We will miss you Steve..!

There are some requirements before you can successfully publish your book on the iBookStore:

• Get an ISBN numbers for the books you want to publish
• Convert the book into EPUB format
• Make sure the book pass EpubCheck 1.0.5
• a US Tax ID (sorry guys, this is only open to the US at this point)
• an iTunes account backed up by a credit card
• a fairly good idea of where you’ll sell and how much you’ll sell
• an Intel-based Mac running OS 10.5 or betterand meet some reasonable technical requirements

If you don’t know how to get an ISBN number or potentially want to get paid faster, Apple suggests that you use an Apple-approved aggregator. These are firms that have a financial arrangement with Apple and can provide a number of services at what seems to be a reasonable cost. Each aggregator delivers a different set of services, but let’s take Bookbaby as an example. They charge $49 per book the first year and then $19 per book each year the book is in the store. For an additional $19 they can snag you an ISBN number, and if your book isn’t in the proper format, another $19 will get that done. Other services, such as Smashwords takes no upfront money but does take a cut of the profits. Many supply marketing assistance, collect payments and handle other details.

Who would have thought, just three years ago, that opening the App Store to submissions from just about anyone would wind up to be such a home-run? I have a feeling of déjà vu on this as well, and think that opening iBooks to the writing community will have wide-reaching effects over the next year. I’m also interested to see what sort of content Apple decides to let in. Books for sure, but what about novellas, scholarly articles, or even a collection of blog posts? I might see a market for a book of everything TUAW has written about the iPhone to date. Originality, function and expertise has fueled the App Store, bringing to it apps that no one would have ever thought of, and here we have another wide open market for almost anyone to jump in on. Who knows what the publishing world will be like a year from now?

So writers, get writing!

Apple iPad

Steve Jobs claims it will offer the best browsing experience you can have, like “holding the Internet in your hands.” The iPad appears to be answer to netbooks, but combines the best of all iPhone and earlier Apple products.The aluminium-clad rectangular unit is .5 inches thick, 9.7 inches diagonally, 1.5 pounds in weight, and uses the 1GHz Apple A4 chip and 16 to 64 GB in flash storage. It is WiFi-capable (802.11) and can also be accessed through Bluetooth technology.The device will include e-mail, photos, maps, built-in iTunes store and YouTube functionality.

Flash CS5: Native iPhone Application Development

The new support for iPhone applications in the Flash Platform tooling will not allow iPhone users to browse web content built with Flash technology on iPhone, but it may allow developers to repackage existing web content as applications for iPhone if they choose to do so.Flash Player uses a just-in-time compiler and virtual machine within a browser plug-in to play back content on websites. Those technologies are not allowed on the iPhone at this time, so a Flash Player for iPhone is not being made available today. Flash Professional CS5 will enable developers to build applications for iPhone that are installed as native applications. Users will be able to access the apps after downloading them from Apple’s App Store and installing them on iPhone or iPod touch. Developers can deliver applications built with Flash Platform tooling just like any other iPhone application. This will require the developer to be a member of the iPhone Developer Program and follow the program guidelines. iPhone applications built with Flash Platform tools are compiled into standard, native iPhone executables, just like any other iPhone applicatio. Applications can be built targeting iPhone OS 3.0 and later.

Update: Apple has bowled out Adobe’s effort to get iPhone application development on Flash platform with introduction of new clause in its iPhone SDK 4.0 license agreement which makes developing iPhone application using tools other than from Apple as illegal. Check more details about whats new in iPhone SDK 4.0 and its implications at http://www.macoscoders.com/2010/04/09/new-features-in-iphone-os-4-0/

iPhone OS streams movies and audio using HTTP over EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks. iPhone OS uses a native application to play back video even when video is embedded in your webpages. Video automatically expands to the size of the screen and rotates when the user changes orientation. The controls automatically hide when they are not in use and appear when the user taps the screen. This is the experience the user expects when viewing all video on iPhone OS.

