Yesterday, Pope Steven P. Jobs convened his disciples to unveil the latest creation of his orthodoxy. In surveying the mainstream, industry and social media response, we have observed the following archetypal reactions to the announcement as negative. We offer these playful animal names to stretch the archetype metaphor as far as it can go:

1. The Sheep: May have fallen prey to the lead-up media hype
2. The Elephant: Strong gut instinct to forcefully remain skeptical of new devices and models, especially those from Cupertino
3. The Crow: Fixates on feature lists and spills vitriol when an expected bullet point cannot be printed on the product’s marketing materials
4. The Wolf: Rejects the App Store model as the “mall-ification” of the open, free, pastoral internet currently enjoyed
5. The Beaver: Invested heavily in mastering Flash development and resents how Apple and Adobe relations ends up hanging them out to dry

Therefore, we conclude that the iPad could only deliver rapture to devotees.

The iPad tablet computer appears to simply extend the form factor of the iPhone/iPod touch devices to a larger screen dimension. But to say that the iPad is only an overpriced web browser, or underpowered touch laptop is to miss the point by approximately one mile.

A Small Herd of Elephants:

A designer/developer retorts:

Hypothesis

The simple enlargement of the oleophobic multi-touch screen enables an incremental but significant expansion of the Touch OS to afford a greater set of user interaction complexities and sensitivities to the capacities of the human body. Indeed, the device fashions itself more to the user than anything we have yet been able to purchase. Rather than machining the user into the requirements of the computer, the iPad’s beauty is how it instinctively and delightfully adapts to human factors.

These demonstrations of Apple’s iWork productivity suite exemplify how the GUI and basic modalities of the 20th century operating system have evolved towards a significantly more tangible, less mediated, indeed “intimate” experience. Direct manipulation of objects emerges in favor of severely mediated interactions guided by your disembodied hand, symbolized by the arrow pointer. We remember how Douglas Englebart’s mouse and requisite virtual re-mapping of gesture into cartesian space is an archaic form.

We are not embarrassed about nor pay much concern to the insistent persistence of the QWERTY keyboard, an interface devised originally to slow down the typist, as the mechanism of early typewriters would jam easily otherwise.

Rather, the iPad envisions a computing experience much closer to Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, where the models of elegant and direct manipulation have yet to be reborn in a contemporary system.

Revelation

The iPad is not cause to celebrate the device itself, but rather to announce the retirement of the 20th century GUI and OS. It has served us well for a few decades and profoundly transformed humanity. Instead, being reminded that Steve Jobs appropriated the innovations of window, menu and icon by Xerox PARC into the Macintosh OS, we revisit Mark Weiser’s (CTO of PARC) vision of the computer for the 21st century. His group’s vocabulary of tabs, pads and boards forms an invisibly cohesive infrastructure of ubiquitous computing as an attempt to deliberately abandon the monolithic totalitarianism of the personal computer.

For certain, Apple leads the industry in being able to amass mighty fortunes ($50 billion this year) to implement our lives with tabs (iPhones, iPods) and now pads (iPad). Of course, there are many more incremental steps to take on the path of computing ubiquity. It did not occur with the singular release of a product and it won’t ever happen at once. But each gradual step is a blip on the continuum, forming a kind of punctuated equilibrium that disrupts conventions sufficiently to shed the cruft and detritus of the regularizing activities of computer industry — feature driven bloatware, piling atop legacy code, reinforcing conservative modalities and affordances that some people “cling to like guns and religion.”¹

The tech industry will be in paroxysms of future shock for some time to come. Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get “real work” done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the “real work”.

It’s not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organising the party.

via Fraser Speirs

There is an emancipatory promise in the new tablet computing model if it succeeds at eliminating labor involved with using and maintaining a PC. It’s a new kind of casual computing. A revered Mac developer sums it up:

For as frustrated as I was with the restrictions, those exact same restrictions made the New World device a high-performance, high-reliability, absolute workhorse of a machine that got out of my way and just let me get things accomplished.

The bet is roughly that the future of computing:

• has a UI model based on direct manipulation of data objects
• completely hides the filesystem from the user
• favors ease of use and reduction of complexity over absolute flexibility
• favors benefit to the end-user rather than the developer or other vendors
• lives atop built-to-specific-purpose native applications and universally available web apps

The iPad as a particular device is not necessarily the future of computing. But as an ideology, I think it just might be.

via Steven Frank

Antithesis

Critics correctly point out that the iPad represents a future that biases media consumption over production while enforcing a strict corporate governance over software and hardware possibilities.

A Wolf in Sheep’s clothing:

Some go as a far as dismissing it as “crap futurism” framing the iPad as the anti-computer, more akin to the strip-mall-ification of personal computing. They cannot reconcile the hegemonic force of Apple Inc. as a primary capitalist enterprise bringing mass scale innovations to market.

Furthermore, we could equate the iPad with the re-enabling of an addiction to the corporate media establishment, at the expense of burgeoning peer-production by the free and open source geek-onomy.

Other voices denounce it as “unnovation” for living room leisure and superficial amusements to merely fill e-waste landfills without humanitarian credentials.

A howling Wolf:

These “doing it because we can” arguments also miss the point. A year from today, in 2011, iPad users will very likely enjoy a rich collection of creativity tools, provided by Adobe and numerous indy developers alike.

Developers cautiously reorient us to the creative potential:

Even Parsons students are apparently blind to the stunning potential of using tablet computing as a profound augmentation of the creative process because it lacks a camera.

Young Crows?

The PC will still be around for some time to come, of course. But when we start carrying tablets and employing them for ambient computing tasks related to both consumption and production throughout our professional and leisurely life, we will enjoy being more human, less dominated by the totalitarian tendencies enforced by using a laptop which demands our full and private attention and fails to afford partial and shared attention. We take for granted what the disembodied interaction of trackpad, pointer and 20th century operating system models forces us to endure. On the contrary, with tablet computing, we start to benefit from the fruits of the next phase of ubicomp where our Apple pads and tabs are at the ready to help us self-fashion ourselves into less-machined casual computing citizens. The tablet helps us return to a day when we were not stuck in front of computers, but instead we clutched notebooks, palettes, and sketchpads and focused on people and ideas, not “the computing administrative debris.”²

Regarding Flash

Rather than taking on this beast of a sub-topic (again and again and again and again), we will defer to others who are posting on this, and stay on-topic. Briefly:

Leave it to Beaver

Try building a player that runs a huge range of dynamic content written on a variety of tools (some of which you don’t control) by developers with massively varying skill levels. Now try making it compatible, consistent, and performant across dozens of OSes, browsers, platforms, and devices. And maintain backwards compatibility with the last 9 versions even while your target platforms change. And keep it under 5MB. And maintain it in parity with an OSS effort (Tamarin). And try to keep up with the demands of one of the most active and vocal developer communities.

via Grant Skinner

The reactions from these members of the Flash elite reflect a humility and respect for what that medium has been able to accomplish. The bombast from the anti-Flash clique, however, espouses open standards at all costs. Both viewpoints will need to reconcile how ubicomp will simplify and dissolve computing into the background. Against Adobe’s ability to conquer divergent hardware with convergent software, Apple is building a nascent ubicomp empire on unified hardware and software.

Comic Relief

A fellow named Neil Curtis chopped up the opening Apple keynote of 2010 to just include the adjectives. A somewhat hilarious synopsis of the keynote ensues.

Naturally, nothing could upstage Bishop Stephen Colbert unleashing the wünder tablet out of his suit pocket at the Grammy Awards to mesmerize and prime the purchasing audience. Tuning the zeitgeist.

Synthesis

It is remarkable how easily Apple can infiltrate cultural feeding grounds like this and inject its new product into our attention space to initiate a brilliant marketing campaign to regularize the iPad into existence. Consider how they deployed the iPod into the cultural discourse and how effectively normal it has become, a fully regular life condition, the way you listen to recorded music. Apple is big music.

The next massive regularization phase established the iPhone as an infiltration into everyday communications, primarily by wireless telephone and its bevy of sub-channels. Apple is at the heels of Nokia, the worlds largest mobile device maker. Apple is big telecom.

The iPad affords a new and novel kind of computing. The full adoption of its use in everyday living will reflect yet another stage of regularizing Apple into our lives. At this stage, Apple is ubiquitous to our daily life, always at hand.

Is Apple big ubicomp?

Footnotes

1. Barack Obama’s comments on the 2008 campaign trail. Via YouTube
2. See Edward Tufte’s early analysis of the impact of the iPhone on interaction design.

