Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Chromeless Web Apps on iPhone

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

One thing I was really looking forward to in iPhone OS 2.0 was the advent of chromeless web apps. The promise was, as a web developer, you’d be able to add a line of code to your site, and it would unlock a fancy new feature: in addition to just adding an icon to your home screen, you could now make it a standalone “app.” No URL bar, no navigation chrome, all screen real estate. Here’s the code, situated in the head tag:

<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />

And the result is a nice, clean, chromeless browsing experience:

Hahlo Chromeless — Landscape

 

The problem is, it’s not perfect, so a lot of web app developers haven’t been using it. Take Hahlo, for example. It would be a spectacular standalone Twitter client. However, the site’s developer, Dean Robinson, found very quickly that external links simply don’t work properly from within this chromeless wrapper. You tap on a link, and, if it’s supposed to spawn a new window, it simply doesn’t work. Or, if it’s a normal “go there right within this current window” type of link, it’ll pop you out to MobileSafari. No good.

Also, as Craig Hockenberry has pointed out, all chromeless web apps must load a fresh new WebKit instance every single time you load the app. Compare that with Safari.app, which is almost always running in the background, ready for action. It’s not a huge wait time when you launch the “app,” but it’s enough to be a little annoying.

So, in answer to these flaws, developers like Dean, Shaun Inman of Mint fame, and the Flickr Mobile team have all decided not to include that one magical line of code. No chromeless web apps for you!

iPhone shortcuts with fancy iconsThankfully, there’s a way around it. It’s roughly the same method we used to use for assigning our own preferred apple-touch-icons for WebClips, back when they were the hot new item. Anyway, it’s pretty simple to just make your own “bounce page” with all your favorite web apps, and enable them as chrome-less web apps without the developer’s consent. Now, of course, you’re not really messing with their code…but do keep in mind, you’re messing with their intended user experience. If you use this method, and you get all bummed out about your links not working, don’t blame Dean or Shaun or Flickr. It’s not their fault, they’ve all written some amazing code. You’re circumventing their delivery decisions, so you have to kinda own that. If you’re cool with that, have fun.

If you want to leech off my shortcut page, I guess, go right ahead. I’m not likely to add any suggested items to it, unless they blow my mind. And my Mint bookmark ain’t gonna do you much good, but it’s a good example of how to get it done for your own installation. View source, and go to town.

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Posted in Tech | 3 Comments »

You’re doing a disservice to your people, man.

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

I was “mugged” yesterday.

I put it in quotes because I wasn’t hurt, nobody hit me, and they didn’t get anything from me, even though there were three of them. I didn’t do what you’re “supposed to do.”

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

When a white man or woman walks down the street and clutches their belongings to themselves if a black man walks by, that’s a fucking tragedy. When I walk down the streets of Oakland, I make eye contact with the people I see, and if I happen to be holding my iPhone, I don’t shove it in my pocket when I see someone whose face doesn’t look friendly. White, asian, black, hispanic, whatever…I’m a trusting guy, at least to some extent. Now, there are places I don’t like to brandish my iPhone, and there are times I’d prefer not to take it out of my pocket…I’m not entirely stupid.

Yesterday, I was walking through Chinatown, on my way back to the office, reading an article on my iPhone. All of the following happens in the span of one half-block. I saw a couple highschool-aged black kids jaywalking across the street toward me. One tall pudgy kid with a backpack, one shorter and skinnier with a burgeoning mustache, and one tall and skinny with huge baggy black/white/silver Raiders hoodie and hat. The latter two were behind me after they crossed the street, and the big pudgy kid looked like he just got ahead of them. He doubled back around me, I assumed to just go back and stay walkin’ with his buddies. I kept walking at my pace, and I kept my iPhone out, now half-reading, half paying attention to my surroundings.

The skinny shorter kid walked a little faster, and was soon walking on my left. I looked over and made eye contact, since he was closer than I’d expect. “How you doin’,” he said with a smile. I said “how you doin’?”

We had just stepped off the curb where the old asian lady usually collects cardboard boxes, just near the 880 overpass (it’s dark and secluded under the bridge, but we weren’t quite there yet). She was there, we had walked past her. There were one or two other asian people walking close by.

