The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

As part of my trade, I work a lot with colors. ColorSchemer Studio has long been a valuable tool in my toolkit for picking out color schemes based on solid color theory. It had its shortcomings, though, and some other tools had surpassed it, both on the desktop and on the iPhone. However, I got a sneak peek at the up-and-coming version 2.0 of ColorSchemer Studio, and I'm willing to say that it's poised to regain its lead in the field.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 adds an amazing number of new features, and improves on just about every aspect of the existing toolkit. Firstly, I want to highlight that it can now work entirely in the CMYK gamut, if you choose. Screen colors are adjusted to a CMYK profile, and there are export options to match. That's a big deal for those who take their colors off the screen and into the real world. Even though many modern presses can actually get better color from an RGB file, CMYK still rules in the world of offset printing. While it's a huge step for this app, it's not the coolest part ... read on for an in-depth preview.

Read more →

The New York Observer is reporting that Time, Inc. executive VP John Squires has been making the rounds of other major publishing houses lately with one thing in mind: creating an iTunes-like magazine store for digital distribution of their titles. At this time, it appears that Time, Inc., Condé Nast, and Hearst are all planning on joining the alliance, with over 50 top magazines that would for sale in the store. Those titles include Sports Illustrated, Time, People, The New Yorker, Vogue, and O, The Oprah Magazine.

The as-yet-unnamed store doesn't plan on adding a new reader device to the mix. Instead, the consortium is looking at ways to distribute content to existing platforms such as the iPhone, Kindle, nook, BlackBerry, and the major computer operating systems. Reading the post, it seems to this writer that although Squires and Co. have a great idea, the execution of the plan might be doomed already. Quoting from the Observer article:

The deal is taking time to complete because it involves so many moving pieces.

"It's pretty complicated stuff," said a source. "The really, really hard part is that you've got so many different kinds of devices running on different operating systems. And how do you handle that? The consortium provides one point of contact for the consumer. When you come to the main store, you can get the content any way you want."

In addition to building up the store, each publisher will actually have to figure out how to build digital versions of their own magazines.

Read more →

Have you ever wanted to send a loved one a rose, but knew that you wouldn't be able to deliver it yourself? Or maybe you wanted to cheer up a friend in the hospital, but you were on another continent? If the Liverpudlians at Little World Gifts have their way, you'll soon be exchanging virtual gifts with your friends.

The six-person UK startup has been working on a self-titled iPhone app that they hope to ship in December. The app lets you purchase virtual gifts from a shop and send them to others who either have the app or are Facebook users. As you can see in the video above, the gifts are high-resolution 3D items that you and your friends can touch and manipulate.

Your friends receive push notifications that you've sent them a gift, and can then add them to their collection in their copy of the app, or enjoy them in a separate Facebook app.

In case you think virtual goods are a silly idea, Little Worlds Gifts points out that it is estimated that consumers will spend over US$1 billion on virtual goods in 2009 through online games and social networks. Facebook generates almost US$40 million annually through sales of virtual gifts.

Little World Gifts hasn't announced a price for the app or the virtual gifts, but TUAW will keep an eye on this virtual boutique for future reference.

Chillingo recently announced that it would be launching Crystal SDK, a service joining the increasingly crowded social network market for iPhone games. Xbox Live on the Xbox is an official social network, but the iPhone has no such official service. A crowd of contenders, from the popular OpenFeint service to ngmoco's Plus+ network, are jumping in and trying to get developers on board with them. Crystal SDK is one of those -- they've now launched the official website and are asking developers interested to sign up and see what their software has to offer.

Like many of the other services, Crystal is offering to integrate challenges, achievements, leaderboards, and other social services into iPhone apps. The SDK seems like it's still pre-release, however -- there's only a signup, no information on cost or implementation or anything else on the site. Still, if you happen to be an iPhone developer still looking for a network to hook up with, they might be the one for you.

