The Firehouse

YMMV, but I’m very happy with Apple’s Magic Mouse – the absence of a scroll wheel or button is bliss, and the ergonomics, while not as good as some mice by Logitech, are quite good. What I do miss however is the third button, and having other commands via alternative gestures. TUAW even posted an article earlier calling the Magic Mouse a “dog”, in part, due to the lack of a middle button.

Thanks to ifixit.com, we can appreciate that the underside of the Magic Mouse sports a grid of 10 x 13 sensor pads from the logo towards the top of the mouse, and two final rows at the very top, one with 8 sensors and the other with 6:

This gives the mouse the potential to detect one or two fingers placed on it, and the individual motion of each finger, anywhere on the mouse’s usable surface. So, I propose the following gestures. To middle-click (third button), simply place two fingers on the mouse, and click with both at the same time, thus:

To open Exposé or Spaces, place the right finger on the mouse, and scroll up or down with the left finger:

It’s actually quite ergonomic, try it on your mouse, and if you like it, send the suggestion to Apple – if anyone finds a form specific to the Magic Mouse, let me know, otherwise the link points to iMac feedback (as it comes with one). And yes, the images above are taken from Apple’s page and badly photoshopped, my apologies!

So Erick Schonfeld took a shot at the iPhone maps app, which uses Google Maps as its data source, and all other car-mount GPS manufacturers such as TomTom or Garmin, saying that Google should make Apple beg for maps navigation. I don’t agree with much of his post, here is why:

1. Real-time navigation availability depends on the type of license map data is served under, as I explained in a post a few months ago. The map data served by Google to Apple for use on the iPhone does not allow real-time, turn-by-turn navigation, thus, it is cheap and much less money flows from Apple to Google for it. This is explicitly referenced in the iPhone SDK’s licensing terms. Google must be paying a premium on the data it serves on the Android GPS app for this kind of use.
2. A real-time navigation system depends on constant availability of maps, which means online devices, such as an Android phone running Google’s app, must have perfect wireless coverage, in terms of both connectivity and bandwidth, and we know this is next to impossible. A comment on Erick’s post suggests Google caches map data when the route is created, which would be fine…if people followed the route perfectly. Many times, this is impossible for a number of reasons, such as bad routing, roadworks, or heavy traffic. All of these require re-routing, so Google, and any online system, would need to cache also every possible deviation and re-routing from the original path, which is impossible. There is a reason why TomTom’s iPhone app comes loaded with several hundred megabytes of map data.
3. The GPS chipset on mobile devices is not well-suited for high-rate position updates. This is evident if you use TomTom’s iPhone app, and is also evident as TomTom includes a separate GPS chipset in their iPhone car kit, for “…the most accurate positioning“. Since position update rate means battery consumption, and a phone has a ton of battery-consuming electronics on its own, the GPS typically provides less frequent updates than a dedicated GPS device.
4. Dedicated GPS units are best at taking you from A to B, re-routing you within a couple of seconds if you deviate, and showing you the location of speed traps safety cameras and other points of interest (POI). As you go up the price ladder, you are provided with additional functionality, such as voice commands, phone connectivity for hands-free audio and real-time traffic data. On this particular point, I totally agree with Matt Burns on his CrunchGear post, who says of GPS makers: “They are in the habit of producing 78 different versions of the same GPS. Each model steps you up $20 and adds another feature“. But I digress. With such a model, of charging for map updates, or for safety cameras, would they not also be charging for POI data if it was of any real use in vehicle navigation? Like updates to the “Restaurants” category? No, the issue here is that POIs are the least used feature in GPS navigators, and the makers know this. You may occasionally look for the nearest gas station, but that’s about it. If you want to eat something, you will ask around at your destination, or will have looked up options before the trip, but very very rarely do people go looking for stuff on their GPS devices. It’s true that Google makes it a lot easier to access this kind of information, and puts it right there on your face, but nothing will beat a dedicated service such as Yelp, or a dedicated app such as Bliquo (shameless plug for my good friend David Douek, who works there now, hope it helps your SEO at tiny bit!).
5. You can pick up a dedicated GPS unit for almost what you will spend on car mounts and cig-lighter adapter cables. They have faster routing, better planning capabilities, no need for wireless connectivity, and a much better audio output than any mobile phone.
6. You are supposed to be looking at the road while the GPS guides you by voice instructions, not at the GPS screen while it provides you with fancy data and/or graphics. Once you safely stop to look at the GPS, there are much better ways to present useful data, such as POIs, than Google’s interface. Many countries are looking into forcing GPS manufacturers into blanking the screen while the vehicle is moving in order to further prevent distractions to the driver.
7. TomTom, as an example, can add natural voice route requests to their higher-end units via software updates. Some already feature dictated destination input, but its use is clunky and not very useful right now – I bet we will see improvements soon. All it takes is the licensing of a proper speech-recognition engine. Google doesn’t have any major competitive advantage here, other than being the first to implement an (allegedly pending actual reviews) good functionality.
8. TomTom owns Tele Atlas, and Nokia owns NAVTEQ, which combined provide a huge chunk of the map data used by Google Maps. I love you Fake Steve, but you’re wrong on this one – GPS makers are fine, and they know it. Unless Google is planning on re-creating all the map data on their own of course, which is discussed extensively on this post by James Fee, but this would only mean Google would be free from other providers, not crush them.
9. Erick argues that “…the future of mobile apps are Web apps”. I think this is a huge over-simplification – the future of some mobile apps are apps that pull some or all of their data from the web. I regularly use an iPhone app that provides emergency response information on hazardous material (HazMat) incidents – I would be screwed if I had to depend on cellular coverage and a web service for this! We all saw how long Apple’s hard stance on iPhone web apps lasted, and the App Store just broke the 100.000 approved app barrier, so I rest my case.
10. Further from the GPS-centric topic, I’ll question wether Google really developed the Mail and Search functionalities of the iPhone – AFAIK, these are implementations of Mail and Spotlight respectively, can anyone confirm this one?

