To install the app on your iDevice- launch Cydia, click Manage, Sources, edit, and then Add. Type “http://repo.dailyblogged.com” w/o quotes and allow Cydia to reload. Once it does, click on Search and type in “Daily” w/o quotes. You will have the option to install “Daily Blogged” or “Daily Blogged for iPad.” “Daily Blogged” is for iPhone and iPod Touch users, while “Daily Blogged for iPad” is exclusively for iPads. Once the app is installed, respring your device and you will now have the Daily Blogged app on your spring board. Enjoy!

Original post below

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Daily Blogged, we like to mess around with new technologies and just plain ‘ol cool stuff. Yesterday, my curiosity led me to install the iPhone SDK. I had always wanted to develop an app, and figured it would be cool if it was centered around Daily Blogged. Several hours, plenty of YouTube tutorials, and quite a few test builds later, I had developed a Daily Blogged/Intrepid Mac app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The app, though fully functional, is far from completion.

I am looking for a few individuals with Jailbroken iDevices to test out the app for bugs and report new features they would like in the app. The app has been tested working on 3.1.2 and 4.0, so compatibility on 3.1.3 is highly likely, along with the rest of iOS3. If you would be interested in trying out the app, please leave a comment below including which iDevice you are using and the version of iOS it is running. I will then email you with the details to install the app. The app isn’t yet in a Repo for access from Cydia because it isn’t yet complete, so basic knowledge of SSH is required (I can walk you through the installation steps if necessary). Remember, only Jailbroken iDevices will be able to use the app, due to the way it is installed.

Thanks for the help on the matter, and I look forward to hearing from testers.

[link]

When you first start Seesmic for iPhone, you get the dashboard, which has four boxes with little ‘+’ signs in them, called Spaces. Tapping on one of the Spaces brings up a page where you can add a Twitter, Facebook, or Ping.fm account. You can also add a search, trending topic, or list. Once you reach four Spaces, you can flip to another page, à la the iPhone’s homescreen. You can close or rearrange Spaces by simply holding down on one until they jiggle. To switch accounts, you can go back to viewing all of your Spaces, or you can just swipe from one to the other (similar to TweetDeck’s behavior).

The compose screen has four buttons above the keyboard: photo sharing, location, URL shortening, and clear. You can also take a new photo from within the app. When you select a tweet, there are four actions you can do: reply, retweet, direct message, and share. (Sharing works with Evernote, which is pretty neat.) Settings are controlled through the Settings app. There, you can edit all the good stuff, like photo services, retweet style, and the number of tweets loaded.

I asked Seesmic via Twitter as to when an iPad client might be released, but they haven’t responded yet. We’ll update this post if they do. It’ll be interesting to see how Seesmic fairs against the official Twitter app, which many consider to be the best Twitter app on the iPhone.

Screenshots:

This is a response to the article “10 reasons I’ll be passing on the iPad,” where Debra Shinder details how the iPad isn’t for her. I’ve criticized Deb before. I read her blog and I’m subscribed to her Win7 News mailing list, and I’ve noticed that whenever she talks about Apple, she somehow gets in several jibes. This article was basically a whole list of them, and most are the result of a lack of research and are easily refuted.

1. No physical keyboard

Deb argues that the iPad is inferior because it lacks a physical keyboard. Well, we all knew it would. But Deb must not’ve known about the keyboard dock accessory and the fact that the iPad will be able to pair with any Bluetooth keyboard.

2. One size doesn’t fit all

“If the tablet is going to fit into some gap between the phone and the netbook, the size should be somewhere in between, too. The iPad’s screen is about 10 inches, the same as most netbooks. It won’t fit into your pocket. It’s thin and light, but so are many of the netbooks on the market now. For example, the Sony VAIO X series laptop/netbooks are the same half-inch thick and virtually the same weight (1.5 lbs. vs. 1.6 lbs.). And we’re also starting to see netbooks in the convertible tablet form factor, which is really exciting.”

Deb says the iPad should be somewhere in between the size of a phone and a netbook, which is not how Steve Jobs positioned it in the iPad keynote: as a middle ground between a 13” laptop and an iPhone, which the iPad is with its 9.7” screen. An iPad that’s slightly bigger than an iPod Touch but still fits in your pocket? What would be the point of that?

