software - page 26

It’s made a huge splash on the iPad, so naturally, iBooks is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, with the same controls, same note taking features, same highlights, same PDF reading and same bookmarks.

Like the iPad version, you can purchase and download a book to all your devices for no charge, and automatically sync your place, bookmarks and notes.

Not so surprisingly, on the iPhone 4 retina display, iBooks looks gorgeous. And to think: this coming from the man who said that people didn’t read anymore.

Apple may be warring with Google in the smartphone arena, but they’re not going to take it out on their customers: Jobs has just confirmed rumors that Apple was getting into bed with Microsoft and adding Bing as a search option to iOS.

Google’s still the default, but now you have another choice, and Bing’s doing some really snazzy things with the HTML5 presentation of results. If you like your search results to be pretty, it looks like Google’s going to have some catching up to do with Bing.

Oh, and the three of you who still default to Yahoo… you can still search with them too. Go nuts!

It has made less and less sense by the day that the iPhone OS would continue to be called that as non-iPhone devices begin to run it. Jobs has just confirmed the earlier rumor of an iPhone OS rebrand: starting with iPhone OS 4.0, it’ll just be called iOS4.

From a humble blogger’s heart directly to Cupertino: thank you, my benefactors. You don’t know how confusing it was to talk about iPhone OS for the iPad on a daily basis. Having “Phone” plugged into the name of an increasingly non-Phone operating system was just ridiculous.

Anyone else wonder if this is the first blush of a reveal of a new iOS-capable Apple TV?

[image via GDGT]

According to French blog Mac Generation, we can all expect Safari 5 to be unveiled at WWDC in just a handful of hours.

Rumor? Sure. But they’ve got a convincing looking changelog, boasting a 25% improvement in JavaScript performance, a new Safari RSS Reader which will probably be too simplistic for serious feed junkies, more than twelve new HTML5 features, hardware acceleration in Windows and the option to add Bing as your default Search engine. It also looks like Apple is changing Safari’s address field to function more like Firefox’s Awesome Bar.

Apple might have overtaken Microsoft in terms of market cap, but Windows remains the world’s most popular operating system by a long way. That means there’s a lot of Windows-friendly stuff out there on the web that won’t necessarily play nicely with your Mac.

Not unless you have Flip4Mac WMV Player installed.

Confused by which combination of keypresses triggers your favorite shortcut? What about trying to remember which arcane spell of glyphs describes that shortcut in Mac terminology?

There’s a site for that… or, at least, there will be, when its owner gets finished with it. Keyonary is an online directory of keyboard shortcuts . Using the search bar, you simply type in the shortcut you’d like to find and Keyonary will return it to you.

To be honest, the site’s pretty rough right now, and while the presentation is slick, the owner’s entering all these shortcuts in by hand… which means that while Photoshop and OS X are fairly well covered by Keyonary, there’s a lot of shortcuts for other popular Mac apps still to be filled.

Still, we wanted to point Keyonary out… not because of what it is now, but what we hope a little encouragement will allow it to become: an I Use This for user-submitted shortcuts to all your favorite Mac applications.

As an indirect response to Adobe’s own We campaign, Apple has unveiled a wonderful new sandbox playground advocating HTML5, which allows users to play around and do a number of things in their browsers that they might not even know HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript can do.

It’s a lot of fun as a playground, and certainly shows what HTML5 can do. The only problem? It’s only viewable on Safari: try to run it on any other HTML5-capable browser and you get a message prompting you to download Apple’s own browser.

Although my affinity for Apple’s iDevices has long made switching an impossibility, I’ve long loved DVD Jon’s DoubleTwist application, a wonderful and streamlined iTunes-replacing program that allows you to sync your music or video library to pretty much any device under the sun.

Today, DoubleTwist got even better. Although the program has long synced to Android phones, the DoubleTwist Player, which finally gives Android what its been sorely lacking: a killer media player app. Even better, it offers some degree of interoperability with iTunes, and allow you to import your iTunes playlist, ratings and playcounts.

It’s free for a limited time, and finally brings an Apple-like media experience to Android phones. The only limitation is the lack of a widget allowing you to control your media playback from the homescreen, although it’s promised soon.

[via Gadget Lab]

Every few months, Mac security firm Intego pops up, waves their arms hysterically around and screams that the OS X sky is falling, having identified new malware in the wild. Rinse, repeat.

Their latest report is no different: Intego has identified 30 screensavers developed by a company called 7art and one app called Mishinc FLV to MP3 that are infected with a spyware program called OSX/OpinionSpy.

According to Apple Insider, Apple has started to cull programs on the App Store that offer Dashboard-like widgets to the user.

