Home - Stay N Alive

Path’s Privacy Problems Aren’t Path’s – They’re Apple’s

Posted on February 8, 2012 by jessestay

The world is up in arms about how the mobile application Path, which I covered here as one of the next social networks to watch, has been sending users’ phone directory data back to the service. As someone that knows the founders and trusts what they’ll do with the data, I didn’t give it a second thought, but the concern is valid. I’d like to suggest that the problem isn’t Path’s though. In fact I warned about this before.

4 years ago, back in 2008, as Apple launched their own app platform and directory for developers to the public, the mobile app Loopt went through a similar controversy where it automatically sent an SMS to everyone in the user’s phone directory, without their permission. In this case, just like Path, the service assumed that users would be okay with sharing this data in order to make the service better. In both cases, there were many offended that this was happening.

I responded with an article of my own (again, this was in 2008!), suggesting that Apple needs privacy controls on their devices. Before any application can access phone numbers and other sensitive data from the phone, the operating system itself should be warning users that data is being retrieved, and ask the user’s permission. In fact, Android devices already do this to an extent, and services like Facebook do this before any application can access sensitive data about an individual.

It’s hard to believe that Apple has taken 4 years, and still hasn’t implemented any such controls. It’s, to me, not too much of a worry that apps like Loopt and Path are accessing this data, as both apps are good companies run by good people that have good intentions for this data. However, there are many applications out there that may not have such good intentions. In every case, it should be up to the user to decide, and know when their personal data is being transferred to a 3rd party application on their device.

So I’d like to turn the argument back around to Apple, not Path – why are you allowing 3rd party applications to access my data without my permission? It’s time well overdue to give users some control over their sensitive data.

Name a Better Phone

Posted on July 13, 2010 by jessestay

Let’s put all partialities aside.

Currently, I own an iPhone, an Evo (which I’m borrowing through work for testing), and a Pre (my work phone). I have been a Windows user most of my life, and spent 2 or 3 years with Linux on my desktop. In the PDA days I ran a Palm Pilot, a Handspring Visor, and a Dell Axim (Pocket PC) device. In all honesty I don’t care what the brand of the device is that I use – I care that it gives me the best experience for my money and will provide the same for my family. At the same time my experience may be different than yours. You may need something cheaper. You may not need a camera. You may just need the phone features. All these factors go into the purchase of a cell phone.

Yet, when Consumer Reports says that it can’t recommend the iPhone 4 as a whole simply because of one feature, when it rates it higher than the competition on every other test, I call foul. Something’s fishy in this review.

Partialities aside, when you rate phones, as a whole, feature-by-feature, side-by-side with the other phones that I own, the iPhone 4 still outperforms them, hands down. Even Consumer Reports confirms that. The iPhone 4 takes better pictures than my Evo. It takes better video. The iPhone 4 has so much better screen quality than my Evo. I can edit my movies on my iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 lasts at least 3 times as long in battery life than my HTC Evo. The iPhone 4 has a better, more consistent application experience than my Evo. There’s simply no comparison on those features. The iPhone beats the Evo in user experience and simplicity (My 2 year old has issues with the Evo – he has no problem with my iPhone). It has better parental controls. It has a much smaller, easier-to-hold form factor. It has FaceTime, and before you say the Evo has apps that do that, the Evo has not integrated it into its Operating System and phone book, and that’s a huge difference.

Now let’s look at the Evo. True, the Evo does have better call quality. That’s perhaps the one advantage that matters to me. The Evo has better Google Apps integration, although that’s not as big a deal to me either since at work we don’t use Google anyway. (and the iPhone 4 is good enough) The Evo has social integration built in, but except for the hard-core techies and Social Media geeks, this simply won’t matter to the majority of the world, and the iPhone 4 has better apps to handle this anyway. What else can the Evo do better?

I know you’ll bring up the issue of Choice. I’ve covered this before – it’s a valid reason, but I ask you to define choice. Can I run my Evo on Verizon, and run Verizon Android phones on Sprint? How easy is it for you to switch services with your Android phone? Can I port my iPhone Objective-C based apps over to the Android marketplace? No matter what, there will always be elements of the OS you can’t port, and there will always be limitations in choice. History doesn’t change, so long as one company is controlling the infrastructure. At the same time, no one is stopping me from Jailbreaking my iPhone to get the extra features I might want, should I want them. Sure, Apple makes it harder, but that’s not stopping people from doing it. There will always be some form of choice no matter what phone you’re using.

