Just last week I was bemoaning the fact that neither Parallels nor VMWare Fusion provided an easy way for a developer to create a virtual machine (VM) for testing of OS X Mavericks, so I ended up installing the new Mac operating system on a separate partition. Today Parallels released an update to Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac that not only allows the update of existing OS X VMs to OS X Mavericks, but also allows Mavericks to be a host machine for Parallels.

If there's a downside, it's that you still can't install OS X Mavericks on a blank VM; instead, you'll have to install a previous version of OS X on a virtual machine, then acquire the installer from the Apple Developer Center and upgrade the VM. The update can be applied to an existing install of Parallels Desktop 8 by launching the app and selecting Check for Updates under the Parallels Desktop menu.

As of yet, there's still no word from VMWare on how they're progressing on OS X Mavericks compatibility, but we'll be sure to pass along any information that we hear about.

Dev Juice: Parallels Desktop 8 update makes OS X Mavericks VMs, hosts possible originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dev Juice: Parallels Desktop 8 update makes OS X Mavericks VMs, hosts possible originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week during WWDC, I sat down with Neil Ticktin of MacTech and we interviewed a bunch of developers about their thoughts on what Apple announced. We'll be rolling out those videos as quickly as we can, but Neil and I also spent some time discussing among ourselves what we thought about iOS 7, Mavericks and the new Mac Pro.

TUAW and MacTech discuss WWDC announcements originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW and MacTech discuss WWDC announcements originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The clever folk over at Kintek have posted a handy system-to-system guide for anyone working in the mobile development space. This metaphor overview quickly references how items like buttons, switches, one-of-n selection and other common interface items are expressed by default in the target arenas.

You'll find items from Android, iOS 6 and iOS 7 listed side by side, so you can quickly review their visual presentation. Resource links take you to developer documentation. It's nicely done and well worth checking out.

[Via Swiss Miss]

DevJuice: iOS/Android PortKit translates visual metaphors originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: iOS/Android PortKit translates visual metaphors originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What do you do when your one and only iPad app is a runaway success? If you're FiftyThree, the development firm behind the beautiful journal / art app Paper (free, many in-app purchases available), you get funding for expansion into new areas.

FiftyThree announced today that it received US$15 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, with such stellar investors as Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Bright Capital, Highline Ventures and SV Angel joining the party. Paper has been profitable from day one; it's usually in the Top 10 Paid Apps on the App Store, and over 80 million users have downloaded the app.

What's FiftyThree planning on doing with $15 million? Co-founder and CEO Georg Petschnigg says that he wants to add to his team of employees in Seattle and NYC, and create a suite of software, hardware and services. GigaOM's Erica Ogg talked with Petschnigg and although he wouldn't elaborate, the idea of a Paper-branded stylus is a natural outgrowth. Petschnigg's big picture for the firm appears to be collaboration: "We've been focused on iPad there, but the next part we're working on is services that will start to answer the question of how people work together and collaborate."

All secretive talk aside, we're looking forward to seeing what's next from the team at FiftyThree.

Paper for iPad developer receives $15 million in funding originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Paper for iPad developer receives $15 million in funding originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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During last week's WWDC 2013 keynote address, support for MFi -- Made For iPhone / iPad / iPod -- game controllers at the iOS SDK level was quickly noted on one slide. Since that time, TUAW has discussed why this is so important to not only game developers, but Apple as a whole since a combination of an iOS device, a MFi controller and an Apple TV could easily make dedicated gaming consoles a thing of the past. Now 9to5Mac and several other websites are showing an image of a prototype MFi game controller from accessory manufacturer Logitech.

The rather blurry image showed a Logitech controller on top of a glass surface. Fortunately, 9to5Mac commenter "clstr0ud" had a much clearer image taken from a slide from the WWDC "Platforms State of the Union" session. As noted on that image (seen above), developers had an opportunity to test out these prototypes during lab sessions.

