iOS

There are 46 posts filed in iOS (this is page 4 of 5).

Back to Instapaper

I’ve recently returned to Instapaper.

Why? Because it’s neat. I use Fever exclusively for my RSS consumption but the feed view in Fever is pretty bad. So, almost always, I found myself looking for a way to read interesting articles without visiting their ad-filled websites. Instapaper was embedded in Fever, but I discovered that if I don’t just want to save the article to Instapaper, I want to read it right then, I could easily integrate the “Instapaper Text” bookmarklet into Fever and go from there. Further, Instapaper’s code is smart enough to parse 99% of the sites I want to read cleanly (including, amusingly, Google.com :D)

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Jailbreaking is still frowned upon

In the past few years, BYOD has flourished and people have been unlocked from old, clunky Blackberries and attached to Apples and various candies. But with all this openness has come a problem – that of jailbreaking.

Jailbreaking the iOS or rooting your Android device are frowned upon by the enterprise because of the apparent security problems and the costs of supporting un-supported functions that these devices can do. In that sense, a new idea is emerging – that of Android being the standard. Android is open and allows anyone to pick it up and start modifying it to its needs. What does that drive companies to? Using Android as a standard and expecting their employees to do the same.

The main contention is that jailbreaking is in itself a security flaw. Thus, it’d be very easy for the employee to install the wrong tweak from the Cydia store and lose all the company’s vital data. Or, in case the employee is not careful, they can brick their device while jailbreaking and then expect the company’s IT department to support them.

Most of the problems that the enterprise quotes against jailbreaking is not valid anymore.

The process of jailbreaking is perhaps 99.9% safe now, with only every a couple of devices reporting bricking of devices due to unconventional installs. The mass of the common public just downloads a program, connects their device, clicks a button and they’re done. Also, this process is purely software based now, so the chances of really bricking your device? Zero. Why? Because if something goes wrong, you just start iTunes and hit “Restore”.

What about the security issues? Let’s talk about the jailbreak devs themselves. All of the devs involved are working for free. No one is truly paying them to do it, except the few donations they receive. That means that they do not have any hidden interests in the process. Do you trust OpenSource or software developers on Github and SourceForge to not steal your identity or corporate data? Do you use Ubuntu at home because, “hey, it’s free”? Then there’s no reason not to trust these devs to do the right thing and not use security flaws to steal your data. In fact, the iOS 3 hack involving jailbreaking the device simply by downloading a PDF file from the Internet helped Apple fixed a bug that could have been misused by anyone else. The devs welcomed Apple’s security update that fixed that jailbreak.

Finally, what about the tweaks that people install? Well, when it comes to getting the right installs with no bugs, I trust only one name – BigBoss. It is a repo hosting provider that hosts paid and free tweaks in Cydia. The point? It’s a safe environment where tweaks are tested before being allowed to go to the general public. And if a company is really serious about setting up a BYOD environment, they can work with these repository hosting providers to test and approve tweaks that work on the iOS.

There’s a general misconception in the public and in companies that since Android is open and so freely available, it’s easier to support Android. Not true. Android devices are heavily fragmented. Amazon’s Kindle Fire cannot do many things that an Asus tablet can. That functionality may also include SSL, Wireless security and other encrypted email. To support so many devices and so many versions of the same OS can be a much bigger pain for Enterprises.

Instead, if we look at iOS, non-jailbroken devices are freely supported by Apple (how do you un-jailbreak a device? Simply restore the OS, Apple has no way of verifying that it was ever jailbroken) and jailbroken devices will still have the same platform as the first one. There is no fragmentation in Apple devices, no multiple versions of their OS running on devices of varying hardware capabilities.

End Game? Apple devices are a lot easier to support, fix and troubleshoot than other options. Time to change your perception.

iPhone 5 – conflict

Every year, when the new iOS comes around, major Cydia tweak hosting provider BigBoss provides a severe warning to all its users. This message, carried across all of Cydia, is an important reminder to noobs that they shouldn’t upgrade to the latest iOS before it gets jailbroken in order to preserve their tweaks. However, this time around, it seems that the warning comes with added weight –

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Year of Social

The season is changing and here, in Boulder, Colorado, it means colder nights and shorter days. It’s time for animals to wrap up their food gathering operations and finish working on cozy homes for the all too familiar winter.

 

This hibernation is also coming to a very important aspect of my life. Last year, at about the same time, I dumped Facebook in favor of Twitter. I had been inactive on the micro blog since long and returned to it, only to discover so many new and amazing connections and services. I found people worth talking to and got help where I needed it. I also posted a lot on this blog here, taking it through many iterations, themes and (free) hosting providers. Now I’ve moved it to a paid provider – NearlyFreeSpeech in order to maintain a better uptime ratio.

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How will App.net’s Culture grow?

