Apple posts

Is Apple the most reviled brand online? Answer: not by a long shot. Some of you may recall a few studies this year and last year, or a few quarterly earnings calls to suggest that no, Apple is far from being the "most reviled brand" that Mr. Gralla claims in his linkbaiting headline over at Computerworld.

Brandwatch, another one of those awesome social media analyst firms, claims to have tracked over 1,200 messages on Twitter in a month directed at Apple. Which, to me, sounds astoundingly small given Apple's dominance in the tech news world. But Brandwatch has to get clients, so why not spout some nonsense about Apple is "reviled" given a bunch of cranky tweets, right? I mean, it's not like Twitter is full of vacuous, id-fueled reactionary comments, right? Nah, clearly tweets and blog posts complaining about stuff is enough to let the Cupertino goldmine know that its days are numbered.

Yes, as Apple grows and expands it will carry along with it an ever-increasing number of people unhappy with their experience. We've all had some goofy thing happen to our Mac, iPhone, iPod or iPad. We've all been somewhat irked when a pleasant experience was "ruined" by this issue. But just because we feel the need to tweet our displeasure -- as opposed to constantly tweeting our positive experiences -- it doesn't mean Apple has a PR disaster on its hands.

That said, the tech consumer is a fickle sort. Gralla likes to bait the "fanbois" with his language, but the fact is that Apple hasn't courted the cult for a while. In case you've been asleep for a decade, the "Think Different" campaign died long ago and Apple's latest mantra has been to gain marketshare. You don't do that by focusing solely on your rabid fans. You do that by going into new markets, broadening your appeal and making insanely great products. According to Apple revenues, this seems to be working quite well. No doubt the geniuses at Brandwatch know better.

Reports are coming in that people visiting http://discussions.apple.com have been seeing the cryptic message "for fun, by tojen" rather than the index of discussion forums they were expecting.

We've managed to reproduce this here at TUAW, but only haphazardly. I saw it earlier in Safari under OS X, but since clearing my cache I cannot reproduce it. Firefox doesn't do it, but lynx (a command line browser) on my Linux server does. Steve Sande has seen it under Safari but not on his iPad. Other people have reported seeing it on their iPhones.

This mixture of affected devices and operating systems that show the message suggest it is neither an OS X nor a Safari hack of any kind. If you have seen it, your computer has not been compromised. Rather, it's something server-side; either on Apple's servers themselves, within the Akamai caching network (this would be my guess based on some quick tests), or some sort of DNS hijack.

For the time being I'd suggest being cautious and steering clear of discussions.apple.com. However, don't panic. If this was a hack aimed at stealing your accounts then it wouldn't put up the message at all, it would show you the normal page and sit quietly in the background accumulating data.

Nevertheless if you've seen this message and are worrying about the implications, you should consider changing your iTunes account password, if only for peace of mind. It is just about possible that your session cookie will have been intercepted by "tojen" for nefarious purposes and changing your password will protect you against that.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Update: the whole discussion forum is now closed, replaced with the cheerful "we'll be back soon" sticky note normally reserved for the Apple Store. Presumably a number of system administrators just had their Saturday evening plans cancelled. (Thanks to commenters snoanim and John for pointing this out.)

Update: Forums are back.

This might be the wackiest patent that I've ever seen Apple apply for. The company has recently put in a patent to describe the process of making a digital comic book out of a video game playthrough. The idea here is that you'd play through a segment of a video game (Mass Effect is the one used in the example), and then Apple would collect information about your character and the way that you played the game. It would then use that information to turn the experience into an e-book, which could either be sold digitally or printed.

Say what? I guess that's cool, but this just seems like Apple is laying down a quick patent on a pretty harebrained idea; it doesn't seem like a preview of an actual service that we'll eventually see implemented on the Mac. Then again, Apple has worked pretty closely with Comic Life in the past, and it has connected the popular comic creation app to both iPhoto and MobileMe. Maybe it's looking at extending that service further.

Another (presumably more practical) patent has Apple examining improved equalizers on iTunes and in the iDevices. This one I can get behind. The EQ that's there right now works, but the patent involves more dynamic adjustments and some user-free audio enhancement. Again, Apple patents ideas, not actual products, but there's still a possibility that we'll see either or both of these ideas implemented in the future.

Patently Apple has news of a new patent filed by Apple for a technology that it calls the Exciter. At present, wirelessly trading information between iPhones can be a bit of a hassle, since both phones have to find each other and then sync up. But the "Exciter" technology would simply keep an eye out for another phone that's willing to share information, and then when a certain signal is detected (it could be light-based, sound-based, or any other type of emitted information), the two devices would share information (contacts, calendar information, photos, or text) as necessary.

It's an interesting idea, but the application is even more interesting. Along with the usual suspects for possible Apple devices that would use this app or technology, Apple has listed a "cyclocomputer," which is yet another hint that Apple is working on some kind of bike-related mobile device. In this case, two bikers would pass each other, their devices would recognize that there is a device to share information with, and the exchange would take place.