The fuzzier anonymous photo shows that the controller is designed to work with a newer, Lightning adapter-equipped iPhone or iPod touch. No date has been set for release of the device, nor is there any assurance that this is Logitech's final design for the controller.

Prototype Logitech MFi game controller pics surface on web originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Prototype Logitech MFi game controller pics surface on web originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As Chris Rawson has pointed out repeatedly over the years, Apple's "beta" releases are what normal people would refer to as alpha. On a good day. If they're feeling generous.

Apple offers a simple guide as to whether you should or should not file a bug report: the answer is always Yes.

Beta participants are encouraged to file radars even when the issue seems trivial, only happened once, seems "obvious", or may be a dupe.

Duplicates are never a bad thing -- they're like casting a vote. Highly duplicated items appear on manager reports, and various versions contain bits of information that add to the whole.

I speak from experience. Apple employees posting on the developer forums may swat you with large trouts to encourage you to comply with filing radars.

I should also point out that bug titles are editable, you should explain the bug in the field called "description", and if Apple calls you (hint the phone numbers start with 408, specifically 408-996-1010, and will be more likely this week after WWDC if you talked with an evangelist or engineer), you should probably answer the call.

Want to learn more? Visit the WWDC videos page (credentials required) and watch Maximizing Apple Developer Resources.

Don't forget to check out Open Radar, the developer crowd-sourced site for non-beta bugs.

DevJuice: If you don't report the bug in the beta to Apple, it does not exist originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: If you don't report the bug in the beta to Apple, it does not exist originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever wanted to throw your iPhone or iPad to the ground in frustration while capturing video because the built-in app couldn't zoom in on a detail? One of the features announced for iOS 7 during Monday's keynote was a video zoom control. TUAW received a short video from an unnamed developer that shows the feature in action.

Third-party apps have had video zooming for some time now, but some of them require post-processing of the video and none are built into the lock screen for instant video capture. The video capture function appears to zoom in to about 2x or 3x, and the video is saved immediately to your device photo library for sharing and viewing.

iOS 7 video zoom feature demo originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iOS 7 video zoom feature demo originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One part of Monday's WWDC 2013 keynote that seems to have received short shrift in the discussions of updated products is iWork. During the keynote, iWork for iCloud -- a browser-based version of Apple's office suite -- was discussed along with comments about the iOS versions of the suite. Now Apple has followed up the announcement by opening a beta of iWork for iCloud to registered developers.

While the browser-based iWork for iCloud is meant to work on Mac or PC in just about any browser, developers opening the beta web apps in Chrome are greeted with a message saying "Your browser isn't fully supported. For the best Pages/Keynote/Numbers for iCloud experience, use the latest version of Safari."

For those who have been using the current version of iWork and saving documents to iCloud, all of the saved documents are immediately available for test. The web suite will be released to the world later this year; at the present time, developers can try out the apps by logging in at beta.icloud.com.

Apple opens iWork for iCloud beta to registered developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple opens iWork for iCloud beta to registered developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On Monday, Apple introduced OS X Mavericks, their next-generation operating system for Macs. One feature Apple demoed on stage enables users to use an HDTV as an extra monitor, courtesy of Apple TV and AirPlay connectivity.

If that feature sounds familiar, you may already be an AirParrot customer. The US$9.99 app allows you to stream your screen or individual windows to Apple TV and it also offers extra screen support. The app's popular extended desktop features have been around for a while.

After Monday's announcement, we contacted Sidney Keith of Squirrels to get his reaction to the Mavericks feature. Today, he provided the following, thoughtful response.

We're continuing to innovate and develop at our own pace. Just because Apple released one of our features as its own doesn't mean we quit. We're still striving for quality applications that solve our customers and users needs. Honestly, we're glad Apple finally caught up. It gives us that much more motivation to innovate and create cooler applications that users want and need. Software is about progress, and that's what this is going to give us.