I don’t get all the bashing by mostly people that don’t even own an iPhone 4 based on solely connectivity issues. I use my phone with my left hand. Yes, I notice and can reproduce the reduced signal, but it simply isn’t that bad. Especially contrasted to all the other amazing features I get from the phone. Yet at the same time, Consumer Reports admits they didn’t even test it with the recommended case that Apple suggested all iPhone 4 users purchase. Since Apple suggests that to fix the connectivity issues, I would definitely just consider that as part of the purchase price – it’s still a cheap phone!

I don’t understand all the negativity and targeting of the iPhone, asking for recalls and such because of simple connectivity problems. I still think most of the vocal critics are all people that don’t even own the phone. For those that do, go get a bumper, for goodness sakes!

And if you still refuse – I remain to ask: Name a better phone.

When that phone comes I’ll be all over it.

The Virtuous Cycle of Choice and Momentum

Posted on July 11, 2010 by jessestay

Here we go again. We’ve been here before. History always repeats itself.

In the early days of the desktop computer, it was the Wild West. No computer was dominant because they all simply had not been around long enough. The movie, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley”, described this era well, and was a time of company after company innovating, stealing features from their competitors that they lacked, and then their competitors innovating and doing the same. It’s a virtuous cycle that continues to repeat itself even today, resulting in more competition and better technology as a result. As we move from platform to platform this cycle will continue, over and over again, and consumers will always end up, as a majority, choosing the most popular player that provides “choice”, without regard to any potential benefit the less popular player may give them when it comes to a more close environment at the benefit of a better experience.

Microsoft’s Platform: Choice, at the Sacrifice of Experience

As Microsoft began to gain a handle on the market, taking the software route and letting go of the hardware market, Apple, the other consumer desktop player was trying to control the hardware experience, and Microsoft’s business took off. Microsoft was unstoppable, momentum pushing them faster and faster to the point of almost Monopoly. It even got to the point where markets they never even considered competing in, such as the web browser, had no chance because Microsoft had control of the operating system where those markets ran.

Microsoft’s entire platform was about choice. You chose the hardware you ran. You chose the software you ran on it. Heck, the hardware was open enough you could also run other operating systems such as Linux on it. The Microsoft environment promoted this type of mentality, and, like it or not, perhaps was part of the cause and motivation towards the Free Software and Open Source Software movement that is so prevalent today.

Apple’s Platform: Closed, at the Advantage of Experience

During the entire time Microsoft was growing and booming into the company it is today, Apple maintained its consistency. It wasn’t going to give up the tightly-integrated hardware and software experience at the risk of losing the full experience Apple was known for. When you bought an Apple product, you knew the software on the product was going to work well with the hardware it was built on. The software was designed specifically for that hardware. In return the customer got an experience that made that customer the die-hard Apple fanboy you see today. They gained a loyal, devout following as a result, “The Cult of Mac”.

The Cycle Continues

So here we are today. It took an entirely new device to start the cycle over again – a music device, the iPod, which eventually turned into a phone and Apple was able to gain control of the music industry in the process through iTunes (which is, in essence, a cloud based product that downloads files to your computer). This gave them the advantage they needed to innovate and bring new customers in at a faster rate than ever before.

Soon competitors emerged. Palm released WebOS. Google released Android. Microsoft released the Zune and will soon be releasing Windows Phone 7. Now we are in an exactly similar battle we saw in the early desktop days, companies fighting on choice. Companies fighting to gain momentum. The companies who chose choice gaining the most momentum. The companies choosing to remain consistent losing that momentum, but maintaining a reliable reputation and great experience.

Are the Fanboys Learning?

There was a large group of people who chose the consistent, closed, better experience without ever having taste of the choice. This group of people are now tasting that as what used to be neutral ground, Google, has built Android and entered this battle themselves on the premise of choice. Now these users, who were users of both, are being forced to make a choice, and they’re experiencing something they’ve never experienced before: freedom.

I read fascinating posts like Louis Gray’s and his reasons for switching to Android, yet battling to leave Apple entirely, and I notice a struggle to leave that experience entirely. He knows the good taste of the experience Apple provides. At the same time he finally sees the choice the decoupling of software and hardware can provide. He’s finally seeing the advantages of an Operating System embraced by the masses. He’s not alone in this struggle.

