iPhone World

I haven’t gotten a single song from iTunes, ever, but a lot of you have. Apparently, both iTunes and Amazon release free singles and sometimes complete albums on a daily basis. I installed it for this write-up, and of the currently 10 songs available, spanning 3 days worth, I have not heard of a single one of the artists. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fact that next to nothing I listen to would ever appear on any Top 40 list, or if these are just totally obscure and unheard of artists. Either way, if you find something you like here, then this post has served its purpose.

In order to install this you will need to be running the 4.x version of Chrome, and visit the extension page at http://www.chromeextensions.org/music-videos-photos/broketunes/

While it can be a bit annoying, I can understand why free apps often come with ads. If done correctly, there is nothing wrong with this, it’s free, so you can’t really complain. What I do have a problem with however, is when the ads are placed so as to make it difficult to use the app without accidentally tapping on the ad. 9 times out of 10, this is done intentionally, and this I have no patience for. Cydia doesn’t have too many ads, but when they do show up, they can get a little out of hand. Lately I have been noticing more and more of the ads that will follow you as you scroll down the page, to the point where they can make it difficult to read app descriptions.

There is a quick easy way to eliminate these ads altogether. To rid yourself of these dreadful things, FTP/SSH to your device, and modify the file /Applications/Cydia.app/package.js. What you are looking for should be on line 209.

Find this

if (depiction == null)

and change it to

if (depiction == null || true)

From that point on, you can enjoy an ad free Cydia. There will however still be ads on the screenshot pages, but at least they will be gone from the app details, and they will load faster also.

So it’s been quite a while since the last post I know. The problem is I always have more to say on a topic than I have time to write it. Postings will hopefully be resuming opting for a brief write up if that’s all I can manage, with later edits to get out everything there is to say.

Now on with the post!

Facebook published an update today that claims to add push and contact synching. This is great news as both of these are long overdue. Unfortunately, after installing the update, both features seem to be MIA. There is no prompt to allow push notifications when launching the app, it doesn’t appear in the notification settings, or in the app options (all 2 of them). Likewise there is no option that I can find to sync contacts anywhere. All in all it looks as if there are no changes whatsoever in this update.

I call FAIL.

Not wanting to admit defeat I uninstalled the Facebook app and re-downloaded it. After signing back in I was finally greeted by the push approval dialog, as well as being able to locate the options in the settings app now. The notification settings allow you to choose to receive alerts for Messages, Wall posts, Friend requests & confirmations, tags, events, and comments so if you are getting flooded with notifications you can tweak it a bit.

It was not immediately apparent that synching was now available as it only shows up if you are viewing your friends list. There are a number of apps available for synchronizing your contacts with Facebook, I believe all of which are not free so this is a nice addition also. It is fool-proof to use and “just works”, but does not offer as many features as some of the 3rd party apps, such as displaying and resolving conflicts, or providing the option to manually match contacts to friends.

There also seems to be an addition that is not mentioned in the updates, which is the ability to change the feed you are viewing. Any feeds you have defined within the site are available in the app.

µGrowl has finally moved out of beta and in to 1.0. Especially for those of you still on 0.9.3, there are loads of new features here!

Be aware that it seems the WebUI in the new beta of uTorrent causes some notifications to not work correctly.

New in 1.0

• Ability to start / stop / remove / remove+delete any torrent in the list
• remove and remove+delete do so with no confirmation.
• Ability to start with Windows finally!
• Ability to add a new torrent by URL
• Selectable columns include status, upload/download speed, % done, ratio, seeds & peers, total downloaded/uploaded, ETA, and label.
• Columns can be clicked to sort and all columns sort perfectly
• Columns can be rearranged but the positions are not saved
• Torrents with a ratio of 1 or greater can be shown in bold
• Automatic check for updates, which can be disabled in the settings
• Automatic check for important notices, also can be disabled
• Tweaked the status coloring
• Fixed a bug causing the window to be resizable only once per execution
• Fixed a bug causing the window to be visible when minimized to the tray
• Fixed a number of other bugs that now escape me

Still to come:

• The ability to add a .torrent file directly (as you can with the WebUI)
• The ability to send comments and feedback from within µGrowl
• Compatibility with the upcoming release of uTorrent
• Your request here

So everyone head over to the µGrowl page and download the 1.0 release!

