Chitika: 38% Of iPhone Users Have Updated To iOS 5

According to a new study by advertising firm and data analytics company Chitika, in the week of October 22-28 iOS 5 adoption rate has jumped to 38% between iPhone users, 30% on the iPad, and 12% on the iPod touch. Chitika, which monitors a subset of web traffic from iOS devices, claims that in two weeks iOS 5 adoption has grown from 20% on the iPhone to 38%, whilst iPod touch users have shown less interest in upgrading to Apple’s latest software update. Furthermore, Chitika data seems to show that iOS 4, which was released last year, is still installed on nearly 80% of the monitored iPod touch user base (63% on the iPad, 58% on the iPhone) with smaller numbers for iOS 3.

To put Chitika’s numbers in perspective, it’s important to understand that the company can’t monitor every single iOS device out there (over 250 million), as its stats are largely based on devices that appear in Chitika’s web logs. However, the percentages reported by the company may still provide a good insight into the upgrade pattern of iOS users after the release of iOS 5. iOS 5 was first seeded to developers in June, and it’s likely that a portion of Chitika’s initial data was made of developers running the latest betas of iOS 5 prior to the public release. On October 12th, Apple released iOS 5 for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch 3rd & 4th gen, alongside iCloud and a software update for OS X. On October 17th, five days after the initial iOS 5 rollout, Apple announced 25 million customers were already “using” iOS 5, with more than 20 million customers signed up for iCloud.

As Chitika and Apple don’t break down their numbers by device model, here’s two more pieces of information worth considering: older iPod touch models given away with previous Back to School promotions won’t be able to upgrade to iOS 5, and the iPhone 4S was released in seven countries on October 14th, running iOS 5 out of the box. In the first weekend, the iPhone 4S topped 4 million sales, more than doubling last year’s iPhone 4 numbers. It’s likely that the success of the iPhone 4S has affected both Chitika’s study (performed between October 22 and October 28) and Apple’s own iOS 5 usage numbers, released on October 17th. In this regard, there may be some truth to Chitika’s report that more iPhone owners have upgraded to iOS 5, especially considering the wide compatibility of the OS with phones released in 2009 and still capable of running the latest version of iOS (the iPhone 3GS).

The numbers posted by Chitika may also be affected by how iPod touch owners use their devices. Back in April, Apple said over 60 million iPod touches had been sold since 2007, and it’s widely believed a large percentage of these units were sold to teenagers and kids too young to own an iPhone or iPad, but still interested in Apple’s iOS platform, especially for games and social apps. Apple itself positioned the iPod touch as a gaming device selling more copies than Sony’s PSP or the Nintendo DS. If the iPod touch demographics are really made mostly by teenagers, a possible interpretation of slower iOS 5 adoption rates is that these users aren’t interested in upgrading to the latest version as soon as possible as other “tech savvy” owners of iPhones and iPads and early adopters. It’s likely that most owners of compatible devices will eventually upgrade to iOS 5, but they haven’t in the weeks following the iOS 5 release.

Last, two other possible factors that may have influenced the upgrade process of some users could be iOS 5’s battery life issues and the lack of a proper jailbreak for iOS 5. As for battery life, Apple has already promised a software fix and iOS 5.0.1 is being tested by developers and select end users. A subset of users may also be waiting for an “untethered jailbreak” for iOS 5 before they decide to upgrade: in April, it was reported Cydia – an unofficial marketplace for all sorts of jailbreak apps and modifications – had been installed on roughly 10-15 million iOS devices, with over 1.5 million users logging into Cydia daily. JailbreakMe, a web-based tool that allowed users to jailbreak iOS 4.3 devices including the iPad 2, was used over 2 million times shortly after its release.

You can check out Chitika’s numbers and full study here. As iOS 5 adoption grows in the next months, so will the number of App Store apps that require the latest version of iOS to be installed, and it will be interesting to see which devices Apple will support with the next major version of iOS – especially the iPhone 3GS, which came out in 2009 and is still available for sale.