3. It runs a phone OS

“I would have been more tempted by the iPad if it ran OS X instead of the iPhone operating system.”

This just shows how unfamiliar Deb is with the technological underpinnings of the iPhone, because it does run OS X. It’s still Unix, still the same kernel, the same file system, etc. The big difference is the interface, which is designed to be used on a touchscreen with new graphical toolkits and APIs. When Microsoft tried to enter the tablet market, they just slapped some touchscreen controls on Windows and called it good. We all know how that turned out. Apple’s approach is far better.

4. There’s not enough storage

“From my experiences with the early netbooks, I learned that 16 or 32 GB of storage isn’t enough for me. Granted, my needs may be greater than that of the average user. But by the time I install all the programs I want to use and put my music, photos, and a few videos on there, what once upon a time seemed like a lot of space really isn’t.”

Your experiences with early netbooks? I assume you mean the ones running Windows XP. iPhone OS is not Windows XP. The whole OS takes up a little more than 1GB of space. Applications don’t take up as much, either. I have about 70 installed, and they only total about 1GB. You must have a lot of photos and music.

5. No HDMI or camera

“Today, computing is all about multimedia — both consuming it and creating it. You can watch HD movies on the iPad (although it doesn’t have the 16:9 standard aspect ratio), but you can’t output them to your HDTV because there’s no HDMI connector.”

Why would you want to hook up your iPad to an HDTV when you could just watch a movie in your lap? As for the aspect ratio, Apple made the most logical decision by going with 3:4 instead of 16:9, as the 3:4 ratio is perfect for everything else you could do on the iPad except video. Why would Apple make everything else suck just for the sake of video?

“One handy use for a device of this size and form factor would be video conferencing… except Apple forgot to include a camera and microphone. Most new laptops and netbooks have a built-in Web cam. Even the iPhone has a camera, albeit not a particularly good one.”

The iPad does come with a microphone. Did you not even bother watching the iPad event? And a camera will probably either be included with the next version of the iPad, or Apple will surprise everyone by announcing it just before it ships.

6/7. No USB/SD slot

Most normal users probably won’t notice or care that the iPad lacks these. Deb really should’ve combined these two. I think she didn’t just because she couldn’t think of a tenth complaint. Are most users going to use a USB or SD slot? Not really. If I needed it for syncing, I could just use Dropbox or Mobile Me, both of which have their own app.

8. The price isn’t right

“The iPad is being touted as a better ebook reader, but it costs twice as much as the Kindle and other ebook readers.”

This is just false. While the baseline iPad costs almost twice as much as the standard Kindle ($259 vs. $499), the iPad offers more than twice the features, with a 9.7” color touchscreen, apps, email, music, 802.11n, and so on. The deal gets even better when you consider the $489 Kindle DX, which has the same limitations as the standard Kindle in comparison to the iPad.

9. It’s locked in

“You have to buy your apps from the App Store[.]”

Yes, you have to buy your apps from an App Store that currently has 140,000 apps, most of which are free. Oh, the horror. Even if you had some pathological need to not use the App Store, you can always jailbreak, and anyone who hates the App Store probably knows how. However, the closed nature of the App Store is an asset and not a detriment. It protects the user from viruses and keeps crappy apps from getting in. Being a Droid user, I can attest to the general bad quality of Android apps from the market. There’s not a single third-party Android app I’ve found that does a better job than its iPhone counterpart, and in many cases, it does a worse one. Yes, sometimes the app approval process can be a huge pain on the iPhone, but app approvals are going through faster and Apple is starting to loosen it’s grip on what should be allowed.

Many companies are actually more closed than Apple. I know that Deb is a Microsoft fan, so let’s use Microsoft as an example: the Zune HD and Xbox 360, two of Microsoft’s most successful products, are both locked in, and in many ways, they’re locked in tighter than the iPad. Microsoft has shut off Live service to Xbox modders before, and the Zune HD not only has an anemic app selection, but that selection is only available through Microsoft. Imagine if Apple shut off wireless service for jailbreakers. The outrage would be tremendous, and rightfully so.

“The 10-hour battery life is impressive (although some netbooks offer comparable times), but if you were flying to Australia and wanted to bring along an extra battery for the extra-long flight, forget about it.”