The “Choosers” Finally Taste Experience

It goes the other way too though. There are many out there (such as Robert Scoble), myself included somewhat, that finally realized what a beautiful thing Apple was from the iPhone. We went with the masses over to the device and discovered what a beautiful thing having a nicely coupled experience could be. We were brought over to Macs and iBooks and MacBooks and iPads, and were brought to wonder what in the world we were missing in our world of “choice” before.

At the same time we’ve seen the “choice” world. We know what choice means, and we know it means more struggle. We know it means more configuration and more bugs and more problems with the OS not always working properly with the hardware it was installed on. We know not all the applications will have the same consistant experience we get with the Apple experience. We haven’t given it up, but we do know which one we like better.

We’re at an interesting crossroads right now. Right now I carry at all times in my pockets an iPhone 4 and an Android-based Evo. My wife runs a Pre, which I also carried on my person for quite awhile. While, as a developer and blogger, I choose all of them, I always fall back to one. I always fall back to the one that’s most convenient. I always fall back to the one where my applications will be most reliable. I always fall back to the one that works best with the overall experience of technology in my home and in my life. I fall back to the one whose batteries aren’t dead. No matter how hard I try, the Apple experience seems to keep winning me over.

I don’t care if any company has momentum. I’ve stopped caring about Choice. In the end it’s about efficiency. It’s about productivity. It’s about what makes me the best person I can be and what I can feel most comfortable using with the least amount of effort. It’s about “choosing” the best experience that I know will continue to be reliable over time, and has a reliable track record in doing so. For this user, at least so far, I will continue to fall back on experience.

Image courtesy http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/10/microsofts-apple-impression/

How to Downgrade From iOS 4.0 to iOS 3.1.3 Firmware on the iPhone

Posted on June 23, 2010 by jessestay

Recently, after the excitement of upgrading to iOS 4.0 this last week, I had need to downgrade again so I could sell it in preparation for my new iPhone 4. There are many others who say iOS 4 is slow on their iPhones and also want a way to downgrade. Previously, there were ways to downgrade if you had the iOS 4.0 beta installed, but since the final release, Apple seems to be verifying new restores, and doesn’t seem to want people to downgrade to the 3.1.3 firmware. You can tell from the long list of support requests in the Apple Support Forums.

I finally found a way to make this work, thanks to combined help from GadgetsDNA and MacLife. It seems that Apple is checking a server at gs.apple.com, and if you previously saved your ECID SHSH certificate to Saurik’s authentication server you can trick iTunes into thinking his server is their own and go through with the install. If you haven’t saved your certificate (you may have done this if you jailbroke your iPhone before), feel free to try this and let me know if it works, but I hear unfortunately there isn’t yet a way to make it work. I hope to be proven wrong.

So here’s what you need to do:

First, you need to trick iTunes into thinking Saurik’s server is Apple’s. To do so, you need to find your hosts file (On a Mac, this is on /etc/hosts. On a PC, this is in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\). Once you’ve found it, edit it, and add the line, “74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com” to the end. This points gs.apple.com to 74.208.10.249.

Next, you need to put your phone in restore mode in preparation for the restore. To do this, just disconnect your iPhone and turn it off (do this by holding down the power button until you see the “power off” slider). Then hold your home button while you reconnect the phone to your computer. Keep the home button pressed until iTunes opens and gives you a message saying you need to restore.

Now, you’re going to need a 3.1.3 firmware file. Here is one for the 3GS. Here is one for the 3G. To load the file, hold down the alt button on a PC, or on a Mac, hold down the alt/option key and click “Restore” in iTunes.

Wait for the restore, and if it works when you’re done, it should reboot into 3.1.3 and you’re done!

For me, I got a 1015 error, so I then went and followed the instructions MacLife to complete the restore process. To start, you need to download iRecovery (I only have the Mac version) and libusb.

With iRecovery downloaded, go to the directory you downloaded it to and type:

./iRecovery -s

setenv auto-boot true

saveenv

fsboot

exit

Now, you just need to reboot the phone and you’ll be back to iOS 3.1.3! To reboot the phone, just hold down the power and home buttons until you see the Apple logo.

Let me know how this works for you. Oh, and do so at your own risk! While I don’t anticipate these steps hurting your phone, I offer no guarantee and there is always a chance doing steps Apple didn’t intend will break your phone.