He shrugged a little wearily. It was ever thus. The innovator says go. The company says stop—and maybe the only lesson of the legend of Xerox PARC is that what happened there happens, in one way or another, everywhere. By the way, the man who hired Gary Starkweather away to the company that couldn’t afford a shovel? His name was Steve Jobs.

n the beginning, there was the web and you accessed it though the browser and all was good. Stuff didn’t download until you clicked on something; you expected cookies to be tracking you and you always knew if HTTPS was being used. In general, the casual observer had a pretty good idea of what was going on between the client and the server.

Not so in the mobile app world of today. These days, there’s this great big fat abstraction layer on top of everything that keeps you pretty well disconnected from what’s actually going on. Thing is, it’s a trivial task to see what’s going on underneath, you just fire up an HTTP proxy like Fiddler, sit back and watch the show.

Let me introduce you to the seedy underbelly of the iPhone, a world where not all is as it seems and certainly not all is as it should be.

Music in the Cloud #apple

I think far from destroying the music business, he put it on a path to redemption,” said Tom Freston, former head of Viacom and MTV. “With the iPod and iTunes, Steve not only created his own ecosystem, it turned out to be one that was contagious and created opportunities not only for his computer business, but for all the Apple products that came behind it.”

Mr. Jobs was initially pegged as a technologist who didn’t understand the media and entertainment businesses, but his track record as an operator is pretty enviable. In 1986, he bought the company which would become Pixar from George Lucas for $5 million and invested $5 million more.

, meaning that paying subscribers will be able to free their existing iTunes libraries from DRM by paying $25 per year instead of $0.30 per track.

Until then, Apple’s practice of serving up DRMed downloads to paying customers more than two years after the company announced with big fanfares that it would abandon DRM serves as an important reminder: Once businesses and consumers buy into a copy protection scheme, they’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of it.

Apple also declined to disclose a price for iCloud other than to say that 5 gigabytes of storage would be free. Music, apps and books purchased from Apple will not count against the threshold nor will photos in Apple’s new Photo Stream service.

Competitors to iCloud typically provide a free tier of storage. A paid version with extra storage can cost up to $20 a month. Dropbox, for example, offers 2 GB of storage free of charge, but chanrges $10 a month for 50 GB and $20 for 100 GB. Amazon’s Cloud Drive is free for up to 5 GB and $20 a year for up to 20 GB, although it has other payment plans. Songs bought through Amazon do not count against the storage limit. Users get 20 GB for free for a year if they buy an MP3 album.

Research shows that 68% of apps silently send UDIDs to servers on the Internet. This is often accompanied by information on how, when and where the device is used. The most common destination for traffic containing a user's UDID is Apple itself, followed by the Flurry mobile analytics network and OpenFeint, a mobile social gaming company. These companies are uber-aggregators of UDID-linked user information, because so many apps use their APIs. Trailing behind the big three are thousands of individual developer sites, ad servers and smaller analytics firms. Users have no way to stop their device from offering up their UDID, telling who their data is being sent to, or even telling that it's happening at all. This situation has caused wide-spread concern, including coverage in the Wall Street Journal, and two lawsuits aimed at Apple.

Mr. Hovenkamp said digital media is the most plausible market. He said he doubted that Apple, currently, has a sufficiently dominant position in that market to warrant antitrust scrutiny.

But, he said, if Apple gets to a point where it is selling 60% or more of all digital subscriptions through its App Store, "then you might move into territory where an antitrust challenge would seem feasible."

Mr. Ghosh said courts in antitrust inquiries may look favorably when a company can articulate a legitimate business justification for behavior alleged to be anticompetitive. For this reason, Apple may "come up with a business justification" for some of its restrictive subscription terms, he said. "They have invested in a platform so they need to create incentives to use the platform."

"Our philosophy is simple. 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."

What will change things up, however, is Apple's requirement that app developers signing up subscribers outside of the app also offer the ability to subscribe from within the app as well.

"However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app."

