Jan18

Bad Apple

We love our iPhones and iPads.

We love the prices of our iPhones and iPads.

We love the super-high profit margins of Apple, Inc., the maker of our iPhones and iPads.

And that's why it's disconcerting to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads — and the super-high profit margins of Apple — are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.

And it's also disconcerting to realize that the folks who make our iPhones and iPads not only don't have iPhones and iPads (because they can't afford them), but, in some cases, have never even seen them.

This is a complex issue. But it's also an important one. And it's only going to get more important as the world's economies continue to become more intertwined.

Last week, NPR's "This American Life" did a special on Apple's manufacturing. The show featured (among others) the reporting of Mike Daisey, the man who does the one-man stage show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," and The NYT's Nicholas Kristof, whose wife is from China.

You can read a transcript of the whole show here. Here are some details:

The Chinese city of Shenzhen is where most of our "crap" is made. 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a little village on a river. Now it's a city of 13 million people — bigger than New York.
Foxconn, one of the companies that builds iPhones and iPads (and products for many other electronics companies), has a factory in Shenzhen that employs 430,000 people.
There are 20 cafeterias at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant. They each serve 10,000 people.
One Foxconn worker Mike Daisey interviewed, outside factory gates manned by guards with guns, was a 13-year old girl. She polished the glass of thousands of new iPhones a day.
The 13-year old said Foxconn doesn't really check ages. There are on-site inspections, from time to time, but Foxconn always knows when they're happening. And before the inspectors arrive, Foxconn just replaces the young-looking workers with older ones.
In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old (along with plenty of older ones). Daisey estimates that about 5% of the workers he talked to were underage.
Daisey assumes that Apple, obsessed as it is with details, must know this. Or, if they don't, it's because they don't want to know.
Daisey visits other Shenzhen factories, posing as a potential customer. He discovers that most of the factory floors are vast rooms filled with 20,000-30,000 workers apiece. The rooms are quiet: There's no machinery, and there's no talking allowed. When labor costs so little, there's no reason to build anything other than by hand.
A Chinese working "hour" is 60 minutes — unlike an American "hour," which generally includes breaks forFacebook, the bathroom, a phone call, and some conversation. The official work day in China is 8 hours long, but the standard shift is 12 hours. Generally, these shifts extend to 14-16 hours, especially when there's a hot new gadget to build. While Daisey is in Shenzhen, a Foxconn worker dies after working a 34-hour shift.
Assembly lines can only move as fast as their slowest worker, so all the workers are watched (with cameras). Most people stand.
The workers stay in dormitories. In a 12-by-12 cement cube of a room, Daisey counts 15 beds, stacked like drawers up to the ceiling. Normal-sized Americans would not fit in them.
Unions are illegal in China. Anyone found trying to unionize is sent to prison.
Daisey interviews dozens of (former) workers who are secretly supporting a union. One group talked about using "hexane," an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.
Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned.
One former worker had asked her company to pay her overtime, and when her company refused, she went to the labor board. The labor board put her on a black list that was circulated to every company in the area. The workers on the black list are branded "troublemakers" and companies won't hire them.
One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him. (Fortunately, the man was able to get a new job, at a wood-working plant. The hours are much better there, he says — only 70 hours a week).
The man, by the way, made the metal casings of iPads at Foxconn. Daisey showed him his iPad. The man had never seen one before. He held it and played with it. He said it was "magic."

Importantly, Shenzhen's factories, as hellish as they are, have been a boon to the people of China. Liberal economist Paul Krugman says so. NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says so. Kristof's wife's ancestors are from a village near Shenzhen. So he knows of what he speaks. The "grimness" of the factories, Kristof says, is actually better than the "grimness" of the rice paddies.

So, looked at that way, Apple is helping funnel money from rich American and European consumers to poor workers in China. Without Foxconn and other assembly plants, Chinese workers might still be working in rice paddies, making $50 a month instead of $250 a month (Kristof's estimates. In 2010, Reuters says, Foxconn workers were given a raise to $298 per month, or $10 a day, or less than $1 an hour). With this money, they're doing considerably better than they once were. Especially women, who had few other alternatives.

But, of course, the reason Apple assembles iPhones and iPads in China instead of America, is that assembling them here or Europe would cost much, much more — even with shipping and transportation. And it would cost much, much more because, in the United States and Europe, we have established minimum acceptable standards for the treatment and pay of workers like those who build the iPhones and iPads.

Foxconn, needless to say, doesn't come anywhere near meeting these minimum standards.

