The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Today, the online retailer Amazon.com launched its first iPhone/iPod touch application. Previously, Amazon offered a version of its site that was optimized for MobileSafari. Amazon has added some pretty nifty features in the iPhone application that could make shopping online a lot easier.

When you first launch the application, you are presented with your wish list, and the phrase "Get Yourself a Little Something." From this home tab, you can also see your signed-in username. When you tap the search tab, you are able to type in a search string just as you can on the Amazon.com homepage. Search results are featured in a descending list, ordered by relevance. You can see the categories for the search results by tapping the "By Category" button in the top-right.

Once you're on a product page, you are able to see the same information that you would see on the Amazon.com page, except compacted a little more. Tap the item name/price link, and you get a full product description. Tap the customer reviews section, and you can see all of the reviews. When you're ready to purchase, select "Buy Now," or "Add to Cart" at the bottom of the product page. The picture of the product will then "fall" into the shopping cart tab with a nice animation. You can also see a running count of all the items in your cart. If you decide you don't want the item, just tap the edit button and remove it. When you are ready to complete your purchase, select the "Checkout" button in the top-right corner of the cart tab.

Probably the coolest feature of Amazon's application is located in the "Remembers" tab. In this section, you can take a picture with your iPhone's camera and have it sent to Amazon. In a few minutes, you get a link to the Amazon product page for that item (or the item that resembles it most closely). Note that Mike Schramm's favorite iPhone app, Snaptell [iTunes link], has offered the ability to do the exact same thing for multiple shopping sites. The Amazon "Remembers" feature seems nice, and your results are saved on the Amazon site for later reference. In my tests, after taking the picture I received a link to the product page within 1-2 minutes. This definitely could come in handy if you're in a store and want to find out how much an item sells for on Amazon.

Amazon has really created an all-around great shopping experience for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download this application from the iTunes App Store for free.

Good news for those who like to read books on their iPhones (as opposed to listening to them read by other people). JKontherun reports that ebook seller Fictionwise is licensing support for the eReader format to Lexcycle for use in Stanza; Fictionwise is also launching an eReader store for Stanza users. This adds more than 40,000 titles to the Stanza family, and allows multiple options for licensed book content on the iPhone family; Fictionwise will continue to offer the eReader app that's already on the App Store. For users with libraries of eReader-format content bought for previous platforms like the Palm handhelds, those books should work.

The press release quotes Lexcycle COO Neelan Choksi: "Just in time for the holidays, Stanza readers are going to be able to find their favorite authors like Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts. This relationship with Fictionwise is a big step forward in our ongoing effort to expand the selection of works available to our large and growing user base."

While we love the sleek UI of Classics for books on the iPhone, that app doesn't let you choose your own premium or free books to populate the shelves -- and with thousands more ebooks now available to Stanza users, filling the shelves is going to be easier.

Thanks James.

Macworld notes today that Adobe won't have a booth at Macworld Expo, but will still be offering training sessions at the conference. Traditionally, Adobe's booth has been a major presence on the show floor.

The bad news might not end there: A tipster with purported connections inside Adobe told us that the company is considering laying off a significant fraction of its nearly 7,000 employees, including management.

• Update 4 p.m.: The axe fell a few hours ago at Adobe, according to two three former employees, but we don't know how widespread the damage is.
• Update 5 p.m.: Mike Downey, principal evangelist for the Flash, Flex and AIR products is "no longer with Adobe."
• Update 5:10 p.m.: Adobe issued a press release: "Adobe also announced the implementation of a restructuring program, and has taken steps to reduce its headcount by approximately 600 full-time positions globally. The restructuring will result in anticipated pre-tax charges totaling approximately $44 million to $50 million. The Company expects approximately $28 million to $30 million of the restructuring charges to be recorded in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008." Read the full press release here.
  

This points to some serious, knee-jerk cost-cutting at Adobe, since Macworld Expo has been so valuable to Adobe's relationship with the Mac user base in the past.

"Adobe has decided to shift its focus at the Macworld trade show this year," the company said in a statement given to Macworld magazine. "Macworld [Expo] is a valuable industry show and we will still be an active part of it with members of our product team involved in Macworld tracks, including a full day of CS4 demo sessions with Adobe evangelists on Wednesday, January 7."

Adobe Creative Suite 4 was released in October.

[Via O'Grady's PowerPage.]

According to Macworld, Apple removed a Knowledge Base article about antivirus software compatible with Mac OS X.

The article received "a lot of attention" because it seemingly contradicted Apple's marketing messages about malware for Mac. Our own Michael Rose tried to take the kettle off the stove, noting that the article had been around for years before the Washington Post noticed it this week.

Macworld's Jim Dalrymple spoke with Apple spokesman Bill Evans, who said "We have removed the Knowledge Base article because it was old and inaccurate. The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box."

Even so, Evans admitted, "Since no system can be 100% immune from every threat, running anti-virus software may offer additional protection."

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Apple has created a "Best of 2008" [iTunes link] section in the iTunes Store. On this page, Apple lets everyone know what the top-downloaded TV Shows, Music, Movies, Apps, Podcasts, and Audiobooks are.

Among the top paid iPhone applications are Koi Pond, Texas Hold'em, and Moto Chaser. Among the top free iPhone applications are Pandora, Facebook, and Tap Tap Revenge. There's also a top downloaded podcast list. We didn't quite make the top downloaded podcasts list, but hey, there's always next year.

So, if you're looking to find some of the best online content for 2008, look no further than iTunes. You can click here to visit the iTunes Best of 2008 section.