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He's exactly right about the source of the problem. The GPL gives Apple permission to distribute this software through the App Store. All they would have to do is follow the license's conditions to help keep the software free. Instead, Apple has decided that they prefer to impose Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and proprietary legal terms on all programs in the App Store, and they'd rather kick out GPLed software than change their own rules. Their obstinance prevents you from having this great software on Apple devices—not the GPL or the people enforcing it.

NoPing is a simple and easy to use tool, to get rid of Ping in Apple's iTunes. Works only with iTunes 10 and Mac OS X.

Why #Apple TV rental plan alienated most studios $AAPL

Here, then, is our report on the Apple playbook. Short of something falling into your hands in a Bay Area bar, this may be as close to the truth about Apple as you're going to get.

I like this build - fast as hell

The Journal looks at Apples iAd plan @zawthet weighs in re: possible developer shift to android+ other platforms #apple

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Old Worlders are particularly sensitive to certain things that are simply non-issues to New Worlders. We learned about computers from the inside out. Many of us became interested in computers because they were hackable, open, and without restrictions. We worry that these New World devices are stifling the next generation of programmers. But can anyone point to evidence that that’s really happening? I don’t know about you, but I see more people carrying handheld computers than at any point in history. If even a small percentage of them are interested in “what makes this thing tick?” then we’ve got quite a few new programmers in the pipeline.

The reason I’m starting to think the Old World is ultimately doomed is because we are bracketed on both sides by the New World, and those people being born today, post-iPhone and post-iPad, will never know (and probably not care) about how things used to work....

“I absolutely think this is the future of great software development and distribution,” Mr. Schiller says. “The idea that anyone, all the way from an individual to a large company, can create software that is innovative and be carried around in a customer’s pocket is just exploding. It’s a breakthrough, and that is the future, and every software developer sees it.”

Apple’s rumored tablet is the most highly anticipated of the lot. Analysts expect Apple to introduce it early next year — a sort of expanded, souped-up version of the iPod Touch, priced at around $700.

Last week, Apple rehired the original chief marketer of its old Newton, Michael Tchao, who was working at Nike. Mr. Tchao’s former Apple colleagues believe he will help market this new device.

Colin Smith, an Apple spokesman, declined to comment on the company’s recruitment or product plans. But Apple’s tablet will most likely have little in common with the Newton, which was essentially a personal digital assistant. The new crop of tablets is being viewed as more flexible — gadgets that combine elements of the iPhone, e-book readers like the Kindle and laptops.

In fact, so many are doing apps that they are driving the cost of hiring a developer to build a simple app from $5,000 eight months ago to about $40,000 or more today.

CUPERTINO, California—September 28, 2009—Apple® today announced that more than two billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. There are now more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program

If you want your branded app to be included in Apple's next iPhone commercial, the first rule is not to ask. The second rule? Make the app really useful to consumers.

In letters sent late Friday to the three companies, the FCC asked why Apple rejected the Google Voice application for the iPhone and removed related "third- party applications" from its store.

The letter also seeks information on how AT&T was consulted in the decision, if at all.

The FCC's letter to Google asks for a description of the Google Voice application and whether Apple has approved any other Google applications for its store.

How will apps evolve? Michael D Cohen, founder and CEO of the Cohen Research group, argues that the quality needs to improve. Many, he says, are poorly made and therefore disposable. "Low prices lead to poor-quality applications, limited applications, and others that are in such poor taste they hurt the Apple brand and everyone who is developing for it." It's striking that one of the most talked-about stumbling blocks for the future development of apps is Apple itself. Apple's App Store has been described as being like a bucket. It needs to become more like an online supermarket, says Cohen, so customers can wander down aisles and select what they want, rather than stumble across it by accident. Another problem is that many apps may be provided in future by other forms of hardware, thus depriving Apple apps of their USP. This is certainly the line taken by Google, which expects to be offering similar apps through its browser in future.

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store. The talks come as Apple is separately racing to offer a portable, full-featured, tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution. The device could be launched alongside the new content deals, including those aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project.

