The Tapbots Multitasking Workaround

Tapbots, if you haven’t heard of them (which I found doubtful), are an iOS application development company run by designer Mark Jardine and programmer Paul Haddad. I’ve had the pleasure of beta testing a few of their applications, and I own and love everything they’ve created to date.

That said, my favorite application of theirs thus far is Pastebot, which allows you to sync clipboards between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The only feature missing from Pastebot was the ability to do this syncing without the app actually running on your phone, which, sadly, was impossible with Apple’s current implementation of multitasking on iOS 4. Or so we thought.

Consider this excerpt from the iOS Application Programming Guide’s section on background code execution:

Applications that play audio can continue playing that audio while in the background. To indicate that your application plays background audio, include the UIBackgroundModes key to its Info.plist file. The value for this key is an array containing the audio string. When this key is present, the system’s audio frameworks automatically prevent your application from being suspended when it moves to the background. Your application continues to run in the background as long as it is playing audio. However, if this key is not present when the application moves to the background, or if your application stops playing audio while in the background, your application is suspended.

This is how Pandora’s iPhone app streams audio while in the background. When your app plays audio in the background, it does not transition into the background suspended state. That means whatever code is running keeps running. This is, unless you’re a VoIP application, the only way your app can keep a persistent connection or otherwise run code indefinitely in the background. This will be taken advantage of in an upcoming Pastebot update to allow syncing to take place without the app running in the foreground.

Some caveats, however:

• Tapbots’ original idea was to loop a silent audio file to keep background audio alive while running the syncing code. Apple rejected them for abusing the background audio API, however. Therefore, the app must produce audible sound to be accepted into the App Store.
• Because the app doesn’t get suspended when playing background music, a lot of care has to be taken to make sure that your app isn’t doing a lot of work in the background. Otherwise, the system may kill you, or Apple will likely reject you from the App Store for bad user experience.
• This will probably interfere with the user’s ability to watch videos or play music from the iPod app. We’ll have to see how it works once Pastebot and other apps start implementing this idea.
• Pastebot’s latest update hasn’t been approved yet, so there is a slight possibility that Apple will still reject them for abusing the background audio service, though Tapbots seem optimistic.

In terms of how to present this option to the user, you’ll most likely end up giving the user the option to play their own music from the iTunes library. This means you’ll have to inform the user that to keep your app’s service running indefinitely in the background, the user has to keep the audio playing. This will undoubtedly come off sounding weird to your user, who has just been told that if he wants to keep <whatever, probably audio-unrelated thing your app does> while your app is (seemingly) not running, he/she needs to keep listening to his/her music. I’m not entirely sure what the most HIGular (I don’t care if that’s not a word) way to do this is, but Tapbots will definitely find a good solution being the UX geniuses they are, and set an example for other developers.

For more information from Tapbots themselves, see: http://tapbots.com/blog/pastebot/pastebot-music-in-background

On Jailbreaking and JailbreakMe.com

As you’re probably aware (because if you’re reading this, you probably follow me on Twitter, and if you follow me on Twitter, you’re either delusional and think I’m funny or you’re interested in Apple stuff), jailbreaking the iPhone has been ruled legal and a new vulnerability in iOS’ PDF reader has been exploited for the second web-based iDevice jailbreak so far (and the easiest jailbreak, certainly).

These two major events in the iPhone hacking community have stirred up some resentment towards Apple that I feel compelled to address because it’s starting to annoy me.

Firstly: Stop yelling at the iPhone hackers for discussing the details of their exploits. Apple are Apple, and they’re going to find these vulnerabilities and patch them with or without help from the Dev Team. However, jailbreaking an iPhone always requires complete access to the filesystem (how else are you going to install Cydia?). This is a major issue, because it means unverified and potentially malicious code can run with absolutely no restrictions on your device. This is not good. You want Apple to fix these holes. Even after you’re jailbroken, there are lots of ways to have the security of your phone compromised (for example, not changing the root password is a great way to lose your personal information), and the majority of jailbreakers probably aren’t careful about these things. This is why Apple restricts access to the iPhone’s internal workings, and while we may not agree 100% with how they do so, we have to respect the fact that it works for the majority of people who don’t know/care about protecting their phone from malicious attacks.

