Cult of Mac

The iPhone 4 jailbreak is one of the easiest ever. You just visit the jailbreakme.com webpage in Mobile Safari, swipe the “Slide to Jailbreak” slider, and it installs the unofficial App Store Cydia on your device.

But it comes at a price. The jailbreak exploits a wide-open security hole that could easily be exploited by malicious hackers. Malicious sites that install malware could exploit the largely unkown, unpatched security hole.

Note: The security hole in Mobile Safari is not caused by jailbreaking the device. It is already there on all iOS devices, jailbroken or not.

Apple is sure to investigate the exploit and quickly issue an update. But in the meantime, here’s a quick patch you can install yourself:

Guy Kawasaki’s seminal book The Macintosh Way is a classic for technology marketers (“evangelists”) and Apple geeks alike.  It is fondly remembered from the Golden 68k Macintosh Era, and is used to this day as reference material for startup businesses and college courses.

The book went out of print several years ago, and Guy has been working since to get the rights back.  He has finally succeeded, and is making the digitized eBook available free to everyone for the asking.

The Macintosh Way has seen Apple and the Mac through many changes over its twenty year lifetime; to celebrate the re-release, Guy has also released this video detailing the book’s transformation from printed page to computer screen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnjyrcozHyA

To get your free eBook, follow Guy on Twitter and sign up at freemacway.com
You can also read the book in the OfficeDrop iPad app.

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Added bonus for this old Mac geek (and full disclosure): my own Vintage Mac Museum was used to film the opening of the video.  For a few enjoyable hours this spring the production team and I relived the Macintosh Way!  For more on filming the spot, see Vintage Macs Live Again.  Anyone up for Snood?

Keep your Mac and Windows Mobile device in perfect sync: Address Book, Calendar entries, To Dos, browsers bookmarks, Mail notes and entourage ones, iTunes, iPhoto, folders and more. You can manage SMS messages with an ease of your Mac keyboard, which makes reading, sending or deleting your messages a fast and easy task. We’re giving away 10 SyncMate Expert Edition licenses from Eltima Software to you, our fun and loyal readers. Not rocking the new iPhone and instead using an Android phone?  This application will help you easily sync with that, too!

Here’s how to win a copy of SyncMate:

1. Become a fan of our Facebook page.
2. Post a link to your favorite Cult of Mac article from the past week or two on your Facebook profile.
3. Comment on our Facebook page wall that you posted the link.

Guidelines: You must be 18 years old to enter the giveaway.  This giveaway is void where prohibited.  NO purchase is necessary to enter the giveaway.

Special thanks to Eltima Software for providing these license keys.  Each license has a retail value of $39.95.

We start another week with three new deals in the spotlight. First is a bargain on a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook for just $850. Second is a deal on the Home and Student version of Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac – just $100. We wrap up our top trio with SquareTrade’s iPhone two-year warranty – $90.

Along the way, we’ll also check out other deals, including the Sony speaker/dock clock radio. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The iPad may be magical, but do you want your taxes to pay for city councilors to have them?

That’s what citizens in Leicester, England wonder after the local council there drew up plans to provide all 54 city councilors with Apple’s tablet device.

Equipping all of the local politicos with iPads by May 2011 will cost around £40,000 or about $63,000 for the 64 gigabyte models, sparking critics who note that the council is spending for shiny gadgets when it has to cut some 1,000 jobs due to budget issues.

Say goodbye to that wedge of magnetized plastic in your wallet. If AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have their way, the future of credit is your smartphone… and they are going to war against the likes of Visa and Mastercard to accomplish it.

According to Bloomberg, the three carriers are working with Discover and Barclays, testing a system in four US cities that would enable special smartphones embedded with NFC (near field communication) chips to make credit card payments with just a wave of the hand.

Making a credit card payment from your iPhone isn’t exactly a new idea: Visa already lets you do this with special payWave cases, and Digg founder Kevin Rose is backing Square, which is a similar idea.

The point here, though, is that it’s the carriers who are making the most concerted push yet to consolidate and bring ubiquity to smartphone payment systems, by cutting out the biggest credit giants entirely.