The most tangible evidence of the purge comes from Developer Russell Ivanovic, whose MyFrame app was removed by Apple for including widget support.

Going straight to Steve Jobs, Ivanovic received this reply: “”We are not allowing apps that create their own desktops. Sorry.”

Apple Insider speculates that this might be preparation work for Apple to introduce their own widgets in iPhone OS 4.0, although surely we’d have seen some evidence of that in beta form by now.

An equally valid reason Apple may be shutting dashboard apps down is because of their strict ban against interpretive code, which is essentially what a widget is.

Information management application Yojimbo was updated today, and version 2.2 adds an interesting new feature called “Sidekick”.

Sidekick creates a kind of “Yojimbo-to-go” export of all your notes (or a subset of them if you prefer). This is done by turning the notes into a self-contained mini website that you can put anywhere on your Mac or your network.

We all know what Steve Jobs thinks about Flash, and the steps he’s taken to keep it well away from his mobile devices.

But Flash is a fact of life on the web, and avoiding it on your desktop computer isn’t quite so easy. But not impossible.

If you like to power your way round the web, you’re probably in the habit of opening lots of links as background tabs to read later. If those tabs contain Flash content, things can quickly get annoying. Either stuff starts playing automatically and you can’t find the right tab to stop it, or too much stuff loads and your computer’s fans start whirring as if their lives depended on it.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yO2KQHkt4A&feature=player_embedded

If you’re looking for a little project to pursue this Memorial Day, word comes down the pipeline that installing Android on your iPhone 2G or 3G is now easier than ever, thanks to the automated iPhodroid application.

Earlier methods of installing Android on the iPhone were rather complicated, but this new method only requires a jailbroken iPhone running firmware 3.1.2 (in other words, jailbroken using PwnageTool, RedSn0W or Blackra1n and not Spirit), OpenSSH installed with the “alpine” password, MacFuse and the iPhodroid software. Connect your iPhone, run iPhodroid and five minutes later, you’ll have a dual-boot iPhone running the two best mobile operating systems on the market. Shiny.\

[via 9to5Mac]

If you’re a hopeful author sitting on what you hope to be the next great literary classic — or, failing that, the next mopey emo vampire series that you think will sell like gangbusters amongst the indiscriminate Hot Topic tween market — great news: Apple’s just released information on self-publishing on the iBookstore.

It’s a bit more complicated than just uploading your fan fiction, of course. Basically, you need to have a manuscript in ePub format, a 13-digit ISBN, validate against epubcheck 1.0.5 and contain no unmanifested files, as well as a US Tax ID, a valid iTunes Store account, and an Intel-based Mac running Leopard or higher. But once you’re established, you can start selling your books online, even internationally.

I’ve been really waiting for this: I can’t wait to read the first self-published iBooks blockbuster. Hell, time to head back to Scrivener and try to write one myself.

Yesterday’s release of Google’s Chrome 5 internet browser made it even more viable a Safari replacement than ever (if you can get over the design niggles, that is), but if a rather sly hint from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is anything to go by, Apple may attempt to match Chrome and Firefox’s most interesting feature — extensions support — with Safari 5.

Quoth Gruber:

The other big thing that’s missing [in Safari] (compared to both Chrome and Firefox) is a proper extension API. If only Apple had an imminent developer conference where they could unveil such a thing.

This is a big weakness of Safari compared to many other modern browsers , and the ability to easily tweak the Safari experience according to user preference would certainly win Apple’s browser some converts.

The question is: are browser extensions anathema to Apple’s own design ethos, which tries to perfect the user experience through tight-fisted control? As great as Firefox and Chrome extensions are — I simply can’t work with a browser that doesn’t support them anymore — things can get quite ugly and confusing, design-wise, with a lot of extensions installed. Apple can’t be too happy about that prospect.

Still, at the end of the day, the option of extensions coming to Safari is a win for everyone. My only hope is that Apple will crib some other ideas from Chrome while they are at it: Chrome’s effortless merging of the search field and address field is so brilliant that it makes any other interpretation seem amateurish in comparison.

Got an iPhone 3G and looking for a project to occupy yourself this weekend? The binaries of hacker David Wang’s Android port for the iPhone 3G has now been released.

Android on the iPhone is still more of a “because you can” proposition than recommended for day-to-day use, but follow Wang’s somewhat complicated guide and you’ll soon have an iPhone that dual-boots into Android.

There’s some drawbacks, of course: Wang has yet to implement any sort of power management into Android for iPhone, so your fully-charged handset will only last about an hour before it shuts off. Also, if you want to switch back to the iPhone OS, you need to do a reboot.