Today’s big announcements at Adobe MAX signal bold moves to strengthen the reach of the Flash Platform while simultaneously heading off Apple’s reluctance to offer the plugin in Mobile Safari. By allowing Flash Professional CS5 to export to native iPhone app code, Adobe wins big by giving its massive author base the means to get in on the App Store action. As a Flash developer myself who has made repeated but ultimately failed attempts to tackle Cocoa Objective-C this is very welcome news. When you’ve spent years in one language, the brain gets hardwired and is resistant to learning something so radically different. Plus, Flash developers invested so heavily in the platform, it’s a bitter pill to swallow and drop it all in favor of being locked into Apple’s ecosystem.

However, allowing Flash designers to bulld iPhone Apps means that we will see abuses of human interface guidelines and a deluge of submissions into the approval process. We can expect Apple to push back on this in whatever way they could to preserve the brand integrity of the iPhone experience.

In terms of expanding the Flash Platform into greater ubiquity, the announcements of RIM, Google and Palm joining the Open Screen Fund heralds an imminent reality where Flash content will run just about everywhere except in the iPhone Mobile Safari. By 2011, those blue question mark icons that appear where Flash browser plugin content is supposed to run will likely become a marketplace liability for Apple. Indeed, when customers can enjoy Flash enabled websites that work on every device except Apple’s, we finally imagine a scenario where not supporting Flash in Safari could actually affect sales. The demonstration of Flash Player 10.1 working very nicely on a Palm Pre underscored this notion.

Before today, I was thinking that the centrality of Flash as a de facto multimedia “standard” was in question. These thoughts were inspired by the advent of the App Store and improved web standards browser implementations such as CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and the CANVAS and VIDEO elements. However, after today, my confidence in Adobe’s ability to maintain strong support for the Flash platform is renewed by their clever responses to the shifting marketplace by resisting the force of fragmentation or at least channeling it into their advantage.

Flash haters like Gruber will remain skeptical and vaunt the merits of standards and Cocoa over Adobe’s assets. But the truth remains that there is a massive author base that knows Flash and an even larger consumer base that expects Flash content to run on their smartphones.

Video spoof of Mythbusters that Flash isn’t on the iPhone
FAQ for developers

Why haven’t people complained about this?

Does this imply Weather might have been built on a yet-to-be announced Dashcode iPhone workflow? Dashboard Widgets as iPhone Apps.

Seems like the natural course of mobile ecosystem evolution. Web Standards as native app dev to expand the developer market. Learning Cocoa Touch is tough. MobileSafari is sandboxes from so much functionailty. Dashboard Dashcode dev is the middle-ground between HTML and Obj-C. Location aware apps written in JavaScript, on the way?

by Danielle Cassley and Jason Citron

game type: Block puzzle role-playing game hybrid (MMo)

game platform: for iPhone and iPod Touch OS 2.0, free on iTunes App Store

Game Brief

A superb 10-week opus by 22 year old designers Danielle Cassley and Jason Citron, Aurora Feint is, indeed, a beginning. Their lush fantasy graphics situate you in a puzzle narrative that combines Bejeweled, Tetris and their own uniquely original block breaking physics with power-up purchases and unlock systems. Players mine five basic natural resource essence blocks (wind, water, earth, shadow, fire) by three-matching to clear. Aurora Feint exploits gestural controls ingeniously by applying gravity to blocks, making the accelerometer sensed screen reorientation a game move. Tilt the screen to cross swap and let the blocks re-fall into place. Music and sound effects very effectively reinforce both the narrative and pure-play experience value with satisfying stone-clunks and brick-booms that punctuate reverb-y chord progressions – all adding up to a Tolkeinesque atmosphere. Earned power-ups directly boost play enjoyment by adding new blocks to the autoflow. Play reward revolves around bigger and more beautiful block explosions. This game is very comparable to the Puzzle Quest franchise which brought the three-match RPG genre to consoles like PSP and Wii.

Rocky Launch

After a rough launch of unstable build that (when it worked), executed questionable privacy security practices (passing your address book over insecure transport) without disclosure resulting in an uproar and apology, climaxing with an official de-listing from the App Store, only to be re-listed as a maintenance update, appearing to resolve some of the version 1.0 errors and security concerns. Crisis averted skillfully despite the developer’s failure to realize that such a well-designed and free Touch game wouldn’t be a smash hit. The developers are accepting users crash reports by email which illustrates a challenge of providing support for App Store apps at the moment.

How to recover from Aurora Feint crashes

In the currently available version 1.0.0.1 running on iPhone 2.0 you will encounter serious bugs that seem to corrupt the local app data and then prevent it from launching. You can best resolve this issue and avoiding further App Store problems, including fatal reboot failure that requires a full system restore, follow these steps:

1. With your iPhone/touch plugged-in to your sync machine, after choosing the device in the source column
2. Open the Applications tab
3. Choose to manually manage Applications
4. Uncheck Aurora Feint
5. Apply the sync
6. Click on Applications in the source menu (left-hand side)
7. Contextual click (control-click, right-click) on the the Aurora Feint icon
8. Choose Delete
9. Confirm both dialog boxes asking you how to deal with the file
10. Choose iTunes Music Store, Applications, and search for Aurora Feint
11. Re-download Aurora Feint, confirming dialog boxes
12. Choose the device in the source column
13. Open the Applications tab
14. Check Aurora Feint
15. Apply the sync
16. Launch the game on the device

Your previous character should be appear, after negotiations with the server. It may not be the most recent version of your character, so you may have to re-play the make up for the lost progress. Seems like a big “David Hasselhoff!” to play this game. We, agree. If you haven’t yet installed Aurora Feint, consider holding out for a new version from the game developers, instead. An update from Apple to fix the serious bugs in Cocoa Touch 2.0 would likely solve some related problems that cause catastrophic crashes as you attempt to uninstall and reinstall apps through the mobile version of App Store, not a recommended method.

We haven’t tested the multiplayer aspect of the game, but should we decide to trust their new privacy security policy and try it out, we’ll update this space.

Aurora Feint succeeds at being well designed for mobility by saving the game state and allowing a full game resume. This feature rewards quick burst play and mitigates the consistent interruptions typical with play on-the-go. Few other non-free games at the App Store are this well polished and well adapted to the mobile OS X Touch platform. We look forward to the inevitable software updates from Danielle and Jason, along with the needed fixes from Apple, to make the whole play experience reliable and enjoyable.

Grade: I (Incomplete)

We’ll review again after a round of major updates.

• Aurora Feint official site
• Aurora Feint forums
• Aurora Feint on App Store
• Aurora Feint review by Touch Arcade

Although we began work last year on Safari based WordPress Theme and Plugin suite that had potential to offer the untethered convenience of mobile blogging, we were beat to the punch by Automattic/Effigent. Built on the iPhone SDK as a native Cocoa Touch app makes a robust touch UI crisp in its access and delivery.

Splendid as a portable notepad where you can quickly start local drafts of posts. Later, when you’re on the desktop, local drafts get posted to remote drafts for editing and production tasks.

The ability to easily integrate photos by the standard camera and photo library API is perfect for screen shots in this case.

Rumors of a copy and paste feature in iPhone 2.1 abound. This WordPress Touch client really won’t be complete until a great select and hyperlink user interface is developed.

What’s The Killer App?

To put it one way, when urged to flick icons on microquest for stroke amusement and no app earns a tap, then I’ll know The Killer App has arrived.

An examination of the current crop of games reveals:

• No quick game you can really just quickly resume and play in microbursts. This attritibute is essential to The Killer App.
• No true one-handed gameplay. Over sensitive gesture games need not apply. Killer App must be usable while holding onto a pole or handle for use on public transportation.

These two attributes exemplify the special needs of mobile software design not yet satisfied by the new App Store marketplace.

The Free Essential Dozen:

Great free apps, but none of these are The Killer App.

1. NetNewsWire for feedbag
2. WordPress for bloggoreah
3. Facebook for status-faction
4. AIM for buddy-talk
5. Twinkle for micro-blogging
6. iPint for parlor tricking
7. Cube Runner for cube running
8. Tap Tap Revolution for groove gripping
9. Pandora for music genome hopping
10. Urban Spoon for jiggle picking meals
11. Yelp for added locative chow-hounding
12. Remote by Apple for magic jukeboxing

Stay tuned to this space as the situation evolves.

It’s assumed that the Dev Team jailbreak tool currently cracks firmware 2.0. The tragically named “Pwnage Tool” is not yet publicly released. However, if the Dev Team decided to release “Pwnage” at this very moment, it would presumably bypass AT&T/Apple activation procedure.