Version 0.9.9 Beta of µGrowl has just been released. This one has some major UI changes and enhancements. Read the official write-up and download the newest version at the µGrowl page. It is now at 0.9.9 Beta as I hope this will be the final beta release, and may already prove stable enough to become 1.0.

-The screenshot still shows 0.9.3, I know, yours won’t

Changes in 0.9.9 Beta

• Complete UI redesign.
• Added Snarl support.
• Added a list of all currently active torrents.
• Added µTorrent bandwidth usage on status bar.
• Counts for total, active, downloading & seeding are displayed.
• Errors now displayed for authentication or connection failures.
• Window is now resizable.
• Settings have been moved off of the main window.
• Removed from Alt-Tab list when minimized.
• Close button now minimizes to the tray.
• Fixed bug preventing the server settings from being saved in some cases.
• View menu now has option to turn on debug messages. Not much at this point.
• Support link added to the help menu.

Features yet to come

• Ability to start, stop, remove & delete torrents from within µGrowl
• Ability to control µTorrent max bandwidth usage from µGrowl
• Ability to add torrents right from µGrowl
• Toggle to display all torrents, not just active
• Control run at startup
• Your request here?

Head over to the µGrowl page to download.

The interest in µGrowl is much higher than I thought it would have been. Once again I want to say that this is provided at no charge. If you feel µGrowl is worth a few bucks, even if you feel it is worth a quarter, please consider making a donation.

You all remember the statements Apple and Google submitted to the FCC in response to the inquiry regarding the rejection of Google Voice and Google Latitude from the AppStore, and you all remember what Apple said. What you may or may not remember, is that Google requested parts of its own statement to be made confidential. Recently they have released the complete statement to the public.

In Apple’s release, they claimed Google Voice had not been rejected, it just was still under review and had not been approved.

In the now public statement, Google states

Apple’s representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality.

In Google’s statement, it is claimed that Phil Schiller, the senior VP of marketing, had several meetings, phone calls, and numerous e-mail exchanges with Alan Eustace, Google’s senior VP of Engineering & Research. Of those conversations, on July 7, Schiller told Eustace over the phone, that the app was being rejected because it duplicated core functionality.

Apple has apparently issued a statement in response to the new information in which they say they do not agree with all of the statements made by Google and maintain that they are still reviewing the Google Voice app, stressing it has yet to be rejected. In the spirit of obscurity, they of course did not indicate which statements they are disagreeing with, and to me this sounds like they are just repeating what they said in their initial statement. PR for PRs sake.

So who do you believe? Apple or Google? The part I like about this is that Apple seems up a creek either way. If they did in fact reject the app, then perhaps the FCC will come in and lay the smack down. On the other hand, if they by some miracle actually still reviewing the app, then it is more obvious than ever that their approval process is horribly broken and unreliable, in which case again, we may be hearing more from the FCC. Additionally, if they haven’t been able since July to determine if the GV app uses VoIP technology, then they are looking rather incompetent. Any developer can tell you it would be no large task to solve this mystery, and that just makes Apple look even worse for intentionally appearing to be incompetent.

After all of this, still do not forget that Phil Schiller himself, personally approved the other Google Voice app, GV Mobile, which was also later removed from the AppStore.

I for one am tired of this whole game. No manufacturers, carriers, government agencies, nor any other entity, is going to tell me what I can and can not have on the phone I bought and rightfully own, and can safely say that without the existence of the Dev-Team for the jailbreaks and the work of Saurik most notably on Cydia, I would have never owned an iPhone in the first place, as I’m sure hundreds of thousands of others would agree.

To read Google’s full uncensored response to the FCC, check it out on their website.