If Apple decided to build iPhones and iPads for Americans using American labor rules, two things would likely happen:

The prices of iPhones and iPads would go up
Apple's profit margins would go down

Neither of those things would be good for American consumers or Apple shareholders. But they might not be all that awful, either. Unlike some electronics manufacturers, Apple's profit margins are so high that they could go down a lot and still be high. And some Americans would presumably feel better about loving their iPhones and iPads if they knew that the products had been built using American labor rules.

In other words, Apple could probably afford to use American labor rules when building iPhones and iPads without destroying its business.

So it seems reasonable to ask why Apple is choosing NOT to do that.

(Not that Apple is the only company choosing to avoid American labor rules and costs, of course — almost all manufacturing companies that want to survive, let alone thrive, have to reduce production costs and standards by making their products elsewhere.)

The bottom line is that iPhones and iPads cost what they do because they are built using labor practices that would be illegal in this country — because people in this country consider those practices grossly unfair.

That's not a value judgment. It's a fact.

So, next time you pick up your iPhone or iPad, ask yourself how you feel about that.

By Henry Blodget

Jan13

Apple audits unveil child labor, slave labor & more at supplier plants

Apple has released a list of hardware component suppliers (and many of their human rights and environmental violations) as part of its 2012 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report.

This list, the company says, accounts for more than 97 percent of its of Apple’s procurement expenditures
for materials, manufacturing, and assembly of iPads, iPhones, iPods, MacBooks and various other personal computing products worldwide.

In this year’s report, Apple says it conducted more audits of manufacturers than ever — 229 audits altogether for various partners along Apple’s supply chain. The number of audits represents an 80 percent increase over audits conducted in 2010 and includes more than 100 first-time audits.

While the company says it has educated more than a million employees at Apple’s manufacturing partners around the world about worker’s rights, on-the-job safety and more, the audits unearthed some ugly facts about the companies making iDevice components.

In Chinese partners, Apple’s investigations found issues with payment of workers, benefits for workers and environmental practices. Some suppliers were found dumping wastewater at a farm near the plant, using unsafe machinery, forging payroll records and even administering pregnancy tests to some workers.

Perhaps most troubling of all from a human rights perspective is the continuing instances of child and involuntary labor in Apple’s supply chain. Although Apple says it maintains a a zero-tolerance policy for such labor and that the 2011 audits found that instances of child labor “were down significantly,” the company can only verify that no underage workers were found at final assembly suppliers.

“I would like to totally eliminate every case of underage employment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told reporters.

“As we go deeper into the supply chain, we found that age verification system isn’t sophisticated enough. This is something we feel very strongly about and we want to eliminate totally.”

In a email sent today to Apple staff, Cook wrote, “We are taking a big step today toward greater transparency and independent oversight of our supply chain by joining the Fair Labor Association.

“The FLA is a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving conditions for workers around the world, and we are the first technology company they’ve approved for membership. The FLA’s auditing team will have direct access to our supply chain and they will report their findings independently on their website.”

While Apple certainly seems to be trying to tackle these overarching issues of international business and manufacturing, we are nevertheless disturbed at many of the things we’re reading in this report. After all, 78 percent compliance with involuntary labor requirements still means 28 percent noncompliance, which translates to coercion and debt bondage being part of how your your iPhone was made.

Still, all our electronics come from plants such as these. At least Apple is making an effort to be transparent about this process, to find violations, to correct those violations, and in some cases, to stop doing businesses with companies that consistently ignore human rights and environmental regulations.

Here are some other highlights of the report, as well as some graphs we created showing percentage of compliance, based on data from the report:

Overwork

93 facilities had records that indicated more than 50 percent of their workers exceeded weekly working hour limits of 60 in at least 1 week out of the 12 sample period. At 90 facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated that workers had worked more than 6 consecutive days at least once per month, and 37 facilities lacked an adequate working day control system to ensure that workers took at least 1 day off in every 7 days.

Inadequate pay

42 facilities had payment practice violations, including delayed payment for employees’ wages and no pay slips provided to employees. 67 facilities used deductions from wages as a disciplinary measure. 108 facilities did not pay proper overtime wages as required by laws and regulations.

Slave & child labor

Two facilities were repeat offenders in the category of involuntary labor. Apple’s report states, “We terminated business with one supplier and are correcting the practices of the other supplier.”

[In] 15 facilities… we discovered foreign contract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies… Some of our suppliers work with third-party labor agencies to hire contract workers from countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These agencies, in turn, may work through multiple subagencies in the hiring country, the workers’ home country, and, in some cases, all the way back to the workers’ home village. By the time the workers have paid all fees across these agencies, the total cost can equal many months’ wages, forcing workers into debt…

We discovered a total of 6 active and 13 historical cases of underage labor at 5 facilities. In each case, the facility had insufficient controls to verify age or detect false documentation. We found no instances of intentional hiring of underage labor.