I read with interest the many articles being written around the USB-IF’s decision to give its blessing to Apple’s use of the USB vendor ID, and claim that Palm’s usage of Apple’s Vendor ID in the Pre violates its policy. Now let’s sit back for a minute, and consider what the USB-IF actually is.

The Implementer’s Forum, as it is know, is made up from various companies that helped develop the USB standard and its newer, faster derivatives. The USB-IF acts as a central clearinghouse that provides USB vendor IDs to manufacturers who wish to use USB ports in their products. Every vendor using USB is supposed to register on this forum and pay its fees, which then gives them the right to use the USB logo on their products, and an individual vendor ID, which combined with a product ID, identifies every device on a USB bus.

In theory, this is sweet and dandy, but in the real world, shit happens. Anyone who has played with hardware peripherals long enough will have seen at least once a device identified by Windows as something else – this happens when a vendor “clones” another vendor’s ID. Some can get away with using the other vendor’s ID and a random product ID, combined with a customized driver on CD. In fact, there are tons of products shipping today which bear the USB logo without paying any duties to the USB-IF, and thus, running with “pirated” IDs.

The only power the USB-IF has is self-regulation. If you want to bear their logo, you need to pay their royalty, and agree to abide to its policies, including non-cloning of vendor IDs. So let’s say Palm gets booted off the USB-IF. They just need to remove the USB logo from their product (if they bear it at all – check your iPhone as an example), and they’re home free. They are free to use Apple’s vendor ID as much as they want, and there is no legal recourse Apple or the USB-IF has. With so much legal power, don’t you think Apple would have sued Palm already if there were grounds for legal action? Rather, they engaged in a technical cat-and-mouse game involving iTunes updates to kill off the attacker.

Personally, I think Palm is in delusion. Making the Pre compatible with iTunes will not make it any more popular that it already is not. And Apple has every right to place technical blocks on the Pre, particularly if they miss-represent the vendor ID. Still, if I was Apple, I would have just ignored the issue. The Pre is not a threat to the iPhone, which is far superior in all aspects (apart from the non-removable battery).

There news have made several rounds already, but there wasn’t any specific guide on how to get MMS and network tethering working on the new 3.0 iPhone 3G firmware, released to developers a few days ago.

