techcrunch.com

Here is Apple’s statement to CNN earlier today:

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”

Oh, fuuuuck. They really are ruling the App Store by reacting to whatever catches the blogs’ attention. A lot of morons called it porn because it had female nipples, so — poof! — the app is gone.

It’d be one thing if Apple didn’t have a rating that accounts for sexual content, but it does. So clearly it expects some apps to have “”Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity” in the store. But according to its statement, it won’t allow for them. […]

The App Store approval process has basically been a joke for much of the past year. I was hopeful it would get better now that parental controls are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Apparently, I was wrong — it looks like it’s getting worse.

Ditto. And I just reuploaded the Web is Pink application yesterday, after recompiling it to be 3.0-only (since 3.0 introduced parental controls). Now it looks like, even if I somehow finally got the app approved, it might just be pulled if it ever became too popular. That’s just awesome.

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— La question c’est plutôt pourquoi l’iPod et l’iPhone ont réussi à trouver le succès alors que les gens semblent toujours préférer les solutions les plus merdiques.

— Oui, je me demandais pareil. Peut-être c’est une question de seuil.

— Noon ! Je viens de comprendre !
C’est parce qu’iTunes sous Windows est une daube !

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Reçu hier soir pour m’accueillir de retour de Normandie, un deuxième mail :

Your application, Web is Pink, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

Ce qui est intéressant, c’est que ce mail a été envoyé en-dehors du processus normal de validation — je sais par le site qu’ils ont testé l’application la semaine dernière, pas hier — mais le lendemain de l’annonce officielle des contrôles parentaux sur l’iPhone.

Je me remets donc à rêver qu’elle soit enfin validée au moment où l’OS 3.0 amènera ces contrôles parentaux dans l’App Store mobile. Rendez-vous ici dans dix jours pour voir mes espérances anéanties.

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J’espère bien qu’elle ne restera pas gratuite à terme, parce que ça serait vraiment la fin de Snap Filters. En tout cas, vous devez absolument charger Mill Colour tout de suite, avant que les développeurs changent d’avis.

La seule chose qui manque est une vue des filtres sous forme de vignettes plutôt que devoir passer d’un filtre à l’autre séquentiellement, mais les effets sont superbes (n’oubliez pas d’aller dans l’application Réglages si vous voulez enregistrer vos photos en pleine taille).

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Well, that’s the second time Apple schedules a keynote just as I’m in Smallville celebrating a birthday in the family, and… once again, I wasn’t missing much.

MacBooks

Nothing much to say here, except that the laptop range finally makes sense again; also, I want one of each. Damn, the MacBook Air is available for 1,400 euros.

MacBidouille has an interesting theory that they’re adding the ‘Pro’ label to save face while putting Firewire back, and they’re keeping the plastic MacBook alive because of the economic crisis — but I think I have a simpler version of events: Apple engineered the aluminum 13-incher, and were very happy with it, but they never managed to lower the costs enough to reach the $999 price point, so they kept the white model alive and either didn’t think to name the aluminum one ‘Pro’ because that wasn’t the original plan, or didn’t want to because they thought it would be temporary; and either they still couldn’t get it down to $999 now, or they realized a bit late that there was nothing wrong and everything right with having both a MacBook and a MacBook Pro at this end of the line.

As for Firewire, I think it could just as well be completely unrelated. Apple has learned to fix mistakes these past two years; they’ve done that several times on the iPhone. (And they just did with Safari.) Besides, regardless of strategy or pettiness or whatever, it’s just great news that Apple has heard the complaints and will now leave Firewire alone for a little while. Let’s just celebrate.

Snow Leopard

We already knew almost all of it, and I’m not going to get very excited anyway because I’m not eligible (unless I gut both my iMac G5 and Intel mini and make a single FrankenIntel out of them).

I like that Exposé is finally more structured; funny that, for all of the (classless) digging at Windows in the keynote, the Exposé-from-the-Dock feature is just about lifted from Seven (or is it Vista).