Health & safety

126 facilities did not have the appropriate administrative documentation or approval for at least one item in the health and safety protocol. Examples included workers who performed certain tasks without the legally required licenses, expired elevator permits, and lack of labeling of maximum load for shelving. 78 facilities had at least one instance where a workstation or a machine was missing the appropriate safety device such as a gear guard, pulley guard, or interlock. 58 facilities had workers who were not wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), such as earplugs, safety glasses, and dust masks. In some instances, the facility had not provided the appropriate
safety equipment. In others, the workers neglected to use the equipment or were using it improperly. Also, 72 facilities lacked procedures for PPE management.

Next Story: Asemble your own MLG Pro Circuit Controller from Mad Catz (video)

via venturebeat.com

Jan08

BlackBerry, Nokia and Apple have provided the Indian Military with backdoor access to cellular surveillance

On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said:
As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI
Ignoring the typing error, gaining access to Indian Military’s Intelligence servers is pretty damning for the agency. The hack got covered since the hackers claimed to have acces to Norton’s source code. Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Let’s take a moment for that to digest. Here’s an image from the documents underlining the relevant part:

The documents contain snippets of emails sent by members of the USCC. Apparently, RINOA SUR platform has been declared a success and the Indian Navy has shown interest in the same. The leaked military documents suggest, RINOA were arm twisted into providing backdoor access in exchange for operating in India:

While the Indian government recently gave the nation’s premiere spy agency—RAW—permission to access any citizen’s electronic communication, the Department of Telecommunications has reached out to the Interpol for help in decrypting communication via services like RIM’s BlackBerry.

via terminalx.org

Dec12

Is Apple Using Patents to Hurt Open Standards?

Opera developer Haavard Moen has accused Apple of repeatedly using patents to undermine the development of web standards and block their finalization.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the industry group that governs and oversees the development of web standards, requires that every specification it approves be implementable on a royalty-free basis, barring extraordinary circumstances that justify an exception to this rule. The specifications can contain patented technology, as long as royalty-free patent licenses are available.

Members of W3C—a group that includes representatives from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Opera—are required to disclose any patents that they hold that are relevant to each specification. Depending on how far the specification is through the standardization process, they have between 60 and 150 days to make this disclosure.

If royalty-free licensing is available, the specification can proceed as normal. Participation in the development of a particular specification obliges W3C members to offer royalty-free licensing for technology used in that specification. Nonparticipants can also voluntarily offer a royalty free license, but they are not obliged to.

If, however, there is no commitment to offer royalty-free licensing for the patents in question, a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) is formed. The PAG will then assess whether the patent is truly applicable to the specification, and if so, how best to address the issue. The PAG might then seek prior art to invalidate the patent, or it might recommend that the specification be modified, to work around the patent. It might even advise abandonment of the specification. Only in exceptional circumstances will it decide that the specification should stand, in spite of the lack of royalty freedom.

Without an appropriate patent grant, browser vendors—whether open source or proprietary—cannot implement the specification without opening themselves up to a lawsuit. Such specifications would be, at best, an extremely risky proposition for anyone seeking to develop a browser, and none of the major browser vendors would even consider implementing a specification with known unlicensed patents.

Haavard identifies three separate occasions, twice in 2009, and again in 2011, where Apple has disclosed patents and not offered royalty-free licensing. In the first 2009 patent claim, Apple said that it had a patent covering W3C’s “widget” specification. A PAG was formed, and determined that Apple’s patent was not relevant. In the second 2009 claim, Apple claimed to have two patents covering W3C’s widget security specification. A PAG was again formed. It decided that one patent was not relevant, and the other didn’t apply. With both 2009 claims, Apple waited until the last minute to disclose its patents.

Touch Events

This time, Cupertino is claiming to have three patents, and an application for a fourth, that cover some of W3C’s touch event specification. This time the disclosure was made with about a month left to go. Again, the lack of royalty-free licensing means that a PAG is likely to be formed.

This in turn will delay the development of the specification and cost W3C members further time and money. The PAG process is not quick; the widget security PAG did not deliver its verdict until October of this year.

Haavard’s conclusion is that there is a pattern of behavior here; that Apple is trying to disrupt the standards process with its patent claims. He references the touch specification in particular—this is plainly an area where Apple has lots of expertise and interest in the technology, but the company opted out of working on the specification. If Apple had worked on the specification, it would have had to disclose sooner and offer licensing, and Haavard believes that avoiding this commitment is why Apple refused to work on the specification.