If you run SBSettings, as it would seem most jailbroken users do, you’ve no doubt seen the Free Memory feature when viewing processes. This is one of those things that I would definitely not respond well to if it went away. The lack of a swap file in iPhoneOS, means memory is much more of a concern than pretty much everywhere else. If your app uses too much memory, it is swiftly terminated by the OS, no questions asked. Poorly written apps will also cause memory leaks and leave you with less free memory than you started with after running and exiting them. Apple’s solution to this? Reboot.

Wut? No thanks. Boot up time for the iPhone 3GS is anything but lightening fast, and the 3G is takes even longer. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I don’t typically restart my phone. This is where the ‘Free Memory’ option is crucial.

The free memory option is not limited to jailbroken users. There are a few AppStore apps that have this ability as well, or at least there were. Apple it seems is having a fit over this function and is forcing developers that currently offer it to remove it or have their apps ejected from the AppStore. Why would they do that?!?!?!?

Here’s my best guess… The method used to free the memory works by allocating everything available. The OS will then see memory levels are critical and start terminating background processes. Here, this means Phone, Mail, and iPod. Of course they automatically restart, and in the end you typically have much more memory available. So what is Apple’s problem? When the apps are terminated, a crash log is produced. These are sent to Apple when you sync. Apple is likely getting flooded with these crash logs and so has decided to pull the plug on the ability to use this method.

What is my response to this? Free your RAM every chance you get. Apple has been all but negligent in their AppStore processes and their refusal to approve certain apps or the adamant rejection of apps that use undocumented or restricted API’s, not to mention the rejections that have no real merit whatsoever. Free your RAM every chance you get. Apple is not a company that exercises the skill of listening to it’s users or even acknowledging when problems exist. They come up with blatant lies to discourage and attempt to make illegal the process of jailbreaking YOUR device that YOU own¹. They spew their bullshit claiming they don’t know if Google Voice uses VoiP technologies, or that it hasn’t been rejected, they just haven’t approved it yet. Come on guys, there is no doubt they have plenty of tools at their disposal that will tell them exactly what your app does, what API’s it uses, etc. Free your RAM every chance you get. They charge $99 a year for the privilege of being able to develop iPhone/iTouch apps, so that you can submit them to the AppStore so they can take another 30% of your profits. What about refunds? A little known fact is that if someone purchases one of your apps, and is later granted a refund for whatever reason, the entire purchase price comes out of YOUR pocket while Apple sits back and keeps it’s 30% commission. Apple is obviously annoyed by what results when users free their memory the efficient way, so let’s stick it to them until it hurts.

Free your RAM every chance you get and use one of the few things that has actually gotten Apple’s attention to protest their [mis]management of just about everything related to the AppStore.

1. Apple’s claim to the copyright office in response to the EFF’s request to officially declare jailbreaking a legal activity. It’s a hefty read, I’ll note some of the key pieces of manure here.

5. In testimony, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that the iPhone warranty would not apply to an unauthorized modification on an iPhone. Would other services or functionality be affected by “jailbreaking” an iPhone, e.g., would AT&T phone, data, or GPS functionality be affected? Would AT&T be required to provide service to an iPhone modified by the user?

Apple’s Response:

Yes, ..services and functionality of the iPhone can be affected by jailbreaking of the
phone, as well as services .. on AT&T’s phone and data network. The OS controls a critical portion .. known as the “baseband processor” (“BBP”) that is used to connect .. to a .. network and to utilize services .. Once an iPhone is jailbroken, it is much easier to hack the BBP software .. Such modifications can interfere with ..phone, data, and GPS functionality .. Modifications to the BBP software may introduce .. errors into that software or cause it not to function correctly .., which in turn can render the iPhone incapable of connecting to the network at all in order to make phone calls or send/receive data. Such modifications may also interfere with GPS functionality. There is a special GPS chip in the iPhone that .. computes location of the phone .. However, an enhanced functionality called “assisted GPS” enables the location .. to be pinpointed
with greater accuracy than ordinary GPS by utilizing data about the location of the cell tower to which the user is .. connected. If modifications to the BBP software were to render the user unable to connect to the local AT&T cell phone tower, the assisted GPS functionality would, in turn, not function.