Several guides have been posted, but they all more or less copy & paste what is found in the original instructions, for example, CrunchGear posts this but doesn’t credit the original source. It’s not their fault, as these kinds of stories get posted and reposted so much it is hard to know where they originated. Anyway, here is a guide to make your iPhone 3G send MMS and tether on Movistar Spain. All images are thumbnails, click on them to see a larger version.

Warning: Before you start, remove any Bluetooth pairing between your Mac and iPhone – the pairing needs to be done after this procedure in order for the Blueetoth PAN network adapter to be recognized. Make sure you remove the pairing on both your Mac and iPhone.

1. Update your iPhone 3G to firmware version 3.0

Unless you are a registered iPhone developer with Apple, you don’t have access to this firmware. Don’t even ask – if you are a developer, you already know where to get it. Simply extract the firmware image to your desktop or other folder, and Option-click the ‘Restore’ button in iTunes’ ‘Summary’ tab. The rest is self-explanatory. As I’ve reported before, it’s better if you setup your iPhone from a previous backup after the firmware upgrade completes, rather than as a fresh new device.

2. Download the updated carrier settings file for Movistar

For your convenience, download this file, Telefonica_es.ipcc, which contains updated settings which enable MMS sending (not tested receive yet), and tethering on your iPhone. Save the file to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Carrier Support.

The file adds the MMS APN configuration, the tethering mask (-2) to the Internet APN, and various settings that enable MMS and the editing of the APN on the iPhone’s Network Settings.

3. Update the carrier settings

With your iPhone connected over USB, Option-click the ‘Check for Update’ button in iTunes’ ‘Summary’ tab. Browse to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Carrier Support and select the file Telefonica_es.ipcc. The update takes only a couple of seconds.

4. Reboot your phone

5. Enable MMS and send a test message

Go to Settings -> Messages on your iPhone, and turn on the MMS Messaging option:

On your Messages application, you will see a new icon when you write a message:

Tap the icon to bring up a menu which lets you take a new picture, or select an existing one. Results for taking a new picture are flaky, and for me they didn’t work, so I just took a picture using Camera and chose it later:

Type any text you want to add and hit Send. This is the result:

6. Tether your iPhone to your Mac over Bluetooth

First, you need to pair your iPhone. From the Bluetooth menu on your Mac, select ‘Set up Bluetooth Device…’. Choose ‘Any device’ from the options, and follow the normal process, entering the PIN code when requested. After your device is paired, leave the ‘Use this device for networking’ option checked. You will get a message telling you a new network device has been added, ‘Bluetooth PAN’. Go to Network Preferences to see the new adapter:

7. Connect to the Internet

Simply click the Bluetooth menu, and the Connect to Network option in your device name’s submenu:

The iPhone’s screen will shortly show a blue bar at the top indicating you tethering is active:

That’s it! I ran a DSL speed test on the connection, and this is the result:

Quite impressive!

After I wrote about how unstable iPhone OS v3.0 is, I’ve been testing it with a fresh restore, but this time setting up the iPhone from one of my previous v2.2.1 backups, and I have to say that for whatever reason, it is much more stable. There are still some silly bugs, but also some upsides – the graphics are notably faster, particularly in games. So, if you see your 3.0 iPhone too unstable, try to restore it from a backup, it may make things work better.

So I went ahead, ignored all good sense, and updated my iPhone 3G to the new iPhone 3.0 Beta, released by Apple to developers a few days ago (I’m a registered developer, so I have access to the firmware).

The first two restores, which I did not choosing to configure from a 2.2.1 backup, caused the phone to become almost unusable. There were bugs everywhere, such as:

• Headphones not recognized, needing a reset.
• Failed connections to Exchange email accounts, and a few times, the complete loss of contacts and emails on the phone. Connectivity with Exchange is clunky.
• Safari text input freezing.
• Phone not allowing dialing, the keypad frozen.
• Ringtones playing back broken and with awful noises and sparks.
• Slowing down of the whole UI, needing a hard reset.
• Connection to a dock resulted in ‘Accessory not recognized’ messages (yes, I use the latest dock model).
• Screen stuck in the Search page, needing a hard reset to fix.
• All icons on the home screen disappearing, including the dock ones, needing a hard reset to fix.
• The Network options menu gets highlighted in blue for a few seconds until the options screen loads, as if the UI was frozen.
• Sometimes the headphones are not recognized when plugged in, or the phone thinks they are still connected after unplugging them, it seems the plug/unplug interrupt is getting lost somewhere, or not processed.