In this scenario, perhaps millions of users would grab “Pwnage” and then back off Apple’s activation server. That would be a huge favor to Apple on behalf of the rogue development community.

Could it happen?

UPDATE: In retrospect, this was a dumb entry. Rather than retract it, we’ll just leave it as evidence of this day’s mass hysteria and leave it at that.

Any iPhone user (2.5G and 3G), who needs to activate their phone with iTunes is out of luck right now. Apparently slammed by activations or launch glitches, now is not the time to perform an update or restore function on ANY iPhone, as you won’t able to reactivate it on AT&T until the glitch is solved. (via Gizmodo) Standby for updates on the situation. We realized an unlikely hero could save the day.

Hold off on Restore or Updates

Hopefully, you’re not in our position: our iPhone 2.0 firmware leak early adoption led to an App Store download binge and the eventual major crash by overloading with third-party explorations that left it sort of bricked, stuck on the Apple logo boot screen. We put iPhone into recovery mode and restored, but now iTunes Music Store returns splendid errors (-9838) and now (-4).

Update @ 3pm: Persistence and patience pays off, as we get into the great Activation queue cloud in the sky and get activated and ignore resulting errors, as advised by rampant iRumoring. Currently restoring and allowing hysteria to subside.

New firmware sports crucial “sleeper features” – Screenshots and Safari YouTube plugin

The web is alive with chatter about the iPocalypse, as many other owners are experiencing the outage. Apple appears to have temporarily closed (UPDATE: they’re back) its support discussion forums to block outage outrage on its own threads.

We had iPhone 2.0 installed, and enjoyed one it’s two best “sleeper features” – screengrab (hold home button with top lock button) and the new Safari YouTube plugin that we predicted. The latter feature has huge implications for the question of Adobe Flash Player for iPhone, as it effectively mitigates the problem of the “blue question-mark” missing-plugin indicating on millions-and-millions of embedded YouTube players scattered around the web.

In a stunning sweep and a victory for Apple any way you slice it, an unnamed party has purchased the “iPhone DevTeam” Pwnage tool demonstrated on YouTube, widely announced for release today. The team has been disbanded and the jailbreak and unlock scene will probably never be the same again.

Surely the lawyers have locked this one down tight, and we’ll probably never know, but bets are on Apple using both the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the almighty, irresistible dollar to squelch these hackers once and for all. Their tool seems to violate the reverse engineering and copyright circumventions intrinsic to the DMCA, by allowing the customization of the firmware and operating system files.

We hope the term “pwned” is retired now. We didn’t think someone could come up with a word worse than “blog” and then see it leak into the vernacular. Perhaps the Apple legal team is defending not only their intellectual property, but also the English language?

April Fools?

Steve Jobs “just says no” to Flash on iPhone. Well, on first glance, that’s just what he says now, and we all know, like a good episode of Lost, there’s always more to unpack and nothing is what it seems. Considering Adobe’s product line, the so-called “missing middle Flash product” suitable for the iPhone doesn’t yet exist. The middle product refers to something between Flash Player for the desktop and Flash Lite for mobile devices. But, considering the pipeline, it’s only a matter of time before Adobe AIR Mobile hits iPhone and just about every other mobile device, smack dab in the middle of the entire mainstream interactive media ecosystem.¹

Despite all the nay-saying, Adobe seems determined to get Flash on OS X Touch.

The brilliance of both Apple and Adobe waiting for Adobe AIR Mobile to launch is that it addresses all issues and pleases both parties politically:

• AIR Mobile is likely to be built upon AJAX, WebKit and Flash Player with the ActionScript 3.0 VM, as it is on the desktop, so it will be robust, efficient, modern and support both Apple’s and Adobe’s standards. It will please developers, designers, open standards proponents, lovers of proprietary goodness, and every other regular user who just wants everything to just work.
• AIR Mobile will solve the installation and distribution problem inherent in Flash Lite. Flash Player for the desktop has never been about standalone application installation. AIR on the desktop bridges this gap. It’s only a matter of time before Adobe sends AIR into the mobile device space and allows creators to put mobile app icons on standby screens with a few clicks. Just think Apple AppStore, or jailbreak AppTapp for Adobe Mobile AIR.
• AIR Mobile will bridge the fading distinction between web – desktop – mobile by allowing creators to write software in one environment (eg. Flex Builder) and distribute codebase to all three of these crucial platforms in a truly hybrid sense.
• It’s really no coincidence that Apple and Adobe are both investing heavily in products named “Air” — the notion of the data-cloud, cloud-sourcing, everyware, and webware is nascent. Narrow-minded jargon-lovers will call it Web 3.0, but intelligent folks will hopefully leave this lame version number moniker behind and use the appropriately visionary language espoused here.

Multi-touch API is the key

The central unresolved issue that remains is a multi-touch API. Any version of Flash for iPhone will need to have its intrinsic APIs updated for multi-touch and that will need to translate to a higher-level ActionScript object so that designers and developers can trap events related to multi-touch gestures. Without gestures like pinch, flick, zoom and others, it’s really pointless to put Flash on iPhone.

At the end of the day, talk about politics, performance and battery life are probably just the red-herrings that both Apple and Adobe need to work out the vexing issue of multi-touch APIs. In fact, it will probably take a few years before all platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and iPhone) all reckon with multi-touch on all levels of hardware and software.

The alleged YouTube Mobile Safari plugin in OS X Touch 2.0 beta is probably all the beehive needs to chill out and give Apple and Adobe the breathing room they need to get multi-touch worked out, and deploy Mobile AIR on a dizzying and divergent array of devices, platforms and crotchety carriers.

Previously:

• YouTube plugin for Mobile Safari Suggests No Flash in iPhone 2.0←
• Will iPhone Ever Run Flash?←

Footnotes

1. This is based only pure postulation and not informed by any confidential Adobe insight.

Specula-palooza Rocks On

The latest in Flash and iPhone rumor-mongering suggests a YouTube plug-in for Mobile Safari will accompany this summer’s Touch OS 2.0 update. An uncorroborated claim indicates that this plug-in is contained within the recently seeded developer iPhone SDK 2.0 beta firmware.

This would theoretically enable embedded YouTube movies to work on the billions of pages that currently flaunt the dreaded blue question mark icon. Presumably, a page with an embedded YouTube SWF player might show a thumbnail with a play icon that when tapped would load the clip in the native YouTube player or some embedded player within Mobile Safari. This would be similar to what happens when you load an embedded MP4 video file via the native QuickTime player within the iPod function.

In technical terms, Mobile Safari may parse the OBJECT and EMBED tags that point to the YouTube SWF player and redirect the path to the video into its own native player.

It’s important to note that not all YouTube videos would work. In fact, numerous clips not encoded to MP4 H.264 remain only available in the Flash codecs Sorenson Spark and On2 and therefore would not play in the Mobile Safari YouTube plugin. Although, Apple and Google seem to be colluding to convert the vast user-generated video library over into the H.263 format. It’s truly doubtful that OS X Touch 2.0 contains additional video codecs beyond H.263.

However, rather than subscribing to comment stream appearing below rumor sites, this YouTube Mobile Safari plugin is very likely not a clue towards a Flash player for iPhone. In fact, this could be the kiss of death for the chances of seeing it soon.

This kind of Mobile Safari plug-in access is precisely what Apple is shielding from Adobe (and other third-party developers, thanks to the sandbox intrinsic to the SDK). In many ways, a YouTube plugin acts as a trojan horse to usurp dominance from Flash in favor of WebKit and open standards. For most people who crave a Flash Player for iPhone, it’s the frequent dead-end to embedded YouTube clips that has them most irked. Once that kink is worked out, will users really miss Flash?

The other crucial importance of a Mobile Safari YouTube plugin is that it bypasses the main sticking point: how to implement multi-touch via an ActionScript API in the Flash Player!

We’re not suggesting Flash Player won’t ever appear on OS X Touch, but if a native YouTube plugin appears for Mobile Safari this summer, it has big implications for Adobe’s mobile strategy, and concerns the long-term viability of Flash as a de-facto standard if the mobile medium cannot be captured.