Not only do we have the motivation to keep innovating, we now have the opportunity and obligation to help those that can't or won't upgrade to 10.9. We have a large and loyal customer base that we'll continue supporting. We don't plan on dropping support for 10.6, even though we've now seen three major releases since then, and not everyone is as loyal to Apple as we may think. Upgrades can be costly for institutions and businesses that have hundreds of systems that need to be upgraded. We're here for those users, and we're here for the ones that don't trust the first iterations of Apple products. Whatever the reason for not upgrading, we have their back.

Apple has a global audience to attend to, and while we also have users all around the globe, our feature set is much more focused. We're able to focus solely on one group of features instead of an entire operating system. While Apple might add a feature, it's likely they'll not change that feature significantly in any future releases. We saw the addition of AirPlay desktop mirroring in OS X 10.8, but that feature hasn't changed since its initial release-roughly a year since the beta. We've got the ability to focus our entire teams attention on that one specific feature if we need to. That's something you'll be seeing over the next few months. We'll be doing a lot of innovation and creation in this area, and while we hope Apple doesn't steal our new features, we know it's inevitable. It's almost an honor.

If you want to see what Apple's going to to include AirPlay-wise at WWDC 14, you can probably bet our next few releases will be a preview.

Squirrels is also the developer of the Reflector app, which nearly all of us at TUAW have purchased. It allows you to stream AirPlay to your Mac or PC.

Note: in case you're wondering what "Sherlocked" refers to, here's a definition. Looking for other examples? Here's another for your delectation.

No downeys, millers, cumberbatches, lauries, bretts, etc. were hurt in the preparation of this article.

So you've been Sherlocked: AirParrot developers respond to new Mavericks features originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

So you've been Sherlocked: AirParrot developers respond to new Mavericks features originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OK, this is going to be a "duh" moment for most Mac developers, but apparently there are some people who are having issues with setting up a test environment in which to run OS X Mavericks. I have to admit that I was one of those who first started asking if anyone was having success running the latest Mac OS in a virtual machine under VMWare or Parallels. There are some people who claim to have OS X Mavericks running fine under one virtual environment or the other, although most are being rather closed-mouth about how they accomplished it. So, tired of waiting, I decided to do what I've done with previous releases and just create a dual-boot machine.

It's stupid easy to do this:

1) On your OS X 10.8 machine, sign into your Mac Dev Center account, click on the appropriate tab for OS X Mavericks, and then download the OS X 10.9 Developer Preview (click the button, which launches the Mac App Store, and magic happens).

2) While you're waiting for the download to complete, it's time to set up your Mavericks partition. Fire up Disk Utility, click on your primary disk drive and add a partition. I made mine 64 GB (on a 256 GB SSD MacBook Pro with Retina display), named it Mavericks just so I'd be more apt to select it instead of my main drive when installing 10.9, and then let Disk Utility do its thing. This takes very little time, so go enjoy the outdoors while the download continues and try to get some sun.

3) Once the Installer has finished downloading, it should launch itself; if not, go into Applications, find the app named "Install OS X 10.9 Developer Preview" and launch it. Follow the instructions, select the Mavericks partition you created in step 2 as the target for the beta OS and sit back while the installation continues.

4) Now you have a dual-boot 10.8 / 10.9 machine. To boot into one or the other of the partitions, just hold down the Option key while rebooting and select the appropriate one. Of course, that's not particularly helpful if you just have a single development machine and you don't want the irritation of booting in and out of two versions of OS X several times a day. That's why as soon as things are working smoothly with Parallels 8 and/or VMWare, we'll pass along the instructions for setting up Mavericks virtual machines in both of those environments.

DevJuice: The easy way to set up an OS X Mavericks test environment originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: The easy way to set up an OS X Mavericks test environment originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We warned you two years ago in the months before iOS 5 went live. Some of you didn't listen. Actually, if the TUAW inbox over the past few days is any indication, a lot of you didn't listen.

It seems a review is overdue.

Answer these two questions really quickly:

1. Are you a developer?
2. Are you running the iOS 7 beta?

If you answered no to the first question and yes to the second, then this post is meant for you.You are doing it wrong, and on behalf of everyone everywhere, please stop.