This afternoon I decided to restore once again, and this time setup the phone from a previous backup. Things are more or less normal so far, some of the bugs above are not happening, although I’ve not extensively tested them. This being a first beta, it leaves out some of the features announced in the keynote, mainly:

• No MMS for now. There isn’t anything special about the SMS menu other than the new icon, and copy/paste (which is awesome, with one caveat). The MMS enable/disable option is present in Settings though.
• There is no paste into Safari. For example, if you get a UPS tracking number through email, try to copy it, then paste into UPS’s tracking site loaded in Safari…nothing happens. Safari seems to just pick a block of content to copy, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to paste into form fields.
• No Notes sync that I can see in this release.
• There is zero information in the documentation about the WiFi auto-login feature. Is it WISPr? Is it some custom thing for AT&T and other partner networks? Time will tell.
• Copying a single photo by holding your finger on it doesn’t work. The popup comes up, you tap ‘Copy’, and it remains highlighted for a few seconds. There is no paste available in, for example, an email after that. You can copy/paste into an email by clicking the action button and selecting the image, then the Copy button.
• Bluetooth tether – while the iAP profile is present, and you can set it up on OS X, the connection to the phone fails. I assume there will be an OS X update to include the iPhone in the DUN devices list.

iPhone 3.0 is very promising, adding features long missed, and long present in other phones, but for now it’s not even a stable platform to develop on. Unless it’s my particular phone that is screwy of course.

These are the specs of a maxed-out Mac Pro in the Apple Store, after the desktop line of Macs has been revamped:

• Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• 32GB (8×4GB)
• Mac Pro RAID Card
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
• Two 18x SuperDrives
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User’s Guide
• AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n
• Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

The price of all this? Just shy of $19.000 – a bargain!

I read TUAW’s review of Vocalia with great interest, went to the App Store, only to find an average 2.5 stars, with the bad ratings being really bad. Before sinking $3.99 into an app like this, I would like to be able to test it, particularly based on the bad reviews. Since apps are wrapped in store DRM, it would be simple for Apple to add a trial mode which gives you say 5 days to test and review an app. They could even make the charge automatic after the trial has expired, unless you have uninstalled the app.

I like iPhoto 09, it brings many cool features to the table. However, the Facebook exporter leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from not being able to push photos to pre-existing albums, as it creates albums with the event name for every photo set you upload, it seems to completely ignore the login credentials you supply.

Case example, I have my own Facebook account, and we have an account for our fire department. Since I was logged into my own account in Safari, entering the department’s login credentials in the plugin was futile – iPhoto wanted to publish photos to my personal account no matter what. When I logged out in Safari and logged back in with the department’s ID, iPhoto took the credentials and allowed posting to the department’s profile. I think this is a rather big bug for anyone using more than one ID in Facebook.

I already wrote about the extreme lack of support for most of Bluetooth’s possibilities in the original iPhone, but it seems Apple has improved things a bit with the release of the iPhone 3G.

Looking over the PICS again, the Phonebook Server Equipment (PSE) mode in the Phonebook Access Profile (PBAP) is now supported, which means that phonebook download, browsing and other functions are available, but not contact uploads, which would require a Phonebook Client Equipment role in the profile. A very clear and simple explanation of PBAP can be found on Microsoft’s MSDN Library.

All this mumbo-jumbo means that carkits such as the Parrot MINIKIT SLIM can download and use the iPhone’s contact list for training-free speech recognition and dialing, which is very cool and works wonders! For those interested, PSE makes support for vCard 2.1 and 3.0 mandatory.

Additionally, Hands-Free Profile 1.5 is also supported on top of the much more limited Headset profile in the original iPhone. They still don’t support inband ringtones, for reasons that escape me, as it’s not like you can steal the ringtones in hi-def over speech-quality Bluetooth. In any case, a good step in the right direction!