“Gimme everything you got.” And I was surrounded. The tall kid in the black hoodie had his hand in his baggy pocket, aiming it at me.

And I did exactly what you’re not supposed to do.

I said “Man, I got nothin’,” and I held onto my phone with a death-grip, and kept my other hand in my jacket pocket with my wallet. I didn’t utter another syllable. “I’ma shoot this nigga right here,” said the black-hoodie kid. I looked at his bulging pocket, and immediately turned my head to look at the asian lady across the street. She was still there, but I wasn’t sure if she saw what was going on. The other two people were still in the vicinity, but again, I don’t think they saw me.

I turned and started struggling through them to walk away. “I’ma shoot this nigga right here,” he said again, no louder than before, while his buddies were trying to grab my arms and get me under the overpass. I squirmed out of their grip, yanked my arms every which way to get free.

Maybe they knew they couldn’t do anything within view of other people. Maybe they were just fuckin’ around with the dorky-lookin’ white dude to see if he’d just hand over all his shit at the slightest threat. I don’t know. I got free quickly, I didn’t get shot, still had my phone in my hand, and it quickly went in my hip pocket as I walked back into Chinatown, looking as if nothing had just happened.

I turned a corner a few blocks in, and went another way back to work. Along the way, I saw a patrol car stopped at a traffic light, but he was in the middle lane of a high-traffic five-lane one-way street…not safe to walk out and flag him down. I made eye contact with the cop, but I decided against it, and he drove away when the light turned green. The only thing I could think as I walked back to work was this: I’m glad I’m not in Baltimore. My shit would be gone, and I’d probably be shot anyway.

On the one hand, I’m proud and surprised with myself for not just caving in and surrendering. I walked away with all my shit, and I didn’t get hurt. I didn’t challenge the dude to prove he had a gun. I didn’t say anything pithy to provoke them. Sure, it’s a bit strange to hear a guy say “dude, I got nothin’” while he’s holding a $500 phone…but it’s not anywhere near challenging, like “that’s a gun?” Anyway, I think I did the right thing by saying almost nothing. It’s probably what kept me from getting (at the very least) beat up.

And on the other hand, I’m a fucking idiot. I’ve got Liz and my family to think about. What if I’d gotten shot? What the fuck was I thinking? Liz, Buddy, Kathy, Gary et al: I’m sorry. Next time, I hand over my shit.

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Posted in Personal | No Comments »

missing the point

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Here’s why I don’t get people, or at least, the sorts of people who immediately take an aggressive stance against me whenever I say anything political. They invariably have missed the point.

Case in point: last week, on a car forum that I frequent, I wandered into the iPhone thread. I had heard about the Obama ’08 app for iPhone, and wanted to spread the word. As soon as I posted the link, and asked people to please get involved, I was lambasted.

Now, I know enough to expect this. I’ve been on the forum awhile. But here’s why I get pissed at my opponents’ stupidity. This app? The one I posted a link to? It’s a tool to help people get their friends and relatives to register to vote, and to help spread the word about how important it is to make your voice heard and make the commitment to vote. But some Republicans can’t stand to even look at the name “Obama,” and are simply incapable of seeing that it’s a tool they can use to their own ends.

On the flip side of this coin, I applaud the efforts of the software engineers who made this app. It’s an excellent tool for the betterment of democracy, and I’m glad as hell that they put their “signature” on it by putting Obama’s name on it.

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Posted in Politics | No Comments »