Although the number of iPhone owners currently dwarfs the iPad, a new study reveals Apple’s tablet has a promising future. The tablet device is both more involving for users, as well as potentially more lucrative for developers.

Like the iPhone, games are the largest category of applications downloaded by iPad users, according to a study released Monday by mobile advertising exchange network Mobclix. Games comprise 20 percent of all applications, the study says. But iPad owners spend triple the time with the games as iPhone users, according to the numbers.

If you don’t mind taking a blowtorch to your pretty unibody iMac and trephining it a bit, you can easily add an eSATA port for the connection of external hard drives to your beautiful 27-inch. That surgery’s not for the meek, though: luckily, OWC will be happy to do it $169 in under 48 hours… and for a gasp-worthy $1649 more, they’ll even cram in a 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. Yowza!

Could Intel be inside your next iPhone? That’s a possibility as the chipmaking giant is reportedly on the verge of acquiring Infineon, Apple’s sole baseband supplier for the iPhone.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Intel is “close to a deal” to buy Infineon for $2 billion. The possible acquisition is a reminder of the rocky road the two Silicon Valley companies have recently had. Apple decided to go with Intel rival ARM for its smartphones, then acquired chipmakers PA Semi and Intrinisity to build the A4 processor based on the ARM and now used in the iPad and iPhone 4.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg

If you’re having issues with sluggish iOS 4 performance on your iPhone 3G, Apple’s apparently launching an investigation, but according to Boy Genius Report, there’s a stop gap solution. Just go into settings and turn off Spotlight Search.

Here’s how you do it. Go to Settings, tap on General, then Spotlight Search. Now untick everything. Apparently, turning off all the Spotlight indexing solves the sluggishness issues… although I don’t have an iPhone 3G to test myself, so corroboration from our readers would be welcome.

Although an official fix from Apple would be welcome, this seems like a pretty good band-aid to me: I barely use the Spotlight search option on my iPhone, and I’d certainly be willing to sacrifice it entirely for a performance bump.

Apple’s never been really serious about Mac gaming… which makes it all the more miraculous that we’re currently living in a golden age of Mac gaming, largely through the efforts of Valve Software to bring native ports of their Source engine games as well as the Steam digital delivery service to OS X.

But now Valve is doing one better. They’ve just announced that they’ll be sharing a lot of their graphics code for the Mac with developers on Steam, which they characterize as the hardest work of bringing a title to the Mac.

Valve’s a great company, but they aren’t doing this out of sheer benevolence: as it turns out, even old Steam games released for the Mac have seen 15-20% sales bumps across all platforms, and that number’s only going to rise. That means more money in Valve’s pockets. There’s huge money in Mac gaming, and even if Apple is mysteriously unwilling to capitalize upon that, it’s good to know that savvy developers like Valve know a good opportunity when they see it.

[via TUAW]

If the iPad is considered a mobile PC (as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer views the Apple tablet), the Cupertino, Calif. consumer electronics company jumps from a seventh-place mobile PC maker to No. 3, according to Deutsche Bank. Adding tablet devices to the portable PC mix means Apple passes several more traditional notebook makers, the analyst says.

“When including the iPad as part of the NB [notebook] market, writes Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore, “Apple leapt over Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell in terms of global market share.”

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf1ACPTkmr0

If you can get it to load, Jailbreak Me is the one of the simplest jailbreak solutions yet. Just visit the site on Mobile Safari and — if you can get it to load — your iOS device running 4.0 or 4.0.1 is jailbroken, no reboot required.

Unfortunately, when it was released yesterday, there were caveats: FaceTime and MMS got knocked out of commission with the jailbreak.

Luckily, Jailbreakme.com has now been updated with a fix to the FaceTime and MMS issues. Already jailbroken? Just open Cydia and upgrade when you’re prompted to.

Finally, here’s the best news: if you’re waiting for a compatible unlock, it should be available in the next 48 hours.

If you’re a BlackBerry warrior who does business in the futuristic desert city of Dubai, it’s about time to consider switching to an iPhone: the telecommunications authority in the United Arab Emirates will be blocking some BlackBerry services come October.