We’d love to see Flash on OS X Touch. There is a vast designer and developer community out there fluent in ActionScript that would thrive in a Touch world. It’s all about a multi-touch API from here on out. We’ve tinkered with both Mobile Safari web application design with WebKit and AJAX and also attempted to pick apart Cocoa Touch. There is no middle ground yet, and the Touch application market is nascent and fractured as a result. You’ve either got really crappy web applications or sketchy jailbreak apps. Yes, this summer’s launch of the AppStore will change the game forever. But, until the vast Adobe-enabled developer community is employed to create, the market will be constricted by limitations and learning curves.

Previously: Will iPhone Ever Run Flash? ←

Original iPhone hackster extraordinaire Nate True has used some undisclosed means to peek into firmware 1.1.3 and discovered essential file system structural changes that will allow Official SDK based third-party applications to run and install easily. Notably…

1. SpringBoard appears to display whatever is in the /Applications directory. Earlier firmwares used a .plist XML configuration file. Then, at 1.1.1, Apple dropped the editable text file in favor of a locked SpringBoard, which, in turn, was quickly hacked with SummerBoard and other unofficial apps for re-ordering and adding. Perhaps, the SpringBoard home screen is even more efficient at 1.1.3 in that it simply renders the contents of the /Applications directory.
2. Applications run as the user “mobile” instead of as “root” which clearly sandboxes official apps and resolves numerous security concerns with opening up the platform for third-party development.
3. Preference files are stored in the “mobile” user directory (/var/mobile) instead of the “root” user directory (/var/root), a natural extension of implementation #2.

Via Nate True at cre.ations.net

Further consideration yields the basic assumption that Apple can release the SDK, and even launch titles from third-parties that will effortlessly install into iPhone 1.1.3 without additional updates required. The iPod Touch update purchased via iTunes is probably the essence of what’s to come.

The burning question remains, however. Will the jailbreak scene still thrive after officialization commences? What about the magnificent Nullriver AppTapp Installer? And the further exploits of his majesty Nate True?

Despite furious speculation, Jobs releases incremental product improvements, rather than fundamental game-changing gear

Apple announced four new products today in San Francisco:

1. Time Capsule, wireless base station and network storage device
2. iPhone and iPod Touch firmware updates
3. Apple TV 2.0 and iTunes Video Rentals
4. MacBook Air ultra-thin notebook
5. One more thing… There is NO “one more thing!”

Interestingly, these announcements merely validate earlier predictions, mostly based on patent-filings, clues embedded deep within application strings, and the usual rumoring that surrounds Apple product design. In fact, the first three announcements represent the fulfillment of promised features more than anything else.

Time Capsule simply makes good on the promise of Leopard’s Time Machine feature to work usably on portable computers. The notion of a network storage appliance is nothing new.

The iPhone and Touch firmware updates, free for phone owners and a $20 upgrade for Touch owners, merely respond to the deluge of feature requests that at times overshadowed the praise of these revolutionary devices. Indeed, text messaging to multiple recipients, locative services in Google Maps, lyrics and video chapter displays, and home screen customization capabilities seemed like no-brainers from the start. On the Touch side, owners must shell out to gain the applications that are standard on the iPhone, which motivated the Touch jailbreak movement to establish a feature parity across the products. At least Apple is focusing on listening carefully to the user-base chatter. The iPhone firmware 1.1.3 is already available. Will a new jailbreak method appear before the official SDK launch?

When considering the Apple TV free software update and reduced introductory pricing, here is another example of Apple merely updating the software and business platforms to add serious value to existing owners. In many ways, today’s announcements are the biggest news for existing customers, especially owners of iPhones and Apple TVs, who in two weeks will be graciously rewarded with significant feature upgrades for free. No wonder all other companies envy Apple’s relationship with its customers.

The MacBook Air, however, is a mixed bag of excitements and disappointments. Certainly, the barely-there form factor is what will attract attention. But it’s the multi-touch trackpad and the planned obsolescence of the optical disc that represent the most significant futurist shifts. But $3100 for the solid state drive version is really, really, really expensive. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the new Air is its striking lack of a user replaceable battery!

Top 10 Expectations Unfulfilled

Indeed, wild speculation seemed to include every possible configuration and predictable product launch, and so, these were not announced today:

1. No tablet computer, basically an iPhone/Touch the size of a notebook, running OS X, not Mac OS X, 100% touch
2. No replacement for the Mac Mini, some kind of a screen-less, entry-level desktop
3. No 3G iPhone running on AT&T’s UMTS, nor a 16 GB storage upgrade
4. No AT&T wireless networking built into notebooks
5. No “copy & paste” for iPhone/Touch
6. No WiMax devices
7. No BluRay disc devices, especially on the Apple TV
8. No Speed bumps to product lines other than Pro towers, especially iMac, MacBooks and MacBook Pro
9. No Leopard Software Update 10.5.2
10. No iPhone SDK based application demonstrations

At this moment, Apple’s stock price is not surging, but then again, most of the market looks to be tanking. Not even Father Jobs can lure the US economy from a looming recession with his “halo effect” against the debt crisis and devalued dollar.

It was a fun ride, and we certainly garnered a small portion of the incredible Google search term traffic related to iPhone hype in 2006. I’m afraid we’ll be waiting out the dark period until February 2008, when the official SDK is released and a new generation of extensibility emerges for Touch applications. We also anticipate a significant iPhone firmware update at MacWorld 2008 in January to tide us over. Not to mention all the brouhaha that will sound out when the 3G version hits the streets.

In short, the jailbreak process became too arduous and the reliability of some common applications became dubious. Naturally, this is no surprise, given the fact that Apple had no reasons to support these endeavors. Indeed, the post-SDK era will involve mediation through digital signatures, and the indy iPhone developer market will writhe in pain. But, if it means that applications will be sturdy, well designed, and accountable to performance and efficiency standards, we have to admit that it’s probably worth it, having learned the hard way. When it comes to a mobile phone, the basic functions are more crucial than on a desktop or laptop computer. Things like basic communications capabilities really do, just have to work.

With an 1.1.3 update rumored to be hitting the servers this week sporting voice recording and disk mode storage, the jailbreak process promises only to get more arcane.

Patience Required, Running 3rd Party Apps on iPhone OS X 1.1.2 possible.

Is Apple is winning the cat and mouse game against pre-SDK application development, despite best efforts on behalf of the dev community?

Our testing reveals that incremental downgrades towards 1.0.2 and then back up to 1.1.2 indicate success. Employ the TIFF exploit in 1.1.1 via Jailbreakme.com in Mobile Safari; Use AppTapp [in Tweaks (1.1.1)] to install the “OktoPrep” package prior to upgrading to 1.1.2; and finally run the Conceited 1.1.2 Jailbreak kit (Java .jar on Mac, Batch .bat on Windows).

That means that if you’ve upgraded or buy a new iPhone during the 1.1.2 release phase, you’ll need to follow an absurd downgrade-upgrade sequence:

1. Downgrade to 1.1.1
2. Downgrade to 1.0.2
3. Upgrade to 1.1.1
4. Jailbreakme
5. AppTapp
6. OktoPrep
7. Upgrade to 1.1.2

Disclaimer & Warnings

Some users may have luck skipping the 1.0.2 downgrade, mileage will vary. This information carries the usual caveats: These modifications may void your warranty, implied support by Apple and who knows what else. An iTunes-based Restore does not fully erase your iPhone and return it to its 100% pristine state from the factory. Indeed, preference files remain between restore and updates, from third-party apps. Use at your risk.

More on Jailbreak OS X 1.1.2

The downgrading process involves:

1. Obtain the Apple firmware files (no longer as easy to get directly from Apple)
2. Ensure firmware files have .ipsw extension (not .zip)
3. Enter Recovery mode (DFU)
4. Use iTunes to Option (Shift) – Update and choose appropriate firmware package
5. Endure with patience
6. Trick out of Recovery mode (with iNdepenence)

The tricks of doing this efficiently involve:

• Learning some nuances to getting into the proper recovery mode
• Then, how to get out of it; let iNdependence sit for a minute connected!
• Disable sync of your iTunes media and then re-syncing when you’re done, to save time during the restore.
• Kill the iTunes Helper process (Activity Monitor on Mac, Task Manager on Windows), preventing the auto-connect between iPhone and iTunes.
• Let iTunes re-activate your phone (if you’re on AT&T), at the right moment
• Or use iNdependence or the Conceited tools to activate,
• Or use the secret keypad code sequence (see Conceited Tools README) to sneak into Safari to use Jailbreakme, (without AT&T)
• Re-install your custom app selections with AppTapp
• Re-apply your SummerBoard mod,
• Re-order the icons through Customize,
• Re-install your NES ROMs with SFTP/SSH or the new Bonjour/AppleTalk file-system mount method

The site modmyiphone.com changed its name and domain services to modmyifone.com per the legal request of Apple counsel. This is significant only in that we’re surprised it took Apple this long to drop the hammer on the trademark infringers, especially after its fiasco with Cisco over the name iPhone in the first place.