Ari says he takes ethics seriously and says he has researched the Millennium Copyright law online. But he has concluded his actions aren't wrong. He also has a lawyer, who he says volunteered his services after Ari created iJailbreak, a piece of free software that worked on the original iPhone, two years ago. "Apple doesn't have the right to tell me what I can put on my phone," says Ari, who uses non-Apple-sanctioned programs that let him change the look of his home screen and administer Web sites from his phone. "I only do hacking that helps people." Ari became interested in technology as a preschooler, when he would flip through the manual for a cable set-top box and change the settings on the family computer. "I remember it being a big relief when he went to kindergarten," says his mother, Judy Weinstein, 43, a social worker. [iphone] At age 7, Ari teamed up with two other boys to create playing cards, decorated with hand-drawn characters, to sell online

* Use the built-in firewall, especially if you use a laptop in cafes, hotels or other public places. Go to “System Preferences,” click “Security” and then “Firewall.” Mogull recommends choosing “Set access for specific services and applications,” and then allow connections as you need them. * Use e-mail services that provide virus and spam filtering, such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Gmail or Apple’s own MobileMe. These providers will block any new viruses quickly. * For browsing the Web, consider using Firefox with the no-script plug-in. Some users will find it annoyingly disruptive to have every Java script blocked, but it’s a blessing “for the really paranoid, like me,” Mogull says. Also consider using one browser just for banking, a tactic that will protect you from some Web-based attacks.

. But Apple’s application story is on some level an extraordinary illustration of the willingness of consumers to give new things a whirl. The iPhone itself made its debut in the United States, where people stood in line to buy a product purely on faith that it would prove to be cool, useful or both. The application store didn’t exist back then, but it has since become one of the iPhone’s great attractions: Apple recently announced that there have been more than 500 million downloads of the more than 15,000 applications that have been made available since last summer. Some ­— like applications that turn the phone into a voice recorder — clearly add functionality. Many are games. But more than a few seem utterly utility-free: Another big seller, Koi Pond, simply makes your screen look like a watery, fish-filled environment.

Viscosity is an OpenVPN client for Mac, providing a rich Cocoa graphical user interface for creating, editing, and controlling VPN connections. Viscosity provides a complete OpenVPN solution for Leopard (Mac OS 10.5) and does not require any additional downloads or software.

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"The iPhone dilution was more than people had expected," said Christopher King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. "The jury is still out on whether this long-term investment will pay off." AT&T shares fell 7.6% to close at 23.78, near a three-year closing low of 22.42 set on Oct. 10.

On the other hand, this stat may raise eyebrows: 84 percent of respondents said they use their iPhone with a Mac, ten percent use a Windows PC, and six percent use both. I haven’t seen any official breakdown of iPhone usage by platform, but it’s a safe assumption that the majority of the world’s iPhone users sync with Windows, not OS X. Our results may vary in part because a significant percentage of participants learned about the survey on John Gruber’s popular,

In what may well stand as a defining moment in the maturation of Apple's App Store, Tapulous has announced that it has partnered with the band Nine Inch Nails to release a premium version of its popular game Tap Tap Revenge some time in October. The application will include a NIN-centric theme, as well as over a dozen of the band's songs from its last two albums. The partnership is among the first to bring licensed content to an iPhone application, and will likely prompt a wave of similar deals between other musicians and applications on the platform.

DECE prexy Mitch Singer, Sony's chief technology officer, argues that the digital marketplace will become too fragmented without standardization -- and that will impede its success.

"If it's not standardized, you are really telling consumers to make a tech decision before they buy content," he said. "The reason digital distribution is so small is because user experience is not what it could be."

Jobs is talking about the iPod/music ecosystem, and says there are now 3,000 apps in the iPhone store, and more than 65 million accounts in iTunes. Now Apple is the number-one music distributor in the U.S.

Apple is adding HD TV shows at $2.99, $1 more than others. You can watch them on your computer. Also, NBC is coming back to iTunes, with The Office,

Pandora founder Tim Westergren said the number of new users has doubled since the iPhone 3G launched, up to about 40,000 per day. He says he's been glad to hear of Pandora fans using his company's service on the go.