We've been receiving tons of messages every day from people reporting bugs and other odd behavior in the iOS 7 beta. Pundits and other persons of questionable intelligence are excoriating Apple for the iOS 7 beta's performance issues and tendency to be crash-prone.

Just stop. Stop.

Non-developers shouldn't be toying with iOS betas. Apple's beta software is really, really beta. I've installed and run beta versions of iOS every year since 2009, and let me tell you, it's an eye-opener to spend roughly three months each year having your iOS devices crashing left and right, with many third-party apps completely broken -- including some you've come to depend upon. If you're used to the usually rock-solid performance of IOS and OS X, running a developer beta on your device is a sobering peek into the world of Apple software before it's deemed ready for prime time.

What Apple calls "beta" is what most other developers would call "alpha" -- software never intended for use by the general public, released only to small numbers of (hopefully) knowledgable people for testing purposes.

If you want to look for an Apple example of "beta" software as almost everyone else defines it (including Google), look at the public release of just about any brand-new version of OS X. The 10.x.0 release of OS X is almost always riddled with bugs, inconsistencies, etc., and Apple usually pushes out a 10.x.1 update within a few weeks to address those. More cautious/paranoid Mac users often avoid upgrading to the next version of OS X until the .1 release for that very reason.

The iOS x.0 public release software is usually pretty stable, but that's only because it's been preceded by months of testing on millions of units. iOS betas themselves, especially the first few releases, are often about as stable as a drunken unicyclist. Sometimes this goes beyond app crashes and general instability -- sometimes, iOS betas can be so bug-riddled that the basic, core functionality of the device simply doesn't work worth a damn until the next release comes out.

Developers know and understand these perils of beta software. Non-developers usually don't, so support forums get flooded with messages from irritated-to-irate users wondering why their formerly rock-solid device is suddenly crashing every time they try to load more than three tabs in Safari, or why the Music app crashes and burns every five minutes.

Then there's the people who flood the App Store with negative ratings for apps that are "broken" in an iOS beta. App Store reviews aren't the place to file bug reports, and developers can't be expected to know beforehand whether beta software -- which no one leaving App Store reviews should be running in the first place -- will break their apps.

Your negative reviews on the App Store are hurting the very developers whose help you're demanding. Stop it.

Now an admission: I'm not an iOS developer, but I'm running the iOS 7 beta on my iPhone. Even though I'm not actively involved in writing apps, however, I still paid the $99 fee and installed the beta because I have an excuse -- it's my job to know what Apple's up to, even if the NDA prevents me from telling the rest of you about it until the official launch.

That said, I also go out of my way to educate myself about the potential pitfalls of running beta software on my equipment. After running betas of iOS 3, 4, 5, and 6, I knew full well what to expect in iOS 7. When my iPhone spontaneously reboots every five minutes after enabling a panoramic wallpaper, or when some of my favorite apps just flat out do not work after installing the beta, I shrug it off and hope the bugs are addressed in the next beta version. I don't pester third-party app developers, I don't inundate Apple's support forums whining about how my iPhone is suddenly about as stable as the average Windows machine, and I definitely don't write a brain-dead article about how Apple has lost its edge in software development because its beta software is buggy.

I know you non-devs are curious about trying out the new features in iOS 7, especially since it's such a radical design change from iOS 6. I sympathize. I also know at least some of you are motivated by the "first kid on my block to have it" mentality. But you know the old saying about curiosity killing the cat? Running iOS beta releases on your hardware won't kill your cat, but it'll make it seem like the thing is running all over your house with a string of cans tied to its tail -- for three months.

If your livelihood doesn't depend on running the iOS 7 beta, then for your own sake and ours, just let it be. If you don't know how to restore your iPhone or iPad's firmware without looking it up on Google first, just don't do it at all.