Apple Releases iAd Producer 2.0

Apple today released an update for iAd Producer, its developer-oriented design tool that enables easy creation of high-quality, interactive content for Apple’s iAd platform. First released in December of last year, iAd Producer is an HTML and CSS layout application that automatically manages the technologies behind iAd (CSS 3, JavaScript, HTML5) to offer a visual aid in the designing process of rich and animated ads with an easy-to-use interface. iAd Producer allows developers to create and re-use their own page templates and components, manage the structure and flow of iAds for specific iOS devices in a single window UI, and test the results with a built-in simulator.

Today’s update, available here, brings changes in the animation section, an improved editor, project validation and a new Object List. The new Project Validation “automatically checks the size and type of image assets, and that pages and components are configured correctly” and makes sure an iAd has been built correctly before submitting it to Apple; it even checks for possible performance issues and other common errors. The Object List is another handy addition for developers, providing one-click access to all the objects or elements in a single page. Among changes to the JavaScript editor and other performance improvements, iAd Producer’s animation tools let you pick from a library of effects and animations that include wipes, fades, spinning effects, cube transitions and more.

iAd Producer is available for download on Apple’s website. A list of features is available on the app’s product page.

Firefox 8 Officially Released

In late September Mozilla released version 7 of its Firefox browser, and as part of the company’s new fast release cycle we noted a few days after the release that a beta of Firefox 8 had already been seeded to developers. In the article, we noted Mozilla promised Firefox 8 would deliver better tab management, deeper Twitter integration, and new features for web developers.

Uploaded to the company’s FTP servers a few days ago, Firefox 8 has been officially released today, with a blog post from Mozilla outlining the differences from the previous version. As with the Firefox 8 beta, Firefox 8 final comes with an option in the Preferences to load existing tabs (the pages you left open the last time you quit the browser) only when they’re selected. This should improve the browser’s startup times, as it’s no longer forced to reload all tabs upon launch.

Another minor new feature is the addition of a Twitter icon in the app’s search box. Mozilla says “Twitter search is currently available in English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japanese versions of Firefox”, and the new options basically just loads a new Twitter search page for anything you type in the search field – don’t expect Firefox to smartly recognize @usernames or #hashtags, and open Twitter profiles or hashtag pages instead of plain search.

Alongside better handling of third-party add-ons, security and stability fixes, Firefox 8 introduces a series of improvements for web developers:

Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements

  • Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
  • Added support for HTML5 context menus
  • Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
  • Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
  • Improved WebSocket support

As far as Lion support goes, whereas Google updated Chrome to take advantage of the OS’ new native scrolling and full-screen mode, Mozilla’s browser still lacks any sort of Lion integration and support for new functionalities.

To read more about Firefox 8’s new features, head over Mozilla’s blog post on the update. Expect a beta of Firefox 9 to become publicly available soon; you can download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website here.

Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” In Amazon’s Best Books of 2011→

Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” In Amazon’s Best Books of 2011

In a press release published this morning, Amazon has announced the 100 Best Books of 2011, which include Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year and “Top 10 lists in more than two dozen categories”. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is in the Top 10 editors’ picks ranking at #8:

Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs has. In this timely book, Isaacson paints a vivid, compelling portrait that pulls no punches – the end result is satisfying, complete, and gives insight into a man who managed to turn his contradictions into potent strengths.

Last week, “Steve Jobs” was reported to have sold 379,000 copies in the first week of US availability, and 37,000 copies in the UK in first five days of sales. Those numbers didn’t include digital sales for the book, which is available on Apple’s iBookstore as well as Amazon’s Kindle Store. After its release on October 24th, “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson quickly became a bestseller on Amazon, suggesting the bio would be one of the most successful books this holiday season.

Permalink

Apple Store App Updated with Personal Pickup and EasyPay

Two weeks ago Apple began rolling out a new initiative that allowed customers to order products through the online Apple Store and go to a retail store to collect them. Apple quickly trialled the initiative for three San Francisco stores before rolling it out to the rest of the Apple Stores in the Bay Area and New York City. Following speculation that suggested Apple could release an updated Apple Store app last Thursday, and then on Friday alongside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store renovations, the company has released Apple Store 2.0 in the App Store last night, enabling a number of functionalities such as Personal Pickup and EasyPay.

