Prepare to freak out! iPhone developers are using apps to pass your phone number to telemarketers
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Rumors, Security, iPhone
Our good friends over at the French Mac site Mac4Ever have alerted us to a somewhat alarming development. Apparently a few days after purchasing the Swiss app MogoRoad, a free radar tracking application, users are reporting receiving telephone calls asking them if they’d like to purchase the FULL version of the application. When asked how the caller had obtained their number, the responses vary, but generally the person tells you that Apple sent them their number at the time of purchase.
Obviously this is not the case, as Apple does not forward any information on its customers to third parties, so Mac4Ever did a little testing using the latest iPhone SDK and discovered that it is extremely easy for a developer to send a user’s phone number to their servers without their knowledge. In fact, the hole has been around since the 2.1 firmware.
“But after deep investigation, it appears that programmers are able to retrieve the personal iPhone’s user number, with one unique line of code! This data can then be sent to remote databases, which collect personal information, without notifying the user.
We tried this method quickly with the official SDK: it works !
Readers mostly pointed out mogoRoad , a swiss application that gives traffic information for free. When reading comments on iTunes, it’s clear that a lot of people did receive the famous call as well.
Currently, the buyer explicitly gives its coordinates as Apple. Developer side, Apple is the only interlocutor, and it is impossible to have access to personal data of customers. But the access number is available since firmware 2.1, according to our survey. Moreover, it seems surprising that those responsible for the validation does not check that certain sensitive data, such as phone number, do not pass freely through the internet. This could be the beginning of a real scandal for the firm Iceberg, because nobody knows how many applications currently collecting phone numbers. “
We’ve yet to hear of any reports of this type of data collecting here in the US, but this is exactly the type of thing that tends to freak out privacy advocates (and rightly so, if true), so prepare for this one to spread across the interweb even faster than the usual anti-iPhone news.
Apple’s new iPod touch web ads almost makes you think the touch is a real gaming machine
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Apple Fanboyism, Hardware, Opinion, iPhone, iPod Touch
It’s no secret Apple is pushing the iPod touch as a gaming machine – Steve Jobs said as much when lamely trying to explain why the new iPod touches didn’t have a camera (as if game makers couldn’t find a creative way to make use of one).
But if there was any lingering doubt that Apple was trying to push the iPhone/touch platform further into the mindset of hard core gamers, this new web ad on super gaming site IGN ought to clear up any misconceptions.
Unfortunately, even a fanboy such as myself must admit that the iPod touch and the iPhone are somewhat lacking when it comes to games. For the past year I have tried to convince myself the touch screen could be made to take the place of analog controls, but I just can’t kid myself anymore. As the games being released become increasingly complex and ever more graphically stunning, it’s obvious that the interior of the iPod touch is more than up to the task of handheld gaming – but it’s the outside that needs work.
Oh sure, many developers have come up with clever tricks and inventive control schemes, but aside from a few standout casual games that were inherently designed for the touch screen interface (Flight Control, Puzzlings, Fieldrunners…) the majority of games would benefit GREATLY from some sort of analog control buttons. Sure, driving games LOOK like they work great in the 2 second clips in the Apple ads, and tilting to steer works well enough, but find me ONE die hard racer who likes having to precisely hit certain areas of a flat screen while turning said screen in order to break, shift, shoot, etc. Even some of the first games ever made (PacMan, BurgerTime, Frogger) are too difficult to play on the touch. And forget about First Person Shooters and Football. No matter how impressive the graphics, and no matter how well companies like Gameloft are able to design their psuedo-analog controllers, covering 35% of an already cramped screen with your thumbs is no way to play a game.
Above: Where the hell is the iControl Pad?
Quite frankly I am surprised Apple has not yet come out with it’s own dockable gamepad/external battery device. Remember the GameBone, the iJoyPad, and the ethereal iControlPad? They all looked great (well, they all appeared to WORK great, that is) but despite over a year of publicity and hype, to date not one has physically shown up here at the lab for testing (note to those developers, please send us one for testing, we’re DYING over here!).
Above: …and the GameBone?
Quite frankly by now Apple should not only have come out with its own controller, but it should have also have released a set of APIs to let developers incorporate the controls into their games. So far the avalanche of iPhone/iPod touch peripherals I expected after Apple announced support for 3rd party hardware earlier this year has yet to materialize. At this point it is pretty clear that if Apple wants to create a viable gaming accessory market, it is going to have to get the ball rolling itself – perhaps even literally with a dockable trackball, for Centipede.
Above: … and the iJoyPad?
In the family friendly hand-held gaming arena, there is no doubt that Nintendo is still king, but if Apple truly wants to compete with the big boys, they’re going to need to take a page from the New England Patriot’s playbook, and take a page from their competitor’s playbook. Nintendo always markets its own (usually superior) peripherals for its consoles and handhelds, but also allows other companies to market their own. Apple should do the same. Without a way to control games while avoiding covering them with our fat fingers (and stereotypes be damned, most die hard gamers DO have pretty fat fingers) all the advertising on gaming sites in the world won’t bring the iPod touch true gaming street cred.
You just KNOW Ballmer still owns that jacket
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, Microsoft Bashing, video
I saw this post in the MacRumors forum by zamolx3, and not only did I think that it was brilliant, I also thought I had nothing better to write about.