Apple’s is acting within its rights. W3C obliges members to disclose patent claims, and Apple is duly disclosing them. However, it’s easy to be sympathetic to Haavard’s argument. The two prior PAGs that resulted from Apple’s refusal to offer royalty-free patent licenses delayed and inconvenienced W3C, but ultimately on both occasions the groups decided that Apple’s patent claims were irrelevant. If Apple was hoping to keep some technology to itself, it did not succeed.

Moreover, W3C doesn’t require patent-holders to give up their competitive advantage. It’s acceptable to W3C for the royalty-free patent licenses to only cover implementations of the W3C specifications; if Apple wants to permit the royalty-free use of its touch patents in HTML5 browsers, but nowhere else, this would be an option. Such terms would allow browsers to implement the standard but still keep the technology off-limits to, for example, Android. But Apple did not offer such terms before, and so it seems unlikely that it will offer such terms this time.

Further, the only likely result of this is that Apple’s patents simply get worked around. W3C’s aversion to royalties means that it’s unlikely that it would accept any non-free license (should Apple even offer one), and the importance of touch input to phones and tablets means that W3C is unlikely to abandon the specification altogether. There’s no win possible for Apple—just wasted time and money for those seeking to make the web a more effective, more open platform.

Indeed, the result might even constitute a loss for Apple; the prior art that PAGs can uncover could jeopardize the patents themselves. The PAG subjects the patents to a certain amount of scrutiny—scrutiny that could be avoided through provision of a suitable license.

Apple has thus far not responded to our request for comment.

Apple’s work on WebKit and with W3C has undoubtedly helped the web community. But actions such as this show the company’s approach to standards and intellectual property is, at best, inconsistent, and and worst downright unhelpful: if open standards and Apple’s IP interests conflict, it’s the IP interests that win out. This may be good for Apple, but it’s bad for the open web.

via webmonkey.com

Dec09

Apple Made A Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll)

Over the last two years, Apple has been engaged in vicious legal battles over smartphone patents, many of which are aimed at squelching (or squeezing money out of) manufacturers of devices running Android. And now, for some reason, it has given valuable patents to a patent troll — which is using them to sue many of the top technology companies in the world.

Meet Digitude Innovations, a firm based in Virginia that recently filed suit with the International Trade Commission alleging patent infringement by technology companies including RIM, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Amazon, and Nokia (note that Apple is not on this list). The ITC is a favorite for companies litigating over mobile phone patent disputes, as it can block the import of products long before a case has actually concluded.

Digitude was founded in 2010 and raised $50 million from Altitude Capital Partners, with aims to “acquire, aggregate, and license key technology areas within the consumer electronics and related technology fields in a patent consortium” — in other words, it buys up patents and then sues other companies until they settle and agree to pay licensing fees, because it’s generally less expensive than actually going to court.

From a Forbes article this past June:

Digitude is a new kind of patent investment vehicle because it seeks to team up with strategic players that can invest in Digitude not with money, but by contributing patents. The contributing entity would then get a license for all of Digitude’s patents, [Digitude Chairman Robert] Kramer says.

In April, Digitude announced the “completion of its first such strategic partnership with one of the world’s leading consumer electronics companies” — which it didn’t name. The company later announced that additional (unnamed) parties have jumped on board as well, who will receive a portion of Digitude’s proceeds based on the value of the IP each party contributed.

Apple appears to be one of these participants, and may be the unnamed leading consumer electronics company that Digitude boasted about this past spring. Of the four patents that Digitude included in its claim this week, two were owned by Apple earlier this year, before they were transferred to Digitude.

The patents in question:

USPTO #6208879 — Mobile Information Terminal Equipment and Portable Electronic Apparatus

USPTO #6456841 — Mobile Communication Apparatus Notifying User Of Reproduction Waiting Information Effectively

In both cases, Apple transfered ownership of the patent to a company called Cliff Island LLC, which in turn transferred it to Digitude Innovations. In fact, Apple has transferred a dozen patents to Cliff Island LLC this year (though only two of these were named in this ITC suit).

You probably haven’t heard of Cliff Island LLC, because it appears to exist in name only. There is a next to no information about the company available online — though the patent filing does include an address: 485 Madison Avenue, Suite 2300 in New York City.

I was unable to find a phone number for the company, so I attempted to pay a visit to their office, only to find that it doesn’t appear to exist. But there are other tenants on the twenty-third floor of 485 Madison. One of which is Altitude Capital, the same IP-focused private equity firm that happened to lead Digitude’s $50 million funding round.