If you're not prepared for a subpar experience involving bugs, crashes, app incompatibilities, weird UI behaviors, unfinished or even half-baked features, and truly terrible battery life, then give iOS 7 a miss until the public launch, when Apple will (hopefully) have all the bugs squashed.

If you don't understand the concept that iOS betas have an expiration date, and you must keep pace with the current betas if you want your hardware to continue functioning, then don't run iOS 7.

In short, if you're not prepared for your Apple hardware to behave in a very un-Apple way for months at a stretch, then in the name of all that is holy, leave the betas alone.

PSA: If you're not a developer, don't install developer betas on your iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PSA: If you're not a developer, don't install developer betas on your iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Craig Federighi simply didn't have the time to go through all of the features in iOS 7, so I decided to scrape some of those features from a slide.

• View PDF annotation -- in iOS, it's been impossible to view annotations that someone has added to a PDF. It appears that feature is finally coming to iOS 7, and that will bring even more PDF power to our apps.
• Enterprise single sign-on -- Not sure how this is going to be implemented, but providing a way for enterprise users to use one sign on for all of the sites that they need to work with on a daily basis is huge. This resolves the issue of needing to log into multiple apps on an enterprise network.
• Turn-by-turn walking directions -- Finally, what we have in Google Maps, available for iOS Maps.
• Do Not Track option in Safari -- I believe this is similar to Chrome's "incognito windows. A feature brought over from the desktop version of Safari that blocks websites, ad companies, analytic services and social networks from tracking you online. A version of it was present in iOS 6 as Private Browsing, but was not officially announced.
• Improved Mail search -- I currently find searching iOS mail to be frustrating, and when I really need to look up an old email, I resort to OS X. I can only hope that iOS Mail search is improved to that level.
• Night mode for Maps -- No more glaring screen when using Maps at night.
• WiFi HotSpot 2.0 -- Not sure what the improvements are going to be, but it's interesting to see that "Personal Hotspot" is getting an update. Hotspot 2.0 is a public access WiFi standard that allows devices to connect automatically to a compatible WiFi service when a user enters a coverage area. It'll let users walk around their city and connect to WiFi hotspots on the fly without any interaction with their phone.
• FaceTime Audio -- the ability to do FaceTime using only audio -- this could be helpful for doing podcasts.
• App Store Volume Purchase -- This may be a way for developers or Apple to offer volume purchase rates to schools, perhaps with "promo codes" that work for a large number of users.
• Scan to acquire Passbook passes -- At a store? Want to get a Passbook pass for a discount coupon? Just scan a code to have it automatically loaded into Passbook.
• Inclinometer == built-in level.

We'll continue Zaprudering the slides as time goes by here today. There's a lot of information to digest!

Continue reading Some other cool (and relatively unmentioned) iOS 7 features

Some other cool (and relatively unmentioned) iOS 7 features originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Some other cool (and relatively unmentioned) iOS 7 features originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some of the iOS SDK features that were quickly touched on by Craig Federighi today sound fascinating, although we won't get details on some of them until later. Here are some that I found to be the most interesting:

• New multitasking APIs -- this should enable apps that you use most often to update themselves in the background.
• Secure Game Center scores -- as Erica Sadun pointed out, people know how to hack the leaderboards right now; this may eliminate that.
• MFi game controllers -- this is HUGE for gaming. MFi, of course, means "Made for iPhone / iPad / iPod," and this API should make game controllers that work with our devices become more prevalent.
• Dynamic type size -- Devs can build in user-directed font scaling so us old folks can read our Helvetica Neue Ultra Light in BIG letters.
• 60 fps video capture -- want to include slow-mo video in your app? Capture at 60 frames per second.
• Barcode scanning -- finally, an API for reading barcodes and perhaps those pesky QR codes?
• Sprite kit -- sprites are a collection of related images grouped into a single image, i.e., frames for an animation or a group of icons. This sounds like it could be something useful for writing side-scrollers or perhaps any game, reducing the number of CPU cycles required to move something across the display.
• UI dynamics -- the ability to get some of the beautiful transparency and 3D feel we saw in the demos.
• Peer-to-peer connectivity -- build local WiFi or Bluetooth connections with other iOS devices and Macs(?) into apps easily.
• Background asset downloads -- automatic updates of app assets that normally take a bit of time upon connection to grab new data.
• Directions API -- giving developers the capability of building step-by-step directions into their apps.
• AirDrop from Activity sheet -- so cool, allowing things like photos or videos or artwork you've just created to be sent to another person via AirDrop.
• Geodesic Polylines -- as Erica points out, this is a "Google Maps" kinda thing you can do right now to show distance lines from a particular point. This could be very helpful in Maps-related apps to show distances from a point.