The price is a tad lower than it could have been, which is nice, but I’m a little sad that Apple now starts selling OS X upgrades that check what system was previously installed. Welcome to Microsoft’s world, where you have to install the previous OS again if you’re going to reinstall from scratch on a new hard drive. Sure, it’s not as horrible when it’s OS X’s almost one-click install, but as a matter of principle it’s just the end of an era. And who’s going to buy the Tiger-to-Snow upgrade anyway?

Safari 4

Who woulda thunk that Apple was equipped to listen and react to the complaints of beta testers? Personally, I’d rather they hadn’t, because I didn’t mind the tabs at the top and, more importantly, the slightly redesigned tab bar is just fugly (the bottom of the active tab looks like it’s been chopped off), but the public had spoken loudly and clearly.

The new loading spinner is pretty — I’m choosing to assume that Apple had some kind of a reason for going from a progress bar to an undeterminate spinner, and couldn’t or wouldn’t undo that — but I’m not sure about the way it changes colors to become more subdued once most of the page is displayed; isn’t it just as important at this point to know that there’s still something loading? In fact, it mostly depends on what Safari means exactly when the Loading bar turns gray; page loading is too fast for me to investigate what the criteria are, and what might still be loading at that point, but, if the Loading goes from blue to gray as scripts are still loading — or if it does before the <body onload> is triggered, and that’s likely — then I’d consider it a mistake, because on some pages that’s when you’re most going to need to know that loading isn’t quite finished.

iPhone 3.0

Once again, we knew almost all about it; and the reason I’m most impatient to see it released is that I want to see if my gay chat app is finally approved once parental controls are live.

I find it hilarious that tethering and MMS will not be available right away on AT&T; I’m not sure whether it’s been rumored or announced, but everybody’s talking about a 30-euro “unlimited” data plan for France, and that doesn’t seem half-bad — another thing that makes me pine for an Air. I like that it can work either over Bluetooth or USB; I don’t like so much that it’s going through iTunes, but I’ve come to accept that the iTunes department of Apple is a metastized tumor eating all of the company from the inside and you’ll soon — oh, wait, I just realized that Snow Leopard lets you edit and upload video in QuickTime X rather than in iTunes. Amazing.

iPhone 3G S

I cannot imagine that Steve Jobs signed off on that name. Sure, they had painted themselves into a corner when they called the previous generation “3G” but… “3G S”? That’s the most cumbersome product denomination Apple has had since Jobs came back — and it just happens to be introduced while he’s away?

“Pro” could have been the opposite of “Home” or “Fun” or whatever; but would you mind telling me what “iPhone Speed” is the opposite of, and how on earth is Apple okay with calling last-year’s model utterly non-speedy while still selling it as an entry model? How was “iPhone Video” not a better choice?

On the flip side, that leaves “iPhone Pro” available for an upcoming device with a physical keyboard. It certainly doesn’t imply that they do intend to launch one, but I’d say it does mean they are working on prototypes, and haven’t yet decided to completely shut that option down.

Stupid name aside, I want this thing (obviously). I’m really curious to see how Apple is going to manage having one App Store serving too devices with vastly different performance (poorly, probably), and I like the implication that the existence of “oleophobic screens” has on the possibility of touch-screen Mac laptops and desktops.

I can’t wait to try the camera and see how well that autofocus works; from where I’m standing, it sounds absurd that, according to what I read, your selected focus point is also used to determine white balance and exposure. Unless Apple assumes that you’ll always focus on people’s faces, it seems much worse to me than just using the whole frame. I also want to see the video capture and editing app for myself; and I can’t really believe that they couldn’t have added voice command on OS 3.0 for all phones. With autofocus photo and video capture, it seems to me Apple didn’t need to pad out the 3G S’s appeal by restricting voice command to the new model, but I’m not the one paying their bills.

Speaking of, it’s funny how many people seemed to expect that Apple and carriers would forever offer unmissable bargains for iPhone users to upgrade their phone each year. Guess it didn’t stick in people’s minds that last year was an exception, and network providers had great incentive to subsidize the new devices, because it let them get out of the original contract that gave Apple a share of the subscription revenue; Orange hasn’t announced its plans yet, but I don’t expect to be able to afford a 3G S very soon, as much as I’d want to. (And kinda need to, actually, because I need to make sure my applications work with it. Ooh, that’s a nice excuse.)