Why Microsoft is not Apple
1986, Steve Ballmer trying to sell Windows 1.0
1984, Steve Jobs demos Apple Macintosh
No comment
How to get 3 free iPods with only a screw driver, a pair of scissors, and a bag of marshmallows
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Free Stuff, Humor, iPod, iPod Touch, iPod nano, video
Damnit, I just threw out two VCRs on junk day!
Celebrity Mac Chick sighting revisited: Miley Cyrus
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Celebrity Mac Chick
Having already established she owned an iPhone, if you had asked me whether Miley Cyrus owned a Mac, I would have said “Probably”. But if you had asked me if she had it covered in stickers, I would have said “definitely“.
God, do I know my teenage billionaire girls, or what?
Windows 7 launch parties suddenly seem a lot more edgy
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, Microsoft Bashing, WTF
Remember that incredibly cheesy “Host You Own Windows 7 Launch Party” video Microsoft put out last month? No? Well, remember when you heard what sounded like thousands of confused people saying “WTF?” all at the same time? THAT was them watching it.
Anyway, Cabel Sasser — founder of Mac software maker Panic Inc, took that video, added a few well-placed “bleeps”, and suddenly it is looking more and more like a party I might actually want to attend. (Albeit, with 4 different people).
Let’s all send a MMS video at 5PM Friday and see what happens
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Cynicism, iPhone
DSL REPORTS is claiming AT&T is more than a little bit nervous about Friday’s US MMS rollout for the iPhone. According to the site:
“AT&T and its MMS partners are already seeing “record traffic during peak hours of the night” with just the users selected for testing.
That early testing has been a little rocky, with AT&T seeing a fairly significant test outage yesterday that has them rushing to beef up their MMSC messaging servers. Estimates among those working on the project are that traffic on AT&T’s wireless network will be about 40% higher all day on Friday as iPhone users fire pictures and video at one another.”
Well, I for one would like to see AT&T add about 4000% more servers. Maybe then they would have the infrastructure in place to allow them to UN-cripple Slingbox for the iPhone and let the bandwidth flow.
Of course, in order to get AT&T to really beef up its pipelines, it would need some sort of catastrophic PR event to embarrass it into action. So here’s hoping all you wacky kids who actually leave your houses on Friday night decide to drunkenly send each other a ton of lame videos of your cats and such. I would do it myself, but I have no friends, and will be spending this Friday night as I do EVERY Friday night – eating a barrel of UTZ cheeseballs, alone, in the dark, crying.
AT&T sends out confirmation text messages – MMS really IS coming September 25th
Of course they didn’t send one to ME… I assume mine will come NEXT September. But for the rest of you, it looks like AT&T really WILL be delivering MMS September 25th, even if it IS a couple days after their summer deadline.
Faithful Macenstein reader Phil from Pittsburgh, PA got this text message earlier this evening. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Phil having jailbroken his iPhone or not, so let me know if any of you receive similar messages. Writes Phil:
“yea i just recently re-jailbroke mine after doing a clean upgrade to 3.0 for the sole purpose of having the HUD sbsettings app, works great for killing off the iPod and safari processes that seem to linger in the background and slow everything down. As for mms I don’t have an icon or anything to send one but am for some reason the only one to get the text, I did a carrier file upgrade at some point to get tethering(which does work and didn’t show on my bill) but that is all. Here’s to hoping it’s true!!”
Oddly, I have gotten so used to sending e-mails from my iPhone over the past two years, I really don’t know how much I care about MMS. Only my lame friend Sean (and 11-year old girls) still have a RAZR or something that can’t handle e-mail attachments, and since I never write to either, this probably won’t affect my life all that much. But at least it’s one more thing we can cross off the “iPhone user’s bitch list”.
Wage war on your out-of-control iTunes library with Song Sergeant
Through a series of unfortunate events this year, my iTunes library had become a shell of its former self. Over the years I had amassed a library of about 13,000 songs (yes, all legally purchased) but due to not one, but TWO hard drive failures and the theft of my iTunes backup drive, I now had a pieced together Frankenstein of a library that despite my best efforts to repair, was becoming clear that all the duct tape in the world wasn’t going to be able to hold together much longer. More often than not these days I would find myself clicking on a song and coming up up with the missing “exclamation point” icon and a message saying the song had disappeared. Sometimes I could find the song and manually relink it to my library, but just as often it appeared the songs had just disappeared.
Above: Adding 52,000 songs to your iTunes library is asking for trouble.
I had just about resigned myself to the idea of spending 3-4 weeks redigitizing the dozens of boxes of CDs I had moved to the attic when something amazing happened. A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) offered to lone me his drive containing over 52,000 songs. (I’ll assume he too came about acquiring the tracks legally as well). Well, never one to look a potential timesaver in the mouth, I graciously accepted his offer, not realizing at the time that adding 52,000 more songs to an already dying 13,000 tracks would end up costing me more time and braincells than anyone would want to spend. And that’s when “amazing things 2″ happened – the folks at Lairware (apparently sent by angels) out of the blue asked if I would like to review their iTunes-fixing tool Song Sergeant. Read more
How does Apple feel about its products?
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Humor, Opinion, video
This video is a little bit unfair in that if Apple unveiled the new iPod nano and said:
“It’s OK… maybe not a must-have upgrade, but if your old one breaks it beats getting a Samsung YP-P2 or something…”
it might make for a somewhat uninspiring keynote. However, only the most devout Apple fanboy can deny that Apple tends to be a bit generous with the self-congratulatory adjectives. If you are not laughing by the time Phil Schiller sends it back to Steve, then you have no soul.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Jimmy Schapira for the link!
[via College Humor]