Any other ideas on what these SDK updates may offer? Let's hear your comments below!

New iOS SDK features for developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

New iOS SDK features for developers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The PRISM project is hitting the news just now, with the Director of National Intelligence issuing statements, and people talking about what privacy means in a free society.

This morning, our backchannel discussion about PRISM drifted to the topic of user privacy in apps. Specifically, we've noticed a recent trend -- our apps are starting to contact us by email.

Here's an example of a real email generated by an iOS app:

Hello, Thank you for trying [redacted] out!

I noticed that you've used the app a couple of times over the past few weeks but are no longer using it. We trying to make the calendar a better experience and in doing so I'd really appreciate if you could take a moment and tell me why [redacted] isn't working for you.

If you have any other thoughts you'd like to share with the team, please feel free to send it our way!

That's a pretty startling email to receive, especially when we never contacted the company in question or opted into monitoring. In fact, the app in question offers a lengthly privacy statement, which states, "we may use other Anonymous Information to analyze usage patterns". Clearly that data is not so anonymous that it wasn't able to hijack the Gmail credentials used within the app.

There's a saying that basically goes, "if the app is free, then you are the product." It's become commonplace to reap device and usage statistics for analytics. Developers may forget that there remains a real privacy line between a user's personal data and how they use the app. With Apple's support of developer- and app-specific tracking identifiers, you shouldn't lose sight of how that data is supposed to be used.

In February, the FTC issued recommendations for mobile privacy disclosure. Among these, the FTC suggested that apps offer affirmative express consent for access to sensitive information, along with an access "dashboard" that would allow users to review in-app privacy settings.

At the time, Verne Kopytoff wrote at Bloomberg Businessweek about the motivation behind app privacy policies, "Privacy advocates like to call mobile phones by a more menacing name: tracking devices. Mobile apps log the pages people browse, the products they buy, and the videos they watch. Many apps also note their users' locations and, over time, glean their daily routines."

As mild as email feedback outreach efforts are, they cross a critical line when leveraging account information meant for in-app use only. A user who buys an app intending to manage his calendar, isn't expressly trying to build a product feedback relationship with the developer. Repurposing Gmail account credentials for further contact breaks an important trust.

DevJuice: Is your app watching you? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: Is your app watching you? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reveal, now in public beta, was originally created to enable its developers to debug client applications. Over time, they found that the tool became so useful on its own that it deserved to be productized.

Developer Sean Woodhouse tells TUAW, "We built Reveal to help us debug applications for our clients. The applications we build, particularly for iPad, can have extremely complicated view structures, and Reveal's ability to isolate and focus on a subset of the view hierarchy has been critical to manage that complexity. The ability to change view properties also lets us test simple visual changes without recompiling."

If you're thinking that Reveal sounds a lot like Spark Inspector, which I recently wrote about, you're right. Reveal covers much of the same ground in terms of application inspection, tweaking and exploration. It does so, however, with its own flair and interface strengths. I am very impressed by this product.

The app provides a handy "tl;dr" jumpstart for anyone testing it out. Choose Help > Integration Guide. All you need to do to get started is link in a few frameworks, set a build flag and run your app in the simulator. Reveal automatically detects and integrates with any app running its custom framework. Even better, the app stores that framework in its own bundle, so there's no other material to incorporate. From the app download to up and running, it took me maybe a minute to get going.