Safari on iPhone OS supports a variety of rich media, including QuickTime movies. Safari on iPhone OS does not support Flash so don’t bring up JavaScript alerts that ask users to download Flash. Also, don’t use JavaScript movie controls to play back video since iPhone OS supplies its own controls.

Safari on the desktop supports the same audio and video formats as Safari on iPhone OS. However, if you use the audio and video HTML elements on the desktop, you can customize the play back controls. See Safari DOM Extensions Reference for more details on the HTMLMediaElement class.

Follow these guidelines to deliver the best web audio and video experience in Safari on any platform:

• Follow current best practices for embedding movies in webpages as described in “Sizing Movies Appropriately,” “Don’t Let the Bit Rate Stall Your Movie,” and “Using Supported Movie Standards.”
• Use QuickTime Pro to encode H.264/AAC at appropriate sizes and bit rates for EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks, as described in “Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE.”
• Use reference movies so that iPhone OS automatically streams the best version of your content for the current network connection, as described in “Creating a Reference Movie.”
• Use poster JPEGs (not poster frames in a movie) to display a preview of your embedded movie in webpages, as described in “Creating a Poster Image for Movies.”
• Make sure the HTTP servers hosting your media files support byte-range requests, as described in “Configuring Your Server.”
• If your site has a custom media player, also provide direct links to the media files. iPhone OS users can follow these links to play those files directly.

Sizing Movies Appropriately

In landscape orientation on iPhone OS, the screen is 480 x 320 pixels. Users can easily switch the view mode between scaled-to-fit (letterboxed) and full-screen (centered and cropped). You should use a size that preserves the aspect ratio of your content and fits within a 480 x 360 rectangle. 480 x 360 is a good choice for 4:3 aspect ratio content and 480 x 270 is a good choice for widescreen content as it keeps the video sharp in full-screen view mode. You can also use 640 x 360 or anamorphic 640 x 480 with pixel aspect ratio tagging for widescreen content.

Don’t Let the Bit Rate Stall Your Movie

When viewing media over the network, the bit rate makes a crucial difference to the playback experience. If the network cannot keep up with the media bit rate, playback stalls. Encode your media for iPhone OS as described in “Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE” and use a reference movie as described in “Creating a Reference Movie.”

Using Supported Movie Standards

The following compression standards are supported:

• H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3.0 video, up to 640 x 480 at 30 fps. Note that B frames are not supported in the Baseline profile.
• MPEG-4 Part 2 video (Simple Profile)
• AAC-LC audio, up to 48 kHz

Movie files with the extensions .mov, .mp4, .m4v, and .3gp are supported.

Any movies or audio files that can play on iPod play correctly on iPhone.

If you export your movies using QuickTime Pro 7.2, as described in “Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE,” then you can be sure that they are optimized to play on iPhone OS.

Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE

Because users may be connected to the Internet via wired or wireless technology, using either Wi-Fi, 3G, or EDGE on iPhone OS, you need to provide alternate media for these different connection speeds. You can use QuickTime Pro, the QuickTime API, or any Apple applications that provide iPhone OS exporters to encode your video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE. This section contains specific instructions for exporting video using QuickTime Pro.

Follow these steps to export video using QuickTime Pro 7.2.1 and later:

1. Open your movie using QuickTime Player Pro.
2. Choose File > Export for Web.A dialog appears.
3. Enter the file name prefix, location of your export, and set of versions to export as shown in Figure 8-1.
   Figure 8-1 Export movie panel

   

4. Click Export.QuickTime Player Pro saves these versions of your QuickTime movie, along with a reference movie, poster image, and ReadMe.html file to the specified location. See the ReadMe.html file for instructions on embedding the generated movie in your webpage, including sample HTML.

Creating a Reference Movie

A reference movie contains a list of movie URLs, each of which has a list of tests, as show in Figure 8-2. When opening the reference movie, a playback device or computer chooses one of the movie URLs by finding the last one that passes all its tests. Tests can check the capabilities of the device or computer and the speed of the network connection.