This episode echoes what happened to a popular MINI Cooper enthusiast forum site when BMW sicked its legal on minicooperonline.com which forced it to change its name to northamericanmotoring.com in a bitter surrender.

The moral of the story is that it’s not a good idea to ever develop a web property using an obvious trademark. Legal precedent is now deeply in the favor of trademark holders. Gabriel Bridger got it right the first time when he named his famed MINI blog motoringfile.com in light of the “minicooperonline” controversy.

It’s never been easier to install custom applications

You can now jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch to install third-party applications with extraordinary ease. Visit the URL pictured above with your Mobile Safari and in an instant your device’s file system will be opened and the AppTapp Installer will appear on your Springboard after a restart.

Via Erica Sadun at TUAW — Instant Jailbreak for iPhone and iPod Touch

If you’re new to all of this, check out Erica’s advice for where to go from here.

This method supersedes all previous methods, including our own process← that we document in meticulous detail, now deprecated in favor of using AppSnapp. Interestingly, this method uses the TIFF Exploit of Mobile Safari to open up the lockdown of the system, and then does Apple the favor of patching the security hole!

See the Instant One-Touch Jailbreak Method as a simple alternative to what’s described in detail below. It takes advantage of the TIFF Exploit in Mobile Safari to jailbreak simply by visiting a site. It then patches this scary loophole after installing the Nullriver AppTapp into your Springboard.

Original Post

We threatened to write this tutorial, and our own experimentation with AppTapp 3 beta on the latest firmware and the ensuing customizations like SummerBoard and Customize on iPhone 1.1.1 forced us to become very familiar with all the nuances of compatibility and the absurd downgrade-to-upgrade process. We’ve published our meticulous notes as a PDF guide where you too can install native third-party apps and customizations without using the command-line, as long as you comply with the following requirements:

• AT&T customer. No SIM unlocks.
• Mac. Intel or PowerPC. No Windows, but the iNdependence tool can be substituted for the PC equivalent.
• OS X 10.4.10 — Leopard support untested.
• iTunes 7.4.2
• iPhone 1.1.1 and 1.0.2 firmwares
• Novices, beginners, newbies welcome — patience required
• Experience modders may adapt this guide for other platforms, scenarios

Download the PDF guide which includes download links to the required tools, including iNdependence 1.2.4 (.dmg), the iPhone 1.0.2 firmware files (.ipsw) and the Nullriver AppTapp installer (.zip). Folks may groan about the PDF document as opposed to universal HTML formatting, but be assured that the PDF contains screen shots of crucial dialogs and is as detail-oriented as they come. It’s probably the best step-by-step tutorial out there at the moment. In the spirit of full disclosure though, it’s fifty steps long, but does not require any command-line. We’re not sure if this is step forward or backward, but it’s a reliable, well-tested method, either way.

Important notes that deserve republishing outside of the PDF guide:

1. Do not install both Trip1PogoStick and SummerBoard on 1.1.1 — you’ll get startup freeze (stuck on Apple logo), especially if you’ve used previous 1.1.1. upgrade methods, including iNdepenence 1.2.2. and/or Trip1Prepz. We made this mistake and that’s what inspired us to start fresh and document every step for you. Use iTunes to restore to a fresh 1.1.1 state if this occurs.
2. Do not install the 1.1.1 tweaks with SummerBoard. They are not compatible SummerBoard and Customize and will screw up your Springboard forcing to to restore to 1.1.1 and then start the 50 step process all over again. We attempted this and ended up with a blank Springboard, no icons, and no phone functionality. This is the closest we’ve come to a brick, yet, in all our of hacking tests.
3. Do not follow any of these steps and discard this document immediately if you are not prepared to void your warranty and any obligation of Apple or AT&T to support you in these endeavors. They have clearly stated that these modifications are in violation of their use agreements. In fact, it is not yet easy to even truly make a factory fresh iPhone, without any trace of third-party modifications, in the event that you might want to return your device. Although using third-party applications is far less risky than unlocking your firmware to run on other networks beyond AT&T, it’s still considered an unauthorized activity. No warranties are implied by these instructions. You follow these steps at your own risk as assume all liabilities herein. If you have any reservations about these activities, delete this document and forget about iPhone modding. We have no responsibility for your actions and provide this information for academic research purposes only.

Once installed, you’ll enjoy SummerBoard and its themes and customizations as well as the Customize program, albeit buggy on 1.1.1, does allow icon ordering. Anal Retentive iPhone Hackers rejoice! Note that the vertical flicking of SummerBoard on 1.0.2 is replaced with the horizontal paging that you may have already experienced on early versions of 1.1.1 exploits.

Furthermore, it is recommended that AppTapp 3.0 beta run on iPhone firmware 1.1.1, so if you’re a 1.0.2 hold-out, you’ll need to consider taking the plunge. If you’ve already upgraded to 1.1.1 and have not yet jailbroken and installed AppTapp, methods are readily available via search and usual enthusiast sites. In the meantime, we are considering working on We’ve written [and have since, deprecated!] a detailed tutorial that guides someone through that process while we wait for Nullriver to release the Installer installer for AppTapp 3.0 for iPhone 1.1.1, and any comments urging us to spend the effort would be most appreciated.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how Nullriver’s efforts fare in light of Apple’s recent revelation that a Touch SDK (iPhone and iPod touch) will be released to developers in February 2008. Either Apple will characteristically buy them out and perhaps absorb AppTapp into the official native distribution system (à la CoverFlow), deploy their own superior version of an iPhone installer system, or let AppTapp live and let live. Only time will tell. But we do applaud Nullriver’s fierce achievements in setting the bar high for pre-SDK native iPhone development and UI design.

For those who cannot wait for an AppTapp 1.1.1 Update

See our Install AppTapp 3.0 beta in iPhone 1.1.1 without Command Line tutorial←

Certainly, at this moment, we can only assume that Nullriver is busy updating their AppTapp installer to integrate the revised jailbreak and install procedure required with the iPhone 1.1.1 software update. Only in the past few days have the new symlink technique tools been released in beta. Ironically, you use AppTapp in the process of preparing your iPhone 1.0.2 to update to 1.1.1 and then apply another third-party hack to get around the recent lockdown of the SpringBoard, which no longer uses the DisplayOrder.plist file to determine the visibility and ordering of icons on the main menu, rendering SummerBoard obsolete in favor of another hack which allows horizontal-style scrolling to add more icons.

What you’ll lose with 1.1.1

By gaining the 1.1.1 features such as the WiFi Music Store, Home button double-click shortcuts, and space-bar double-tap for a period feature, among other minor tweaks, you will lose certain things you might have enjoyed under 1.0.2 and under, with the third-party applications and enhancements. This includes losing the ability to order the icons in the SpringBoard with rSBT, applying SummerBoard themes, and perhaps most critically for some, the ability to create custom ringtones. iPhone 1.1.1 requires a strange ring tone file format (.m4r) and tools to create these files don’t seem to be available, yet. This is especially disappointing as it effectively eliminates your ability to create sound effect ringtones, or install the brilliant Cellphone sound that’s found deep the iLife sound library. Why does Apple think we only want musical ringtones? What if customers find them dreadfully annoying, and would prefer a simple ring that sounds like a cellphone, such as the one featured on the original iPhone TV commercials!

Update requirements

Once a step-by-step procedure was published by iPhoneAlley, we decided we would take the plunge and see if it works, rather than wait it out for Nullriver to release their elegant “next-next” wizard that handles the process easily and command-line free in a single fool-proof method that minimizes opportunities for error. We can confirm with amusement that, indeed, the 1.1.1 software update does allow third-party programs to be installed. Although the process is different, it’s not really any more or less scary than the original manual method we used before AppTapp was released with its novice-ready installation. In fact, the tools and methods have actually evolved since, and someone who fits the following profile could consider doing this also:

1. Have a Macintel (no PowerPC or Windows support at this time)
2. Have an AT&T account (no unlocked SIMs; free/open source unlocking tools aren’t ready yet)
3. Have about 30 minutes of patience to follow directions very carefully
4. Have some experience with AppTapp, Terminal, SSH and SFTP
5. Don’t mind potentially voiding your Apple warranty

Disclaimer, Warning, Caution

If you don’t qualify with all of the above conditions, you should definitely either wait for Nullriver to update AppTapp for 1.1.x, or think again about your inclinations to modify your iPhone.