While we're at it: what do you consumers think? Have you actually chosen a network to go with, or are you doing what I'm doing and still basically going game by game? The goal of these networks eventually is to have a unified stable of developers, where you'll jump into a new game simply because it's linked to the network you're signed up with (and your friends will be playing over there and encouraging you to join). But in reality, I haven't seen that -- most people I know are just playing the games they're interested in, and the network the games are connected to hasn't made a big difference.

For just US$1.99, you could do a lot worse than picking up Skyworks's new Boardwalk Games [iTunes link]. Offering three carnival-style attractions, Boardwalk Games takes you into the midway with good gameplay, quality graphics, and audible sound. To be honest, those audible sounds kind of drove me a little nuts and I couldn't find a settings screen to could turn them off.

The three mini games are all simple toss-something-at-something games: toss a ball at tiki statues, toss a ball at milk bottles, toss a dart at balloons. It's fun. Admittedly, a little limited, but fun. The fun is probably worth more than the two bucks the app costs.

Just in case you think you're getting a little bit too good of a deal, well, you are. Skywork's included some fairly heavy-handed upselling ads in the game, which appear each time you finish playing a round. It's not too bad as these things go, but clearly they intend to balance their relatively low price point with targeted advertising.

I found the games easy to play and engaging. Will the app remain on your phone for the long term? Probably not. This is one of those use-it-for-a-few-days-or-weeks-then-toss-it kinds of games. There aren't compelling learning curves and not much room has been left for the app to grow. I'd recommend this for a rainy day / DMV visit / Doctor's Appointment, but it's not so amazing that you should rush out and buy it right away. It's amusing, it's well made, and I hate that music.

Well here we go. Up until now, we've heard a lot from developers about how much of a mess the App Store's approval process is, from people who've been rejected outright to people who've been forced to resubmit to people who've just given up completely. But we haven't heard much from Apple, and now Phil Schiller has spoken with Business Week about what it is about the App Store's approval process that has devs pulling their hair out.

The verdict? Schiller says the process is in place for a reason. About 90% of the apps submitted merely have bugs or technical issues, and he says for the most part that devs are happy to get that feedback (though TechCrunch doesn't buy that for one second). But the other 10% of the apps Apple denies are simply what they deem "inappropriate," which could be anything from problematic coding (code that steals passwords or other private information), or app content that doesn't belong on the store, from porn to apps that help break the law or steal in some way. Apple is also vicious about trademark defense -- Schiller says that "if you don't defend your trademarks, in the end you end up not owning them."

That all sounds fine and dandy (ok, well, the "inappropriate" label is a little unclear -- that's broad enough that Apple could fit almost anything under that umbrella, which is a bit troubling), but what about all of those angry devs? Unfortunately, Schiller doesn't address at all the idea that Apple might someday allow devs to release apps that haven't been through their approval process, on the App Store or anywhere else. As far as Apple is concerned, it seems like they're keeping their grip on what gets released, and anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to go elsewhere.

[via TheAppleBlog]

Read more →

Support continues to grow for the iPhone in the enterprise. TBI Research (subscription required) says Apple's answer to telephony is gaining ground in business, thanks largely to employees and execs grabbing an iPhone for personal use and deciding they just have to have it for work as well.

TBI sees the iPhone having trouble in two of the biggest industries in the US. Government and finance are likely to keep favoring Research in Motion's BlackBerry, though Apple could take enough of the rest of the sectors to make up for what it misses. "The two industries we see as the least likely of switching from Blackberries are Finance and Government," says a TBI research note. "These are huge industries, but they make up only 20% of the total US workforce. That still leaves 80% of the total 150 million US workforce."

Meanwhile TBI sees iPhone adoption ramping-up aggressively in industries such as media, entertainment, hospitality, transportation, and consumer packaged goods.

TBI's report dovetails nicely with a report at the beginning of the month from Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore. Early in November, Whitmore said he expected to see 2 million iPhones in the enterprise market by the end of this year, giving Apple roughly 7% of the business end of smartphones in the US.