The worst part is that France has broken the exclusivity deal with Orange, so that I can’t even sell my old 3G unlocked to someone who’s stuck with another carrier — or at least not at any price that would make it painless for me to upgrade.

I knew that would happen; many people chose to hope against reason. Welcome to the world of smartphones.

One More Thing

Well, now… how about that rumor that Apple was saving a major announcement for Steve Jobs to announce in a keynote when he returns? This week, Apple certainly did announce everything that was expected of them, and nothing more; they sure could have saved something big for the end of the month.

Or, you know, maybe we just had another one in a growing number of unventful Apple keynotes.

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A l’origine, j’avais l’intention de lancer Snap Filters gratuitement pendant quelques semaines, puis changer le prix, mais Apple m’en a empêché. Maintenant que je suis autorisé à publier des applications gratuites, et puisque j’ai eu du mal à obtenir que les sites de test d’applications iPhone s’intéressent à la mienne (parce qu’il y a déjà tellement d’applications de ce type), il est temps de revenir au plan de départ, et rendre l’application gratuite pendant quinze jours — pour fêter le beau temps (si vous êtes dans l’hémisphère nord).

L’intérêt de Snap Filters est qu’il produit des images intéressantes à partir de l’appareil photo merdique de l’iPhone, et qu’il a une interface simple et assez rapide qui vous permet de passer les filtres en revue et choisir ceux qui mettront le mieux vos images en valeur — je trouve qu’il est plutôt plus pratique et plus stable que beaucoup de ses concurrents, mais d’une façon subtile qui est difficile à mettre en évidence sans pouvoir tester l’application par soi-même.

C’est pourquoi vous devriez charger Snap Filters tout de suite sur l’App Store, parce que l’application est gratuite jusqu’au solstice d’été. (Si elle apparaît payante, réessayez dans quelques heures.)

Et n’oubliez pas de lui mettre un classement sur l’App Store.

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This article just helped me formulate why I don’t like John Gruber as a person: lack of empathy. (Not that it’s rare among geeks, which is why nobody minds.)

I’m in the middle of my own battle with App Store reviewers — a battle not nearly as famous as those quoted in Gruber’s article — yet I’m able to realize that spending your days reviewing apps in ten minutes isn’t a fun job, nor necessarily a power trip; and organizing a whole department of people reviewing apps in ten minutes is an even worse job; and that it all stems quite inevitably from the original decision of having Apple approve apps for publication; and that this original decision wasn’t unequivocally wrong, either.

But it’s so much more fun equating reviewers to nazis (or Stasi officers, so that you remain one step removed from Godwin’s Law) and getting linked and retweeted all over the place.

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I’m receiving Facebook mails with links to “.be” sites which are obviously nefarious. The subject line of the mails is “Look at This”.

If you receive such a mail, DO NOT click links to the following sites: goldbase.be greenbuddy.be silvertag.be picoband.be

In 2009, a prominent tech blog (moreover, a blog that specializes in web 2.0 news) is still in the business of posting 1999-style panicked security warnings about “do not click links to this very specific list of sites” (or to a whole country’s TLD, in this case) as if those sites were going to self-destruct your computer, instead of simply writing “always check that you’re actually on facebook.com before you type your password, morons.”

As I’ve already written, part of it is Facebook’s fault for encouraging you to type your password anywhere and everywhere (latest case in point, iPhone apps), but I’d still expect Cashmore to show a little more discrimination than my mother does when she forwards warning e-mails about urban legends. You can’t be secure by relying on a blacklist of domain names you mustn’t click.

(Note that this is also the strongest case against framing outgoing URLs, Facebook- or Digg-style — but I just checked, and links in Facebook messages aren’t framed, so it doesn’t apply in that case. It shouldn’t be too hard, though, to manufacture a fake Facebook login page framed within a facebook.com frameset.)