Otherwise, all the usual warnings and disclaimers apply: Do this at your own risk. We assume no liability. Future updates from Apple are almost certain to close whatever loopholes were discovered at this point. Third-party applications make modifications to your iPhone, such as write preference files, that an Apple support technician might be able to detect, even after performing a Restore.

Further clarification

We followed iPhoneAlley’s step-by-step instructions, which are adequate for those of us that fit somewhere between a command-line hacker and a novice. The process takes about 30 minutes and seems to be reversible with the described downgrade feature. It’s important to make the clear distinction between “unlocking” and “jailbreaking,” the former is a far more risky endeavor where you modify the deep innards of the device to allow SIM cards and service providers other than AT&T. Inoperable bricked phones have been reported with the 1.1.1 in this case. Jailbreaking is simply opening up the iPhone’s file system to allow read and write access to allow the installation of third-party software and other customizations. Unlocking and 1.1.1 upgrades is probably still too risky at this point, while jailbreaking seems to be fairly safe.

Lean Machine

It’s worth noting that there are only two third-party applications that we ended up installing on our newly upgraded 1.1.1 system: NES and Chat. All the other programs are basically proof-of-concepts, raw experimentations, non-essential and easily forgettable. However, retrogaming and a genuine IM client, two things that might never be officialized by Apple (via AT&T) are considered indispensable additions to sorely lacking features of the factory feature set: games and IM.

UPDATE October 20, 2007

It turns out that the release of iNdepenence 1.2.2 was probably premature, as a later, greater version (1.2.4) emerged on October 18 that resolves some key issues with 1.2.2, that include how the Springboard is handled. Anyone who used 1.2.2 (us!) could have either used some patches released to resolve issues, or end up starting the whole restore, downgrade, exploit, upgrade, re-install process all over again. We’re compiling a tutorial and notes as we go through it. Stay tune for a posting on the subject.

UPDATE October 15, 2007

A new version of iNdependence was release today (v1.2.2) on Google code which supports Jailbreak on 1.1.1 firmware. It includes a special UI to perform and prepare for the 1.1.1 update which is not indicated in the iPhoneAlley step-by-step guide that we followed. Any users that have not yet updated form 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 should read the included Help documentation to learn the best method of preparing for 1.1.1 and then using their post 1.1.1 upgrade procedures available in the Firmware tab of this program. If you updated to 1.1.1 from 1.0.2 before this was released, you may need to downgrade with it, and then re-update to allow the ability to perform jailbreaks in the future. In the procedure outlined by iPhoneAlley, you really only get a one-shot-deal to jailbreak, so this new method is clearly preferred. We’ll comment on our experience preforming the downgrade and then re-upgrade using the new version of iNdependence.

UPDATE October 16, 2007

Some experiences in using iNdependence 1.2.2 to manage the migration to iPhone 1.1.1 while preserving AppTapp and jailbreak access (not SIM unlocking) follow. The built-in Help provides the step-by-step directions, however, it still needs some work, as it confusingly refers to itself in a circular fashion. We would still recommend waiting for Nullriver to release AppTapp for 1.1.1 if you’re at all weary of needing to carefully follow an arcane set of instructions or avoid using the command-line altogether. This update to iNependence achieves jailbreaking capabilities on the new firmware, but that’s about it.

Helpful Hints

Things to watch out for, not well documented in the built-in Help, when working with iNdependence 1.2.2 and the 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 upgrade process with jailbreak:

• The built-in Help documentation does not cover how to install AppTapp. However, you can use iNdependence or an SFTP client like CyberDuck to copy the Installer.app file found within the AppTapp installer package. Once copied, you can SSH into your 1.1.1 iPhone and trigger launching it via the command-line. Then you can enter the conceited software beta installer link into your MobileSafari, adding the required Trip1PogoStick hack, to allow the 1.1.1. SpringBoard to display programs, including Installer. Refer to the iPhoneAlley tutorial steps that cover these aspects, and ignore the steps that are covered by the new iNdependence method, which precludes the need to preform the installation of the Trip1Prep step. That seems to be the symlink trick that allows the 1.1.1 upgrade, but iNdependence handles that during its Pre-1.1.1 and Post-1.1.1 steps. On the iPhoneAlley tutorial, they say not to use iNdependence or use the traditional AppTapp installation. Although true in the case of the AppTapp installation, this tutorial needs to be updated to account for the reality that iNdependence has since been updated, and can be used to update to 1.1.1, in fact, offers a preferred method which retains the jailbreak. By following the iPhoneAlley method, you lose the jailbreak after completing the upgrade. It’s gotten very confusing, indeed. Apple is doing an excellent job of altering the infrastructure just enough to disrupt our efforts significantly.
• Be sure to kill the iTunes Helper process using Activity Monitor. Otherwise, iTunes will launch during many of the required reboots, and could interfere with the crucial timing of the re-activation.
• Temporarily deactivate your media syncing in iTunes, especially if you have downgrade. This will save you lots of time as the iPhone gets “erases” and re-built. Re-check the boxes for your songs, photos, videos, etc. after the process has been completed and sync up.
• We discovered the hard way, that you really want to let iTunes perform the Activation, rather than use iNdependence. It appears that if you use iNdependence to activate the phone and then deactivate it, iTunes does not appear to successfully re-activate, and thus you become dependent on iNdepedence. Yikes!
• Although the built-in Help claims that your YouTube will be fine during this process, we found that it did not work after the process. Fortunately, we easily found this reference, where you can download the appropriate security key files and upload them to the correct place on your iPhone file system (/var/root/Library/Lockdown/), and this seems to restore YouTube functionality.
• You’ll need to re-sync one additional time after the process is complete to get your Apple iTunes Music Store account properly associated with your WiFi Music Store in order to purchase music on the iPhone.
• Don’t forget to change your SSH passwords from the defaults, to help prevent getting truly hacked by a malicious user on some WiFi network. iNdependence does make it easy to change these passwords in the SSH tab.

Indeed, we could work on a write-up that combines the best of what’s offered on iPhoneAlley and the iNdepenence built-in Help, but by the time we finish that, Nullriver might have their brilliant AppTapp Installer updated, and then, like before, it’ll be a waste of time, thankfully. It’s very likely that some other passionate modder has beat us to the punch, by now.

Hyperbole Essay Muses a Protestant Split Over Jesus Phone

Release a breakthrough product, ready the defenses. Slash prices within 60 days of its release. Pre-test an elaborate consumer store credit program. Maintain control of user experience, revenue streams, and product integrity. Expedite firmware drops to shore up security against an unpredictably vigorous, yet independent, and ingenious rogue software design movement. Monitor ensuing online chatter and surveil the field, ready to deploy assets.

Such is the life of Applists, at the brink of factioning off into a ruthless, fringe element, no longer allegiant to Pope Jobs. These followers protest, disillusioned with the rejection of their effusive prayers and deeds in the name of the product’s church. Emblems of the faith, splendid exemplars of user interface mantras led by installers as elegant as “undocumented features,” spreading customizations and innovations of every whim as if Gnostic Gospel. Each passionate shortcoming of the breakthrough product, much hyped, yet still maligned beyond nitpick, had been redeemed, by painstaking devoted minds, dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of the revolutionary creation, without manual, in disobedience to advice and guidance.

Today the mark is 1.1.1 vs. 1.0.2 — those who have crossed over towards Applist orthodoxy and those resistant, not yet yielding, making due without holy sanctions, verified creed. Perhaps it’s the attraction of a more personal relationship with the Godhead, the sacred code, Kabalah’s sublime intertextual numerology, the open principles of touch-based human interface guidelines and their applications, Gnostic texts canonized by Memex. This divine intimacy of the populace is too much for the orthodoxy to stomach, unmediated transgressors. Only deep within the Vaticanal campus of Cupertino, could the details of iPhone be realized and celebrated through masses. Or could they? The orthodoxy obediently applies edicts from axis mundi, replete with sharia, releasing newly inscribed sacraments of commerce, and trivial revisions to interface ritual, all as sacrifices to the Godhead in the name of stablity, security, and eschatology. The reformists resist the superficialities of bug fixes, feature tweaks, and new revenue streams in favor of purist pursuits of homebrewed exchange and unmediated gadgeteering.