Again, a serious lack of research. There are external batteries for the iPhone, and there’ll definitely be some for the iPad. Plus, you’re seriously going to use an iPad for the entire flight? I don’t think so.

“[Y]ou can’t run Skype to make phone calls with it, either. We wouldn’t want to cut into the iPhone market, after all. Nor can you download Flash to install on the browser, which means you won’t be watching those YouTube videos.”

Here’s where Deb’s lack of research really shines through. You will definitely be able to make Skype calls with the iPad, since it has both a speaker and microphone, and Apple has lifted its restrictions on VoIP over 3G. And YouTube? Deb, you do realize that there’s an entire app dedicated to YouTube, right? As for Flash, it’s a good thing it’s not going to be on the iPad. It’s performance would be horrible, and that’s Adobe’s fault, not Apple’s.

10. It’s all about the network

“And you’ll have to pay another $30/month for unlimited data for your iPad (or $20 for 250MB), on top of what you’re already paying for your cell phone. Or do they expect people to give up their phone data plans and just use the iPad for data? I don’t see all those iPhone users doing that. This thing is looking more expensive by the minute.”

Deb really needs to learn how to fact-check; the 250MB plan is $14.99, not the $20 she claims. Deb also forgets to mention that the data plans are contract-free and can be canceled at any time. If you don’t need 3G, you can just buy an iPad without it.

“Here’s wishing you good luck on finding those wi-fi hot spots.”

Really? It’s hard to find WiFi hotspots in the US? Even with every McDonald’s offering free WiFi? How about every Barnes and Noble, too? Most colleges, cafes, and libraries also have free WiFi. I don’t think those people will need luck.

Deb seems to have fundamentally misunderstood what the iPad is supposed to be. It’s not a replacement for a netbook or a laptop, and it’s not just a giant iPod Touch. It’s the ultimate couch computer, giving you access to the web with the portability of a netbook, and that’s awesome.

That’s the end of Deb’s ten (but really nine) points. I look forward to arguing with her more in the future.

You like the way the iPad looks right? I mean, who doesn’t. Now, imagine you can make your iPhone/iPod look like that. Yeah, it’s possible. Only bad thing is it requires a jailbreak (I recommend Blackra1n).

Basically, all you need to do is download the following from Cydia:

• Winterboard
• Simple iPad Theme
• MakeItMine
• Shrink
• ProSwitcher

And then these from the App Store:

• NYTimes
• Classics
• Kindle for iPhone

The video embedded below will walk you through it. I’ve done this to my iPod Touch and I’m really happy with it.

[story, image, and video via Redmond Pie]

[via Toni Nikkanen] ]]> http://www.dailyblogged.com/a-great-moment-in-hackintosh-history-running-os-x-on-a-phone/feed/ 1 http://www.dailyblogged.com/iphone-verizon-mega-douche/ http://www.dailyblogged.com/iphone-verizon-mega-douche/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:41:51 +0000 Thomas http://www.dailyblogged.com/?p=1845 We all know somebody that has and loves their iPhone. I mean, why wouldn’t they? The iPhone completely revolutionized the mobile phone industry. With its multitouch interface, fantastic app store, and sleek design, I’m a little jealous I don’t own one.

I do have one issue with the phone, however, and it’s the certain smugness it causes all of it’s owners to have. Most every iPhone owner I know has this certain feeling of greatness because they own said device. Just compare the attitude of any iPhone owner to their nearly equal iPod Touch user. The two devices are practically one and the same, with one lacking the phone aspect, of course. And though the two devices are so similar, their owner’s attitudes couldn’t be more dissimilar.

The only thing keeping this iPhone-ridden world from collapsing under the smugness is the fact that, officially, all iPhone users in the United States have AT&T. The whole AT&T contract is a real conversation killer and I feel that it’s the key to keeping the iPhone’s cloud of smug at a controllable size.

It is widely rumored that, in 2010, the iPhone will come to Verizon. While I am pleased with this as I have Verizon, I am also scared. With iPhone users taken under Verizon’s wing, the only thing keeping iPhone smug controllable will go right out the window, along with our tolerance for those idiots. Just imagine a world where some jerk not only has the best phone around (like I said, I do want an iPhone), but he always has service. And not just that slower 2G coverage. No, he always has 3G coverage. I mean, have you seen those maps? The red coverage map dominates its blue counterpart. And do you think we’ll be able to tolerate these idiots? That is if you don’t become one of them yourself.