P.S. Love this comment:

I got one from pinkamigo.be and very stupidly clicked on it. i have no idea what i was thinking. once i saw what opened up in my browser i shut my computer down…. I did a SpyBot S&D scan and a Windows Defender scan and chanced my FB password…. I hope that’s good enough.

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The original EDGE iPhone and iPhone 3G use the same 400 MHz processor. Let’s say the rumors are right — and I believe they are — that the next-generation iPhone’s CPU will be running at 600 MHz. In the same way that, say, a 90 MHz Pentium was more than 1.5 times as fast as a 60 MHz 486, the 600 MHz CPU in the next iPhone will be more than 1.5 times as fast as the current 400 MHz iPhone CPU.

That’s what I already assumed as soon as the first rumors came out about the new CPU speed. The iPhone has been out for two years; it’s past time to switch to a new generation of CPUs.

Plus, there ought to be changes in the GPU as well, I suppose.

Industrial design changes will be subtle, perhaps very subtle. I expect that cases designed for the iPhone 3G will continue to fit the new iPhone, and that the only colors will remain black and white.

Hmm. Most people won’t upgrade just because it’s faster or for a 32GB version — or even because it does video. Those are nice plusses for new customers, but I don’t think it’s going to make me switch. Give me a hardware keyboard! Don’t you want to kill Palm?

Gruber is usually pretty reliable, which is why I tend to take these rumors/speculations more seriously than a TechCrunch article; the only thing I have trouble believing is that Apple would fit an autofocus lens in the iPhone’s form factor. I know that there are concepts of fluid lenses or whatever, but I’d be surprised if there was anything reliable and affordable enough to be embedded into Apple’s flagship product this summer. (And it doesn’t matter so much, because focusing isn’t the foremost problem with the iPhone’s camera.)

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Your application, Web is Pink, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

D’après une recherche rapide, il n’est pas impossible qu’ils soient vraiment surchargés, mais il est bien plus probable qu’ils en aient juste eu marre de rejeter mon application et qu’ils aient décidé de la bloquer indéfiniment — ils ont envoyé ce message tout juste dix minutes après l’accusé-réception de ma réponse à leur dernier mail refusant mon application.

On ne croirait pas comme ça que j’ai payé pour publier des applications iPhone.

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Well the New York Times, one of the most respected newspapers of our age, claims The Smartphone That Saved Palm (despite their denials) is due in the first week of June.

I can’t believe that rumor’s going to turn out to be true. To be sure, there is no right time for Palm to launch the Pre (as I’ve said before, the extent of the Pre’s failure will depend solely on whether Apple announces an iPhone with a keyboard, and possibly background processes) but I’m fairly certain that WWDC week is the worst possible time.

There was speculation in one of the latest TWiT podcasts that Palm hoped to get throwaway lines at the end of all media reporting about the iPhone — “Meanwhile, Palm is hoping to take on the iPhone with its new Pre smartphone.” I know there’s supposedly no bad publicity, but I don’t see anything positive about that strategy.

Unless they’re sacrificing the Pre (which is said by everyone to be crappy hardware) and counting on the fall’s launch of WebOS-based Centro to make things right.

Or they’re just panicking.

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Basically, my source says that while this is in no way a done deal yet, Apple is definitely trying to come up with a way to offer background support for third-party apps. They went on to note that while Apple may have something to say about it at WWDC, it’s very unlikely that any solution would be ready at that time.

But… once you’ve accepted the premise of allowing background processes, how hard can it be to implement? I never bitched about the lack of copy-and-paste on the iPhone because I acknowledged that finding the right interface for it wasn’t trivial; but I don’t really feel the same way about multitasking.

I think jailbroken iPhone have a perfectly valid interface for it, and there are a few alternatives that are just as valid, but I don’t think it should take a full year to choose one (or several).

And the new iPhone hardware is likely to have a better processor and more RAM, which would alleviate system strain, so it’s also possible these background apps would only be possible with the new hardware.

I wonder if App Store apps will be allowed to target specifically the new hardware; if they’re not, then the new iPhone will indeed be able to run several apps without breaking a sweat, like running several virtual iPhones inside.

