Hack Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Creepy profit-tracking Wario controlled by Mac

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 20th, 2011)

Tiburciod likes to keep track of sales of his game so he wrote a script that checks every minute for a new transaction. Instead of a simple alert, he and his daughter Helena grabbed a Wario character, a bike bell, a few spare LEDs and a smoke maker from a model train. He assembled them all ...

iPad as Kinect part 2: Air Touches

by Erica Sadun (Jul 12th, 2011)

What can you do with an iPad 2 with its onboard cameras and it's fairly able CPU? Quite a lot, it turns out. When TUAW first looked at Greg Hartstein's Air Touch project, it required a completely dark room and could only handle a single measure of distance based on lighting levels. Things have ...

Apple servers hacked by Anonymous

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 4th, 2011)

According to Anonymous' twitter account, the hacking group used a SQL injection exploit to pull down the usernames and passwords of several accounts from an Apple-run server (abs.apple.com). The passwords appear encrypted so there is little threat that others can abuse this account information. ...

How to get Windows 7's best features on Mac OS X

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 8th, 2011)

Lifehacker has a nice post that shows you how to add some Windows 7 features to your Mac OS X computer. One of the nicest hacks is the ability to show a preview of an app when it's in the dock just like Windows 7 does with its Aero interface. There's also a way to remap your keyboard to use ...

Untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.3 now available from iPhone dev team

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 6th, 2011)

Jailbreakers hesitant to update to iOS 4.3.3 can now do so without losing their ability to jailbreak. The iPhone dev team confirmed iOS 4.3.3 is still vulnerable to the untethered jailbreak exploit that @i0n1c created for 4.3.1. Released earlier this week, this version of iOS fixes the location ...

AppleCrate II parallel computer made from Apple IIe motherboards

by Michael Grothaus (May 4th, 2011)

In what's probably the coolest custom-built machine I've seen in ages, computer enthusiast Michael J. Mahon has built a parallel computer made out of 17 Apple IIe motherboards. As you can see the "AppleCrate II" looks like a big crate of motherboards stacked on top of each other -- and that's ...

Kinect plus iPhone used to create gaming prototype

by Mike Schramm (May 2nd, 2011)

Rockmoon is a developer in Singapore that built this rig above -- it's an iPhone hooked up to Microsoft's Kinect motion controller, used to work with a game prototype similar to the old Sewer Shark Sega CD title. Basically, it's a two player affair, with one player using the Kinect to actually ...

GarageBand for iPad running on an iPhone 4

by Michael Grothaus (Apr 27th, 2011)

YouTube user PSPfano has posted a video of GarageBand for iPad running on an iPhone 4. He accomplished this by using a hack (detailed on 9to5) that allows users to modify jailbroken iPhones; it also allows them to run most iPad apps on them. After applying the hack, PSPfano moved the GarageBand ...

Video mirroring on the original iPad

by Steven Sande (Apr 4th, 2011)

iPad 2 owners have one cool feature that can't be replicated on the original iPad -- the ability to mirror everything that's on the screen onto another display. Or should I say "had one cool feature," since 18-year-old Belgian student Ian Bauters has figured out a hack that enables video ...

University team is perfecting the art of hijacking power from the iPhone's headphone jack

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jan 17th, 2011)

The University of Michigan's Project HiJack harnesses power by using bandwidth from the iPhone's headphone port. There are actually some peripherals that do this already -- think Square's credit card reader -- but Project HiJack sees this expanding to produce sensors for blood pressure, glucose, ...

Video: iPhone 3G running Android 2.3

by Chris Rawson (Jan 8th, 2011)

The iPhone 3G now does something not even all Android phones can claim: it runs Android's current version, 2.3 "Gingerbread." iDroid developer Nick Pack posted a video of a jailbroken iPhone 3G successfully running Android 2.3. Naturally the older iPhone was huffing and puffing a bit as it tried to ...

Mac App Store devs need careful code validation, otherwise downloads can be copied

by Michael Terretta (Jan 6th, 2011)

John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that Mac apps whose developers didn't follow Apple's advice on validating apps (link for registered Apple developers) can easily be copied by users. Gruber notes if Mac App Store developers are following Apple's advice, the technique for using a copied app ...

iPod nano hacked, may open door to future jailbreak

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 28th, 2010)

The latest generation iPod nano has been hacked, a preliminary step that may lead to an eventual jailbreak. The sixth generation iPod nano became available in September of this year and featured an operating system that superficially resembled iOS. Under the hood, the mini MP3 player runs an ...

Apple takes down AirPrint Hacktivator, and now it's back as AirPrint Activator

by Steven Sande (Dec 3rd, 2010)

Remember AirPrint Hacktivator? It's the little hack that makes it possible for AirPrint to work with any shared printer on a Mac. We've covered the free app several times on TUAW, most recently when version 1.7 came out. After we published that post, a TUAW reader pointed out that despite the fact ...

Animated wallpaper running on a jailbroken iPad

by David Quilty (Nov 30th, 2010)

In case you needed even more distraction and less battery life from your iPad, MacStories wants you to know about the ultimate hack just for you. For jailbroken iPads, a new app allows for having animated backgrounds just like Android devices. Called vWallpaper, it enables a video resized for the ...