The issue is one of government surveillance. BlackBerries send encrypted data to oversea servers through their own messaging layer, which means that local authorities can’t read that data. The iPhone doesn’t handle messaging, e-mail and the web in the same fashion, making it exempt from the UAE’s criticisms.

Research in Motion has garnered official criticism due to its encryption scheme before. India also threatened to ban Blackberries at a certain point, prompting RIM to ultimately cave on their position. That’s less likely to happen in the UAE: it’s the difference between a potential subscriber base of a billion and a hundred million.

You can view this story in one of two ways as an iPhone owner. On the one hand, if you go to the UAE with your iPhone, the government at least wants the option of snooping on you. On the other hand, at least you can use its full array of services while you’re there… an option that now appears to be completely off the table for BlackBerry owners.

Buy a case or a dock at an Apple store emblazoned with the “Made for iPod” seal of official Cupertino approval, and you put a twenty percent commission directly into Apple’s pockets.

Needless to say, Apple’s just as protective of that revenue stream as some shadier third-party accessory makers are of trying to weasel their way out of paying it. Now there’s a showdown coming: Apple is taking a number of these more scurrilous and skinflint accessory makers to court, saying that the products they make “are of inferior quality and reliability, raising significant concerns over compatibility with and damage to Apple’s products.”

Apple’s suit names Accstation, Boxware Corporation, Crazyondigital, Eforcity Corporation, Everydaysource, Itrimming, and United Integral, and might expand to include twenty other companies.

Of course, this isn’t the only front where Apple is waging this particular crusade: they also frequently change their “Made for iPod” specifications, rendering old accessories obsolete with every new product or new firmware release.

In total, Apple’s out for blood… but something tells me that no matter how far they take this, there’s little they can do to squeeze that blood from the stone of all third-party accessory makers, especially the ones originating from Chinese companies and Taiwanese gadget sweatshops.

Ruh roh! It looks like Apple has an excuse to shutter all the front facing cameras on every iPhone 4 sold after last week. Apple’s notorious grip on it’s no porn in iOS apps policy won’t protect anyone from the adult entertainment industries interest in making tons of money with the iPhone 4’s FaceTime video chat feature.

I agree with this report on Techcrunch — it is interesting that Apple has removed the videos demonstrating the antenna problems on smartphones made by rival companies. Those videos were originally posted on a special antenna page at Apple.com.  Now suddenly — poof they’re gone.

Last week the U.S. government surprised everyone by announcing that jailbreaking, root access, and carrier unlocking was a legal option for buyers of smartphones that want to access apps not sold by the manufacturer or to free the handset for use on the network of their choice.

After this decision it is likely that more people will be jailbreaking their iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches. There are over 100 million iOS devices in circulation and it is thought that a mere fraction of these are jailbroken.

Jailbreaking isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do, but there are many how-to’s (including our own below) that will explain to you how to do it. The problem with that is that you need to find the right one to fit your iOS device. That isn’t easy with the plethora of iOS versions and different iOS device models out there until now.

The Jailbreak Matrix solves that problem. The Matrix is a chart that will show you the details you need to jailbreak your specific iOS device and its version of iOS. It will even tell if you if a jailbreak doesn’t exist, provide download links for firmware and iTunes, and versioning information for firmware and baseband (if appropriate). The information provide is likely to help you to prevent bricking your device.

You can view the  Jailbreak Matrix and find the jailbreaking how-to suitable for your circumstances or you can check out Culf of Mac’s Jailbreak Superguide. Regardless of the option you choose you can jailbreak most iOS devices in no time at all.

Is your iOS device jailbroken or unlocked? What circumstances drove you to wanting to do that in the first place? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Travel back in time with this classy look at the History of Apple Design.  Matt’s Macintosh offers a loving paean to Cupertino’s Industrial Design trends through the decades.

Theatrically filmed and scored, it’s like Christmas Past and Present!  [via RetroMacCast]

iOS hackers have released jailbreakme.com, a browser-based jailbreak utility for the Apple iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G when running iOS 4 or 4.0.1. The jailbreak is reminiscent of one of the original jailbreaks for the original iPhone.