Watch the iPhoneDev splinter group, the prophets Erica Sadun, and her followers, all Digging, the global audience, Natetrue and Nervegas and Nightwatch, all the great disciples of the tripartite theory of Jobs, Ives, and Schiller; now splintering off into a Protestant reformation, rejecting the hegemonies, the hierarchies, the corporate religiosity that puts shareholder before stakeholder, priest before parishoner, mission before congregation, partner before customer, policy before press, business before pleasure.

Other churches reap followers by addressing the misgivings of these loud voices, the difficult choice of switching allegiances, and selecting new identities could be the most drastic reaction to the Applist inquisition. Once dedicated followers, so-called fanboys, mavens, influencers, the variously labeled, occasionally ridiculed, persecuted acolytes of American design purity, objects painstakingly assembled by Chinese workers, clothed in their consumer best, they are lovingly delivered to lavishly spoiled consumers, whose lives change instantly, noticeably, invisibly, despite clear markings and insignia.

Needless to say, we aren’t the only ones jolted into a state of doubt, of second-guessing, a crisis of faith. Our iPhones remain 1.0.2, our AppTap apps continue to dance upon our SummerBoard with a flick, semi-useless, yet somehow indispensable reminders of cherishing the essentials of open, of freedom, of flexibility. We remember not to take for granted the simple joys of the original Applist congregation, enabled to seek more personal relationships with what the breakthrough product enables, beyond expansion and customization: retrogaming, instant messaging, operating systemics, electronic literature, voice recordings, recreation, media redistribution, virtualization, and location-based positioning.

The factionalization inevitably reflects the disconnect between the hierarchy and its Diocese. Cupertino must enforce and enrich its control and influence over the essential elements of its worldview, the device software. There are specific fiduciary duties towards contractual partners and shareholders that asses profound regard in refocusing the consumers attention towards revenue streams and away from endeavors that distract from ongoing tithing. Yet the followers, in their humanistic zeal for coming to know the the device software more intimately, more greatly, more intrinsically, unlocked an interconnection that may not have even been intended for mere mortals. This Pandora’s box exemplifies the detachment of the Tripartite from its congregation. Such a clearly precedented trait of Applists was forgotten, and now fracturing ensues.

Will devotees of Apple fracture into subservient and subversive sects, now prompted to select allegiances?

Firmware Update Unsettles

The long awaited firmware updated is released today. We’ve speculated its identifier as iPhone 2.0 and other possibilities, but the important thing is that new features and capabilities are added for free to expand the software offerings of iPhone. Certainly, not everyone will be 100% impressed with what’s been added today, as you can only please most of the people some of the time.

Early reports suggest that this update does not break or “brick” when applied to a device with un-authorized third-party applications, especially using AppTapp. However, early reports suggest that the installed applications are wiped out as the fresh OS install essentially reformats and reinstalls. If you’re insistent on preserving your third-party apps, it’s advisable to wait for Nullriver to release a new AppTapp tested with 1.1.1 support before launching forward with the update. However, bricking is likely with SIM unlocks. Certainly, the comment streams will be awash with controversy.

Mobile Touch Screen WordPress Theme In The Works

In response to the proliferating importance of portable touch-screen interfaces, we have started the design and development of a WordPress theme for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The theme will make your WordPress site look and behave like a native application, taking advantage of the special requirements of a touch-screen, flick-and-slide scroll interface minimizing zoom-pinching, all using Joe Hewitt’s iUI JavaScript and CSS library.

The project is currently in a pre-alpha release state. We have released an early alpha, with a distant dream publish it to the official WordPress theme site. Anyone who is interested in helping to test and develop the concept should contact us by email. Let it be known that we are not the first to attempt a WordPress iUI theme, although we are working a more comprehensive implementation than what Justin Barkhuff has already achieved while on his year-long honeymoon!

» Try WordPress Touch pre-alpha on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

If the Touch theme does not appear right away, keep trying, by refreshing or revisiting this link. For some reason, the cookie that tells WordPress to use this theme isn’t registering correctly.

Release Notes

• You can simulate the experience by viewing the Touch theme without an iPhone or iPod Touch by using Safari 3.1 or the Webkit nightly build, the iPhoney simulator, or the official iPhone simulator as part of the SDK.
• Viewing this theme in other browsers will probably yield unpredictable and undesirable results.
• Your browser will remember your theme choice in a cookie. To reset back to the standard theme, choose Preferences > Theme > Desktop within the Touch theme main menu.
• As stated above, if you don’t succeed in triggering the WordPress Touch theme to appear, be persistent. This is an known issue to be resolved. It has something to do with the theme switcher plugin I’m using.

Design Goals

• Optimize WordPress consumption for the WebKit touchscreen user-interface model — in progress
• Focus on mobile use-cases, to allow a quick consume, easy lookups — in progress
• Employ best practices for iPhone and iPod Touch interface design conventions — in progress
• Allow options for auto-detection, user-selection and return to standard desktop views — in progess
• Introduce glossy icons for menus, with preference to disable — to do
• Introduce auto-resizing thumbnail management and disabling LightBox photo gallery features — to do

Specula-palooza

Risking iPhone coverage overexposure, today we ponder one of the most interesting questions about the future of Flash, iPhone and web standards. Despite assurances by Uncle Walt that Apple and Adobe are hard at work on a Flash Player for iPhone, plenty of naysayers, skeptics, and player-haters have voiced strong speculations that Flash will never appear on the iPhone for strategic, practical and technical reasons. A quick scan of comments on various iPhone related entries across the web reveals an almost universal plea amongst everyday users indicating that a dearly missed feature from Mobile Safari is the presence of a mainstream multimedia plugin. In fact, the world’s most popular piece of software in history, is well known to be absent from iPhone.¹

Mobilizing the Means of Production

Those who have written about why iPhone should not have a Flash Player don’t mask their agendas. These voices are usually programmers and developers who have always been hostile to Flash, mostly because it threatens their grip on the means of production, by bringing software and interface design to the masses. Indeed, we’ve seen the worst and the best of the web, as a result. Furthermore, because Flash has always been a mainstream, populist, albeit proprietary media format, it has been deployed for reach and ease of creation, rather than robust performance. When imagining a Flash Player for iPhone, its high-octane thirst for processor cycles does not bode well for battery life.

Monopolizing Web Standards

The second significant argument against iPhone Flash is Apple’s strategy to deploy its WebKit “web standards” platform for all third-party application development. Indeed, the recently redesigned Apple.com site has reduced its use of Flash significantly, in favor of JavaScript and browser based features, so-called AJAX. The argument goes that Apple doesn’t want to forsake its influence on the consumer-level interface design market by inserting Adobe’s trojan horse into the battlefield.² This perspective does make a lot of sense, but leaves out a tremendous amount of nuance, that we’ll investigate here.

A Muted Voice

The assumption that web standards based technology, such as JavaScript, can wholly replace Flash functionality is only somewhat true, especially on iPhone.³ Certainly, the support of JavaScript and its embrace by the web developer community over the past three to five years has changed the face of the web, earning the popular title of version 2.0. However, Flash offers some essential multimedia capabilities that JavaScript alone cannot yet offer. This includes audio support. It’s no coincidence that Bejeweled for iPhone is mute. Especially considering that many iPhone users may have stereo headsets plugged in during use, there are unimaginable uses for audio based applications, especially when combined with locative media technologies. Imagine a sort of audiopedia. The differences don’t start and end with audio support, however. Even Apple’s newly touted Web Gallery feature, part of a .Mac subscription with the iLife personal media suite needs to use Flash for its carousel photo browsing interface.⁴ Indeed, only the Flash Player offers the multimedia engine to manipulate the images as a responsive interface with the reach required on this consumer grade product.

I Want My MTV

Certainly, the most common deployment of Flash Player on the web recently is for web video. It was almost shocking to watch the FLV video format surpass RealPlayer, Windows Media and QuickTime as the most important, influential web video format, in what seemed like a matter of months, with much thanks to YouTube and others. A recent Adobe Flash Player 9 public beta featured H.264 video support, which seems part of its strategy to preserve the dominance of Flash video, especially as Apple and Google migrate towards this non-Flash based video standard. However, until the myriad of embedded SWF FLV players on perhaps billions of web pages get updated to auto-detect the client and deliver the appropriate video by codec, the web will still appear to be littered with missing plugins on Mobile Safari.

Assumptions and Speculations

Let’s proceed with the assumption that Walt Mossberg was correct, and indeed, Apple and Adobe have reached an agreement to release Flash Player iPhone in some manifestation, at some time. Of course, he could be blindly speculating like the rest of us, just running on the fact that it feels crazy for Flash not to be there. But, let’s hope he’s as well-connected and respected as they say he is.⁵ There are several scenarios for the future of Flash iPhone, which should only contribute to the over-saturated discourse by further complicating the biased opinions with an understanding of Adobe’s perspective, previously, and conveniently left out of the discussion.

