Leander Kahney's Blog, page 2246

First Look: Amazing (But Buggy) 8-Bit Arcade Roguelike, "100 Rogues"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZW_JEo59Nw
As the resident sadomasochist in love with roguelike games, I've been waiting for months for Dinofarm Games to release their lovingly crafted take on the genre, 100 Rogues. Now they have, and it's available on the App Store for $4.99! Kalloo! Kallay!

100 Rogues would be best described as an 8-bit arcade roguelike. All of the [...:]

Rupert Murdoch: The Wall Street Journal Is More Profitable On The iPad Than On Kindle

During a call discussing News Corp's latest financial results, Rupert Murdoch told investors that the Wall Street Journal has been extremely successful on the iPad, and it's far more profitable for them than similar content on the Kindle, at least on a per subscriber basis.

According to Murdoch, about 64,000 people are subscribing to the Wall [...:]

iPhone OS 4.0 Adds File Sharing Feature to iTunes

An exciting new feature in the latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta might finally address a long standing complaint of both users and app developers: the inability to easily move non-media files between the iPhone and a computer. According to Boy Genius Report, iPhone OS 4.0's new File Sharing feature will allow you to transfer and [...:]

iPhone OS 4 Beta Adds iPod Background Widgets and Orientation Lock to Dock

Beta 3 of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK has a couple of great new interface features, including the ability to close background apps through a hold-and-close method similar to the way deleting programs functions on the operating system, but I think I like the new media player widgets best.
In the latest beta, if you [...:]

Ellen DeGeneres Apologizes To Apple For Lame, Unfunny iPhone Parody Ad

In what might charitably be called the most toothless and limp parody this side of your dentureless grampa doing a timely Grover Cleveland impersonationation right before nap time, Ellen DeGeneres went on her talk show on Monday to poke fun at the iPhone 3Gs.
Ellen's hilarious gag? When she wants to send a text message, [...:]

Before Jailbreaking, Extract iPhone's SHSH Blobs Using Umbrella [How To]

If you're going to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad, the first thing you MUST do is backup your device's SHSH blobs.
With the release of iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch G3, Apple added an extra layer of security to prevent hacking, jailbreaking and unlocking. Apple is constantly closing the exploits used by jailbreak hackers by updating the [...:]

How To: Find Your iPhone's ECID

This tutorial helps you find out the ECID of your iPhone, which helps extracting SHSH keys needed to downgrade your device.
Ingredients:

iPhone 3GS / iPod Touch G3 / iPad
Mac

Please backup your device with iTunes before performing the procedure below.
1. Connect your device to a Mac and put it in recovery mode – Hold home and power [...:]

Ella Fitzgerald Sings Happy Birthday to Steve [Recollections]

At Steve Jobs 30th birthday party, the jazz great Ella Fitzgerald sings him happy birthday. She seems to have no idea who he is.
Part 14 of "My Close Encounters With Steve Jobs," Macworld founder David Bunnell's personal history of the Mac.

Soon after the Macworld dinner, Andrew Fluegelman and I were invited to Steve Job's lavish [...:]

Why Apple Won't Sweat a Federal Antitrust Investigation

If, as word on the street would have it, the Feds are about to launch an antitrust probe against Apple, life at One Infinite Loop will go on undisturbed.
To begin with, no one even knows what might be the focus of a potential Justice Department investigation. Is Apple's iPhone Developer's Agreement anti-competitive, [...:]

50 Mac Essentials #3: Scrivener

Scrivener is quite simply an excellent tool for writers.
Packed with features but not overwhelming you with them, it is particularly well suited for writing long-form works: books, screenplays, academic papers, and any other text work that can be broken into chapter-sized chunks.
Scrivener was developed by a writer, so it works the way a writer's brain [...:]