But many existing customers would declare war on Apple if background processes were exclusive to the new iPhone. Besides, most background apps won’t be CPU hogs (except those that are poorly programmed); it’s mostly about online presence and that just takes a couple of cycles.

So why is Apple talking about this now? Well one part may be the new hardware that should be coming shortly, but another is undoubtedly the imminent launch of the Palm Pre.

Is he saying that Apple is now in the business of intentional leaks? That’s a slippery slope. Leaking stuff to the Wall Street Journal on Keynote Eve to prepare the more conservative audience was one thing, but promoting rumors about vaporware to counter the launch of a competitor (and one which is already doomed) is definitely Microsoftian.

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Thank you for submitting Web is Pink to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Web is Pink and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

Attached are screen shots of some examples of objectionable content.

Comme je l’avais dit, c’est tout juste si l’application n’ignore pas complètement le concept-même du sexe. Enfin, il y a bien le mot “sexe” sur le troisième screenshot.

Et le quatrième, ça ne vous échappera pas, est une capture de Mobile Safari — parce que les profils incluent un lien vers la version web, celle qui n’est pas censurée :

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Thank you for submitting Web is Pink to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Web is Pink and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

No screenshot of the objectionable material attached this time… probably because I’ve removed all sexual content from the version of the web app that’s accessible from within the application. It hardly “acknowledges the existence of sex” anymore, as Ira Glass would say — meanwhile, there are still cock shots on aka-aki and Grindr, of course. Bite me.

I’m taking a break until iPhone OS 3.0 is out and the App Store gets parental controls. Or I’m re-uploading as is, in case I get more lucky with another reviewer. Not sure.

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Je ne vais pas faire un test détaillé puisque vous allez tous l’installer de toute façon, mais juste noter deux critiques : le fait d’afficher le profil de l’utilisateur quand il clique sur la barre d’en-tête rend plus difficile de cliquer sur la barre d’état pour revenir en haut de la liste ; et, dieu seul sait pourquoi, après avoir cliqué sur un tweet pour le sélectionner il faut glisser latéralement dessus pour le déselectionner, ce qui est absurde, parce que ce geste signifie “effacer.”

Je n’aime pas du tout qu’il ait fallu la sortie, et le succès, de Tweetie pour qu’ils réalisent finalement qu’ils devaient améliorer leurs vieux clients Twitter pourris, mais je suis tout de même très curieux de voir à quoi va ressembler Twitterific 2 sur Mac.

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I just noticed this afternoon that TechCrunch’s tweets used “tcrn.ch” as a tinyurl domain, and I thought it was an awesome idea: the ultimate branding, and no more relying on an external service to be around when people want to click a link. (The Twitter crowd still remembers the great crisis when tinyurl.com was down a week or two ago. Who am I kidding? The Twitter crowd remembers nothing that happened more than 24 hours ago.)

Well, in TechCrunch’s case, it turns out to be the exact opposite: completely stupid. They’re paying an external service (or using that paid service for free in exchange for today’s article) and leaving the domain in their care (assuming they did buy it themselves, at least) — so that, instead of relying on tinyurl’s reliability, they’re relying on someone else’s.

Geez.

It’s not like it’s difficult to add a tinyurl system to your blog (when you’re TechCrunch, or you’re an individual geek). Why would someone go so far out of their way to relinquish control over their URLs?

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playareacode.com

Tetris et Sudoku se marient dans ce jeu original et addictif.

Avant de commencer à y jouer, vous allez penser que c’est une simple variante des classiques clones de Bejeweled — whoo, on remplace les symboles avec des nombres !

Mais, comme vous vous en apercevrez très vite alors que vous commencerez à jouer et n’aurez aucune idée de comment vous en sortir, ce jeu est l’un des plus innovants dans la catégorie “faire tomber des blocs dans une grille” que j’ai jamais vus. Et, comme tous les meilleurs jeux, il a un mécanisme de base hyper simple qui résulte dans un jeu particulièrement profond et addictif.

