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Seems like Apple isn’t letting the Library of Congress’s declaration that jailbreaking is legal stop it from throwing further obstacles in the way of people trying to open up their iOS hardware. The latest such gimmick is iBooks. Version 1.2.1 of the app, launched last week, refuses to open books on jailbroken phones, as detailed by Social Apples.

Comex of the iPhone Dev Team explained how the security measure works on Twitter. It seems that, before loading any DRM-controlled book (i.e., anything you buy from the iBookstore), iBooks tries to run a small program that has deliberately not been correctly signed to work on the iOS device. Normal devices will refuse to run this; iBooks detects that failure and loads as usual. However, jailbroken devices will (by default) run the program fine, which iBooks also detects and refuses to go any further.

UPDATE: further investigation suggests that, rather than this being new protection in the latest iBooks release, the protection itself is unchanged. Cydia developer Pushfix has written several posts on their Twitter account that clarify the situation. iBooks has always used a number of different checks, but under older jailbreak apps and iOS versions, many of the checks have passed despite the jailbreak. However, newer jailbreak routines have lifted more and more different restrictions that iOS applies internally, meaning iBooks has (to the user) appeared to become better and better at detecting the presence of a jailbreak.

Presumably, Apple took this step to protect iBooks content from having the DRM stripped off through use of a jailbroken device. Of course, people wanting to pirate e-books have plenty of places to do so; like so many antipiracy measures, this did a lot more to annoy paying customers than it did to slow down the pirates. In any event, as is often the case in these cat-and-mouse games between Apple and the jailbreak devs, it wasn’t long before version 0.9.5b5-4 of redsn0w was released to fix this issue. UPDATE: as numerous commenters have spotted, that link goes to a release of redsn0w from the middle of 2010 that fixed a similar issue with iBooks but does not address this latest change by Apple. At present, there is no solution short of removing the jailbreak altogether, though Comex reports that he has a fix ready. We apologize for the error. UPDATE2: several hours later, the iPhone Dev Team obliged us with PwnageTool 4.2 with a fix for the iBooks problem.

[Thanks to Josh for sending this in, and Rene Ritchie for prompting us to dig deeper into the background issues.]

Latest version of iBooks contains anti-jailbreaking measures originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Apple’s Eddy Cue, Rupert Murdoch and others launched the iPad-only newspaper The Daily, Cue promised that its subscription model would be made available to other iOS publications soon. Today, Apple has officially launched App Store subscriptions.

Subscriptions are purchased through the apps themselves using the same billing system that the App Store has employed for in-app purchases. Individual publishers are able to set their own prices and lengths of subscriptions. As for Apple, it takes the same 30 percent share that it currently pulls from other in-app purchases.

Customers can manage their subscriptions from a special account page, and cancel a subscription when they’re ready. In a press release, Steve Jobs explained the pricing model, saying, “…when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing. All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.”

Note that publishers may not provide links in their apps to purchase options outside of the app (like a subscriber website).

This has been a long time coming. Now for the big question: will people subscribe to magazines and newspapers on their iPads?

Apple officially launches App Store subscriptions originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reed College took the Apple iPad for a spin in 2010 and was pleased with the tablet’s performance as an educational tool. The College was one of several educational establishments that tested the Kindle DX when the eReader was launched in 2009. When the pilot program was completed, the Kindle DX was deemed a failure for usage in a classroom situation. Where the Kindle failed, the Apple iPad excelled according to CTO Martin Ringle who was speaking with Fast Company.

According to the results from Reed College’s iPad pilot program, the iPad’s responsive and smooth scrolling touchscreen made it ideal for reading content in the classroom. Navigation among passages was quick and easy, a task that was difficult using the Kindle’s navigation pointer. The highlighting and annotation of text was also easy, with many students choosing to highlight text on the iPad over traditional pen and paper.

The iPad pilot program did point out some flaws, most notable of which is the virtual keyboard. While easy to type short messages, the onscreen keyboard is not designed for long-form writing. This shortcoming could be alleviated with an external keyboard that lets you input text in a traditional and comfortable manner. The purchase of a keyboard, though, adds an additional expense to the final cost of adoption. Syncing and file system issues are also a hindrance as transferring PDF files via iTunes is slow. Once synced, documents are difficult to locate on the device, though the use of a third-party application like Good Reader would mitigate this issue.

