Apple to Hold “Special Event” on September 1st

by Sebastien on August 25th, 2010

Surprisingly, we didn’t get an invite for this, but TechCrunch did, and according to it, Apple will be holding a “special event” on September 1st, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco at 10 am.

The invite comes with the image above, which strongly indicates the event will most likely be focused on music. Let the speculations go wild! What are they going to unveil? My guess is we’re going to hear about the new iPod Touch with a nice Retina Display and a front-facing camera for FaceTime. Apple will also probably unveil a cloud-based version of iTunes…  Read More

 
 

Movies Rented on The iPhone 4 Can’t Be Transferred Back to iTunes

by Ethan on August 25th, 2010

iLounge reveals a bit of discerning information that took a mysterious amount of time to surface. It turns out that the iPhone 4 shares the same limitations as the iPad and the Apple TV in regards to being unable to transfer rented movies back to your iTunes library.

The ability to move rentals had never been a problem before when renting on previous iPhone models. An excerpt from the iPhone iOS 4 User Guide briefly mentions the limitation on page 99, and it reads as such: Read More

 

Apple Announces iTunes U Tops 350,000 Files For Download

by Ethan on August 24th, 2010

TechCrunch announces some inspiring statistics released by Apple that show the educational access platform, iTunes U has leaped over 350,000 available files. Even more impressive is nearly half of the 800 plus universities worldwide that have active iTunes U accounts are distributing their content publicly.

Also revealed were the 300 million downloads recorded to date that are free of charge. Institutions supplying the content include Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and University de Montreal… Read More

 

Fraud Warning: Your iTunes Account Might Be at Risk

by Sebastien on August 23rd, 2010

A couple of months ago we reported that the App Store had been hacked, resulting in a massive fraud whereby hackers would get into people’s iTunes accounts and buy their own apps. At the time, Apple issued a weak statement, the App Store got hacked again, and we never heard anything about this matter until today.

A TechCrunch article reveals what seems to be a major security flaw in iTunes accounts linked to Paypal. Read More

 

iTunes on Cloud Nine

by Ethan on August 4th, 2010

Well I didn’t see this coming after the supposed hangups with iTunes regarding “minimal” access through the cloud. Gizmodo reports that a fellow by the name of Michael Robertson has discovered streaming capabilities of your iTunes library through iDisk. Public sharing between devices with iDisk has been possible for a while, but never streaming in the background, until now. To those who aren’t hip to the MobileMe features, iDisk is the online based storage that is included with the $99 annual fee.

Here’s your formula:

Drag your songs, one by one, or folder by folder, into your iDisk. There is no playlist support as of now, though this writer thinks that feature is an inevitable reality. Right now iDisk has a 20GB maximum, so you big spenders, (or less than ethical gatherers), will have to be selective in the songs you want shared/streamed.

Having tested this myself, I’ll say that it works flawlessly over Wi-Fi. Like I previously stated, the MobileMe service is $99 a year, which includes the apps it offers. Those of you with 3G service, let me know in the comment box how it works over the network. Enjoy!

 

App Store Hacked… Again!

by Sebastien on July 9th, 2010

Do you remember last week when the App Store was hacked? Well, the App Store was hacked, again, as uncovered by 9 to 5 Mac.

In an article I wrote a few days ago, I explained how Apple was downplaying the situation by saying only 400 accounts were hacked, which to me didn’t make sense, and was way less than it could possibly be. It seems that I was right.

This week’s shady developer is from China and goes by WiiSHii. All the fraudulent apps are in the travel section which contains over 11,000 applications. That means these apps didn’t make it in the Top 100 because they were so few to compete with. People who thought I was wrong about this whole situation won’t be able to argue on that point.

They clearly used some cheating mechanism to get their apps in the top 100. Additionally, Ars Technica reports about a user who was falsely charged for a bevy of apps from the same WiiSHii development company.

Your turn now, Apple. How do you fix this?

 

Apple Blatantly Lying About the App Store Hacking Issue

by Sebastien on July 7th, 2010

After issuing a somewhat weak statement about the App Store hacking situation, Apple is now blatantly lying to our face and downplaying what seems to be a massive criminal activity.

Apple recently told Dayton Morris that around 400 or so iTunes users were impacted by the fraud, which, considering there are over 150 million iTunes users, only represents 0.0003% of them.

