Late Tuesday evening, Instapaper developer Marco Arment was met with a nasty surprise when some users updating to Instapaper 4.2.3 found that their updated app instantly crashed after opening. Upon investigating and hearing similar reports from other developers, Marco found that the App Store itself was corrupting app updates, leaving users with broken apps and developers with one star reviews from confused and upset customers. Writing at Marco.org, Marco addressed the issue to his audience and began gathering a large list of apps that were also affected, calling on Apple to quickly resolve the problem as developers dealt with the consequences.

On Thursday evening, Apple acknowledged the problem to AllThingsD and Macworld, informing the publications that the issue had been resolved.

Lex Friedman from Macworld writes,

Around 6:00 p.m. PT, Apple acknowledged the problem to Macworld, describing it as “a temporary issue that began yesterday with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded.” Apple added: “The issue has been rectified and we don’t expect it to occur again.”

Customers with affected applications should be able to delete and reinstall a working application through the App Store.

Additionally from Macworld,

Sources told Macworld that Apple will be removing one-star app reviews developers earned unfairly because of the company’s server issue.

As Matthew Panzarino from The Next Web points out, both Apple customers and developers have little to no recourse when problems like this occur. Developers currently have no way of effectively communicating with customers outside of developer blogs.

When the one-star reviews started rolling in, there was very little that developers could do to notify users of their app that it was an issue with Apple’s packaging of their apps, not the apps themselves. The users just saw that the app was crashing on launch and rated it accordingly.

Reinstalling applications also leads to users possibly losing information — Glasshouse Apps’ is still dealing with the aftereffects as the company prepares an app update and advises users on the best course of action that will keep their news feeds and data intact. The developers of GoodReader have also written a step-by-step guide that helps customers back up, reinstall their app, and restore data onto their devices.

While Apple has acknowledged and fixed the issues disrupting application updates on the App Store, they have not yet issued an apology to developers, nor did they want to themselves acknowledge that they’d be removing one-star app reviews apps received because of the error. If Apple should do anything more, they certainly need to reach out and apologize to developers, who’ve unfortunately had to run damage control to prevent one-star reviews and angry customers.

[Sources: Macworld via AllThingsD]

In the last 24 hours or so, a number of apps that have been updated by users have crashed on launch due to a problem presumed to be connected to the App Store’s content distribution network (CDN). A number of popular apps from Instapaper, Readdle Scanner Pro, Angry Birds Space HD Free and CommBank Kaching amongst others have been just some of the affected apps. The issue, not affecting every customer, occurs when a user updates their apps and goes to launch them but instead the app crashes before it can load.

Instapaper was one of the first to be affected by the issue with an update that went live late on July 3rd. Developer Marco Arment was instantly “deluged” by support requests complaining of instant crashes with the latest version. After a bit of digging and looking at his support requests, Marco believes it comes about due to a corrupt version of the updated app being distributed by the App Store CDN in some regions. For Instapaper the issue was resolved (a non-corrupt version propagated to all regions) within two hours but it isn’t known if it was due to Marco’s emails to the App Review team or just an issue resolved with time.

If you’re a developer, and you have a non-critical update pending release, I suggest waiting a few days for this to presumably get sorted out before releasing it. [Marco Arment]

Apple has yet to make any statement on the issue and Marco and the other developers affected by the issue have yet to receive responces from any of the developer relations groups at Apple either. You can view a tentative list of apps affected by the issue over at The Next Web and at Marco’s personal blog which also goes into detail about the issue.

It may be wise to hold off from updating any apps for the time being as well, with the issue affecting people across all regions and all different apps. If you’ve already been affected by the issue, the only real way to fix it is to delete the app and try re-installing the app – but this will only work if the app is no longer corrupted on Apple’s side.

[Sources: Marco.org and The Next Web]

Lion users trying to use Firefox 5 have seen the browser crash when loading a website that uses downloadable fonts, but a fix will be “coming soon” according to the Mozilla team. The bug in question has only been affecting users on OS X 10.7 Lion and as a result there will be a Mac-only update that will bump up the Firefox build number to 5.0.1.