Le principe de base : un bloc marqué d’un nombre disparaît de la grille quand il est dans une groupe contenant ce nombre de blocs. Donc, si vous avez une ligne de sept blocs, dont deux 7, seuls ces 7 disparaîtront. Si vous avez une colonne de quatre blocs avec un 4, un 3, un 2 et un 1 (peu importe l’ordre), alors le 4 va disparaître, puis le 3, puis le 2, puis le 1 (et vous aurez plein de points, parce que ça fait un combo x4).

En prime, parce que ça serait peut-être trop simple, le jeu vous balance des blocs sans chiffre, verrouillés, qui ne révèleront leur nombre associé qu’après avoir été juste à côté d’un bloc disparaissant de la grille. Et, à chaque fois que vous montez d’un niveau, une ligne entière de ces disques gris est ajoutée en bas de la grille — ce qui vous mènera vite à la mort si vous avez une poignée de 1 coincés au-dessus.

Je crois qu’il est impossible de décrire clairement pourquoi ce jeu est si cool (comme vous aurez remarqué, je n’essaie pas trop), donc si vous avez le moindre intérêt pour les puzzles avec des blocs qui tombent, et que vous n’êtes pas allergiques aux chiffres (contrairement au Sudoku, Drop7 est bien mathématique), vous devez absolument charger la version gratuite (lien iTunes). Et vous ne ressentirez peut-être pas le besoin pressant d’acheter l’édition payante (je n’ai pas l’impression que les limitations de Drop7 Lite soient bien restrictives), mais vous devriez quand même, juste parce que c’est un jeu tellement intelligent.

Deux conseils tactiques pour bien démarrer :

• votre toute première priorité est de vous débarrasser de tous les 1 qui apparaissent, à tout prix ou presque

• la deuxième chose la plus importante est de découvrir les nombres cachés dans les disques gris, donc chaque tour où vous ne contribuez pas à en découvrir au moins un est un tour perdu (et un tour perdu vous rapproche du niveau suivant et de sa ligne entière de disques gris supplémentaires)

Dites bye-bye à votre productivité et à votre batterie (je ne suis pas persuadé qu’un jeu de ce genre devrait vider la batterie aussi vite, mais quelle application ne la vide pas, de nos jours ?). Et bonne chance pour vous débarrasser de vos vieux réflexes de Tetris ou Bejeweled, ils ne vous aideront pas du tout ici.

Très fortement recommandé.

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La version 1.1 est en ligne, et devient vraiment intéressante, si je peux me permettre (et si je ne le fais pas, qui le fera) : on peut maintenant augmenter le contraste des images, et il y a une page de présélections pour trouver immédiatement le jeu de filtres idéal pour tirer le meilleur parti de chacune des photos prises avec votre iPhone.

Ah, et j’ai ajouté la possibilité d’enregistrer les photos en plus petit format, pour gagner du temps, si vous êtes sûr de ne pas avoir besoin d’une version en “haute” résolution.

Neuf réglages de luminosité / contraste, 27 filtres de couleur et 18 filtres noir-et-blanc, 9 réglages de vignetage et le choix de couper chaque photos au format carré ou non — le tout dans une interface assez rapide.

itunes.apple.com

Ah, oui, il faut que je pique un caméscope un de ces jours pour faire une vidéo de démo (vu que la vitesse de réaction de l’interface est un facteur important, je ne peux pas faire un screencast d’iPhone Simulator).

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Et moi qui préfère mettre mes clients comme propriétaires des noms de domaine que j’achète pour eux, par honnêteté.

Et moi qui ai une trentaine de noms de domaine chez OVH parce que j’ai voulu utiliser tous mes free’dom avant que mes gros serveurs n’expirent.

J’aurais compris ça d’un registrar de luxe qui présenterait cette sécurité comme un avantage, pour protéger ses clients, mais là on est dans l’excès inverse : mettre des bâtons dans les roues des clients pour ne jamais avoir à gérer de contestations au cas où quelqu’un se ferait piquer un nom de domaine pour cause de mot de passe trop facile à deviner.

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Q: And did you take on the role then as CEO?