Once running, select your running app. You can tweak items in the View inspector (the third of the four inspector panes) and your changes are automatically injected into the application. You can see the simulator update live. For the app I was testing, I messed around with frames and content modes, and found the app to perfectly adjust those items. Elements in the other three panes appeared to be inspect-only in my testing.

Reveal is not targeted at Auto Layout at this time, and some of my tweaks put Auto Layout's nose out of joint a bit, such as when I attempted to set a view's affine transform to non-rectangular results.

This app will be best for anyone still working in the frames and bounds world, who wants to be able to adjust their interfaces in real time. It's perfect for developers who prefer not to rely entirely on Interface Builder and who use extensively use code. With Reveal, you'll be able to update interfaces without endlessly performing the tweak-build-test cycle. Instead, you explore in a live playground until you've found the interface you're looking for.

Like Spark Inspector, I would have liked to have had a product output of some kind, whether it was PaintCode-like code generation, bookmarks of saved interfaces (for later review and comparison) or just settings charts. Unfortunately, neither product offers these options at this time.

I'd also love if Reveal integrated with constraints. I almost never deal directly with frames and bounds any more now that Auto Layout has debuted, and I think I would find a tool that let me create, inspect and validate those rules a lot more valuable.

That said, Reveal is a lovely app even if it's one I wish I had had about two years ago before Auto Layout premiered. Its interface is top-notch, it's easy to use and I really enjoyed exploring it.

Because it's in open beta, I highly recommend that you download a copy and poke around. You may discover that it's exactly the dev tool you've been missing.

DevJuice: Reveal enables you to inspect, modify and debug iOS apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: Reveal enables you to inspect, modify and debug iOS apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW reader Peter Johnson of Soluble Apps writes, "I, and a few other developers on my Facebook group, have noticed that, since yesterday's OSX update, every other run on the simulator is crashing on start. It appears to work fine when compiling and running on hardware.

I thought it could be useful for your to warn other developers to hold off from performing the update if they want to work on the simulator."

I've experienced the same issue, but found that switching from LLDB to GDB (on the advice of Tony Arnold from Apple's Dev Forums) seems to fix the problem for the moment.

Update your scheme by selecting Product > Scheme > Edit Scheme, and choose the GDB debugger for your debug scheme.

Update: Apple says no more radars are needed.

The issue occurs to a process race condition for debugserver. Instead of using GDB, you can alternatively kill your execution, wait a few seconds for the app to wrap up, and then run the next iteration.

DevJuice: 10.8.4 and the iOS Simulator originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: 10.8.4 and the iOS Simulator originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dave Caolo's daughter has been working hard on a school report regarding the Everglades National Park. So he downloaded a nice-looking iPad app on the subject for her. Swiping around it looked great. And then he tapped on a video.

This is what happened.

In the TUAW back channel, we scratched our heads, trying to brainstorm any reason for an app to directly link to a YouTube video that didn't support mobile. The best we could come up with was this: we figure that the developer never tested the video on an actual iOS device.

But then we tested this theory by trying out the video URL on the iPhone simulator. It didn't work there either. So probably the developer never tested the video at all.

That said, although the simulator looks like an iPhone, it never provides a perfect representation of the physical and computation abilities of device deployment. Sometimes, it may reflect a Mac reality over an iOS one. So if you specifically provide a video as part of your app, you should really make sure that it plays back within that app, and not just on the simulator.

We'd also recommend that you control the rights and distribution of any material that's fundamental and essential to the app in question. That addresses the problem of another video used within the app.

It said: "YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to copyright violations."

Oh, excellent.

DevJuice: A real-world lesson in why you must test on-device originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: A real-world lesson in why you must test on-device originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The OS X Forage (US$9.99) app provides a simple query and editing interface for SQLite databases. This app targets developers who use pre-built databases for iOS, OS X and Web deployment. It enables them to test and refine queries as well as to edit table data, and do so outside of the command line.