It gets better..

…each iPhone contains a unique Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID) number that identifies the phone to the cell tower. With access to the BBP via jailbreaking, hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers, for example) or charges for the calls to be avoided.

To me, this sounds like “We didn’t make the devices and network secure enough and people figured it out, rather than fix anything, outlaw jailbreaking!” Seriously guys… We’re on the 4th generation now with the 3GS and they haven’t managed to store this uber-sensitive data in ROM? Implement a secure handshake process between the towers and devices that is based on more than one piece of information? Add a carrier password of some form that the user chooses which is authenticated with the tower? All of the ill-doings Apple is claiming are possible with jailbreaking come down to design faults in the end. Poorly implemented protocols that can be easily hacked. History has proven time and time again that the black box design approach does not work. Security through obscurity is not a solution but an effort to cover up a poor implementation. I also like how they state specifically state “this would be desirable to drug dealers”. Ok, it would also be desirable to illegal telemarketers, robo-callers, collection agencies, scammers, politicians, basically anyone who might want to make an anonymous call.

I could go on and rant about Apple’s incompetence and need to play puppet master for another 15 paragraphs. Perhaps another day as if I continue this is likely going to meander a bit past the “all-ages” rating I aim to keep here.

FREE YOUR RAM EVERY CHANCE YOU GET. Make Apple bend over and take it without any lube while convincing them it’s really better that way, just like they do to their users.

Got something to add? Go.

Nobody can deny the fact that the Facebook app has been quite lacking for some time. After waiting forever for an update, Joe Hewitt announced 3.0 was finally complete and submitted. After waiting in queue to get its allocated 10 minutes or so of review time, it finally showed up in the AppStore tonight yesterday (believe it or not I started typing this paragraph yesterday).

By now I’d imagine most everyone has already updated but I still have to at least give it a mention. The  functionality boost from 2.3 to 3.0 is the difference between Windows 3.1 and XP. Better notifications, notes, events, pages, chat, it’s all there. Long overdue is also the ability to now manually refresh posts, ‘like’ posts, and even the ability to apply your filters to the news feed. Along with all of this, icons can be added for profiles and pages that you might frequent.

The icons can also be rearranged the same way as the springboard icons, just hold one for a few seconds. This is cool, but if you’re like me it’ll take a while to get used to NOT pressing the home button when you are finished rearranging and closing the app. Doh!

All in all, this is an awesome update. Personally, given the bugs and lack of functionality, I would have considered everything prior to 3.0 to be beta. Now we wait for 3.1 on which work started immediately after submitting 3.0. The only change coming in 3.1 I can say for sure is that it will finally bring push notifications to Facebook.

A few people seem to dislike the new version. What do you all think? After only 5 minutes I could never go back to pre-3.0.

New Features

- Landscape mode
- See your upcoming Events and RSVP
- See your friends’ birthdays
- See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
- Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
- Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
- Upload photos to any album
- Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
- Change your Profile Picture
- Zoom into photos
- Like posts and photos
- See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
- Visit links in a built-in web browser
- See all of your friends’ friends and Pages
- See mutual friends
- Easily search for people and Pages
- Make friend requests
- Become a fan of Pages
- Quickly call or text your friends
- Create shortcuts to your favorite friends and Pages
- Friends sorted by first or last name according to your settings
- Chat friends sorted alphabetically

In keeping up on the logs for the site I’ve noticed quite a few people arriving here after Googling some variation of ‘install cydia over ssh’. So to all of you out there, what exactly is it that you are looking for? The only conclusion I can draw is that folks are searching for jailbreak instructions using incorrect terms. That, or some of you have managed to remove Cydia and now need to get it back. Based on the fact that you cannot have the ability to SSH without first having Cydia, what other possibilities could there be?

If you are looking for jailbreak instructions, there is a guide in the menu on the right.