I’ve been reading a lot of discussion on App.net about how the concept of reblogging/retweeting is going to grow on the network. Since I don’t know how the idea of a retweet (RT) grew on Twitter, I went hunting for information. Turns out, Wikipedia details out the growth of the RT on twitter in this article here. Turns out, the concept of using @ to signify a user and RT to signify a re-post grew organically among twitter users around 2008. This troubled my mind a bit. So, in essence, the growth of culture on twitter was independent of what the company wanted and instead, was in the hands of the users.

Now we come to a discussion on App.net. This discussion right here – Echoes, RPs and “>>” talks about people using the “Share” button on Google Chrome via an extension called Succynct by developer and App.net member Abraham Williams. The point to note is that since the platform is still in it’s infancy, a proper lingo for re-posting has not yet been decided and the creator, Dalton Caldwell has just been using the lingo “RP” for RePost. The conversation flows to discuss the concepts of “>>” and finally, that of “Echo”. Here is where the biggest problem lies. The developer, having a distaste for “>>”, says that in the next build of his extension, he’ll consider adding the “Echo” keyword.

App.net started as a way to hand over control of the flow of conversation to the people. The promise is that no longer will we be plagued by advertisements and spam bots. The promise did not talk about who would have control over the ideas and the culture. This means that people building on top of App.net have the ultimate control. Now here’s the thing – A common user of App.net pays $50 per year while a developer pays $100. Obviously, there will be a lot fewer developers than users. This also means that those making all the apps, extensions and services on top of App.net will be very few. Compare this with Facebook, Twitter and other ad-supported networks. Anyone can get up and create an app. Thus, the onus of deciding lingo rests either on the common users who popularize concepts (as in the case of Twitter) or in the hands of the company (Facebook).

App.net is pretty young right now and because of the promise made to it’s users, the company has rested control of the culture into the hands of the common users. Or maybe not. The disparity between paying users and paying developers means that a concentrated few will get to decided how things formulate. The reason, if it’s not clear to everyone is that a lot of users for all social networks nowadays are mobile. That means that the default web interface for App.net is not going to dictate culture as well as iOS apps do. Even when users are on their desktops, extensions like Succynct will rule the platform and create culture.

Maybe these predictions will come true and maybe not. But the fact remains that as long as App.net retains this business model, the power to create something on top of it will not be in the hands of the masses. Perhaps when App.net has proven it’s point and penetrated a large chunk of the market, it should revisit it’s developer strategy and open doors to many more people, thus making sure that it remains true to it’s goals.

Spool is joining Facebook

Spool is joining Facebook «

I can’t believe this is happening. Facebook has a habit of buying a lot of companies and shutting them down. It’s almost a ritual for them. I used this service often when I was on the bus to work and didn’t want to waste my Data plan. So this is a major inconvenience for people like me. I wonder how many are out there and how this happened.

AT&T 4G Issues

I faced a strange problem today. I have an iPhone 4s with iOS 5.1.1 on AT&T’s 4G network in Boulder, Colorado.

I tried opening this blog of mine on my phone today. I tried multiple times when the bus was moving over many miles and also when I had stopped at a particular location. No show. I asked a friend to open it on his Samsung Galaxy Note (which is also on AT&T’s 4G network) but again, no show.

The blog was constantly giving us a 502 Bad Gateway error, meaning that either AT&T’s or my hosting provider’s servers are configured badly. When I reached my office, I opened the blog on my computer. It worked like a charm. At the same time, it did not load on my phone right there and then.

Upon digging a bit, I found that this is a problem for a lot of people all over the country, specifically on AT&T’s amazing 4G data network. Wonder what else doesn’t work!

Google Chrome for iOS – A great big benefit

Google launched their Chrome browser for iOS (iPhone and iPad) yesterday. Within minutes of the launch, the Internet was full of news of how laggy and useless the browser was because of the many restrictions on third party browsers by Apple. One blogger even went on to show with HTML5 rendering tests that Chrome was twice as slow as mobile Safari.

Great, so you found bugs in an app that’s just been released. I found a feature. I was doing some research last night about WordPress. I left the tabs open in my laptop’s Chrome browser and slept off. Today, while standing at the bus stop waiting for transportation, I whipped out my iPhone and opened Chrome. Under the “Other devices” section, I quickly found the tab that is open on my computer and continued my research. Simple as that.

I know that the browser has its faults but not because of something Google did. In fact, Google fulfilled a long running request – to bring the Chrome browser to iOS. It is Apple’s heavy restrictions that do not allow Chrome to function so well.

After Apple’s shifting away from Google Maps in iOS 6, there’s not much goodwill left in the companies *in my opinion* (in case you’re about to refute, I know Google pays millions to Apple to be the default search in Safari). I say Google et al should sue Apple for monopoly over the iOS browser as Netscape vs Microsoft was.