According to Christopher Blizzard, the Mozilla Web platform director, they had alerted Apple to the problem in Lion but Apple did not fix the problem in the GM build released on July 1. Consequently Mozilla has “changed the font APIs that [they’re] using to newer versions which appear to fix the problem. He notes that the bug is serious enough that it is causing “severe crash problems” for Firefox 5 users on Lion.

Mozilla will also be updating Firefox 3.6 to completely disable downloadable web fonts when the browser runs on Lion because of a similar issue. Blizzard also ntoes that under Lion, 3.6 also has “scrollbar rendering issues” and urges users still running that version (which is set to enter ‘retirement’ soon) to upgrade to Firefox 5. If you are already on Lion, you can help Mozilla test the fix by downloading the latest build from the Aurora channel that already includes the fix.

[Via MacWorld]

The commotion over that iOS log file, which can to some extent, track the movements of your iPhone or 3G iPad is definitally not fading away. Bloomberg, is today reporting that South Korea’s communication regulator is investigating the issue to see whether or not Apple is breaking South Korean law.

The Korea Communications Commission has issued Apple a series of questions over what information is collected and saved and whether users have a choice over whether it is saved or deleted. Furthermore it has asked Apple to clarify why such data exists and whether it is at all stored on the company’s servers. The Commission has also been formed to investigate how to increase privacy protection for smartphone users.

Earlier today we reported on an email from Steve Jobs in which he said of the issue “We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.” It comes after US Senator Al Franken last week called for an explanation for the file, saying, “it raises serious privacy concerns”. The researchers who discovered the file demonstrated that the log file in question records an approximate location of an iPhone or 3G iPad based on cellular tower vicinity and is presumed to exist either for battery performance or as a reference for the device. Many believe that it is either a bug or oversight that the device does not periodically delete the log file.

[Via Bloomberg]

Following yesterday’s debate on a file discovered by two security researchers that keeps track of your entire location history in the form of cellular triangulation data stored unencrypted in the iPhone’s backup, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber weighed in to suggest this might be a simple bug or “an oversight” on Apple’s part. He claims that a “little-birdie” told him the consolidated.db file acts as a cache for your location, and it’s not meant in any way to be used by Apple to track your location history and moves; the file is never sent to Apple’s servers, but is kept locally on your 3G device and on your computer — if you decided to back up an iPhone or iPad using iTunes. Moreover, the location data doesn’t rely on accurate GPS information — instead, it uses antennas’ triangulation, meaning that in most cases data can be miles off your actual location on a specific day.

The big question of course, is why Apple is storing this information. I don’t have a definitive answer, but my little-birdie-informed understanding is that consolidated.db acts as a cache for location data, and that historical data should be getting culled but isn’t, either due to a bug or, more likely, an oversight. I.e. someone wrote the code to cache location data but never wrote code to cull non-recent entries from the cache, so that a database that’s meant to serve as a cache of your recent location data is instead a persistent log of your location history. I’d wager this gets fixed in the next iOS update.

iOS 4.3.2 was released last week, and Apple might push a 4.3.3 software update relatively soon to “improve overall stability” and introduce “bug fixes” — as they usually write in their changelogs for this kind of updates. Apple PR hasn’t issued a statement about the discovery of this location tracking system for iPhones and iPads 3G, but the story has quickly made the rounds of the Internet and ended up on mainstream media as well. If it’s really a bug, or an oversight, a software update should be the easiest solution to the problem.

As noticed by several developers and bloggers last night soon after Tweetbot went live in the United States, a strange and curious string started appearing in the App Store’s description pages, under the “Requirements” info tab: ix.Mac.MarketingName. Initially tweeted by Panic’s developer Cabel Sasser, the “bug” has extended to hundreds of other apps in the Store.

This string has lead many to speculate it could be an indication of a new device capable of running iOS apps in the works that’s somehow showing up on the App Store due to a technical error, an old placeholder, or a simple bug on Apple’s end that doesn’t mean anything. Some theories point to “ix.Mac” as an emulator for iOS apps on the desktop — similar to what Apple is already doing with the iPhone Simulator, but for consumers. Others speculate it could be a new device, a sign of universal OS X / iOS apps, or apps finally coming to the Apple TV. The Apple TV second-gen, however, runs a modified version of iOS — whilst the string clearly mentions the Mac.