If you are environmentally conscious and only want to buy products that are safe and "Green," then look no further than your iPhone. That's because Good Guide [iTunes link] for iPhone allows you to search for these eco-friendly products. As a matter of fact, GoodGuide indexes over 65,000 products in several different categories.

When you search through a category and find a specific product that you would like to learn more about, GoodGuide gives you details that can better help you make your purchase. You can find things like: Overall rating, health rating, environmental rating, and social rating.

You can also create a shopping list with the products that you like; however, this feature requires you to create an account with GoodGuide. The application is available for free from the iTunes App Store.

Apple has now given developers the ability to use promo codes to give away copies of their applications on the App Store. Previously, developers had to build a special version of their application (i.e. Ad-hoc copy) that included a mobile provisioning file and the actual application. These two files were then dragged onto iTunes to install them.

With the Ad-hoc model, developers were limited to giving away 100 copies of their applications. Plus, users needed to find & supply the UDID information for their iPhone/iPod touch. With this change, developers can give away a special code that, when typed into the iTunes Store under the "Redeem" section, will give the user a free (or promotional) copy of the application. However, there are some caveats to using the promotional codes:

• The developer can only give away up to 50 promotional codes per application version
  
• Currently the promo codes can only be used in the US iTunes Store

We're sure that this will fill the gap between developers looking to get reviews and users eager to do the reviewing. Nice work, Apple!


[via MacRumors]

A French court has ruled that online retailers shipping music players to addresses in France must warn the customer that they will have to pay the "iPod tax" once the device arrives in the country.

France enacted a levy designed to compensate copyright holders to the tune of €40 per device for illegal file copying. French retailers roll the levy into their price, making vendors outside France more attractive, price-wise. The levy applies to music players, USB storage, and blank media.

While the warning is now necessary, it's no guarantee that the tax will be paid.

The UK, Canada and Japan have all considered or tried a similar fee, but all have failed for one reason or another.

[Via The Register.]

Update: The KB article referenced is now offline. You can see the archived version here.

Update 2: On Tuesday evening, Apple told Macworld that the KB article was removed because it was outdated and inaccurate; Mac OS X includes adequate security protection out of the box. The BBC has also rolled back the story, and has a more detailed post on the issue. Not sure I'm completely in agreement with this approach from Apple.... --MR

When the concepts of "antivirus" and "Mac OS X" approach each other in the blogosphere, the usual outcome is more heat than light. The current example of keyboards outpacing brainwaves has emerged from a storm of posts on various sites, mostly tracing back to security analyst/Washington Post writer Brian Krebs and AppleInsider's Aidan Malley. Both pointed to a "recently published" Apple KB article that listed a trio of AV applications available for Mac OS X.

More shocking to this pair of pundits: the KB article actually went so far as to encourage Mac users to buy, install and use antivirus software -- even "multiple antivirus utilities" to prevent the spread of malware, which was trumpeted by a ZDnet headline. What now? Is Apple's security story on the marketing front now undermined by the quiet truthtelling of the support site? Should Justin Long apologize to John Hodgman? Are cats and dogs now living together? Is the BBC picking up the story (yes, unfortunately, it is)?

The relevant quote from the shiny new KB article that has caused such commotion:

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one program to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

Let's be fair: Apple's prose isn't helping matters, because while we all know that "widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities" doesn't mean you should be installing multiple AV tools on your one, single Mac -- the point is that the ecosystem should have variation, making it harder for malware writers to attack the entire population with one well-crafted exploit -- that fine distinction appears to have been lost on some of those who encountered this "new" KB article.

This, of course, brings us to point #2: a careful reading (or really, any reading at all) of the KB item shows the "Old article: 4454" legend at the top right. Yes, Apple does sometimes update KB articles, and in this case the same exact "multiple utilities" copy has been on the support site for a while -- the article was originally published in June of 2007, and was updated simply to reflect current versioning on the Intego and Symantec AV products.

So, to sum up, Apple's recommendations have changed not a whit in 18 months. Everyone who is decrying the sad state of security on the Mac -- or, conversely, crediting Apple for waking up and smelling the coffee -- is chasing his or her cybertail with a great deal of enthusiasm. Malware on the Mac, such as there is, is still almost exclusively delivered via social engineering, so please don't install random video codecs downloaded from porn sites. That said, the commercial and free AV options for the Mac are pretty stable, and they're certainly worth exploring if you want to be a good computing citizen who doesn't relay Windows malware from friend to friend unknowingly. Read on for my top five tips when/if installing AV tools on your Mac.

Hat tip to MacDailyNews for linking the original KB article from the Internet Archive.

Continue reading “Apple updates antivirus version numbers, security savants lose grip on reality”

In yet another new facet to this already-draining legal battle surrounding Psystar's sales of non-Apple hardware that runs Mac OS X, Apple has amended its original suit after it discovered "additional information," according to Computerworld.

Apple now claims Psystar circumvented Apple's copyright protection code, in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Apple said in its original filing that Psystar was in violation of the Mac OS X End-User License Agreement, but tacked on this additional charge last week.

The amendment also names 10 "John Does" -- persons who were not part of the Psystar company, but broke the copyright protection scheme. Apple doesn't know who they are yet, but plans to name names when its lawyers find out who they are.

In other Apple legal news, Apple won a trademark infringement case in China against New Apple Concept Digital Technology Co., Ltd., based in Shenzen. Judges decided that the Chinese company had a logo too similar to Apple's. New Ap -- aw, eff it -- NACDTCL was ordered to pay 400,000 yuan (≈ US$58,000) to Apple, Inc.

[Via Cult of Mac.]