Interestingly enough, the Reed report on the pilot program suggests schools may be open to the usage of Android tablets as well as the iPad. If a device hits the right price point and the correct set of features, schools will adopt these tablet devices en masse in the upcoming years.

[Via @counternotions]

iPad passes Reed College higher ed test originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crystal Soul is another puzzle/RPG mashup that features yet another take on mixing up the two genres. At its heart, the game is a new kind of puzzler, where you play as a character wandering a board of hexes. Every time you step into a hex with a monster (or a mana stone in it), you clear all of the monsters of the same color that are touching it. So, the basic goal is to wander the game board and clear out monsters as quickly as you can.

There are RPG elements, though — you can play as a Swordsman, Ranger or Mage, and each class has its own spells that will help you clear the board by attacking in certain patterns or in special ways. The graphics, as you can see above, are cute and colorful, and there’s a real hack-and-slash feel to the action, even though you’re really only playing a tile puzzle game. In each of 20 stages, you need to accomplish a certain goal, or you can just play Survival mode and stay alive for as long as possible.

The game features full Game Center and OpenFeint integration, which is really nice, and the developers are actively updating it. As this post goes live, the game should still be US$0.99 as the result of a sale for Valentine’s Day. Crystal Soul is an excellent title that’s worth full price, but if you can pick it up for just a buck, you definitely should.

TUAW’s Daily App: Crystal Soul originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Taiwanese Mac news site with a history of accurately predicting future Apple products says Apple is currently testing three different prototypes of the next iPhone. From what can be gleaned from the Google translation, tw.apple.pro says one of the iPhone 5 prototypes features a a slide-out physical keyboard — a form factor that Steve Jobs and Apple have never seemed too keen to embrace.

Another iPhone 5 prototype is said to closely resemble the current iPhone 4 with a longer-lasting battery and an 8 megapixel rear camera. The site suggests that if this prototype is released, the iPhone 5 will be to the iPhone 4 what the iPhone 3GS was to the iPhone 3G — in other words, a spec upgrade, but with no external redesign.

There is no word on what the third prototype features. As AppleInsider points out, tw.apple.pro has a relatively solid history of producing rumors that turned out to be true, including the white iPhone 4, the iPhone 4’s battery, the 2008 MacBook redesign, the new Multi-Touch iPod nano and the 2008 MacBook Pro’s unibody redesign. However, in 2009 the site claimed that a 15-inch MacBook Air was in development, but that never materialized. This, of course, doesn’t mean a 15-inch MacBook Air has never been in development — or even prototyped. Given the positive track record of rumors from tw.apple.pro, it’s reasonable to believe that just because a reported prototype doesn’t make it to market, that doesn’t mean tw.apple.pro’s information was false.

So, is tw.apple.pro’s report correct? It’s possible, but if they are correct, which of the three prototypes will become the iPhone 5? Only Steve Jobs and a handful of people at Apple know for sure. The next iPhone most likely won’t ship until June, so until then, there’s plenty of time for more rumors and speculation.

Apple reportedly testing three iPhone 5 prototypes originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon updated its FiOS DVR manager for the iPhone, an application that lets you use your handset as a remote control for your FiOS television service and its DVR. In a fun feature, FiOS users with a penchant for taking photos with their iPhone can also easily flick their photos and watch them on their TV. The latest update was rolled out today and added support for multiple DVRs, a landscape view for the Guide and the ability to change the name of your set-top boxes.

To celebrate the launch of the iPhone, Verizon is offering a sweet discount for those who purchase a triple or quad play bundle that includes FiOS TV, High-speed internet service, home phone service or Verizon Wireless calling. The discount provides new customers with a $200 rewards card that can be applied towards the purchase of a Verizon iPhone 4 as well as a monthly discount on FiOS service that can total as much as $20 per month. Verizon also debuted a new ad that showcases the benefits of combining FiOS TV with the advanced capabilities of the iPhone. Check out the ad after the break.

Continue reading Verizon refreshes FiOS app, launches free iPhone program

Verizon refreshes FiOS app, launches free iPhone program originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intents are used by an application to interact with the phone’s hardware components or other applications, or to start a service or activity with a certain piece of data or to broadcast that an event has occurred.