It sounds intriguing. Unfortunately, as with all of these patents, Apple is just locking down any ideas that it has. Just because this technology is outlined and listed in a patent application doesn't mean that there's a project right around the corner; it doesn't guarantee that we'll definitely see this product. But as always, it's fascinating to see where Apple's thinking is going. The company that originally released the Mac has now become the world's biggest portable device company, and it certainly seems like it plans to continue moving in that direction.

I'm lying alone with my head on the Mac
Thinking of Apple 'til it hurts
The store is down, so what can we do?
Tormented and waiting,

We're all out of Store, we're so lost without it,
We'll be right, believing for so long...
We're all out of Store, what are we with out it?
It won't be too late, when the Store finally comes back

Oh, what are you stocking?
What are you stocking
Oh, what are you stocking?
What are you stocking

-- Apologies to Apple Supply, er, that is Air Supply

Let us know your predictions in the comments. Also, don't forget to ping us when the store goes back up. We'd love to know what changes you track down.

Update: Store's back up. Word is that the Mac Pro has been updated? Oh yeah, check out that 12-core. These are the machines that were announced at the end of July, but they weren't on the store yet -- now they're all showing 7-12 days ship time.

Thanks everyone who tipped us!

This is a weird one. FutureTap was surprised to recognize one of their app's screens in a strange place: a recent Apple patent outlining how a possible travel application could work. The company wasn't quite sure what to do next -- as you can see above, it's a straightforward copy of the Where To? screen. Without any contact from Apple on the issue, FutureTap was puzzled -- the company calls Apple its "primary business partner." Having your app show up in an Apple patent filing

Not that Apple is above cherry-picking UI and functionality from third-party apps -- the iBooks interface was more or less borrowed whole from apps like Delicious Library and Classics, and further back there was the homage of Karelia Software's Watson reinterpreted as Apple's revision to Sherlock. In those cases, both developers just sort of shrugged, felt flattered, and let it go. That's not the situation here -- these screenshots probably aren't illustrations of a product Apple wants to make, they're explanations of how the patent would work.

As Engadget's Nilay Patel clarifies for us (so nice to have an attorney around), not only is this merely a patent application (which could possibly still be denied), but Apple isn't trying to lay claim to the actual screenshot; rather the company is using an example application which illustrates the to-be-patented functionality (in the case of Where To?, the ability of an iPhone to auto-detect when a user has been traveling). As Nilay puts it:

...the only operative parts of a patent are the claims -- not the drawings, and not the description, which are technically known as the "specification." (We've now repeated this basic axiom of patent interpretation so many times we're considering making T-shirts.) The only reason the drawings and description are there is to explain the claimed invention in sufficient detail so that someone else can make it. Remember, patents are a trade: in order to get protection, you have to give up the full details of how your invention works. (The other option is to keep your invention a trade secret, but then you can't prevent anyone else from figuring it out and using it if it gets out.) Bottom line? If it's not in the claims, it's not in the patent.

We'll have to see what FutureTap does -- the company might request that Apple remove the Where To? screenshot from the patent application, but at this point it's not clear that Apple wants to lay claim to that particular app. What is clear is that Apple could have avoided a lot of hassle and furor if it had simply sent FutureTap an email asking to use a screenshot in a patent filing. In the meantime, FutureTap execs are huddled with their lawyers, trying to make sure they understand what's going on.

A UK site called Electricpig has posted a full video walkthrough of her majesty's latest Apple Store, which opened just recently in London's Covent Garden. The place is gigantic -- while all we get of the main sale area is a high-speed walkthrough, you can tell it's huge, with multiple rooms and areas for each of Apple's device lines. There are not one but two glass staircases, one spiral and one square, and as the video says, the whole of New York's Fifth Avenue store would fit inside the main area of Covent Garden -- an area that doesn't include the world's largest Genius Bar.

Good stuff. I'd like to know exactly where that huge wall of iPads is -- I'm guessing it's in a backroom somewhere rather than out among the public. But congratulations, UK, you've got one heck of an Apple Store there. Now for Jobs and company to build us something even bigger back here in the ol' US of A.

There's bad news for those of you with old iPhones. Apple has confirmed that the latest beta of Game Center is a no-go for anything older than an iPhone 4. That means that iPhone 3Gs and second generation iPod touches are out for Apple's social gaming app. It's probably for the best; you've likely already heard about all of the issues that 3G iPhones are having with iOS 4.0, and freeing itself from the requirements of the older hardware means that Apple should be able to make Game Center as good as it can be.

But if you have an iPhone 3G and were looking forward to trying the new app from Apple, you'll have to change plans. Either go grab yourself an iPhone 4 (which is what I'm still planning to do -- my original iPhone is looking super old at this point), or stick with the social gaming networks that you've already got access to.

It's already more or less a not-so-well-kept secret that the iPad will very likely have a camera eventually, but just in case you needed yet another hint that that's the case, Apple has provided. AppleInsider found a security document over on Apple's website (I think this is the one [PDF] though it appears to have been edited) that says the iPad has a restriction setting that will cut off "use of the camera" with an Exchange policy or a certain configuration. That would indeed seem to indicate that some future form of the iPad will come camera-equipped.