The most interesting theory we’ve read so far is perhaps looking a bit too much into the placeholder’s name, yet here it is: what if it’s not “ix.Mac.MarketingName” but iX — as in iOS meets OS X?

You can see an example of the string here.

Update: Apple removed the string from every app in the Store. See here.

A thread on Apple Discussions detailing connectivity issues experienced by some users on the Verizon iPad 2 WiFi + 3G model caught the attention of the Internet today as more than 80 replies were posted on the original thread confirming that the issue occurred when turning on / off the 3G signal and trying to get it to work again. Other users reported tricks like temporarily activating Airplane mode on their iPad 2 to “kill” 3G and restart it didn’t work as a solution to re-enable connectivity on the device.

All Things Digital now reports an official statement from Apple, with the company confirming that they’re “investigating” the issues:

We are aware that a small number of iPad 2 customers have experienced connectivity issues with the Verizon 3G network and we are investigating it,” the company said in a statement to Mobilized. A Verizon representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple has been rumored to be wrapping up the release of another iOS update, version 4.3.2, to make it available in the next two weeks. If Apple has confirmed their engineering team is looking into connectivity problems, there is the high chance these issues will be addressed in the aforementioned iOS update, which is going to be focused on bug fixes and performance enhancements for all iOS devices.

A few days ago we reported the FaceTime app on the iPad 2 might have some issues with the cameras “freezing” on the last displayed video call until a user restarts the device. I experienced this problem personally and it’s very annoying, as it forces you to close everything and reboot. Yet the issues with iPad 2 cameras reported by Cult Of Mac (and other users in my Twitter timeline last week, too) certainly are more interesting. Mainly because the screenshots taken to demonstrate the issue are completely crazy.

I compiled some still images from a recording that I made while inside a car wash. I had my iPad 2 in my bag, and I figured that, since I’ve yet to record a video on it, I could just record my trip through the car wash. During the two and a half minutes that I was in there, I noticed that the colors were “glitching-out.” It’s happened three times now.

Apparently the issue hasn’t been fixed in iOS 4.3.1, and it’s unclear whether it’s a software-related problem, a more serious hardware flaw. When I saw the first Twitpics of these crazy iPad 2 shots last week I thought it was an isolated issue happening to a couple of users, now Cult Of Mac says they received dozens of similar reports. I, for one, can say the issue with FaceTime and the cameras freezing is most definitely real, although I can’t confirm on the “color glitching” problem reported above. If you’re experiencing problems with your iPad 2′s cameras, drop a comment below or, even better, open a thread on Apple Discussions.

The New Year broke the iPhone’s built-in alarm clock app. After much of a backlash on the Internet (and too good reason, people depend on alarms to wake up in the morning and, you know, do stuff like go to work) and a temporary fix that involved setting a repeating alarm on the device, Apple then reassured everyone that the bug would auto-magically fix itself on Januar 3rd. That didn’t happen for many, as seen both on Reuters and Apple’s own Discussion boards. If you’re running an iPhone or iPod touch and you still can’t manage to get the device to work with alarms, the solution might be easier than you think.

Several users on Apple Discussions are suggesting that a simple power cycle (reboot) or “soft reset” can fix the iPhone software to work correctly with alarms after January 3rd. By “soft reset” they mean the procedure that involves pressing both the sleep / wake and home buttons until the Apple logo appears on screen. This will force the iPhone to dump its temporary stored files and should fix the alarm clock app woes. If you rebooted your iPhone before today and it didn’t fix the problems, do it again now.

The clock app on my iPhone 4 (with iOS 4.2.1) is working just fine both with single and repeating alarms, but I think a reboot or two happened in these past days. I have a jailbroken device so reboots and “resprings” are very frequent. If you’re still experiencing the alarm issues, you can give the method above a try and report back.