Personal Pickup lets customers decide to order an item online and pick it up at a local retail store. Apple says most products will be available within an hour in the US, although rumors claimed customers would be able to walk into sa store within 12 minutes after the purchase, skip lines and pick up their order. There’s no confirmation of this except that the feature is US-only for most in-stock orders.

Another new feature is EasyPay, a built-in functionality of the app that lets customers complete an in-store transaction for select accessories by quickly scanning a barcode with the iPhone’s camera. The feature is US-only and it requires the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S, and an Apple ID with iTunes credit will be used to complete transactions.

Last, the updated Apple Store app comes with a new order status section in the More tab to track current and previous orders.

This 2.0 update largely falls in line with rumors from the past weeks, focusing on self-checkout and in-store pickups as the main new features for customers and Apple retail employees. These new features are, apparently, something Apple is heavily betting on to facilitate the shopping experience at its retail stores, and they are available now in the free update from the App Store.

Screenshots Show “Panorama Mode” Enabled On iOS 5

Shortly after the first beta of iOS 5 was seeded to developers in June, a series of code strings suggested the company could implement a panoramic photo-taking feature in the OS, allowing users to shoot wider photos with a Panorama functionality allegedly similar to what third-party apps like 360 Panorama and Pano are already offering. As Apple kept seeding more betas and eventually released iOS 5 to the public, Panorama was nowhere to be found in iOS, suggesting Apple wasn’t ready to debut the feature yet.

A series of screenshots posted by programmer and iPhone hacker Conrad Kramer earlier today, however, show the interface and options for what could have been Panorama in iOS 5. In particular, the screenshots show a very simplified UI to take multiple shots in a single camera session “from left to right”. It is unclear whether the design of the functionality was final but Apple decided to save it for a future version of iOS, or if the company decided Panorama wasn’t simply good enough for iOS 5. While Kramer seems to promise a Cydia tweak will be released to easily activate the feature on jailbroken phones, developers can play around with Panorama by manually changing a key on their devices. The resulting image of an iOS Panorama has also been posted on Dropbox showing a far from perfect output, although we can’t speculate on how the picture was taken, or the stability of unofficial, hidden iOS 5 functionalities.

As we mentioned above, those willing to check out panoramic photos on iOS right now should check out Occipital’s 360, which we reviewed here and here. Apple is working on an iOS 5.0 update that will introduce security fixes, better battery life and gestures on the original iPad, but Panorama wasn’t mentioned in the release notes for the new beta software.

Update: Cydia developer @chpwn has already submitted a tweak called “Firebreak” to Cydia to enable panorama mode on iOS devices.

Security Researcher Demoes Bug To Execute Unsigned Code on iOS Devices

Security researcher Charlie Miller, former NSA analyst now working for consultancy firm Accuvant, plans to publicly demonstrate a new security hole that could allow regular App Store apps to download and execute unsigned code on any iOS device. As Forbes reports, Miller, who isn’t new to the Mac and iOS hacking and security scene, plans to detail his discoveries at the SysCan conference in Taiwan next week.

Full details of the security hole aren’t available – Miller is apparently saving the presentation for next week to give Apple time to fix the issue, and the company is indeed already working on an iOS 5.0.1 update – but Miller had a “stealth app” approved by Apple in the App Store to record a video of the hidden “functionality”. The app was called Instastock, and it behaved as a regular stock monitoring app until Miller recorded a video of his iPhone being subject to malicious attacks through the app, which has since been pulled. Apparently, since Apple found out about Miller’s app and YouTube video, he’s also been removed from the iOS Developer Program.

As you can see in the video, the app gets downloaded from the App Store as any other free or paid app. The first time Miller runs it on his iPhone, nothing happens and the app performs as advertised. But as soon as Miller activates the hidden functionalities on his web server, somehow connected to the iOS app, the app “phones home” and starts downloading and executing unsigned code. As per Apple’s technical rules and guidelines, App Store apps can only execute code approved by Apple. Yet with Instastock, Miller managed to make the iPhone vibrate remotely, open a YouTube video, and even download the device’s entire Address Book remotely. The app is seen exposing parts of the iOS filesystem, listing installed apps, and presumably giving access to a user’s documents, photos and more. In the video – which we’ve embedded below – you can also watch Miller execute commands remotely (from his computer to iPhone) using a command line interface.