Put another way, Apple appears to have transferred its patents to the patent troll Digitude, though it first routed them through a shell company that shares the same office as Digitude’s lead investor and Chairman. Further evidence of the relationship between Apple and Digitude can be found on the ITC’s own website, where a list of files relevant to the lawsuit can be found. Many of these files are marked confidential, but it appears someone mistakenly left the file names intact. One of which is “Digitude-Apple License Agreement” (see screenshot below).

So what is going on? There are a pair of scenarios that seem plausible — though both of them are strange.

The first is that Apple is using Digitude as a hired gun of sorts in its patent offensive, giving the company valuable patents to wield against its opponents (while avoiding the waves of press that are spurred by each new lawsuit). But Apple hasn’t exactly been quiet about suing its rivals over smartphone patents, so it’s not clear what they’d gain from this.

The alternative is that Apple has given some of its patents to Digitude because the patent troll came after it first. The dozen patents Apple has handed over may have been part of a settlement with the firm, along with the license agreement (which would presumably give Apple the rights to its patents, and additional Digitude patents). This seems more likely.

But even if Digitude shot first, so to speak, it’s still hard to see Apple in a positive light here. This is Apple we’re talking about. The idea that the company didn’t have any options other than handing over valuable patents to a patent troll — knowing full well that it would then use those patents to sue other tech companies — seems ludicrous.

I spoke with Julie Samuels, Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on patents, who points out that in some cases certain companies will sell their patents to other parties when they’re under financial stress. But Apple clearly doesn’t fall into that bucket.

If Apple were deliberately aiding Digitude, Samuels says “it would be horrifying — the patent troll problem is completely out of control. Apple has every legal right to sue over its patents, but it should be the one to do it”.

And if Apple was indeed threatened first by Digitude, and only handed over its patents as part of a settlement, she says she “cannot imagine any reasonable scenario where Apple didn’t have any other options”.

Both Apple and Digitude declined to comment.

Also, oddly, Digitude Innovations had a website as recently as December 4, but it apparently took it down in the last few days.

via techcrunch.com

Nov13

The Late, Great, $14 Million iTunes Clickjacking Scheme

Seven Eastern European men have been charged in New York with operating a clickjacking scheme that infected more than 4 million computers in order to hijack surfers trying to get to the iTunes store or the IRS. The enterprise allegedly netted the crooks more than $14 million.

The scam appears to have begun in 2007 and involved six Estonians and one Russian, all residing in Eastern Europe, who allegedly used multiple front companies to operate their intricate scam, which included a bogus internet advertising agency, according to the 62-page indictment (.pdf), unsealed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York.

The bogus agency contracted with online advertisers who would pay a small commission each time users clicked on their ads, or landed on their website.

To optimize the payback opportunities, the suspects then infected computers in more than 100 countries with malicious software called DNSChanger to ensure that users would visit the sites of their online advertising partners. The malware altered the DNS server settings on target machines in order to direct victims' browsers to a DNS server controlled by the defendants, which then directed browsers to sites that would pay a fee to the defendants.

For example, users who clicked on a link on a search results page would have their browsers directed not to the legitimate destination page but to a different page designated by the defendants.

An infected user who searched for Apple's iTunes store and clicked on the legitimate Apple link at the top of the page would be directed instead to www.idownload-store-music.com, a site purporting to sell Apple software. Users trying to access the government's Internal Revenue Service site were redirected to a web site for H & R Block, a top tax preparation business in the U.S. The suspects received a fee for every visitor directed to the site.

At least half a million machines in the U.S. were infected with the malware, including ones belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other unnamed government agencies.

In addition to redirecting the browsers of infected users, the malware also prevented infected machines from downloading security updates to operating systems or updates to antivirus software that might have helped detect the malware and stop it from operating. When an infected user's machine tried to access a software update page, that person would get a message saying the site was currently unavailable. In blocking the updates, infected users were also left open to infections from other malware as well.

Vladimir Tsastsin, Timur Gerassimenko, Dmitri Jegorow, Valeri Aleksejev, Konstantin Poltev and Anton Ivanov of Estonia and Andrey Taame of Russia have been charged with 27 counts of wire fraud and other computer-related crimes.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has provided a handout to users (.pdf) to help them determine if their system might be infected with the malware. Individuals who think they might be infected are being asked to submit an online form to the Bureau.