If you have managed to remove Cydia, first of all, BAD USER! Go stand in the corner! Why would you do that??

All reasons aside, if you’ve managed to get into this situation, you’ve come to the right place as I have a solution for you. First, download the following file.

• Cydia and essentials

Now unzip the file, you will have 2 .deb files. You will need to get them onto your phone using your client of choice (WinSCP, FileZilla, etc).

In an SSH session, change to the folder you put the debs in. Type exactly the following:

• dpkg -i essential_0-1_iphoneos-arm.deb cydia_1.0.2953-59_iphoneos-arm.deb; respring

If you attempt to install either on it’s own you will get errors and it will not work. Once it has finished, your phone should respring, and if all is well, you should again have Cydia on your springboard.

If the situation is that you simply deleted the Cydia.app folder, I can make that available as well but I’m not going to unless it’s requested you can download it as a zip here. I zipped it directly on the device preserving the permissions, so you can either unzip it on the device, or make sure that after FTP’ing, you right click the Cydia.app folder to edit the permissions, set it to 755 and choose the recursive option.

So there you all go. Hopefully this is what you guys have been looking for, if it is not, be sure to make yourself heard in the comments. As you can see, your questions get answered even if you do not ask them, imagine what might happen if you do!

Unpacking cydia (from cydia_1.0.2953-59_iphoneos-arm.deb) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cydia:
cydia depends on essential; however:
Package essential is not installed.
dpkg: error processing cydia (–install):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
cydia

likewise, attempting to install just essentials will yield:

Unpacking essential (from essential_0-1_iphoneos-arm.deb) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of essential:
essential depends on cydia | com.ripdev.icy; however:
Package cydia is not configured yet.
Package com.ripdev.icy is not installed.
dpkg: error processing essential (–install):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
essential

A few days ago I posted about Google Latitude. After having a while longer to play with it, I’ve determined that the fact that it is a web app is pretty much a deal breaker. Even on a 3GS with Backgrounder, it just won’t do. Folks who frequently use the Safari download toggle for SB Settings will have to re-start Latitude after each toggle as well. Not to mention the battery drain. Even if you do keep Safari running in the background (or foreground), does it even function if Latitude is not the active page?

So, enough with Latitude, at least for now. I’ve begun using an app called Navizon. It is available from Cydia for both OS2 and OS3. If it does not show up when you search, add the Navizon repo (http://cydia.navizon.com/) (or xsellize). The two main differences between Navizon and Latitude, are Navizon is a real app, and it does run in the background. Along with that it updates the location every 10 minutes, so it’s not hard on the battery, and can be turned off at any time.

One thing that would be nice is the ability to change the update interval, but maybe that will come with the next version. When active there will be a GPS crosshair icon in the status bar.

Tapping the GPS icon at the bottom left will show your current position. Tapping the buddy icon will show an overview of all of your buddies. The zoom level for buddy view is anything but intelligent. You can quickly pan and zoom on your own though.

The buddies button at the upper right will show everyone on your buddy list along with their status, last update time, and method of location.

Locations can be reported based on Phone (cell tower), Wi-Fi, or GPS.

Tapping the name of a friend in the buddies view will zoom to that person’s last known location.

Tapping the arrow next to a buddy will allow you to quickly get directions to or from their location, show them in the maps app, or email their location.

Along with everything in the app, there is also a website that you can use to view the location of your buddies using Google maps. For a fee of $10 (one time) you can also have historical locations stored, for yourself only, that you can view on the website.

On the site you can set up alerts. You can either have an email sent or a user defined URL called when a selected buddy enters or exits an area you designate. Keep in mind though, that you might want to make the radius of the alert area larger than you would think. Because the background service updates every 10 minutes, if the area is too small the person could enter and exit between updates and no alert would be triggered. Without the $10 fee I believe you can have 5 alerts per month.