A Straight Port of Flash Player 9

In this scenario, Adobe compiles the current version of the desktop Flash Player 9 for the ARM processor of iPhone. This scenario would allow all of the existing web-based Flash content to function within Mobile Safari. Authors who create content in ActionScript 3 would enjoy a noticeable improvement of performance and energy efficiency on the iPhone, since this type of content would play in the more recent Flash Virtual Machine, a marked improvement over previous runtime environments, across Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. However, the vast majority of Flash content on the web right now was created in ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0, and so does not take advantage of the improvements to the runtime. Indeed, the skeptics are correct when they assume that running web pages with Flash content, even animated banners, would put an unfortunate drain on the battery.However, what’s crucially missing from a simple straight-on port of Flash Player 9 for iPhone is a substantial confrontation with the multi-touch interface. This is likely the deal-breaker for this scenario. Although, ActionScript and Flash button symbols might offer some means of developing and designing for the iPhone’s multi-touch interface, it’s more than likely that despite the best efforts of Flash coders, the existing means to respond to mouse-based interactions will fall short of the requirements needed to respond to multi-touch. Gestures like pinch, tap-zoom, and flick are difficult to imagine as ActionScript events. Indeed, Adobe probably needs to reckon with the reality that ActionScript needs a true multi-touch API. This could be one of the many reasons why we can only assume that iPhone Flash is in development now, and may be for quite some time, especially based on Apple’s delay in releasing an official iPhone SDK.

Probability: Very Low

Flash Player 10

Looking into 2008, perhaps third or fourth quarter, we have to assume that Adobe will continue to release improved versions of the Flash Player. Version 10 is likely to provide Adobe with the required release cycle needed to fully contend with Apple’s native iPhone application API and SDK release schedule. It’s much more likely that ActionScript libraries will be written that allow true response to the multi-touch gestures, such as pinching, flicking and zoom-tapping. It’s really difficult to imagine a Flash Player on iPhone without this crucial ActionScript API.Furthermore, this allows Adobe to potentially release new versions of the Flash and Flex authoring tools that will compile in Flash Player 10, and subsequently, support a runtime environment that is tuned to the needs of the ARM architecture and precious battery life. It’s been frustrating to read the Flash iPhone haters and their blatant neglect for Adobe’s expertise in the area of building a Flash Player for mobile devices. There has simply been no mention of the possibility of Flash Lite for iPhone.

Probability: Medium

Flash Lite 2.1

Flash Lite is a very special version of the Flash Player for mobile devices, such as Symbian Series 60, Windows Mobile and others. It is not the Flash Player that typically sits in an embedded browser, like the vast majority of Flash content out there. Instead, Flash Lite content exists as standalone, full-screen, mobile applications, or more appropriate mobile media implementations such as a standby screens, wallpapers, screen-savers, and even the device’s native UI.Not only is Flash Lite compiled to the particular device, and so is limited by its processing and memory capabilities, but it also has proven to be very energy efficient, accordingly. Indeed, authors must specifically design and code for Flash Lite. It is in no way, a conversion from desktop Flash content. In this manner, designers and developers alike, are rightly forced to contend with the requirements of mobile media, in terms of interface, content and use-case considerations.It’s possible that Adobe could port Flash Lite to iPhone instead of the expected desktop Flash Player. In this regard, Flash Player would exists as a widget on the SpringBoard home-screen of iPhone, and not as a Mobile Safari plugin. Although it would not fix countless broken plugins in pages that use Flash Player, it would offer mobile media design opportunities for Flash on iPhone. Specifically, Flash Lite already offers APIs to interact with mobile phone specific features, such as triggering the vibrate, detecting battery life, and cell network signal strength. These capabilities are not offered on the desktop version of Flash Player, and may or may not be available in Apple’s official native iPhone application API or SDK. Only time will tell.In this scenario, Flash Lite becomes an avenue for designers and developers familiar with Adobe’s toolsets to create applications that exist as standalone native experiences, rather than embedded modules of Mobile Safari. In many ways, this supports the special needs of mobile media more appropriately than simply making the familiar Flash just work. Imagining a port of Flash Lite for iPhone could mean the opening of a vast market for native iPhone widget applications, designed by designers, and not restricted to hard-core Objective C programmers. Indeed, this is a threatening prospect for those that are eager to carve out a niche in iPhone application development. However, Flash Lite 2.1 probably does not offer the means to react to multi-touch gestures like pinch, flick and tap-zoom, and so it’s probably not the version we will eventually see.

Probability: Low

Flash Lite 3

Just as the desktop Flash Player is constantly updated, the mobile Flash Lite player is also expected to be evolving. It is said, that a forthcoming version of the Flash Lite player, perhaps 3, will bridge the gap between the embedded browser Flash content and the standalone mobile specific Flash Lite content.⁶ In other words, Flash Lite 3 could play not just in the mobile device’s web browser, but could also run within its native operating system environment. This jives with Adobe’s efforts to seed the use of Flash outside of the browser and distribute a desktop based native runtime, called AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime. In addition, a Flash Lite 3 would address the concerns of a multi-touch API, and the required energy efficiencies for battery life, memory usage and processor cycling, as well as provide ActionScript to trigger mobile device specific features intrinsic to Flash Lite.In this case, Flash would exist in two manifestations on iPhone: as standalone native applications on the SpringBoard home screen, and as a Mobile Safari plugin, playing the usual desktop based content. This gives developers, designers and end-users the best of all worlds. Flash content can be created with mobile use in mind, considering the unique user interface and energy efficiency required. Everyday users will enjoy not only the full multimedia web they’ve grown accustomed to on the desktop, but also will enjoy a market of native mobile applications that arguably, the Objective C programmers of the world, simply cannot singlehandedly service.

Probability: Medium-High

Conclusions

Flash will appear on iPhone eventually. There is no doubt that Adobe will roadmap this device into its strategy for Flash Player, Flash Lite, or both.Yes, there are significant performance, interface and user considerations that must be addressed as Flash appears on iPhone. Adobe has already demonstrated an accomplished ability to service the mobile media market. It’s only a matter of when, and what form iPhone Flash takes as it appears beneath our beloved glass multi-touch screens.One can only imagine the pressure Adobe’s product planners are putting on its Flash Player team to fit iPhone into the needs of the short-term and long-term strategy. In the short term, Adobe needs to get Flash on iPhone within the next three to six months to capture the required developer and designer audience, and compete with the ascendancy of Mobile Safari and native iPhone applications. In the long term, Adobe needs to get it right, and release a iPhone Flash Player that addresses the specific needs of both mobile media and the vast legacy of desktop Flash content out there. A premature release could spell long term disaster for Flash, as it needs to compete with the rapidly expanding Open Source and Web Standards movement. We haven’t mentioned Microsoft’s entry into the web media space with its recently launched Silverlight platform, but until we stumble upon a site that actually uses it, it’s irrelevant.Although there are many who would like Flash to just go away, because it’s not open source, not free, and tends to be used to bombard us with annoying banner ads and horrible interface design models, Flash is not going away anytime soon. However, how Apple and Adobe navigate the uncharted territory of merging mobile and desktop user experiences along with multi-touch interfaces, will certainly determine the relevance of Flash in the years to come.

Footnotes

1. See Adobe statistics on Flash Player downloads.
2. See Roughly Drafted’s analysis.
3. See A List Apart’s analysis.
4. See Cabel Sasser’s Twitter which claims dibs on this observation.
5. See the profile of Walt Mossberg in the New Yorker.
6. Speculative, but based on reliable, but undisclosed interactions with Adobe. Also, see Bill Perry’s entry on the subject.

Article to be published on Adobe Developer Center

Packing Lite: Getting Started Designing Interfaces for Mobile Media

I wrote an article/tutorial for Adobe’s Developer Center to be published at the end of August covering how to get started designing interfaces in Flash Lite on Nokia Series 60 devices. It details how to get equipped for mobile media design using Flash and the Flash Lite platform, install Flash Lite content on Nokia S60 phones with Bluetooth or Nokia’s PC Suite, discusses the unique interface design challenges, and looks at an example, highlighting the issues.

Stay tuned, as I’ll be sure to post the link to the article when it goes live. Article pushed live at 5 PM PST, August 17, 2007←