The Internet Systems Consortium has also been tasked with operating a DNS server that replaces the defendants' rogue DNS server. The ISC will be collecting IP addresses that contact this server in order to determine which systems might be infected. According to a protective order submitted to the court by the government, however, ISC is not authorized to collect any other data from the computers, such as the search terms that led them to the DNS server.

Jun15

Who has the most iphone apps and games?

Who has the most iphone apps and games?

Ok time to find out who has the most apps and games on their ipod touch, iphone or ipad. Just trying to get a feel of the spending habits of others and also to see if i have a real problem buying things in the itunes app market. I’ve seriously slowed down since about 6 months ago when it was brought up to me that i have a problem, lol, humbug, but i still at times get carried away like last night when i bought and downloaded 14 apps and games - 8 of them paid.

Just add your piece in the comments, im adding screenshots of my itunes but it’s not required.

Here’s mine as of today.

30GB Ipod Touch

396 apps and games

305 songs = 20hrs of music

1 movie

18 photos

and 1042 items in my itunes library.

via playboypaul.tumblr.com

Apr22

Your Phone Knows Where You Are, and Always Will. Get Used to It.

By:Arik Hesseldahl

Yesterday everyone seemed to freak out about the disclosure that Apple’s iPhone collects data on where it has been. Ooooh,scary. There were lots of references comparing Steve Jobs to Big Brother from 1984.

I wasn’t surprised that this data–which shows basically everywhere an iPhone owner has been with the phone in his or her possession since iOS 4 was released–is being collected. But it’s important to make one thing clear before we go any further: There’s no evidence that Apple is collecting any information about where you go. It does collect anonymized information on where iPhones go, and it has a number of legitimate business purposes for doing so.

Nor is any of what Apple is doing some kind of newly discovered secret. In fact, it has been documented for some time. (For more on this, read this excellent post by Alex Levinson, an expert on iOS security.) In fact, Apple has been very clear in its privacy policy about what data it collects, and even highlighted the part about location data in a letter to Congress last year.

Got all that? Okay, let’s proceed.

I found the revelation unsurprising because of stories I’ve written in recent years on the new field of academic research known as “reality mining.” I wrote about it for BusinessWeek in 2008 and interviewed two researchers from MIT, both of whom told me that there is a great deal of value–both commercial value and value to society at large–that can come from gathering data on where people go, and also when they go there and who they go with.

The value comes not in gathering that data about you personally, but in aggregating it, basically mixing it all together with the same data about everyone else, until you have huge databases on the comings and goings of millions of people. It’s helpful for a city to know, for instance, how many cars cross a bridge between the hours of 7 am and 8 am, and how the traffic varies by the day of the week. It’s helpful to see how many people drove to the last New York Yankees game and how many people took the subway, and also how bad the crowd congestion was both on the streets and on the trains.

Getting an accurate picture of exactly how many people are involved is tricky. You can try to do a labor-intensive count or you can estimate, but both are messy and subject to error. A wireless phone is a pretty good sensor because almost everyone will be carrying one and each phone identifies itself to the closest cell tower, so it’s easy to count. The value comes not from knowing who was where at any given time, but how many were there.

Wireless phones already play a big role in tracking traffic congestion. If you use a GPS receiver in your car that gives you live traffic information, those green and red lines that appear on the map are often generated by thousands of cars with wireless phones in them, all of them reporting their location, speed and direction of travel. The company that tracks that information, analyzes it and turns it into something useful is Inrix, and its name can be found stamped on the packaging of a number GPS receivers. When yours pipes up to say “traffic ahead” or says it is changing your route because of congestion, it’s because it is getting a live data feed that is generated in part by information gathered from wireless phones. Are you still so creeped out?

But let’s take it a step further and imagine a case where it actually might be useful and not anonymized. Let’s say you’ve caught a really bad flu but it’s in its early stages, so you’re feeling just a little sick and you go to work. The next day you find out you’ve got this year’s super-flu virus. Would there be a public health benefit in being able to look through a record of where you’ve been? Could there also be a benefit from cross-referencing that with data from other people’s phones to find out how many people–and who–has been within close enough proximity to you during the last 24 hours to maybe catch this flu from you? Data gathered from your phone and others could conceivably help arrest the spread of that super flu by giving authorities an accurate picture of how many people are connected in the branching chains of potential infection.

After a while you start seeing patterns, and these patterns can help solve other problems large and small. Does your town need a traffic light at that intersection based on the number of people who drive through it every day? Does your city need to build another subway line because the existing ones are overwhelmed? Reasonable minds can have different perceptions as to the scale of problems. Real, unimpeachable data can only add clarity to the debates.