Or does it? While AppleInsider's document explicitly shows an iPad, here's the iPhone Security Overview, and it looks like a lot of the text was cut-and-pasted from the document for the little handset to the one about Apple's tablet. It's possible this is just a typo, basically -- whoever was writing the new document for the iPad just forgot to take out the part about restricting the camera. Since both devices run iOS, there are probably a lot of similarities between each, and a lot of reused documentation.

Even if this is just a mistake, though, the building evidence for a future iPad camera is hard to ignore. It's a sure thing that we'll eventually see an updated version of the iPad hardware, and once that comes around, it's hard to believe Apple isn't strongly considering putting a camera (or two) on the device.

[via Engadget]

We've heard a lot of rumors about a cloud-based iTunes service, and apparently Apple is working on exactly that, but the company has reportedly told a few music label executives that any service that debuts will be only "modest in scope." CNET says that Apple's strategy isn't exactly clear -- apparently Apple doesn't have the agreements it needs with music companies to actually distribute music from the cloud, but Apple has instead put streaming service Lala (which it acquired late last year) to work on video streaming, not music. Of course, this is all second- and third-hand, and Apple has yet to officially comment on the matter, but it sounds like Apple is working on something more like YouTube or Hulu than a music streaming service. The cloud-based deal would consist of "digital shelves," where users could store videos or other media, rather than a full music library.

Interesting. There's no question that a cloud-based music database would be extremely popular, and indeed Google is already working on just that, supposedly. Engadget notes that the iPhone 4 launched with the same memory capacities as the 3GS -- perhaps memory isn't such an issue when you can store your movies in the cloud? It seems like Apple's past relationships with the record companies are making the road a little bumpy, so the first official word we see of the iTunes cloud may have nothing to do with distributed music whatsoever.

[via TheMacObserver]

The folks at Minty Boost have unveiled a rather interesting Apple secret: just how the company charges its devices. In the video on the next page, you can see the whole process reverse-engineered. It's rather technical, but as long as you make sure all the wires go where they need to go (you need to lay out a certain series of resistors on the USB data lines, so that the device thinks it's hooked up to an official charger), you can actually build your own iPhone or iPod charger.

In fact, there's a new Minty Boost kit which comes with prebuilt circuitry that you can use (inside an Altoids tin or whatever you want to use) to create your own iPhone USB charger. You can read about the whole process of reverse engineering Apple's process over on the official blog -- it's fascinating both how Apple implemented this process of "verifying" a certain USB charger, and also how Minty Boost eventually figured it out. It's definitely very technical, especially when you get into some of the final steps of amps and volts, but the bottom line is that by lining up those resistor levels, almost anyone can put together a working charger for any Apple device.

Keep in mind that if you aren't familiar with basic electronics safety, these are not the projects for you.

I'm going to guess that if you had any interest in StarCraft 2 at all, you probably spent the better part of last week playing it, as Blizzard Entertainment finally released their sequel to one of the most popular real-time strategy games of all time, and according to the critics, it's just as good as it was a decade ago. Just like all of Blizzard's games, StarCraft 2's Mac version actually comes shipped on the same DVD that the PC version comes on, which means that day, date and version are all available for us Mac gamers. Even in the days of Steam on the Mac, that's going above and beyond the call for those of us who like to do our gaming on the Mac.

But Blizzard's got another little bonus for us Mac fans -- the game contains the parody ad above, presenting the iPistol, complete with a dancing Space Marine showing off the personal weapon unit. Funny.

Of course the reference is a little dated -- we haven't seen those dancing ads on TV in years. But this game's been in development for a while, and seeing that Marine break it down is pretty funny, so we'll give them an iBreak on this one.

[via Engadget]

Website WhiteiPhone4Now, which happens to sell DIY white iPhone case kits, has posted pictures supposedly showing the front of a white iPhone.

The focus of the change depicted in their photos seems to be what they're calling a "rough & bent" condition resulting from the manufacturing process. It appears that the top case is rendered less-than-perfect in manufacturing, and as a result doesn't sit completely flush when the phone is assembled. They also claim, according to their "OEM sources," that the process has been adjusted to successfully remove this imperfection.

Apple intended to sell a white iPhone at the initial launch, only to announce that it would be delayed by a few weeks and eventually several months. Since then, sites like WhiteiPhone4Now have offered patience-deprived customers a way to bring a little #ffffff to their iPhones without delay.

In the meantime, Apple's workers are obviously fixing the solution. Good luck to all of them.

It's the first of August -- already? -- and we're back live tonight on Talkshoe, so call in and chat with us about the biggest Apple stories of the past week.

On the docket this evening, we'll be talking about what iPad owners (and the iPad's detractors) are like, the revised iMacs and Mac Pro, Apple's new battery charger and the Magic Trackpad, running iOS 4 on an older iPhone, and what exactly happened to the Michael Jackson zombie.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantage of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac or your PC, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients or using the Talkshoe client's ShoePhone tool; basic instructions are here.

We'll kick things off at 10pm ET/ 7pm PT. See you there!