Privacy, and why no one cares

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

If you’re reading this because you want an answer to the “why” in my headline, you’re gonna be sorely disappointed. Today, I am stunned, slowly shaking my head at my computer screen. The “me generation” has struck again. Let’s back up a moment. The big story I’m seeing today is an iPhone-related story. So, if you could care less about iPhone stuff, you know what to do. Anyway, there’s this video game that was released, for free, to the iTunes AppStore for iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s a basic block-matching puzzle game, but it’s got some nifty features and storylines built in, so it’s pretty damn fun to play. I’ve had it on my phone for almost a week. One of the nifty features, apparently, is a “Community” mode of play. So, you can team up with your friends and play the game together. I say “apparently” because I never bothered to opt-in for the Community mode. Thankfully. Y’see, the developers of this game did something terribly sloppy. When a user “opts in” for the Community mode, they’re asked for their phone number and email address. Then (if the reports are correct) the app compiles a list of all the people/info in your phone’s addressbook, and sends that data IN THE CLEAR (without encryption) back to their servers. The game developers are apparently not doing anything with this data yet (if you believe them), and aren’t even storing the data on their servers (again, if you believe them). But the fact that you could be sitting in downtown Mountain View, playing the game at the bus stop, and suddenly all of your contacts’ phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses, etc, are all broadcast in-the-clear across a completely un-secured public WiFi network…that’s fuckin’ scary. But here’s the thing: on public forums and bulletin boards across the internet, from what I’m seeing, the prevailing attitude is “so what?” and “who cares?” Seriously, here are two direct quotes from the comment section of the Gizmodo article:

I mean, they released a quality game at an unbeatable price, what’s not to like? I don’t understand why it’s so bad for someone to see your contacts…worst case scenario is someone saying “OMG, user Substance_D has someone named Erika D on his contact list! Should I prank call her up? I can even see the number since these servers are unencrypted!” Wtf, who cares. 

First, stop pretended your contact list is of any desire to anyone; you don’t know anyone we want to talk to anyways. Furthermore, all the big social networking sites let you voluntarily (and I know Aurora Feint left that part out) give up your contact list to them and its stored on THEIR servers even after they find your friends. So to think that your info has never been given up to MySpace, Facebook or Linkedin just cause YOU didn’t agree to a search is pretty naive since with all the members they have statistically speaking one of your friends/family, that has YOUR contact info, has submitted to the search. The exception to that is of course if you don’t have any friends. Searching someone’s contact list is not new and not evil, most social programs do it. Stop demonizing these developers.

I can’t believe how shallow people’s views are. Well, yeah I can, because I know full well that reading comment sections of websites is a really good way to lose faith in humanity. But I just can’t get past the fact that nobody GETS it. I, for one, don’t trust MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn. I don’t use those utilities that crawl your email address book to find your friends. It just feels wrong to me. Too much trust. But I can understand how others would set aside any such fear. OK, fine. But granting the same trust to some independent game development shop who has had absolutely NO presence in the market before, and who has done absolutely nothing to instill trust? FUCK no. Maybe it’s a complete lack of understanding of the technology…I’d imagine a huge percentage of the world just thinks the internet works by “magic.” Actually, I’ve seen plenty of commentary from folks who think “oh, if someone really wants your data, they’ll find a way.” Really? Man, you don’t know anything. And you’re part of the problem. You give up before you even know, and you encourage others to do the same. The last quote up above was a direct response to this guy, who gets it:

OK. I think I understand. So here’s the reasons why it’s apparently OK that they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST:
1) They make a fun game, so who cares if they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST?
2) they’re cool, so it’s OK they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
3) it’s nanny Apple’s fault who, in this one single instance, should be more closed not more open, so a rogue developer can’t STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST. (not that they’re rogue or anything)
4) the developers didn’t want to inconvenience users by making them type or something, so they STOLE THEIR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
5) since the developers only had 10 weeks they had no choice but to STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
6) Since your gaming community is going to include every single person you know, why not just STEAL YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST?
7) the developers are new to computers, the internet, privacy, and Earthlings, and had no idea anyone would mind if they STOLE THEIR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST.
Did I miss any reasons why it’s OK they STOLE YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LIST? Oh yeah.
8) Think of all the fun their summer intern is going to have searching their database for the privates on Steve Jobs, Buckethead, Brian Lam, and other known people whose numbers may not be in your iPhone, but may be in the PRIVATE FUCKING CONTACT LISTS THEY STOLE. 

Several people have defended the developers, saying YOU (as a user of the game) had to opt-in. But as far as I can see, the game only asked me for my email address and phone number (which I did not give). I wasn’t asked for my whole contact list. That ain’t exactly transparent. I think we’ll see a handful more fuck-ups like this from iPhone developers, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the apathy monster that’s running around, rampant.

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Posted in Interestingness | No Comments »