Apparently, the hack has been made possible by a flaw in Apple’s JavaScript engine Nitro, introduced with iOS 4.3, that makes a series of system exceptions for Mobile Safari to render web pages faster. Forbes quotes Miller as saying “Apple runs all these checks to make sure only the browser can use the exception,” he says. “But in this one weird little corner case, it’s possible. And then you don’t have to worry about code-signing any more at all.”

Instastock has already been pulled from the App Store, and it’s unlikely that anyone else will figure out the exact bug that Miller has discovered before Apple releases iOS 5.0.1, which has reached beta 2 status and has been reported to introduce security fixes for iOS devices. Apple will likely include a fix for Miller’s discovery in iOS 5.0.1, but  in the meantime you can check out the interesting demo after the break.
Read more

iTeleport Adds “Launch” VNC Voice Command for iPhone 4S

iTeleport, a popular VNC client for iOS that allows users to remotely connect to Windows PCs and Macs, has added a new feature in its latest update that lets iPhone 4S users launch applications just by using their voice. iTeleport, which I reviewed here, has always been a fine app to connect via VNC to OS X and Windows, and recently the app added full Lion support with authentication through the OS’ username and password. Unlike Screens by Edovia, another great VNC app for iOS and Mac, iTeleport doesn’t use its own online service to make computers available over the air, relying on Google logins instead (via Google Talk protocol).

With version 5.2, iPhone 4S owners will be able to open Mac apps by saying “Launch” followed by an app’s name. Once connected to a Mac, the keyboard icon in the upper toolbar of iTeleport will display the standard iOS system keyboard with a compose box on top of it. And because the iPhone 4S comes with Siri and dictation, the keyboard will also have the dedicated microphone icon next to the spacebar. What happens with iTeleport is that if you say “Launch iTunes” through Siri’s dictation, the app won’t transcribe your command in the text box – it will directly launch the app as you can see in the screenshot above. The developers have apparently figured out a way to parse dictated commands directly inside the app to let it recognize installed applications, and launch them in seconds. In my tests, voice recognition in iTeleport has been as good as you’d expect from regular Siri, and app names such as Evernote, Google Chrome, iTunes and Sparrow were recognized instantly.

iTeleport was already a solid VNC app and this new feature will allow iPhone 4S users to save a few seconds when using a Mac remotely. iTeleport for iPhone and iPad can be downloaded on the App Store, and you’ll need the iTeleport Connect app to make your Mac available over the air.

Siri and iPhone URL Schemes→

Siri and iPhone URL Schemes

Alex Heath at iDownloadBlog came up with a way to let Siri launch third-party apps on an iPhone. The solution is far from integrated and it requires some tweaking, and it uses an iOS app’s internal URL scheme (example: fb:// for Facebook) and the Address Book to open apps, provided you’ve asked Siri to visualize a “contact card” with some shortcuts in it. You’re basically creating a fake Address Book entry for apps, and assigning a URL scheme to one of the available fields. Tapping on it will open the app or a specific section of the app.

If you have a select number of apps that you’d like to have quick access to with Siri, you could create a “Shortcuts” or “Favorites” contact and add each trigger. Telling Siri to “show shortcuts” would then pull up your list of app shortcuts to open within Siri.

Many have speculated that, in the future, Siri will gain new functionalities including the capability of launching apps directly from its voice-based interface. But wouldn’t it be cool to ask Siri “Open my Facebook messages” rather than just “Open Facebook app”? Or perhaps ask Siri “Go to my OmniFocus Home project” instead of just launching OmniFocus? And what about creating new content from Siri inside a specific section of an app (a new task inside an OmniFocus project), without actually opening it? That’s why I think URL schemes will be worth keeping an eye on – Apple could offer developers a new set of APIs to associate their apps’ sections and menus with Siri actions, and perhaps revamp the URL scheme architecture to include support for Siri and new APIs. This is just speculation on my side, but I think it’d be interesting to see Siri becoming a new, lightweight interface for basic tasks in external apps.

Meanwhile, if you really want to launch apps using Siri and the Address Book, check out iDownloadBlog’s tips here.

Permalink