All I’m suggesting is that a world with iPhone users that always have 3G coverage sounds like the exact opposite of a Utopia; more like a sort of hell, if you will. The thought of having a sleek iPhone is glorious, albeit I will not get one; I forbid myself from owning the attitude altering device. I am perfectly content with my iPod Touch and standard Verizon phone. It couldn’t be more obvious: iPhone + Verizon = Hell on Earth.

Preparation

These are the things you’ll need:

1. A Dell Mini 9/10v with at least 16GB of storage

2. A Retail Snow Leopard DVD with 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 (10.6.2 broke Atom support)

3. An 8GB or greater flash drive

4. A machine running OS X

The first thing you’ll want to do is format that flash drive. Open up Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities) and choose the flash drive from the sidebar. Then, go to the Erase tab and choose “Mac OS Extended Journaled” as the file system, and then click the Erase button.

Now, put in that Snow Leopard DVD and go back to Disk Utility. Go to the flash drive in the sidebar and this time go to the Restore tab. From the sidebar, drag the CD over to the source box and the flash drive over to the destination box. Press the restore button. This will take about an hour or so, so be patient.

Now that you’ve copied all the installation files, you need to use NetbookBootmaker to make your flash drive bootable. Launch NbBM, select your flash drive, and click “Prepare Boot Drive.” NbBM will do its thing and make your drive bootable.

Installation

Now that you’ve got your flash drive prepared, you need to boot it with the Mini 9. Make sure legacy USB support is enable in your BIOS. Plug in the flash drive and boot the Mini. When you see the BIOS screen, hit 0 (zero) to bring up boot options and choose your flash drive. It’ll boot into the Snow Leopard installer.

Note: If you get the “pinwheel of death” when booting, wait up to ten minutes. After that, try rebooting.

When you’re at the install screen, go to Utilities -> Disk Utility and format your drive in Mac OS Extended Journaled and name it “Macintosh HD”. Continue with the installation. It’ll take a long time. I timed mine with my iPod and it took an hour and a minute.

Once the installation is done, reboot.

Setup

Booting your hackintosh’d Mini 9 for the first time will take awhile. After it boots, you’ll get the intro video (neat, huh?) and then the setup screen will appear.

After you fill in your information, you’ll be brought to the desktop. OS X will be ungodly slow until you repair permissions, so it’s time for your old friend, Disk Utility. Select your hard drive, and then click ‘repair disk permissions’ and let it do its thing.

When that’s done (which’ll take awhile) you can enjoy your new netbook running OS X Snow Leopard.

Tips

1. Safari is strangely slow on the Mini 9, so I would recommend using Camino for your web browser, as it uses less memory.

2. If you want to use your Mini 9 with iTunes, you can use Home Sharing to copy over your music from another machine.

3. A neat trick you might try is controlling your Mini 9 using Remote Desktop.

Thanks

A special thanks goes out to everyone at the MyDellMini forums, especially Meklort.

My significant-other’s father is a store manager for Verizon and he’s said that the iPhone will be coming to Verizon in March, April, or May.

Now, this is one of those things that you accept with a fairly large grain of salt, but everything seems to be lining up for the iPhone coming to Verizon in 2010. Let’s take a look at the facts:

1. AT&T is being lambasted by the web right now for its network. One need only look to Twitter to see all the “at&tfails.“
2. Fake Steve Jobs’ Operation Chokehold may not have gotten AT&T’s attention, but it’s certainly gotten the media’s, and probably Apple’s as well.
3. According to these graphs, AT&T has been spending less and less on network improvements each year, while they’ve been making more and more off the iPhone.
4. Verizon’s Chief Technology Officer, Anthony Melone, has said that if the iPhone were to come to Verizon, it would be prepared for the extra load: “We have put things in place already. We are prepared to support that traffic.”
5. Apple’s contract with AT&T will expire in 2010. Perfect timing.