It's a pretty sweet little app. I was able to open, edit and save updates to a variety of database files. Admittedly, my testing was fairly light, but it easily handled address book and photo databases from the iPhone, which are my primary area of testing, as well as several test databases provided by the developer.

Updates are handled as transactions. You can add and change data but the changes aren't stored until you specifically hit the Save Changes button (you see it at the bottom of the table editor, next to the row add and delete buttons).

Visual updates (they're subtle -- you may have to change your selection to see them) indicate which items have been changed. You cannot yet revert without saving, but that's something promised for future releases.

You create new SQL queries by double-clicking on tables. Each query occupies a tab in your workspace. In the following screen shot I have two query tabs in process. These tabs enable you to tweak each SQL query independently. You cannot, at this time, name the queries, but it's pretty easy to move through the workspace as needed.

Yes, the app is in early days, and the only big complaint I have is that the app itself isn't fully stable. I managed to crash it a number of times. The developer assures me that a bug fix update is imminent and will address the problem.

For now, what you're buying is an evolving product that shows promise, and one that many developers will find useful even now.

DevJuice: Forage offers SQLite query GUI for devs originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 May 2013 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: Forage offers SQLite query GUI for devs originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 May 2013 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With WWDC just around the corner, time is running low. Have you ordered new business cards for the event? If you're looking for something a little more interesting than a plain white rectangle, there are lots of options out there.

Moo is well-known for their rounded-corner high-quality cardstock business card line. I know several TUAWians swear by them.

Want something with a little more texture? How about wooden business cards? Vendor Cards of Wood sells 100 cards from US$35, with discounts at higher quantities.

Maybe you want to break out of the box with custom shapes? Taste of Ink studios offers custom die-cut business cards with spot gloss, decorative foil and metallic ink printing options. Prices vary by feature.

Some Etsy dealers offer clever options as well. Seller ReadyGo offers matchbook-style notebook business cards starting at $50 for 50. These include little pads of paper, perfect for taking notes while at WWDC -- and for keeping your contact details close at hand.

Our favorite, however, has got to be Kevin Avila's custom "Made for iPhone" program business cards. Crafted using sandblasted etching (he swears the next run will use lasers), these must-have cards are constructed from real iPod faceplates.

We wants one, we do. Precioussssssss! Got an awesome business card? Share a link in the comments.

DevJuice: Don't forget to order your WWDC business cards originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 May 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

DevJuice: Don't forget to order your WWDC business cards originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 23 May 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OmniGroup, the Seattle-based developers of OmniOutliner, OmniGraphSketcher, OmniGraffle, OmniFocus and OmniPlan, has announced that today they are shipping OmniPresence document syncing.

OmniPresence rounds out the automatic syncing solutions that OmniGroup added first to OmniFocus in 2008 and OmniPlan in 2011. OmniGroup CEO Ken Case noted in a May 20 blog post that OmniPresence works well with Mac apps that support OS X Auto Save and Versions. To quote Case, "Using the same underlying document coordination as Versions, OmniPresence lets your app know when a document has been changed on another device, and double-checks to make sure it always syncs a current and complete copy of any documents currently being edited. OmniPresence can't prevent conflicting edits from multiple devices, but when that happens it automatically saves both versions of conflicting edits so that no edits are lost."

OmniPresence is built on top of open web server technologies, which means that users can sync document using their own web server. Apache server, for example, is built into Mountain Lion Server, so any user or company can keep OmniPresence syncing running well into the future. Since many customers will choose not to set up their own servers, OmniGroup is scaling up their Omni Sync Server to support OmniPresence. Anyone who previously checked the "I am brave" box on sync.omnigroup.com should already have access.

Developers will be able to see the source code to OmniPresence on github. A demo video of OmniPresence in action is embedded below.

OmniGroup releases OmniPresence, free sync technology for OS X and iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 May 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

OmniGroup releases OmniPresence, free sync technology for OS X and iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 22 May 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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