Using Intents to launch phone activities:

We can use Intents to launch the phone’s basic activities such as the phone dialer, the browser or search.

These intents are called Implicit Intents cause you don’t specify the activity you want to launch, rather Android determines the proper activity to launch based on the required action. Also when the launched activity finisheds its work, the original activity has no information that the launched activity has finished it’s work

In this example we create an intent that performs a phone number dial action. We don not specify that we want the dialer activity to launch, rather we specify that we want to dial a number and Android launches the dialer activity to perform this action

Consider this activity: consists of a TextView and a button to dial the number in the text view.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
<TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Enter the phone number"
    />
<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/txtNumber"
android:inputType="phone"
/>
<Button
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Dial"
android:id="@+id/btnDial"
/>
</LinearLayout>

When you press the button the phone dialer launches and then you can call the number.

This is done using the following code:

btnDial.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

   public void onClick(View v) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub

Intent dialIntent=new Intent(Intent.ACTION_DIAL,Uri.parse("tel:"+(txtNumber.getText()).toString()));

startActivity(dialIntent);
   }
  });

Notice that the dialer has been launched but the user has to press the call button to make a call.

If you want the phone to dial the number automatically you could have used this intent:

Intent.ACTION_CALL

If you use this it requires adding the following permission to the manifest file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CALL_PHONE">

Another example to launch an intent to open the browser and navigate to a certain URL:

Intent in=new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("http://mobileorchard.com"));
    	startActivity(in);

For a list of available phone actions, check this link

Intent Filters:

Android components like activities can also serve implicit intents. but to do so they have to filter all implicit intents in order to serve only the intents they desire to serve. this is done using intent filters.

Suppose you want  to create an activity that acts as the default dialer activity. You must associate an intent filter with this activity in order to that this activity serve the dial intents only.

Let’s demonstrate a simple example which is creating an application with one activity that we want to make it a dialer activity.

Create a new android project, create an activity and name it Dialer.

In the AndroidManifest.xml file of this application add the following to the Dialer activity:

<intent-filter android:priority="100" >
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.DIAL"  />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                <data android:scheme="tel"/>
            </intent-filter>

to become:

<activity android:name=".Dialer"
                  android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
            <intent-filter android:priority="100" >
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.DIAL"  />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                <data android:scheme="tel"/>
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>

Now what we have done is adding an intent filter to that activity. this intent filter has the following properties:

1. Action: the type of implicit intents that this activity responds to. in our case it is the dial action. higher numbers represent higher priority.
2. Priority: about the priority of that activity over other activities that respond to the same type of intents.
3. Category: Implicit intents have built-in categories. in order that an implicit intent be captured by our activity, the implicit intent category must match our activity category.
4. Data: adds data specification scheme to the intent filter.

So if any other application has the following module to launch the dialer:

Intent in=new Intent(Intent.ACTION_DIAL, Uri.parse("tel:000"));
    	startActivity(in);

The user will see the following dialog offering him/her the choice between the default dialer and our custom dialer.

That is is for implicit intents and intent filters. In the next post we’re going to explore another type of intents which is explicit intents.

Today Apple announced they will start a subscription service on the App Store. This will allow developers to offer subscription services on a wide range of content from music to video to magazines.

Subscriptions purchased from within the App Store will be sold using the same App Store billing system that has been used to buy billions of apps and In-App Purchases. Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

You can read the full announcement here.

Apple has also updated the review guidelines which you can review here.

The success of Cocos2D has spawned many related open source projects.  One obvious limitation with Cocos2D has always been the inability to create 3D games.  If you’ve seen my page outlining open source iPhone game engines then you are probably aware that the choice of open source 3D game engines on iOS devices has become very limited.

A new project, Cocos3D looks to change that by offering full 3D modeling space, cameras, materials, lighting, and support for a  wide variety of 3d model types.  The most interesting aspect of Cocos3D being that it integrates seamlessly with Cocos2D, and all objects both 2D and 3D can interact with each other.

While the project is still in beta it already has an impressive feature set.

You can download the Cocos3D beta here:
Cocos3D Beta

You can find the cocos3D programming guide here:
Cocos3D Programming Guide

It looks like Cocos3D has a ways to go, but judging by the impressive start it appears to be in the right hands.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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