MIT’s Sensable City Lab has done some fascinating work in this area. Its most recent project has taken the team to Singapore, and I’ve embedded a video below that shows samples of some of the data they’ve gathered and turned into visualizations. Another older video from a 2008 project, The New York Talk Exchange, showing calls made to and from New York, is just as interesting.

Is there a commercial use for this sort of data? You bet. Advertisers will always pay for the right and the ability to reach you in some new and incrementally intrusive way. But that’s just the way that things go, though more often than not, if you don’t like it, you have the ability to opt out or not participate. But people do choose to participate. Ask the eight million Foursquare users why they like voluntarily giving up their live location data day after day. They have clearly opted in because there’s something about that they like, and it isn’t just claiming the mayorship of the corner tavern. And there are probably scores of other commercial uses for the location data on our phones that I’m not imaginative enough to think of.

My point in all this is really simple. Phones have for about a decade had GPS chipsets in them that can keep track of the phone’s precise coordinates–latitude and longitude plus their position relative to a cellular tower. To anyone who is surprised that this data is being collected and even being used I have only this to say: Well, duh! You better get used to it. As long as there’s value in measuring where we go, the phones we take with us everywhere are going to be the device used to do the measuring.

Yes, there needs to be a clear set of rules of the road, and I think the discussion touched off by this round of coverage will help us get to setting those rules. But the data is so valuable, and the potential for benefits are so great, that no amount of consumer outrage is going to put an end to your phone keeping track of where it is.

Mar07

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android

Via:Lifehacker

If you own an iPhone, chances are you genuinely prefer the feature set of iOS to Android, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't appreciate having access to some of Android's best features. This guide walks through setting up the best of both worlds.

If you don't want to go all the way and install Android on your iOS device, you still have plenty of ways to bring the best features of Android to iOS. Jailbreaking will really let you go all the way, but it's definitely not required. Whatever your situation, here are the many ways of making your iOS device look and act more like Android.

Note: If you haven't jailbroken your phone but you want to (or this post convinces you that you should), be sure to check out our always up-to-date guide to jailbreaking your iOS device.

Lock Screen Widgets

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android While customizing your iOS home screen like Android isn't really a viable option at the moment, you can do a lot to customize your iOS lock screen and even add widgets. While it may seem daunting at first, it's actually really easy to do. Following our iOS lock screen customization tutorial, I was able to put one together in under 10 minutes. While you're not going to have the simple flexibility of Android, you will have the ability to add practically anything you can imagine. The more CSS and JavaScript you know (or care to learn) the more you'll be able to do, but you definitely don't need any programming skills to make some pretty amazing alterations.

An Unobtrusive Notifications Bar

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android iOS does a lot of things very, very well, but if there were one place where it fails pretty miserably it's how it handles notifications. No matter what kind of notification you get, be it SMS or an alarm clock, iOS gives you the same annoying blue dialogue box that interrupts whatever you're doing. If you're sick of notifications getting in your way,MobileNotifier is an excellent solution.

This is a jailbreak hack, so you're out of luck if you're sticking with a jailed device. If you need a reason to jailbreak, this is a good one.

MobileNotifier handles notifications similarly to the way Android does—by keeping them in an always-accessible drawer and by notifying you without interruption so you can continue doing what you're doing. When you receive a text message, for example, a little bar will pop up top to let you know that you've received a notification. You can leave it up there for as long as you need and dismiss it (or act on it) whenever you want. To see all of your notifications (or to clear them), you just need to double tap the home button and you'll see your notifications drawer (as well as multi-tasking mode). If you'd like to set up MobileNotifier (and you should), follow our instructions here.

Getting Google Apps

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android The official Google Mobile app is an obvious choice because it provides easy access to a pretty wide swath of Google's features (including Google Goggles). You can also grab Google Latitude and Google Earth for iOS.Google Voice is also available, and we've shown you how to get the most out of it on your iOS device (including full integration into your phone dialer and SMS app, if you're a jailbreaker). If you want to start syncing your Google Docs, GoodReader is an excellent option (and absolutely worth the $5 cost for all it can do). Finally, you may find you actually prefer Google's mobile webapps over the native options, so be sure to load them up on your iOS device and bookmark them if you do. You can create a bookmark on your homescreen that acts just like an app, so it may really be a better alternative in some cases.

Enabling Google Sync

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android Apple's never been particularly good at over-the-air sync, and they seem dedicated to keeping you tethered to iTunes for the rest of eternity. If you don't like constantly syncing, paying for MobileMe, or just prefer to sync with Google in the first place, you can enable Google Sync on your iOS device to solve both of those problems.

