulary. When I saw the rave reviews this app got in the App Store, I was a bit skeptical. Surprisingly, it lives up to every expectation and is as close to perfect as it could be. This app comes in as the most expensive of this lot, but I will say that as far as paid apps go, it’s easily among the more feature-rich. In fact, it may just have everything you could ask for with a weather app. The full-screen radar and 36-hour trend graphs are extremely beneficial. The graphs are by far one of the greatest features of this application, as they are the powerhorse behind My Weather Mobile’s information. There are graphs for total precipitation, estimated/active precipitation, UV index and more. Like any iPhone App genre, there are hundreds of options, costing anywhere from small fortunes to nothing. There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong choice as far as choosing a weather application, rather ask yourself which app would be more suitable for your situation. But since it’s also hard not to choose favorites, I find myself using Navclock quite often as a desktop weather and clock solution, and I tend to use Fizz Weather and My Weather Mobile while on the go. I love the information My Weather Mobile provides, yet Fizz’s sleek interface keeps bringing me back for more.        | Media Files
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| Search for What You See With GazoPa for iPhone
April 17, 2009 at 10:00 am
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Google has their voice search, and to some extent, SnapTell and Amazon Mobile can return results based on images, but only within a very limited scope. What’s to be done if you have a picture of something that isn’t a DVD or a CD, or if you only have a picture in your head of what it is you’re looking for, but no actual photo to back it up? Brand-new app GazoPa (free, iTunes link) from Hitachi is here to help you out. It’s an odd little application, but I was initially intrigued by the fact that you could basically search your doodles for similar images. By that, I mean actually draw on your iPhone or iPod touch’s screen, and then search the web for other pictures that look close. It’s like TinEye.com, but with the added bonus of a built-in touch tablet. The web-based service that actually finds and returns results to the GazoPa app is still in beta, so you’ll need to have an account to use it, but I was sent an invitation immediately after I entered my email address at their sign-up page. Once signed up, I tried it using my crude rendering of an NES controller, and the results I got were more fun than accurate, although I didn’t take into account the fact that GazoPa uses color to determine results as well as shapes. My attempts with an SNES controller returned mostly track lighting, but again, my skills as an artist might be more to blame here. Trying out the camera and album modes produced even more bizarre results. A photo of me holding up my Apple wireless keyboard returned buildings and women in dresses, and a recent Threadless t-shirt design taken from the app Threads brought back a lot of Soviet hammer & sickle images. But I have to admit that after looking at them for a while, they were undeniably similar in terms of color, composition and geometry. Finding those kinds of images, though maybe not so useful for someone looking to find the name of something specific, are very handy if you happen to work in graphic design or you’re working on an art project. Thanks to the Shuffle feature, which just returns a bunch of random image results, it’s also a great way to try to find inspiration or a visual prompt if you’re totally stuck for ideas. It’s not a bad doodling app, either, and it’s free, which is more than can be said for most others. More and more I’m leaning towards these kinds of apps for the iPhone, the ones that do slightly ludicrous and whimsical things that are only possible using Apple’s unique hardware.        | Media Files
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