Notes from a wireframe world

No Flash support.

Yep thats right, right in the middle of Apples show case event of the year, this screw-up. The iPad’s browser doesn’t support flash.

As TechCrunch pointed out

“But the device features browsing as a key element, and there are going to be plenty of people trying to access their casual Flash games and Flash-based video sites, only to be met with that frustrating icon. “

Ports.

Err… one, the iPad’s dock, yep thats right no USB connection, no Micro SD connection, unless that is you buy an additional bit of hardware. How nice of Lord Jobs. Instead of building in two industry standards, users are forced to buy extra items with their new iPad. It’s not like the these standards are large and would take away from the oh-so-important design.

Functionality

As one commentator put it,

“There is nothing new or revolutionary about this device, it’s just a very large ipod (not even iphone since you can’t call with it).”

nuf said.

So of course fanboys and wannabe will buy it, but for the rest of us? Throes of us who have to earn money and don’t worship SJ? I really think very few people will buy it.

I’d much rather have an xt2, at least that supports multi-tasking.

The Interesting bit goes.

“Yeah, Very exciting. Yes, they’ll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while. And the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

So fanboys, you can sleep easy tonight.
Oh yea BTW, if you want a nice multi-touch Tablet… you don’t have to wait.

If you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, be careful: a worm has broken out in Australia that targets owners who have not changed the default password after installing SSH.

The worm’s behavior is hardly amusing: it changes your background to a photo of Rick Astley, then looks for other phones on the network to infect. The exploit could easily be used by hackers with malicious intent for more nefarious purposes.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone and you’ve installed SSH without changing the default password (from “alpine”) you need to do so to avoid such attacks. If you have not jailbroken your iPhone or iPod Touch and installed SSH, you are not affected.

Sophos writes of the exploit:

SophosLabs is analysing the worm’s code, which suggests that at least four variants have been written so far. One of the attributes of the latest variant (labelled the “D” version) is that it tries to hide its presence by using a filepath suggestive of the Cydia application.

The source code is littered with comments from the author suggesting the worm has been written as an experiment. One of the comments berates affected users for not following instructions when installing SSH, because if they had changed the default password the worm would not have been able to infect them.

If you have been Rickrolled in this rather nasty way fear not. There is a relatively simply way to remove the virus, using whatever file system browser you fancy and look for the following files

/bin/poc-bbot
/bin/sshpass
/var/log/youcanbeclosertogod.jpg
/var/mobile/LockBackground.jpg
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.ikey.bbot.plist
/var/lock/bbot.lock

if they are their you need to delete them, and re-boot your iPhone (remembering to change your SSH password), if however they are not on your phone, you have “Version D” of the virus installed, it is a little more sneaky as it pretends to be the iPhone App Cydia. In order to fix this veriant you need to delete the following files and then re-install Cydia.

/usr/libexec/cydia/startup
/usr/libexec/cydia/startup.so
/usr/libexec/cydia/startup-helper
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.saurik.Cydia.Startup.plist

So let’s hear it Apple fanboys for the secure iPhone!

There are two stories floating around the currently floating around the Internet as to what Apple is going to pull out the hat for it’s “Only rock and Roll”gig tomorrow, firstly the 3^rd generation of the iPod touch and fifth-generation iPod nano, both with a camera included.

This comes from a photo leaked on-line showing a case for the two new iPod’s with areas for a camera included.

The second story is that “the Beatles will be on iTunes” this comes from a web page on sky news’s site that was quickly taken down (and Google’s catch of it flushed) that said that Yoko Ono Says that the fab fours back catalog is to be made available on iTunes.

This would co-inside nicely with the re-mastering of the Beatles back catalog and the release of “Rock Band: The Beatles” on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

However Financial Times today quotes EMI global catalog president Ernesto Schmitt as explicitly ruling out a 9/9/09 release, stating, “Conversations between Apple and EMI are ongoing and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally. But it’s not tomorrow.”

So who know? I guess we’ll just have to wait till tomorrow to find out…. unless dear readers you know different.

While In the US AT&T scramble to hold of their monopoly and O2 do the same in the UK, the questron starts to be asked… is it worth them doing so?

The report by Denmark’s Strand Consult makes startling reading for any provider thinking of taking on the iPhone, as they say.

“Simply put, many of the conclusions that the media have published about the significance of the iPhone for mobile operators are not documented in the operators’ – or other key market players – financial statements. We can also conclude that the closer a relationship is between an operator and Apple, the larger negative influence it has on the operator’s overall business case from a shareholder’s viewpoint”

In other words. It doesn’t increase your income, it doesn’t bring new customers on to your network, and it doesn’t make you any money!

That’s a shocking conclusion. especially when you consider the negative effect some of Apples decisions about, for example, the iTune store, has had on at least AT&T.