Jobs: Well, no, I did not. I was very concerned that Pixar was a newly public company with shareholders, employees, and I felt that - - to my knowledge there had never been a CEO of two public companies before. So I felt if I took the job, the Pixar shareholders and employees would think I was abandoning them.

Q: Mm-hmm

Jobs: And I decided I just - - that I couldn’t do that. So I took the title of interim CEO and agreed to come back for 90 days to help recruit a full-time CEO.

Q: How did that recruitment effort go?

Jobs: I failed.

Q: And when you say you failed, is it that you didn’t find anyone that you thought would be suitable to take on the role?

Jobs: Yes. Apple was not in good shape and everybody knew it and the kind of candidates that we were being offered up by the headhunters were not very talented.

Q: Okay. In other words, not the sort of people who could turn Apple around?

Jobs: Yes.

Q: Okay. So after that 90 days, what happened next?

Jobs: Well, it just kind of slid into the fact that I stayed. I kept the interim CEO title for quite some time, a number of years.

Seriously?

We’re supposed to believe that?

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arstechnica.com

Security researcher Charlie Miller has revealed that Apple is working on a patch for a security flaw he identified in the iPhone’s SMS implementation. The flaw can actually lead to arbitrary code execution, as he explained to Ars last month. […]

The iPhone can be instructed to execute SMS data as code instead of text, and when it executes the code it does so with root privileges and without any interaction from the user.

Wow. That’s completely unacceptable — unlike a browser vulnerability (where you can switch browsers or at least avoid shady websites), or even a port that’s open to probing on Windows (where you can hide behind a router), there is absolutely no workaround for that kind of thing, short of removing the SIM card and turning your iPhone into an iPod touch. How in hell does an iPhone end up running SMS data as root-level code?

(I’d rather the article had an official Apple quote, but I’ll assume a security researcher wouldn’t burn themselves by bragging about such a thing without grounds.)

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appleinsider.com

Not a surprise, considering the price tag, but something to remember for developers. Or, you know… screw iPod owners.

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[Vidéos] Dean Cain promotes IE8

buzzfeed.com

I do not believe that those videos are actually commissionned by Microsoft. Because they’re funny.

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“iPhone 3GS Signal Strength Oddities”

daringfireball.net

Almost immediately after getting my new iPhone 3GS, I noticed that it spent more time connected to the EDGE network, rather than the faster 3G network, than did my prior iPhone 3G. […]

According to Apple, the software behind the status bar on an iPhone 3GS does a better job of showing when a switch from 3G to EDGE has occurred than does the comparable software on an iPhone 3G.

Translation: iPhone 3G was a lying bastard, and now Apple can’t be bothered anymore to pretend that AT&T’s coverage is better than it is. (I mean, there’s no way the 3G’s hardware has trouble knowing whether it’s on 3G or Edge, so it could have part of the software update.)

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wired.com

…and hundreds of other posts with similar titles.

THAT’S. NOT. PORN.

Damn puritans.

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techcrunch.com

…and the article culminates with a nice graphic showing that the 3GS is twelve times slower than the reference MacBook. “Approaches,” right. Damn, I hate journalists.

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“HTC Hero hands-on”

slashgear.com

I’m sure it’s great to have a smartphone with Flash (okay, no I don’t), but the only thing I really care to comment about is: why the hell did they give it a chin again? Is there a single person in the universe that thought it was cool on the G1? It’s even worse on this phone, since it’s thinner.

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techcrunch.com

Gokivo sells for $0.99, but that doesn’t give you access to the biggest selling point of the app: Turn-by-turn navigation. That will set you back another $9.99 a month. […]

Part of that was Gokivo’s somewhat tricky wording when the app first launched. That wording has been cleaned up now, but it’s still not good enough. Basically now you have a series of asterisks on the app page sidebar denoting the most important part of the app: That it’s $9.99 a month to use the turn-by-turn features.

Ungh.

And what else is a bit annoying to a number of developers I’ve talked to, is that Apple is forcing you to charge at least $0.99 to have in-app purchases as an option. As I understand it, this is because Apple wants to maintain a section of the App Store that is totally free.