With all these things in mind, I don’t see how Apple wouldn’t want to leave AT&T and get jiggy with Verizon. I would hold off on getting a DROID, unless you’re a die-hard Google fan.

1. The Music App

When the iPod came out in 2001, it virtually created the PMP market, so you’d think an iPod’s primary job would be to, err, play music. Not so with the iPod Touch, as the music app lacks the polish normally expected of Apple products:

And the biggest, most annoying thing about music app is that if you go to Artists, choose one, and play a couple songs, when go back to choose another artist, it takes you to Albums instead of Artists, which is just stupid.

Another thing with the music app: Coverflow. I really hate it when I’m sitting down and I choose a new song and then lock the screen and put my hand with the iPod on my lap, and when I wake it up to choose another song, fucking Coverflow butts in like an obnoxious fat kid who wants your lunch.

2. The Mail App

Seriously, no “Mark all as Read” button, Apple? Seriously?

3. The Back

The chrome finish on the back is ugly, attracts fingerprints, and scratches easily. I would much rather have a matte black finish like the one on this rumored iPhone 3GS.

4. Smudgy Screen

I hate having to clean things, which is why I hate how smudgy the screen is. I know Apple introduced an oleophobic coating with the iPhone 3GS, but they could have, and should have, done it sooner.

5. No Camera

OK, Apple, so you’ll give the Nano a crappy little camera that can only take video, but you won’t give the iPod Touch anything? And those reports of pervs looking up girls’ skirts with the new Nano? Yeah, I’d like to see someone try looking up my skirt with a fricken iPod Touch in their hands. Oh wait; nevermind, I don’t wear skirts.

Aside from the things listed here, I think the iPod Touch is wonderful and I’d recommend it to my friends and blah, blah, blah. But it is a great device.

Now that you know what OpenDNS is, how do you go about setting it up on your iPhone/iPod? It’s simple, really: on your device, go into Settings -> WiFi  and press that little blue arrow by your WiFi network. Scroll down to DNS and change it to “208.67.222.222″. Now you should be using OpenDNS.

How can you be sure it’s working? Go into Safari and type in some nonsense in the address field such as “thisisnotarealwebsite.com”. If you’re using OpenDNS, it’ll take you to guide.opendns.com.

Note: I can only assure you that this’ll work on WiFi. I have no idea if it’ll work on EDGE or 3G as I don’t have an iPhone.

At the end of their WWDC keynote, Apple released the golden master of iPhone OS 3.0. This will be the final version unless some giant, unforeseen bug creeps out of the woodwork. It’s scheduled to be released June 17th. It’s free for iPhone but will cost $10 for iPod Touch users, but you can get it for free via bittorrent. Search for iPod2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw and download it.

To use it, hook up your iPod to iTunes and click the restore button with the appropriate modifier (option for OS X, shift for Windows). This will bring up a window where you can choose the 3.0 software you downloaded. Now, just wait and when your iPod reboots, you’ll be using 3.0.

I’m using it now, and aside for some button issues with the YouTube app, it’s all good:

If you’re still concerned that the GM version is different from the released one, you can just hit restore in iTunes and you’ll get 3.0 directly from Apple’s servers, free, but I can’t tell any difference between the two. And while you’re watching that torrent download, you can take a look at some of the features in the new release.

Update: All of this is irrelevant, as the Dev Team have released the final, GUI version of Redsn0w. Get it here.

I’ve been wanting to jailbreak my 2nd-gen iPod Touch for quite awhile now, patiently watching the activity of the Dev Team, who creates most of the jailbreaking software. Recently, they’ve released a beta version of their jailbreak for the 2nd-gen iPod Touch, Redsn0w. This is what we’ll be using.

Some things you should know before starting:

1. This jailbreak is for the 2nd-gen iPod Touch. If you want to jailbreak your iPhone or 1st-gen iPod Touch, use QuickPWN.

2. This jailbreak is a beta and uses the terminal/command prompt. If the thought of giving text commands makes you squirm, you should wait until the Dev Team releases a GUI jailbreak.

3. Jailbreaking your device will void your warranty, but Apple doesn’t need to know you’ve jailbroken it. Be smart and restore your iPod with iTunes before you take it down to the Genius Bar to get its accelerometer fixed or whatever.

