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We here at TUAW are always on the lookout to help you, our dear readers, understand what is going on in the crazy world of Apple related technology. The biggest news, as of late, has been the continued efforts to hack the iPhone. A rich language has developed around the iPhone hacking community, and we thought it might be time for a primer of sorts. Never again will you confuse your jailbreaking with your bricking.
Jail. The public areas of the iPhone or iPod to which, by default, Apple allows read/write access via USB. In Unix terms, this refers to the /private/var/root/Media folder.
Jailbreak. The iPhone and iPod touch hacks that allow users to gain access to the entire Unix filesystem. In Unix terms, this refers to changing the root of the directory tree to /.
Activation. The process that allows you to move beyond any of the various screens that instruct you to connect your device to iTunes before it can be used. On the iPhone, you can only make emergency calls until your iPhone is activated.
Bricking. To render an iPhone or iPod touch inoperable. The 1.1.1 firmware update turned many iPhones into iBricks. Users could not reactivate their iPhone to get past their "Please connect to iTunes" screens. Although the phones could still be used for emergency calls, users were locked out from all normal iPhone operations.
File system. The way your iPhone or iPod touch uses its memory to store data and applications. The iPhone and iPod touch use two "disks": a smaller private file system that contains the operating system and a larger public one that contains your media (songs, videos, etc), preferences, and data.
Want to jailbreak your 1.1.1 iPhone so you can access all its files and install third party apps? Don't want to wait for Niacin's patch to leave beta? Here's a published method direct from the team. It may look similar to the iPhone Alley hack that is making the rounds but this isn't a derivative or leaked guide. This hack provides jailbreak, activation, and third party applications. The iPhone Alley hack is a actually copy of an early team method that someone leaked.
Remote Buddy, the do-it-all remote program for OS X, has reached version 1.7.1. I haven't taken a look at this app in a long time, but they've come a long way, baby-- a few months ago they added support (via AJAX) for the iPhone, and that has added a whole new universe of functionality to controlling your computer via a remote unit. If you haven't seen it lately, check it out.
The 1.7.1 update fixes a few bugs in the AJAX module, adds a warning if you don't have an Airport Express setting correct, and adds a newly rewritten driver for Front Row control. And this is all in addition to last week's big release (1.7), which added a ton of new stuff-- almost a complete rewrite of the AJAX remote, and compatibility with a ton of new programs, everything from ComicBookLover to VoodooPad.
Very impressive. Applications like this are what make it so great to be a Mac user. Remote Buddy is available for 19.99 € or as a free 30 day trial version over on their website. Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Daniel Jalkut over at Red Sweater has updated his crossword-solving application, Black Ink (formerly MacXword), to version 1.0.7. This definitely seems like a niche piece of software (not because only a few people do crosswords-- almost everyone does), but because I don't know anyone who wants a piece of software to help them get puzzles done.
Still, I'm betting that the people who enjoy Black Ink really, really enjoy it. Apparently the program even downloads puzzles "on the go," so if you're not already a crossword fan, maybe it'll turn you into one. The new version adds a menu item for zooming in or out of puzzles, a few interface tweaks, and "correctly-solved detection for puzzles with multi-character answers." I never knew those existed, but there you go.
We wrote about the 1.0 of Slife in February, and I thought it was a fascinating application-- there's nothing you look at more every single day than what you do with your own life, and yet here's a piece of software that lets you look at how you spend your time in a different, more objective way.
And now they've sent word that Slife has entered version 1.3, with numerous additions to the interface. The program can now work in the background, and apparently it no longer has to scan your hard drive for all the different applications to track-- if a new app shows up in your usage, it'll start tracking it automatically. They've also added a few social networking options (which sounds like a better idea than an actual feature to me-- do I really want people knowing how much time I spend playing World of Warcraft?) with their Slifeshare service. You can track your friends' activities, even down to what app they're using at the moment.
But while I'm personally not interested in completely sharing my pastimes (I'm sure there's an option to turn it off), I do really like the idea of the program, and I love the abilities it gives you to take a close look at exactly what you do on your computer when. Slife is available as a free trial (will track 3 apps), or as a full application for $34.
Reader Roger Kenny tipped us off to his cool site for iPhone-using New York Subway travelers. We've seen iPhone subway maps for New York before, and of course Google Maps is always available on the iPhone, but Roger's site goes even further. Not only can you see maps of the lines (via links to the MTA's website) and get directions (via HopStop), but he's also put together an RSS reader that will scroll subway alerts, and other news sites, across the top of your iPhone. If you spend any amount of time navigating New York's subways, it's definitely worth a bookmark.
I wish we had something like it for Chicago. Yes, our El stops (although, strangely enough, while I was writing this story it occurs to me that everyone in Chicago actually calls it "the train"-- I haven't heard it called the El since I moved here) are on Google Maps, but has anyone seen an iPhone "transit portal" for the Windy City? If so, toss it in the comments below, and those of us with big shoulders will thank you.
New to this version, you'll find speedier notifications, an improved Music Video style (which was one of the main complaints with the last release), improved iTunes notifications, and a few other bugfixes and improvements. Not a huge release by any means, but considering how much Growl pops up on my screen, even the little stuff matters.
The new version will synch right up with the latest build of Backpack, and Rod says that it will now display your data from Backpack in the same order inside Packrat, a feature much called-for by its users. There's no release date on the new version, obviously, yet, but if you jump in as a beta tester and get issues noticed and fixed, we could be looking at it sooner than later.
Rod's email is over on the site. Drop him a line and be as helpful as you can-- he's offering free license to folks who help him even out the seams in the new software.
