Small Demons and the Indexing of Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography captures some of the mystique and intrigue of a visionary who was set apart by not only his personality, but his exquisite tastes and passion for excellence. His personal likes — minimal and beautifully designed products — pertained to brands like Mercedes and Braun. His love of Bob Dylan eventually saw the sale of a $199 box set in the iTunes Store. Of course he was a film critic, making business deals during his time at Pixar while providing colorful commentary on the works of Disney.

The book is full of references related to his personal life and Apple’s, from the places he traveled through the development of the iPod and more. All of this documentation — newspaper entries, advertisements, and even the things Steve Jobs interacted with — is being preserved and shared online in a visual browser.

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Apple: “We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5”

For the past few days, the Internet has been alive with concerns about Carrier IQ, a tracking technology that captures information such a key presses, web site addresses, and more without asking for your permission. It is an intrusive technology buried within smartphone software, and one that carriers have been quickly responding to due to the seriousness of a privacy invasion. While Google flatly denied that their flagship phones such as the Galaxy Nexus harbor such software, other Android handsets have been found with Carrier IQ installed and running in the background.

Late last night, early iOS software releases came under fire as references to Carrier IQ were found in iOS 3.1.3 and the more current iOS 4 and iOS 5, although it couldn’t be determined how active the tracking-ware was or exactly what information it sends. Carrier IQ, however, may only be used when the phone is when diagnostic logging is enabled. Apple made an official statement this afternoon to address the concerns:

Apple’s statement:

We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.

[via All Things Digital]

iOS 5.1 Beta Blocks Shortcuts to System Settings

Shorcuts

Shorcuts

I manage bluetooth constantly on my iOS devices, thanks in part to the JAMBOX. Jeff Broderick’s iPhone Settings Shortcuts provide a much needed shortcut to Bluetooth settings that are otherwise buried. Where iOS doesn’t provide quick access to much beyond volume and brightness sliders, Android has always an advantage when it comes to managing settings between widgets or toggles in the notification tray. Being able to turn off the 3G signal and leave my phone on Wi-Fi was something I did in the evenings with my Droid to avoid late night phone calls and text messages, while still receiving incoming email and Twitter notifications to read in the morning. A silent phone’s display will still light up when rang.

As of the iOS 5.1 beta that was recently released, Apple’s blocking access to the Settings app through these Home screen shortcuts. Clearly I’m not a typical iPhone user, but even if I was, so what if I want to clutter my Home screen with harmless shortcuts? I don’t understand the motivation to kill off a feature like this unless it’s a security concern.

These setting shortcuts are great because they provide a clear and easily labeled path to things I want to change or manage. I can’t say the same about the Settings app, especially if something is buried in a submenu under ‘General’.

iOS 5.1 isn’t final yet, but there’s a pretty good chance system setting shortcuts are going to remained blocked. If these kinds of shortcuts are important to you, then you may want to hold off on the update when it’s seeded to the public.

[Cult of Mac via TiPb]

ZeroNinetyNine’s Mac App Store “Bundle”

Here’s a unique offer for all you bundleheads — ZeroNinetyNine is offering “The First Mac App Store Bundle” today only. Since the Mac App Store doesn’t allow apps to be bundled and sold together, ZeroNinetyNine has found a unique way to do so by designing a holding page with all the applications in their “bundle”. Several independent developers have simultaneously dropped the price of their apps for one day sale on Mac App Store for just 99¢ per app.

One could find these price discounts by searching the Mac App Store and our own MacStoriesDeals posts, but what fun is that? Well, actually our MacStoriesDeals is great if I say so myself! ZeroNinetyNine has done the hard work for you and presented it in a well-designed page.

The apps that are included in this one-day 99¢ sale are MacPaw’s Ensoul and Hider, Coppertino’s Focus, and Apparent Software’s Blast Utility. Other apps included are Alarm Pro, Inpaint, Compartments, iResizer, Virus Barrier Plus, Washing Machine and Intego Backup Express.

ZeroNinetyNine has done a great job coordinating this independent “bundle,” there are many great apps at a great price — 99¢ a piece. This is not a one time affair either, ZeroNinetyNine will be doing these types of bundles once a month.

Gradient for Mac 1.0 Giveaway

Back in September we showed you a beta preview of Gradient by JUMPZERO. As I said before, it’s a simple yet powerful Mac app that lets you easily create CSS gradients with a beautiful user interface. Gradient was officially released yesterday and the JUMPZERO team has a little surprise for MacStories’ readers.

Gradient 1.0 is well polished for a 1.0 release — their time and effort really shows. Since the beta stage, JUMPZERO has improved some of the UI elements and improved the overall user experience. It will be a great tool for web designers looking for a simple yet intuitive way to create CSS gradients. Gradient is now in the Mac App Store for an intro price of just $4.99, get it here.

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Twitterrific 4.4.3: With More Polish!

It’s been a while since we’ve covered what Ollie’s been up to in his spare time. Twitterrific 4.4.3 — a combination polish & maintenance release — launched this afternoon on the Mac and iOS App Stores. There’s a couple of new improvements here, especially in the iOS edition that’ll delight some and confuse others. So what’s in the rundown? Lots of stuff.

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