Secondly: Stop picking on Apple for not “opening” up their phone. Yes, we’d like it to be more open to developers and users, but we can’t simply ignore what Apple’s done for us so far. A few years ago, we didn’t even have an SDK. With each major iOS release, Apple’s opening up more and more of the phone, and more and more private frameworks are becoming public. Look at document interaction in iOS4. It’s certainly not perfect, but at least we have some form of file sharing between apps, don’t we? And multitasking might not be “real” multitasking, but it works for the majority of people, and that’s the thing that matters the most. Don’t care for it? Switch to Android. Really. Android’s a good competitor, and if its openness appeals to you, nobody’s stopping you. Or switch to any other smartphone; if you don’t like Apple products, don’t buy them.

I’d like to think Apple cares more about the security of their products and providing a good user experience rather than destroying the hacking community because Steve Jobs is a control freak. If you disagree, then you probably shouldn’t be using Apple products anyway.

Block-based UIAlertViews

Using UIAlertViews gets a bit annoying. You basically have to instantiate one and configure it, set its delegate to something that implements the UIAlertViewDelegate protocol. After that, you have to implement a method that gets called by the alert view when the user taps a button, and handle the button press.

However! If you’re developing for iOS 4 or later, you now have the ability to use blocks. Here’s a subclass of UIAlertView that allows you to use a block for a callback rather than having to worry about delegation.

Read more

dwineman:

“MOM! BETHANY WON’T LET ME PLAY DOODLE JUMP!”

“Play your own games, Bradley. And let your sister finish her homework.”

Bradley kicked at the banister railing at the top of the stairs and stomped off to his room, flung himself onto his bed. So unfair, he fumed. Bethany gets all the cool games. Bethany gets to have an iPhone 4 and all I get is a stupid iPod touch which doesn’t even have a Retina Display or a three-axis solid-state gyroscope. Bradley had a tendency to memorize WWDC keynotes.

He kicked off his sneakers and stared at the wall, frustration turning acid in his mouth. If only his dad hadn’t used Restrictions to disable purchases on his iPod. If only he hadn’t gotten in trouble for buying that thousand-dollar “I Am Rich” app two years ago when Tony from across the street had dared him to. If only Doodle Jump were free. So many if-onlies.

Wait. Bradley sat up straight, his nine-year-old mind just clutching at the edge of an idea. A moment later he was down the hall, banging on Bethany’s door.

“I already said no, Bradley. Go away.”

“I’m scared.”

There was a pause, then he heard his sister getting up and walking to the door. A moment later she was looking down at him. “What are you scared of, Bradley?”

“I’m scared that Mom and Dad are going to die someday.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, but she opened the door all the way. “Come sit down.” He ran in and climbed onto her desk chair. His legs dangled.

“What brought this on?” she asked, sitting on the bed.

He glanced over her desk, noticing the open math book and the iPhone next to it, running what looked like PCalc. “I dunno. I was just thinking about stuff, and remember how Mr. Pauletti had that scuba diving accident last year and now Tony doesn’t have a dad? I don’t want that to happen to us.”

His sister looked at the floor. Uh oh. I went too far. “Well, Mr. Pauletti wasn’t being careful, remember? He antagonized that stingray. Everybody knows you’re not supposed to antagonize stingrays. Dad taught us that at the aquarium, remember? So you don’t have to worry about him.”

“I guess.” He looked over at Bethany’s iPhone again. On TV the good guy always waits for just the right moment to grab the bad guy’s gun and bend his arm behind his back. But how does he know when it’s the right moment?

“And Mom is never going to let him go scuba diving anyway. Not now.”

“But what if Mom dies?” He pulled the chair a little closer to the desk.

“Mom’s not going to die.”