Oh, that makes sense. But it’s a poor way to go about it.

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“Reseller market for iPhone 3G is a lot like used Macs”

gadgets.boingboing.net

But not in France.

Anyone know for a fact whether unlocked French phones actually work outside the country, or they’re just re-locked to work with the three French carriers?

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“Gmail Makes Its iPhone Web Version More App-Like With Swipe Gestures”

techcrunch.com

That’s another trick I have to steal from them, along with the fancy position-fixed toolbar.

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engadget.com

Reps from the company say that although they’ve been cranking away on getting their SDK in shipshape (the version given out to current devs is apparently very rough), they won’t have anything for a broader audience anytime soon.

I guess it’s hard to bitch about that after I’ve paid to be shit upon by Apple. Uh, and the more relevant thing to say was, the iPhone SDK was only released one year after the phone launched.

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ilounge.com

Quite the definitive writeup of everything that’s new in 3.0.

The iPod and Phone icons also receive minor cosmetic diagonal line background tweaks to bring their designs more in-line with the new Messages icon, for whatever reason.

Yeah, that bugs me.

AutoFill settings can be adjusted from the Safari section in the iPhone or iPod touch Settings app.

Apparently, saving passwords was disabled by default on my phone, so you know where to go if you want to enable that.

New controls can now be found on the Now Playing screen when listening to audiobooks or podcasts. The normal Shuffle button is replaced by a variable-speed playback button allowing the user to select half-speed, normal speed, or double-speed playback, and the center button now provides the ability to immediately skip back 30 seconds.

Very nice. Get that into iTunes as well, stat.

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“iPhone 3.0 Update: 10 Hidden Features”

pcworld.com

In the 3.0 software update, you can now install an unlimited number of application. [Any] apps installed above the 176 that could fit on these pages will not be visible. However, these invisible apps can be accessed via Spotlight.

That’s what I assumed. (Not sure whether they tested it, or just assumed as well, though.)

Because of multiple functionalities for the Home button, this key will no longer force quit unresponsive apps like it did in 2.X software. To force quit an application in 3.0, you have to hold the sleep/wake button at the top until the red power off slider appears. Then you have to hold down the home button to quit the unresponsive application.

That’s just not right. You don’t change such essential controls, making them twice as complicated and three times slower. Especially considering that holding the Home button does nothing at all on anything but a 3G S.

via daringfireball.net

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I think my iPhone's battery status indicator has become completely unreliable since 3.0. #

Retrouvez mes posts en live sur ma page Twitter ou dans son flux RSS.

Install an app to the iPhone, sync, remove the app, sync, download it again on the iPhone to try again, sync — bam, iTunes removed it. #

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There isn't a single Twitter client that just works right, and when Tweetie still growls three-month-old mentions at launch… GAROO SMASH! #

Retrouvez mes posts en live sur ma page Twitter ou dans son flux RSS.

Testing Palringo. Disconnects from my computer when I launch it on the iPhone. What's the point of an IM client on the cloud then? #

~

With all my contempt for the Flash plug-in, it's hard to blame Adobe when WebKit takes 100% CPU to render a single animated gif. Pathetic. #

~

Reading Greg Egan's Diaspora: Why don't virtual worlds all have spaces that expand to accommodate the number of people inside? #

Retrouvez mes posts en live sur ma page Twitter ou dans son flux RSS.

Blogging protip: Everyone uses Google Reader nowadays and it makes long articles full of images a huge pain; please rediscover "read more." #

Retrouvez mes posts en live sur ma page Twitter ou dans son flux RSS.

Wow, there's a single confirmation to delete a Twitter account and it doesn't even ask for your password. #

~

Ah, that would be because deleting your Twitter account doesn't actually delete anything, and it doesn't free up the e-mail address. #

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Twitter protip: Spare me the cookie-cutter "Thank you for following me" semi-auto message. It's insulting to me and to yourself. #notmyspace #

Retrouvez mes posts en live sur ma page Twitter ou dans son flux RSS.