The Blog of Brad
Posts tagged ipod touch
Mac App: QuickPWN
Jun 10th
A few weeks ago I violated the Apple iPod Touch/OS EULA and jailbreak’d my iPod Touch. The process for doing this varies mostly on whether you have a first generation or second generation iPod touch, thankfully I have the first generation and can use a great tool, QuickPWN. Basically, this tool makes you plug-in your iPod, figures out what version it is, finds a copy of the iPod software (either on your hard drive from iTunes or from Apple’s servers), modifies it to be a jailbreak install, then installs it on your iPod. This whole process took me about five minutes start to finish. There are many great applications and abilities you inherit from jailbreaking including the ability to background an application (which is great for internet radio, like TWiT.am).
I stand behind this application and can only say that I’ve had a good experience, I do realize that this is a somewhat geeky thing to do and may cause issues with your computer or iPod (software only issues). I have never had an issue with this on Mac OS X or on Windows (however the process is a little more involved for Windows).
Get this for free from QuickPWN.com.
**To do this it is recommended that you first restore the iPod to factory settings via iTunes, then disable the option Open iTunes when iPod is connected.
Adventures in Linux: Day 12
Jun 2nd
I know these posts for documenting my adventures in Linux (Kubuntu, to be exact) and it’s because I’m not encountering as many questions in operation as I did almost two weeks ago. Today I have something to add for those with iPhone/iPod Touch, specifically those who have applications such as Discover or other remote file access applications that are accessible via FTP or WebDAV. In Kubuntu I don’t have any FTP programs installed and therefore could only use a built-in tool… like cURL! cURL is an *amazing* open-source internet-download/upload-do-anything-you-need-to-do tool which is command line only (unless you use a GUI implementation, but that’s not as powerful).
The basic cURL syntax is curl and then the arguments. For example to download the TWiT Video using curl you would use curl http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high -ooutput.flv (note that the -o or output tag doesn’t have a space between it and the output file name.) However for uploading the command I used was the -T, or upload. This is what I used curl -T ~/Desktop/SN-039.mp3 http://192.168.1.113:8888/sn39.mp3 this incorporates the source filename (and path) and the destination path (and destination file name, this is required).
This post is mostly for my future reference, if it’s useful then I’m happy, if you’re new to this whole idea of putting files on your iPhone/Pod Touch then I welcome you to this new world. If you’re curious why I would put an MP3 file on my iPod without going to through iTunes, consider the times that you don’t have time to update your iPod, specifically if it’s an MP3 file that you can’t get through the iTunes podcast store (I do not encourage music piracy, even if this could be used very effectively for it).
Remember, if you’re using Mac OS X then you have cURL already. (It’s shipped with OS X since version 10.2, if I recall, otherwise you will have to download it using the command apt-get install curl, but that’s for another day.)
Sims 3 for iPhone
Apr 7th
I know I’m probably just about the last one to talk about this, but Sims 3 is coming to the iPhone platform later this year (June 2) as well as PC, Mac, and other mobile devices (including the Nintendo DS). I just have to wonder why EA bothers. Why does EA bother to spend valuable time developing and porting applications to BREW, J2ME cell phones, and have to package the game for the DS? The iPhone and iPod Touch (in North America) sales have passes ~23m while the DS still sits around just 10 million–the iPhone/Touch marketplace (app store) is a thriving place to sell apps and with trivial apps like iFart Mobile getting many hundred-thousand purchases, a game will do much better (at least that’s what I think).
Look at the cost of developing the game for the Nintendo DS:
- learning the older hardware and writing for it
- dealing with the low storage, memory, and video memory capacity
- dealing with the (in my opinion) poor touch (pen) API’s
- packaging and manufacturing the cartridges for the device (and shipping!)
Whereas the iPhone/Touch platform offers:
- Write in Objective-C with a great API
- get the more computer-esque abilities of the iPhone/Touch
- need I say more about the upcoming thousands of API’s?
- sell the app in a thriving market place (app store) where there are millions of devices of looking at one spot
Just my opinion.
**The stats I’ve used are from quick Google searches and I don’t stand behind them 100%
What’s Wrong With The New App Store Model
Mar 21st
Tuesday (March 17) Apple released the new iPhone OS 3.0 and new app store pricing models. In this announcement they mentioned how (quoting from the announcement) “free apps remain free” –meaning that if you get a free app there’s no ability for a developer to then ask you to buy something. This is wrong. If you look at the app store now, you see many duplicate applications, take ‘Touch Physics’ and ‘Touch Physics Lite’ (by Gamez 4 Touch)… these apps are identical, except that the ‘Lite’ version doesn’t include all of the levels; ie, it’s a demo. There are many examples of this where a developer is forced to make a different app to give users a trial (not time limited, but functionality or lack of content).
If the new model had been given the context of games, it would make a lot of sense to use a pricing structure so that the user doesn’t have to download a ‘Lite’ version, try it, like it, buy a seperate app-a better model would be that the game is free, but only includes (in this case) six out of fifty levels, then to get the rest would pay in the app, like Apple has already proposed, however as opposed to the “free apps remain free” mantra the developer could download more.
Or take another case, the New York Times, say they, as Apple proposed, had an app with a subscription. The difference between Apple’s and my opinion being that when you download the free app you would have a one-day trial subscription, then to get the subscription you just pay a set amount for a period of time. Again, the difference being that the app is free–you just pay for the content subscription.
The only counter point I can see to my proposal is that Apple would be ‘giving’ bandwidth to the developer for the app download, and therefore losing money should the buyer chose not to subscribe. But this barely makes sense to the bigger picture.
Video: iTunes DJ & Remote video Review
Mar 18th
My video review of iTunes DJ (remote and desktop app) found in iTunes 8.1.