4. If you’re using Mac OS 10.5.6, you’ll need to use a workaround to get your iPod connected in DFU mode. It’s a small kernel bug, easy to remedy. Either A) connect the iPod through a USB hub instead of directly to the computer, or B) get an Apple Developer Connection account, download the IOUSBFamily kexts for both 10.5.6 and 10.5.5 from here (the first two on the list), and install the IOUSBFamily-315.4.1.pkg (10.5.5 kext) then reboot. After you’ve jailbroken you’re device, install the other package, IOUSBFamily-327.4.0.pkg (10.5.6 kext).

4. If you use Linux, you’ll need the following libraries installed: libcurl, bzip2, zlib, openssl, libusb and libpng. Also, don’t connect with a USB hub.

Now, on to the actual jailbreaking:

1. You’ll need to put your iPod into DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode. First, power off your iPod by holding down the sleep/wake button until the red slider appears. Second, hold down the sleep/wake button and the home button at the same time for about ten seconds, then release the sleep/wake button and keep holding down the home button for another ten seconds. Release the button and your iPod will appear to be off, but it’ll actually be in DFU mode. If you see a screen telling you to connect to iTunes, you’re not in DFU mode, but Recovery mode, which is not what you want. If you get stuck in Recovery mode, tell iTunes to restore your iPod and it’ll download a new firmware. While iTunes is doing that, your iPod should reboot after awhile (mine did, anway). You can then choose whether to restore it or not.

Here’s a video of how to do it for you visual learners:

2. Download a torrent of the Redsn0w beta for your platform here.

3. Now, depending on your platform:

Windows: Double-click redsn0w.exe.

Mac OS X: Fire up a terminal (Applications->Utilities) and type ‘cd ‘ (with a space). Now drag the Redsn0w folder into the terminal window and hit enter. Now, type ‘./redsn0w’. Hit enter, and Redsn0w will do its thing.

Linux: Launch either redsn0w.x86 or redsn0w.64 from a terminal, depending on whether you have  the 32 or 64 bit version of your distro.

Jailbreaking will take awhile. The important thing is to not panic and rip your iPod off the cord, which could lead to a bricked device. Just relax. Get a coffee.

When Redsn0w’s done, you should have an icon for Cydia, which is the non-Apple-controlled version of the App Store. That’s all you need to have fun with your new jailbroken iPod.

In similar news, Apple changed their EULA for developers who want to participate in the iPhone SDK program. The new EULA forbids developers from writing any app that can be installed via jailbreak, or any other software that subverts security or DRM. Further, it says that anyone using the SDK can only distribute their software through the App Store, at Apple’s discretion. This definitely won’t stop jailbreakers, but it might scare off a few developers.

[Engadget and Ars Technica]

Meebo: They’ve avoided making an iPhone app because they felt it needed push notification. Meebo will connect to various social networks and do basically everything the webapp does.

EA: Showed off the Sims 3. The Sims will let you buy things from the app store from within the app for $0.99 each.

Oracle: The Oracle app goes out and pulls data from their backend CRM (Customer Relationship Management) server, which you can use to contact your account rep via email, phone or SMS. Boring, I know.

ESPN: They’re moving their webapp to a native one. The app will alert you with sounds. It also streams video, and scales the quality based on your connection.

LifeScan, a johnson&johnson company: Their app is for diabetes management. They used a little girl as an example. She pricks herself six times a day and injects insulin as well. Her meter sends the readings to her iPhone over bluetooth or 30-pin connector. She can send a message to her parents with her readings so they know she’s ok. She can also track what kind of food she’s eating and how much of it, the app can then calculate how much insulin she needs.

Ngmoco:): They’re demoing two new games, Touch Pets, a social pet simulator, and LiveFire, a multiplayer first person shooter. Touch Pets uses push notifications for things such as a play-date with another dog. You can buy clothes, toys and other crap for your dog as well. In LiveFire, you hold down anywhere on the left side of the screen and shoot by tapping on the right side. You can buy new weapons in-app, and send requests to play with your friends via notifications.

Smule: Leaf Trombone (World Stage) is their new app. Similar to their other app, Ocarina, you can play music by blowing into the phone’s microphone. There are sliders for pitch and such.

That’s all. You can look forward to seeing these apps this summer with the release of 3.0.