In what can only be described as supremely idiotic, the cigarette in the hand of the man who appears in the famed Mad Men promotional image was digitally removed when it was placed on iTunes to promote the sale of Mad Men Season 1. WTF?

One executive said the research had shown that consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of the device, or a monthly fee of $7-$8 for a subscription model.

So far the company has sold 7m movies, Mr Jobs said, adding: “That’s more than everyone else put together, but it did not meet our expectations.” Rather than buying movies, viewers would prefer to rent them, he added.

But it’s not entirely open. It is far, far easier to use iTunes and Apple TV with podcasts that Apple has listed in its podcast directory. So far, Apple has been a benign gatekeeper. But it certainly could start asking programmers to pay for distributio

FireWire target disk mode allows a Macintosh computer with a FireWire port (the target computer) to be used as an external hard disk connected to another computer (the host). Once a target computer is started up as a FireWire hard disk and is available to

A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or "ripped" from the disc to a computer and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires special software a

Overall, more than 32 percent of Mac users report purchasing CDs in the third quarter of 2007, compared to just 28 percent of PC users. In addition to purchasing CDs and downloading music, Mac users are also more likely to listen to music and watch videos

Nick Haley took just 30 minutes to pluck the Brazilian band CSS from obscurity and hurl it into the national spotlight. In September, Haley paired the band's dance-pop song "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex" with his 30-second amateur video, displaying the capabi

Zucker used iTunes as an example of the kind of digital business model that, he asserted, is corrosive to the media business. "We don't want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side," he said.

(can you say anti-trust) But before long, Morris realized he and his fellow music executives had ceded too much control to Jobs. "We got rolled like a bunch of puppies," he said during a recent meeting, according to people who were there. And though Morr

Apple® today announced it sold its one millionth iPhone(TM) yesterday, just 74 days after its introduction on June 29. i

HD Radio receivers from Polk Audio and JBL, will allow listeners to HD Radio to “tag” songs they like, store the information in an Apple iPod, then purchase and download those songs via the Apple iTunes music store when the iPod is synched with the co

NBC Universal, unable to come to an agreement with Apple on pricing, has decided not to renew its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on iTunes.

ound that 78% of high school students own a portable media player, and that of those students, 82% own an iPod. Obsession with iPods has spread to Apple's other products—namely, the iPhone. Of those surveyed by Piper Jaffray, 25% said they're willing to

“I’m stunned that it’s taken this long,” said Mr. Lyons, 46, when a reporter interrupted his vacation in Maine on Sunday to ask him about Fake Steve.

The decision to go with a mobile carrier, rather than Apple Inc.'s powerhouse iTunes Store, is the latest instance of an attempt by a record label to ...

solution for copying songs off of your iPod to a Mac

Update:

Magic iTunes numbers:

Offset 2048912: 33C0C3

Offset 257074: 28

Offset 257013: 33C9B1

Add “127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com” to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Download Phone Activation Server v1.0 to activate your iPhone for

Even Hollywood A-listers are being turned away, people close to AT&T say. Both AT&T and Apple do have short VIP lists -- but the few people who are on them won't get the device early and will still have to pay, the people close to AT&T say. The only benef

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The Nokia Media Transfer application enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.

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All DRM-free tracks have the user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them.

iTunes (version 7.2) late last night which introduced support for new DRM-free music sales

Apple will earn 9-14 cents a share from iTunes, generating operating profits in the 10%-15% range. His math looks like this: * Retail Price: 99 cents. * Wholesale cost: 69 cents. * Network fees: 5 cents. * Transaction fees: 10 cents. * Operating expenses:

About one in 10 respondents (9%) say they are likely to buy the iPhone once it becomes available. Another 7% say they are likely to buy the iPhone as a gift for someone else.

Apple plans to launch new iPods featuring Wi-Fi in the second half of 2007. Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) will produce the Wi-Fi modules and Foxconn will perform as the OEM system assembler, according to Taiwan portable music player component make