[via MacNN]

Remember Zen Bound? It's a gorgeous and fun-to-play little puzzle game. So when I heard that SecretExit, the makers of Zen Bound, were about to release a new app, I was excited to get a sneak preview.

Stair Dismount is a very different game to Zen Bound. Although, as you can see in the above video, the audio and graphics quality are consistently high, it's not really fair to compare the two. According to SecretExit, Stair Dismount is more focused on "humor and social elements" rather than problem solving.

The game basically involves pushing someone down the stairs and seeing how many bones they break. Playing this made me feel like the world's worst sadist. Hard to get game playing satisfaction other than tormenting the poor dude.

With Stair Dismount, you can add the face of a Facebook friend and send screen shots of their broken body lying at the bottom of the staircase. Secret Exit dev Jani Kahrama notes, "It feels better with a friendly Facebook face on the guy :)."

Your enjoyment of this will vary by your personal take but for me, I don't think Stair Dismount will be staying on my iPod or be exposed to my kids. Stair Dismount is due to hit the App Store within the week.

About the video: At this time, TUAW can only create preview videos for applications compiled for 3.1 or earlier using a development (not distribution or ad hoc) build and review videos for distribution-compiled apps that are 3.1 or earlier.

Do you use eBay regularly for shopping for goodies? If you do, and if you're an iPhone or iPod touch owner, you probably ought to turn on your device right now and download the new eBay Deals app [Free, iTunes Link].

In eBay parlance, a deal can be one of two things:

1. An eBay Daily Deal, which is a limited quantity item from a trusted seller, provided with free shipping
2. An item that is in big demand (an iPhone, for example) with zero bids and with less than four hours to go in the auction

But wait, there's more! The app also uses push notifications to give you the bad news that you're being outbid on an item or to tell you that an auction is just about over. There's a "Shake for Deals" option that provides random deals when you shake your phone.

The app has a nice little tutorial that shows how the features work and what various icons mean. That's a nice touch for getting users up and running quickly. If you're looking for that perfect gift at a bargain price, you may need to look no further than the screen of your iPhone.

The internet has been ablaze with reports of jailbroken iPhones being infested with worms. The exploit takes advantage of unwitting jailbreakers who install OpenSSH on their iPhones via Cydia without taking into account all of the impacts on security. The most notable, and now famous, hole in this theory is that every iPhone ships with the same default password for both the all-powerful "root" user as well as the more-restricted "mobile" user.

Not surprisingly, Apple has officially commented on the situation noting that "the worm affects only a very specific set of iPhone users who have jail broken[sic] their iPhones and hacked it with unauthorized software." It is pretty clear from Apple's statement their feelings on the jailbreak community and its effects on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Luckily, if you need to have OpenSSH installed on your iPhone (who doesn't want a remotely-accessible, full UNIX terminal in their pocket?), there is a pretty simple solution to this problem that will prevent this breed of infestation from ever reaching your iPhone.

1. Remember, this only affects jailbroken iPhone owners who have installed OpenSSH...
2. Begin by installing MobileTerminal via Cydia (alternately, you can login via SSH from Terminal.app or a Cygwin-equipped Windows PC).
3. Type "login", you will be asked for a login name which should be "root" then a password which should be "alpine".
4. Type "passwd" then tap return, you will be asked to type the new password. Tap return and type the new password again.

Repeat this same process for the "mobile" user by replacing "root" with "mobile" in step 3. Also, when using passwd to change the password for "mobile" you may be asked the old password which would be "alpine". It is not necessary to use a different password for "root" and "mobile" but if you're highly security conscious, it wouldn't hurt. The second half of this post includes a screen image of my exact process working successfully on OS 3.1.2 with an iPhone 3GS.

In addition to changing the user passwords for your iPhone, another good security measure is to use one of the jailbreak apps like BossPrefs or SBSettings to have a toggle that will disable SSH when not in use. Obviously, having SSH disabled (or not installed) is the best defense against worms of this sort. Got any other iPhone security tips? Let us know in the comments!

Read more →