In addition to the above devices the jailbreak is compatible with an iPad running iOS 3.2 and 3.2.1 and an iPod touch 3G running iOS 4.0.

To celebrate their 3rd anniversary, Readdle have started a 48-hour sale from today which sees all of their iOS applications reduced to just $0.99. In addition to this massive sale, Readdle are also giving away an iPad to 3 lucky winners who retweet their anniversary message on Twitter.

To be in with a chance of winning, just follow these 3 simple steps:

For more information, visit the Readdle 3 years anniversary page. To get your hands on one of Readdle’s great applications, check out their App Store page.

DVD to iPhone Converter for both Mac and PC is a handy application that allows you to transfer your DVD movies in to MP4 files optimized for your iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4.

It’s incredibly simple to use: just stick your favorite DVD in to your computer, select the appropriate movie file and then click “convert.” When it’s done, drag the MP4 file in to your iTunes library and sync it to your device.

This application is a must for any movie fan, and the giveaway which will last just over a week will save you $29. All you need is a Facebook account.

Visit iSkySoft’s Facebook page, and click on the “like” button to become a fan. Fill in your name and email address and then download the application. Be sure to click on the “get keycode” link to get the serial key sent to you via email.

Get it before the offer ends and enjoy your movies on the move without buying them again on iTunes!

We’d like to ask our Canadian readers for help with a story we’re working on about the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4 just launched in Canada on Friday, and Canadian buyers are able to buy the device unlocked (if it’s bought from Apple rather than a carrier).

We’re looking for readers who are getting an unlocked iPhone 4 and can test it on Wind Mobile’s network to see if it can support 3G data speeds.

Why do we want to test the iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile’s network?

Wind Mobile is an up-and-coming carrier that uses the same GSM network technology as T-Mobile in the United States.

The iPhone is rumored to be coming to T-Mobile USA in the fall, breaking Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. However, it’s not clear whether the iPhone 4 has the right radio hardware to support T-Mobile’s 3G data network.

We’re told Wind Mobile in Canada has the same network infrastructure. If it works on Wind Mobile’s network, it should work on T-Mobile’s.

T-Mobile’s 3G data network operates on the 1700/2100 MHz bands. According to Apple’s specs, the iPhone 4 works on the 2100 UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA band, but not the 1700 band, which has led some to conclude that it is incompatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network.

However, there is some debate whether Apple simply didn’t list the 1700 band, which seems to be the convention when listing such specs. And no one has yet tested the iPhone 4 on T-Mobile’s network in the U.S. Despite the efforts of the Dev Team, there isn’t yet a publicly available unlock for the iPhone 4.

This is why we’d like help testing an unlocked iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile in Canada.

If you can help out, please email us at news (AT) cultofmac.com. In return, we’ll send you some goodies in the mail.

UPDATE: In the comments below, reader @Qorax tried a Wind Mobile SIM in a brand new, unlocked iPhone 4 he purchased over the weekend. Unfortunately, the SIM card didn’t work at all: no voice or data. We would have predicted he would have at least got voice. iPhone users here in the U.S. who unlock their phones and use T-Mobile SIM cards get voice and data — but Edge only.

PS: @Qorax’s comment is worth reading to see how he beat the gigantic line for the iPhone 4 at his local Apple Store. Tricky!

We close out another week of great deals with a bargain on previous generation iMacs, as well as a couple deals on iPad items. First up, following the recent introduction of a refreshed line of iMacs, the Apple Store is offering price cuts on older iMacs, including a 21.5-inch model for $1,099. Also, we have an accessory kit for your iPad, along with a number of freebies from the iPad App Store.

As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

The iPad is a fantastic kitchen computer, no question, but consider me skeptical of the FridgePad, a £49 magnet-backed aluminum iPad case meant to allow you to easily slap your Apple tablet to the side of your Fridgidaire.

You know how sometimes you’ll put something heavy under a weak fridge magnet and it’ll slowly slide down the door until it smacks onto the floor? Yeah, that, except with an easily splinterable 1.6 slab of glass.