“But she might, and then there won’t be anyone to tell Dad that he shouldn’t go scuba—”

“MOM’S NOT GOING TO DIE, OKAY?” Bethany was crying. When did she start crying? She buried her face in her sleeve.

Now.

Bradley pounced on the iPhone and fled the room, earbuds trailing behind him, barely noticing his sister’s startled yelp. He made it back to his own room and locked the door just in time.

“BRADLEY! OPEN THIS DOOR!” She was still crying as she pounded.

Quickly he turned his attention to the purloined iPhone 4, taking only a moment to marvel for the dozenth time at the precision of its construction. Steve was right: it’s just like an old Leica camera. Home key, App Store, Search. Come on… there it is. Write A Review.

“BRADLEY! I’M NOT KIDDING!”

His thumbs danced across the onscreen keyboard, paying no attention to spelling — there was AutoCorrect for that — or proper capitalization. This was his one chance. “Make it count,” he said aloud as he typed out the exclamation point, the question mark, the second exclamation point, the second question mark, the third, the fourth, the fifth. No. That’s too many. Backspace. Just right.

The hallway was quiet. Had she given up? He listened for a moment, then heard what he had feared: two pairs of footsteps coming up the stairs. Bethany’s and… Mom’s? Worse: Dad’s. Oh no.

He had just enough time to add a postscript. But there was still something missing. Of course: a cute animal emoji. But which one?

The footsteps rounded the landing. They were almost at his door. No time to choose. All of them.

He heard the doorknob rattle, followed by a muffled swear. Then a scraping sound, which must have been his father feeling for the emergency key they kept on the molding above the door.

Octopus. Fish. The key sliding into the keyhole. Another fish. Whale. A soft click. Dolphin. Send.

It was done.

The door flew open. The rage was plain in his father’s eyes. Shaking, Bradley handed over Bethany’s iPhone. The door closed again. He was alone.

Whatever punishment was coming, it could never be as awful as the silence that preceded it.

But this time, he didn’t mind. In a few days, Doodle Jump will be free.

And so will I.

Get Free Apple Stuff [Stealing Superguide]

After a flood of reader emails, we’ve developed this how-to guide about getting as many free Apple devices as you want.

Disclaimer: Anshu Chimala strongly opposes stealing Apple stuff, we think people should remunerate Apple for their hard work. However, we also recognize that it can sometimes be useful to steal before you buy. If you use the guide, keep in mind that you do so at your own risk.

What you’ll need:

• To be born without a conscience
• A huge, loose T-shirt, and a ski mask
• A gun or other weapon

1. 
   
   
   To start, pick your favorite Apple store. You can do this by going to retail.apple.com and searching for the ones nearest you. THIEF PROTIP: Want to be famous? Try the new Shanghai Apple store!
   
   
2. 
   
   
   Be sure to find out what the store’s hours are and when it closes. Show up at the store wearing your loose clothing and ski mask with your weapon concealed and hang around outside the store about 30 minutes before it closes.
3. 
   
   
   Once the store is relatively empty (about 15 minutes before closing time), walk in quickly. Make your weapon clearly visible, and kill any lingering customers (who cares about them anyway, those idiots pay for stuff).
4. At this point, the Apple store employees should be screaming/vomiting/putting their hands up. Walk over to the Genius Bar and say, “YO, GENIUS, HOOK ME UP WITH ONE O DEM <Insert Apple product name here>.” THIEF PROTIP: The more “gangsta” you sound, the better the results.
5. The Genius should promptly place the requested items in your hands. Kill him/her anyway, because killing is fun and you really have nothing to lose at this point. THIEF PROTIP: Were you lucky enough to get a Genius of the opposite sex? Rape their corpses for added enjoyment!
6. Get the hell out of there, go home, and enjoy your free Apple product(s)!

That’s it: you should be able to steal Apple stuff.

Looking for free software to go with your free Apple product? Try this tutorial: http://www.cultofmac.com/install-pirated-appstore-apps-on-your-iphone-jailbreak-superguide/