The other week, we posted about Jisho, a Japanese to English translator for the Mac, and James, the developer, sent us another notice today that he's since updated to version 2.1.1. I can't find a changelist anywhere (and the site still says version 2.1) but James says there's a new intro splash screen, and an enhanced interface and accuracy. So if you grabbed it when we mentioned it last week, make sure to get the upgrade as well.
He wants to personally thank you, the readers of TUAW, for helping him make his software better, and we must echo his sentiments-- you guys rock. We are nothing but proud to bring developers like James a great audience like you, thanks very much.
iPhone (although I guess we should really say MobileSafari, since the iPod touch can do it too) Twitter client Hahlo got a nice little update over the weekend. Quite a few things have changed, so I'll just point you to Dean's blog to see all the new features. Basically, as he says, everything that you can do in Twitter can now be done right through Hahlo, including timelines, friends, direct messages, following, and so on. Links have been added inline, and now an @ reply is just a touch away. There are also a bunch of pretty links, including hahlo.com/username, which takes you to the username of the account you're looking for.
Very, very nice. Right now, I do most of my twittering through Twitterific, but with an app this nice on the iPhone (errr, MobileSafari), I might not need anything else.
Our Weblogs, Inc. buddies at Download Squad bring us this news: OpenOffice is going to be able to run natively on the Mac in 2008.
The OpenOffice suite is getting pretty impressive-- while Writer, Impress, and Calc might not be necessary when you have Pages, Keynote, and Numbers around, OpenOffice's Math, Draw, and Base will probably be welcome additions to a few Macs out there. And don't underestimate compatibility-- back when I had to use a PC at work, OpenOffice was a constant tool, and using the same program at work and home has its advantages for people who are forced to co-OS.
If you can't wait another year, there is still an alpha version available of the native port, and you might be waiting even longer than 2008 anyway-- we were promised a native port a year ago that apparently never showed up in full form. And don't forget about NeoOffice, either-- it's a very nice branch of the OpenOffice code that already natively runs on the Mac. Why wait for OpenOffice to get in gear when those folks have been punching out a native app for a long time now?
Scott Morrison sends word that MailTags, the Mail plugin that lets you both tag your emails and connect them directly up to iCal, has hit 2.1.1. The 2.1 release came a few days ago, and introduced incoming reply tagging-- whenever you sent out a message with tags on it, the reply that came back automatically received the same tags-- and the 2.1.1 update improves that feature. You can now tag an outgoing message as "expect reply," and MailTags can notify you through Growl and with highlighting that the reply has arrived.
The release also includes an example AppleScript that lets you use a "killed" tag to mark a message and any incoming replies to it as read-- if a thread has ceased to be important to you, you can ignore it completely. Bugfixes involving iCal interaction have also been implemented, and a column sizing interface improvement has been added.
The 2.1.1 update is a maintenance update and available for free to MailTags users over at the website. If you haven't bought the plugin yet, you can get it here for $29.95.
I've watched as much anime as the next guy, but even I need a Japanese dictionary to figure out what those crazy robots are saying sometimes. Enter Jisho, a Japanese/English dictionary for Mac OS X 10.4 and higher. You can search in the Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana forms of Japanese, and also in English, German, Russian, and French, and it will translate not only the Japanese characters out for you (in a bright, clean interface), but the Romanization as well.
And the latest version features a completely rewritten Romanization engine, as well as Kanji "zooming" and more OS X integration. If you ever need to regularly go from English to Japanese (or back again), Jisho's got what you need-- it's just $15 from Sugoisoft. And maybe you'll pick up enough to actually learn the language.
Scott's favorite blogging software has gotten another update, hot on the heels of the big 2.0 release. MarsEdit 2.0.2 patches up the big release with a few "slightly urgent" fixes involving using external editors and Evaluation mode (including a bug that caused you to be nagged a little more often than expected). There are also a few other typo and bug fixes (including a small fix to 2.0.1, which was only up for a little bit, so you didn't miss anything).
The iPhone Dev Team has released a simple-to-use GUI tool that allows you to unlock your iPhone for use with any SIM. The tool, which is based on their previous command-line work, provides one-touch speedy unlocking. This is a big improvement on the first generation release. It no longer requires you to use special files or to dump nor data.
You can download your copy from the DevTeam website, as a PXL package or, soon, from Installer.app. "Wheat" is the guy responsible for those amazing graphics.
Find out more at the #iphone channel at irc.osx86.hu. Remember, this is early software and unstable. If risk isn't your thing, you'll probably want to wait a few days or weeks for things to stabilize.
Update: After reports of failed unlocks, Sam has updated the version to fix a timing issue. Current version is now 1.0.1, which solves the timing issue.
Update 2: I know of a youtube hack and have heard third-hand of a Visual Voicemail hack. Will post when I have details.
We here at TUAW are always on the lookout to help you, our dear readers, understand what is going on in the crazy world of Apple related technology. The biggest news, as of late, has been the continued efforts to hack the iPhone. A rich language has developed around the iPhone hacking community, and we thought it might be time for a primer of sorts. Never again will you confuse your jailbreaking with your bricking.
Remote Buddy
Daniel Jalkut over at Red Sweater has 
We wrote about 
Reader 
The latest version of 
Rod over at Infinite NIL is looking to test 
iPhone (although I guess we should really say MobileSafari, since the iPod touch can do it too) 
Our Weblogs, Inc. buddies at Download Squad bring us this news: OpenOffice is going to be able to 
Scott Morrison sends word that 
I've watched as much anime as the next guy, but even I need a Japanese dictionary to figure out what 