As an added bonus, if you are planning a trip, you can use the ‘My Coverage’ section to view the locations of previously mapped cell towers. Wi-Fi Access Point and cell tower locations are all ‘provided’ by other users running Navizon on GPS enabled phones. As you drive, walk, etc, if Navizon finds an AP or cell tower, and has a GPS location, it will report back to their servers and make those AP’s/towers able to be used as locators for those without GPS enabled phones running Navizon. As you locate and report (all automated) new APs and towers, you receive reward credits.

• Wi-Fi Access Points discovered by you / already mapped: 3 points / 1 point
• Cell towers discovered by you / already mapped: 15 points / 2 points

If you rack up 10,000 points, you can redeem a reward of $10 via PayPal. Free users can redeem only one reward, coincidentally the same amount as becoming a paid member. If you live in an area with few access points mapped, take a slow cruise or a walk around your neighborhood with the Navizon app running to get some easy points, or look for areas with few or no cell towers mapped. In 3 days of just background use, I have gotten 67 points.

The website at times does not like to cooperate though. When trying to view coverage for a large area it can take quite a while for it to load. Setting your home area and alert areas can sometimes take a few attempts to get the bounds where you want them.

Overall, Navizon definitely beats out Google Latitude, at least for now.

The good news, you’ve already read it up there in the title. The bad news, it’s a web app. Apparently it was decided between Google and Apple that a standalone application would be confused with the standard Maps app. (Read: Apple said no).

Seeing as Safari tends to stay running anyhow, using backgrounder (jailbroken users only) with this shouldn’t be too much of an issue even for 3G owners. Perhaps even using a lightweight alternate browser app solely for Latitude with backgrounder. I haven’t explored much in the browser area so I can’t make any recommendations at this point.

Accessing Latitude is the same as signing into any other Google account. Once a friend is added a request will be emailed to them. They can then choose to accept and share their location, accept and hide their location, or deny. Once accepted, you must use an iGoogle gadget to view the sharers location.

Some folks have no idea what I’m talking about so let me explain. Google Latitude basically lets you  share your location with whoever you like so long as they have a Google account. On the iPhone side of things, you can choose if and how you want to share your location.

Choosing the middle option shown on the right, you can select wherever you’d like your location to appear as.

So far I’m not sure how refreshing works on the PC side of things. After manually setting the location I waited a few minutes and nothing changed. I refreshed the page and then the new location was shown.

Head over to http://google.com/latitude on your iPhone to check it out.

There are also plugins for Latitude. One allows you to publish your location to your blog or website. The other will show your location in Google Talk, currently listed as beta. For the website one, you can choose to share your actual location or just the city. To check either of those out visit the Do More with Google Latitude page.

Hopefully Google will release an API for using Latitude and somebody will create a daemon for running it in the background.

Well folks, we’re up to 0.9.3 Beta. This time I’ve managed to get in a bit more testing before releasing to the wild and I think I have all of the issues to date licked here. The problem with the threshold notifications came down to a rounding error. You may have also noticed that no matter if monitor at launch was checked or not, it did not how you say, monitor at launch. This has also been fixed. I did not add any features in this as I just wanted to get all of the quirks worked out of the existing features first. So as long as nothing big pops up here, I should be able to start adding things shortly. So, if there’s anything you want µGrowl to do, now would be a good time to make yourself heard.

*Update* Shortly after posting the new release, I noticed one fatal flaw. The checkbox for monitoring was indeed checked at startup if it was supposed to be, however the monitoring was not actually started! Only a few people downloaded it during that window so to you, please update again and I apologize. Along with that, I had already began working on the next version so you get a little added benefit here. There is now a differentiation between changing from Downloading to Seeding and Seeding to Finished, though both are covered under the ‘Finished’ option.

Currently in the works

• More informative notifications. For example, threshold notices are nice, but  wouldn’t it be better to know how much is left?
• Some kind of summary on a user defined interval. (X active, X total, X seeding, total bandwidth, etc)
• An option to consider a transition from Downloading to Seeding to be a finished torrent.
• Alternate delivery methods for those who do not use Growl. Perhaps via email? If you could benefit from µGrowl if it supported another notification method, please post in the comments or forums.