Still, if you’re interested in what the mobile space looks like from the other side, Android for iPhone looks like a worthwhile little hack.

Mail Act-On is a unique plug-in for Apple’s own Mail application. It won’t appeal to everyone, but it is an excellent tool for managing lots of email and keeping it all organized.

It serves the needs of two distinct sorts of person: those who live most of their working hours inside Mail, and those who want to minimize the time they spend in it. Either way, Mail Act-On is a godsend.

First revealed back in January at CES, the L5 Remote is a useful little dongle that supplements the iPhone or iPod Touch’s already incredible remote abilities by turning your iDevice into a fully functional infrared universal remotes.

All you do is slap the infrared sensor into your iPhone and load the free L5 remote app. The app comes with presets for many popular devices, but failing that, it’s easy to program your iPhone with your existing remote by bumping them nose to nose and pushing the button on your existing remote you want to program in.

Conceptually, I love the idea of using my iPhone as a truly universal remote, but if you think losing a remote is an irritatingly commonplace occurrence, imagine losing a tiny dongle between the couch cushions. Worse, the L5 remote costs $50: way too expensive when a cheap universal remote can be picked up at Best Buy for half the price.

Until iPhones and iPod Touches come with a built-in IR receiver, I don’t really see the iPhone to squeeze existing universal remotes out of the market.

Thanks to its inexplicable lack of a custom dictionary, the iPhone’s always been a frustrating filter on the gutter-mouthed obscenity enthusiast and the serial sexter alike.

It’s frustrating. More than once, the iPhone has automatically cleaned up some of my most romantic text messages to refer, time and time again, to an earnest plea for me and my girlfriend to go on a “duck hunt…” the most euphemistic description possible of the activity I was actually trying to type.

According to Gizmodo, though, it looks like our frustrations are at an end: he latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta contains a custom dictionary under keyboard settings.

It’s a bit counterintuitive to set up: you apparently need to change the network settings to see the new tethering option before the functionality is revealed. Once you do, though, you’ll be rattling off obscenity-laced Tweets, emails and Facebook status updates with the best of them. You’re welcome!

Fantastic news. Mac gamers! PopCap Games’ entire library of 13 incredible Mac games is now available for the lump sum of just $50.

Passwords. Loathe them or detest them from the depths of your innermost soul, they are a fact of life on today’s internet. And so many people use the same one everywhere.

1Password is aptly named. Once you give it control of your passwords, you don’t ever have to worry about remembering passwords again. You’ll only have to remember one – the one that unlocks 1Password itself.

The same hackers who got the Android operating system running in a dual-boot configuration on the first and second generation iPhones are now working on porting the hack to the iPod Touch.

In a new blog post, Linux on the iPhone is reporting that the binaries of the iPod Touch port are coming soon for jailbreakers to play with.

With Twitter gaining so much popularity in the mainstream, there seem to be hundreds of Twitter clients available for Mac. But what about us Tweeters who still have old Macs and are running OS X Tiger or even Panther? Twit Menulet fills the gap for those Mac users who still want to Tweet without having to upgrade their entire system. Read on for the full review and an exclusive offer for the Cult of Mac audience:

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_09mqhMa-g&feature=player_embedded

When Greg Hughes’ first revealed his amazing Wi-Fi Sync app a couple weeks ago, it didn’t take a genius to realize Apple was never going to let it on the App Store. Sure, there was no actual rule preventing it, but Apple has shown time and time again that they don’t want anyone messing around with iTunes sync. Plus, the very existence of the app makes Apple look bad: why the heck don’t we already have this functionality in iTunes? Apple was bound to kill it.

And so they have. Curious about Apple’s reasoning, Hughes’ even called them up, and was told that while the rep he spoke to agreed the app didn’t technically break any rule, it ” encroached upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store.” Plus, you know, unnamed security concerns.

Still, not to fret if you’re a jailbreaker. Wi-Fi Sync was also bound to hit Cydia in case of an App Store rejection. And so it has, for a steep $9.99.

Gradaddy’s song “Jed’s Other Poem” off of their album The Sopftware Slump has to be one of the most sweet and lonely ballads ever ostensibly written by a sentient robot, but Stewart Smith’s retroactively official “music” video for it — which prominently features an Apple IIe running a hand coded AppleSoft II program illustrating the lyrics — is probably what has made the song so famous.

Now, that music video has come, in a round about way, to the iPad. Smith, the original video’s programmer, happened to notice that the guys from Panic Software had an old Apple IIe sitting around, so he asked if they could run his animation on it. They didn’t have the old cassette drive to help Smith out, but they did have an iPad… and that worked just fine.