Google Sync for iOS will let you push your contacts, calendars, and mail to your iOS device and it's really easy to set up. It's almost identical to setting up MobileMe, except it uses the Microsoft Exchange protocol. Google Sync requires iOS 3.0 or higher, but iOS 4.0 or higher will let you add multiple Exchange accounts (so you'll want to make sure you've upgraded if you need multiple Exchange accounts on your device). If you want to get Google Sync set up, Google has some step-by-step instructions to get you started. Once you have it up and running, you'll have your Google data pushed and syncing over-the-air to your iOS device just like you would with Android.

Enabling the Wi-Fi Hotspot

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android Sure, if you're running iOS 4.3 you can pay $20 per month for a Wi-Fi hotspot on your phone, but if you jailbreak you can pay $20 just once to get the same functionality. My-Wi is a $20 application that you can purchase in the Cydia store and makes nearly every tethering option you can imagine a possibility on your device. All you have to do is search for it in the Cydia store, purchase it, and install it. From there you just launch the app, click the Wi-Fi symbol, and turn your hotspot on. We have more detailed instructions here.

Better Voice Recognition

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android iOS' VoiceOver is what it is. For some it's helpful and for others (like myself) you just forget it even exists until you accidentally hold down the home button for too long. While there aren't any great improvements to iOS' voice recognition capabilities, there are two things that can help. First, if you haven't already download the official Google Mobile app you should, if only for its voice search capabilities. Additionally, you want to get your hands on a copy of the Dragon Dictation app, which will let you create notes as well as send email and SMS text messages with your voice. Both apps are free in the iTunes App Store so you really have every reason to give them a shot.

Turn-by-Turn Navigation

How to Make Your iPhone (or Other iOS Device) More Like Android When the iPhone was released, Maps was one of the coolest applications it came with; it showed what Apple and Google were capable of together. More than three years later it feels old and obsolete. Android's turn-by-turn navigation is such a significant improvement over what Apple's done with their Maps application that one of the biggest draws of Android is its Navigation app. While there's no news of a Navigation app coming to iOS, there are a few free options in the app store. Personally, I prefer MapQuest 4 Mobile, but Lifehacker readers have taken to Skobbler. Neither are perfect and I still prefer to memorize my directions, but if you're dying for free turn-by-turn navigation like you get on Android, this is as close as you'll get. I haven't tried out any of the pricier options, but Gizmodo has for both high and low budgets.

The Finishing Touches

As vain and trivial as it is, one of my favorite parts about the Gingerbread release of Android is the effect you get when you turn off the phone. It looks like an old CRT television turning off, which is significantly more fun than the screen simply cutting to black. It's strange to see Apple forgo the opportunity to smoothly animate between every state of iOS, but they've somehow neglected this one. Fortunately, if you jailbreak, you can install this effect very easily.

To get the effect, simply search Cydia for TV Tube Sleep. You'll need to first pay $1 to purchase the tweak, but then you'll be able to install it. Once installed, Cydia will ask to restart Springboard. Once Springboard has restarted, you should be able to see the effect any time your device's screen shuts off.

Feb11

How to Install Spotify on Your iPhone in the US (Or, How to Install Any Geo-Locked App through iTunes)

Certain apps—like Spotify—have country restrictions, meaning you can't download them or sign up for their service if you're not in a certain country. Fortunately, it's surprisingly easy to circumvent those restrictions. Here's how to do it.

Cult of Mac found this neat workaround for getting Spotify's iOS app to work inside the United States (it's currently Europe only), but these steps could really be reproduced for any free app on the iTunes App Store or any service. The video above will walk you through the whole process, but here are the basic steps you need to follow (using Spotify as an example):

Sign out of your iTunes account and scroll to the bottom of the store. You'll see a little flag for your country. Click on it and you'll be able to change your country to the United Kingdom.
Search for Spotify in the store and try to download it. You'll be prompted to create an account. It's important that you do it in this order or you will be asked to provide a credit card.
Make a new account with a fake address. If you search for UK in Google Maps and then search for a fast food restaurant, such as McDonalds, you'll be able to get a full phone number and address that you can use. Enter all of that in to create your fake account and choose "None" as a payment method when prompted.
iTunes will send you a verification email. Verify your email address and go try to download Spotify again from the iTunes App Store. This time it'll work.
Now you need a Spotify account. Visit daveproxy.co.uk and enter http://www.spotify.com in the URL field. This will allow you to access Spotify through a proxy so it thinks you're in the UK.
Sign up for a free Spotify account.
Download Spotify and enjoy!