Enough of the small talk, on with the goods!

Head over to the µGrowl page to grab the latest version.

Thanks to Tristin (and *only* Tristin), a number of bugs have been found and eliminated. There was a serious issue with the threshold notifications. Those should all be working now.

Now, there are a few hundred of you folks out there that have downloaded uGrowl. There are (were?) some big bugs in it. Only one person has reported anything so far and is the main reason these updates are coming so quickly for the rest of you. I put this in every post, and I’m going to say it again, if you run into problems or find any bugs, please post it either here in the comments or (preferably) in the forum which is on the menu on the right. uTorrent support among the most requested and you guys are only hurting yourselves by not posting about bugs. As you can see, if you speak up, things get fixed rather quickly.

On another note, if you find that you do like uGrowl and it’s working well for you, feel free to post in the comments as well!

With that said, download away! (Check back often for updates at least while it’s still in beta)

uGrowl 0.9.2 Beta 

Click here to go to the official µGrowl page

uGrowl 0.9.1 Beta is out. Nothing too major so far. I’ve added a threshold notification. For example you can be notified whenever a torrent passes a certain percentage complete. Also added some error checking when the ini is read that may be causing problems with uGrowl registering itself with Growl.

There has been one report of the settings not being saved, if anyone else has run into this please post it in the forums, along with any other issues or requests and I’ll try to knock them out as soon as I can.

Also fixed was the server settings were displaying behind the notification options.  Only one person reported this so I’m at a bit of a loss as to if it’s even happening for others and if not, why not, but nonetheless, this release should fix that up as well.

I also switched from using Windows Installer to NSIS to make updates a lot easier. I would recommend that you uninstall the current version before installing this one. Going forward that should no longer be necessary.

Last, the version #’s were not consistent in the last release. It was supposed to be 0.9 Beta but in some places (the main window title!!) was labeled as 0.2.

As always, if anything is not working quite right, you see any errors displayed, have a suggestion or request, PLEASE make yourself heard in the forum! If you don’t speak up I can’t help you.

Download uGrowl 0.9.1 Beta

I’m trying to get an official page for uGrowl created here to make it easier for folks to track its progress and updates, so hold tight and that will be coming soon.

A number of “exploits” have surfaced for the iPhone over the last few months, but this is one I would consider of significantly higher risk than say, being remote controlled via SMS. It seems Tapulous (Makes of Tap Tap Revenge, Twinkle, Friendbook, etc), uses UDID’s for authentication, and only UDID’s. What’s a UDID? Well, it’s a Unique Device Identifier. As the name suggest, it is unique to your device, or at least in theory. There is a tool available via Cydia (Anyone who has installed Installous has this tool) that will allow a user to change their UDID. What this means is that anyone who may happen to get ahold of your UDID can potentially change their device to match yours, and effectively gain access to your Tapulous account. If you have it set up with Twitter, Facebook, etc, your accounts have just been compromised.

How would someone get your UDID? It’s actually easier than it sounds. Cydia sends the UDID when communicating with the repo’s. As such someone could easily setup or modify a repo to collect this information. Going a step further, I imagine it will only be a matter of time (if such a thing has not already happened silently) until apps show up in Cydia that appear legitimate but would for example, send your UDID elsewhere when executed. There may be countless other ways of obtaining the UDID that haven’t been thought of yet.

Tapulous is aware of the issue and are working to resolve it, which will likely entail changes to the authentication in all of their apps. My advice at this time, if you have a Tapulous account, cancel it or change your Twitter/Facebook passwords until the issue is resolved.

Now, if you are a Tapulous user but do not have Twinkle or Friendbook, the worst that could happen is someone may mess with your Tap Tap Revenge scores, if those are even stored, I have not played it personally.

It doesn’t appear that Tapulous is publicly acknowledging this vulnerability, (I can’t bring myself to call this an exploit as it is a failure in the design of the authentication system, or lack thereof), but you may want to watch their blog for more news or keep an eye out for updates in the AppStore.