Oh great, they seem to have this under control, you might think. Wrong, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Here is why…

Thuat Nguyen, the developer who was first caught taking advantage of the the iTunes App Store got 41 of his applications rank in the top 50 of the book category. Now tell me, how can 400 iTunes accounts boost an app sales all the way up to the top 50? Right, they can’t. You need muh more purchases than that to rank at the top of your category. Each app needs to be downloaded thousands of times on a period of time to rank that well.

Let’s use conservative numbers and assume that to rank at the top of the Books category you need 1,000 downloads for 30 days. So each app would need to be downloaded 30,000 times (1,000 downloads x 30 days) in order to take the top spot because one account cannot buy the same app over and over again.

All the sudden, we are far from the 400 accounts Apple claims were impacted by the fraud. I might not be exactly right about these numbers, but I’m sure I’m not too far from the truth.

Apple impassiveness has been pretty flagrant lately and I’m not really sure the “no-talk policy” Apple has been maintaining for years now is a good things for both the company and its customers.

Thoughts?

 

Apple Issues Weak Statement On App Store Hacking

by Sebastien on July 6th, 2010

Over the weekend, reports started showing up revealing the iTunes App Store had been hacked. The hack seemed to be on 2 levels. Someone hacked into people’s iTunes account and purchased applications without their consent. The goal was to buy a bunch of apps from a developer named Thuat Nguyen in order to help his apps rank in the top of their category.

Apple kinda fixed it by removing Thuat Nguyen’s apps from the App Store. Today the company issued an official statement:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.

If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

Did Apple actually fix anything? Not really, and that’s what bothering me here. Apple doesn’t admit being responsible for people hacking into your account. Basically Apple is saying that you’re on your own and if you have a problem you should get in touch with your credit company.

Apple’s apathy has been pretty obvious lately. If you thought Apple cared about you as a customer, the way they handled the iPhone antenna issue and these App Store hacks might make you change your mind.

 

How to Downgrade Your iPhone From iOS 4 to 3.1.3

by Sebastien on June 28th, 2010

Every time Apple releases a new firmware, they stop signing the older one, which means you technically can’t downgrade to a previous firmware by restoring. Fortunately, if you have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik’s servers, then you might be able to downgrade your iPhone from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 or earlier.

The trick is to make iTunes believe it is requesting a signature from Apple’s servers while it will actually be talking to Saurik’s servers.

Downgrading from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 does require you saved your SHSH on Saurik’s servers. If you haven’t, then you can’t downgrade.

Downgrade from iPhone iOS 4 to firmware 3.1.3

Step 1 for Windows: Make sure you are logged in with administrator privileges. Launch Notepad and navigate to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249    gs.apple.com

Now save the file back where you found it.

Step 1 for Mac: In Finder, select Go To Folder, and enter /etc. Search the hosts file and right click on it to open with TextEdit. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249    gs.apple.com

Click Save As to save the edited file on your desktop. Name the file hosts, and make sure to uncheck the box that says “if no extension is provide, use .txt”.

Now drag and drop this edited file to /etc.

Step 2: Download the firmware you want to downgrade to from here.

Step 3: Put your iPhone in DFU mode. Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone in. Press and hold the home and and sleep button together for 10 seconds. After exactly 10 seconds, release the sleep button while still holding the home button. Keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has found an iPhone in recovery mode.

Step 4: Now hold the Option key (Mac only) or Shift key (Windows only) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. A dialog box will pop up and you’ll be able to choose the firmware you downloaded in step 2.

Step 5: At this point, some of you will be fine. The iPhone will restore without any problem. However, some of you might end up in recovery mode again. It’s ok. We just need to kick the iPhone out of recovery mode. To do so, download and launch iReb for Windows or iRecovery (both Mac and Windows).

Welcome back to 3.1.3!

[image Life Hacker]

 

App Store Now Features an iOS 4 Category

by Sebastien on June 25th, 2010

Up until now it wasn’t convenient finding those apps that are optimized for iOS 4, which is why Apple created a new category in the App Store called iOS 4.0.

This category includes all apps than can work in the background and/or apps whose graphics have been improved for the new iPhone 4 Retina Display.

You can access the new iOS 4.0 category in the App Store from here.

[Thanks Justin for the tip]

 
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