If you use QuickTime Pro 7.2.1 or later to export your movies for iPhone OS, as described in “Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE,” then you already have a reference movie. Otherwise, you can use the MakeRefMovie tool to create reference movies. You can download the tool from:

• http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools

Also, refer to the MakeiPhoneRefMovie sample for a command-line tool that creates reference movies.

For more details on reference movies and instructions on how to set them up see “Applications and Examples” in HTML Scripting Guide for QuickTime.

Creating a Poster Image for Movies

The video is not decoded until the user enters movie playback mode. Consequently, when displaying a webpage with video, users may see a gray rectangle with a QuickTime logo until they tap the Play button. Therefore, use a poster JPEG as a preview of your movie. If you use QuickTime Pro 7.2.1 or later to export your movies, as described in “Encoding Video for Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE,” then a poster image is already created for you. Otherwise, follow these instructions to set a poster image.

If you are using the <video> element, specify a poster image by setting the poster attribute as follows:

<video poster="poster.jpg" src="movie.m4v" ...> </video>

If you are using an <embed> HTML element, specify a poster image by setting the image for src, the movie for href, the media MIME type for type, and myself as the target:

<embed src="poster.jpg" href="movie.m4v" type="video/x-m4v" target="myself" scale="1" ...>

Make similar changes if you are using the <object> HTML element or JavaScript to embed movies in your webpage.

On the desktop, this image is displayed until the user clicks, at which time the movie is substituted.

For more information on including QuickTime Movies in webpages, see the tutorial Including QuickTime In A Web Page.

Configuring Your Server

HTTP servers hosting media files for iPhone OS must support byte-range requests, which iPhone OS uses to perform random access in media playback. (Byte-range support is also known as content-range or partial-range support.) Most, but not all, HTTP 1.1 servers already support byte-range requests.

If you are not sure whether your media server supports byte-range requests, you can open the Terminal application in Mac OS X and use the curl command-line tool to download a short segment from a file on the server:

curl --range 0-99 http://example.com/test.mov -o /dev/null

If the tool reports that it downloaded 100 bytes, the media server correctly handled the byte-range request. If it downloads the entire file, you may need to update the media server. For more information on curl, see Mac OS X Man Pages.

Ensure that your HTTP server sends the correct MIME types for the movie filename extensions shown in Table 8-1.

Be aware that iPhone OS supports movies larger than 2 GB. However, some older web servers are not able to serve files this large. Apache 2 supports downloading files larger than 2 GB.

MISC Directory

After moving to iPhone OS 3.0, from past few days i have been experiencing a strange bug. The camera photos, images saved from the web, or iPhone screenshots are not showing up in the Camera Roll. The iPhone’s Camera Roll keeps a correct cumulative count, and I have no problem transferring the images files to my MacBook  using iPhoto or Picasa.

According to iLounge, the bug appears to pertain only to photos with the name IMG_10000 or higher. As a result, iPhone OS 3.0’s built-in Photos application refuses to acknowledge the presence of these images or show them in the Camera Roll. The pictures are indeed still on the device but only that its not shown in the iPhone Camera Roll.

To fix this issue, download ‘PhoneView’ software from

http://ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

Launch the PhoneView application while your iPhone is connected, goto DISK->DCIM directory. There you will see a folder called ‘.MISC’. Delete that directory and then restart your iPhone. This should fix the issue. Let me know if it worked for you.

iPhone 3GS Battery Meter

iPhone 3GS now supports showing the battery charge level as a percentage rather than just the icon indicator.  Percentage indicator is really helpful. Most of the times I plug the charger to my macbook when it starts showing the battery level at less than 3%. And with iPhone I usually end up plugging the charger only when it shuts down completely running out of battery.  The 10% battery remaining warning is too early.

Unfortunately Apple has put this new option only in new iPhone 3GS. Its not available for iPhone 3G or the 1st gen iPhone. Apple is so cruel.

I wonder what big pain would it cause to Apple to include that feature in all iPhone models. Apple acts crazy.

Quick note: This is a fairly detailed process, so take a firm hold of the wheel and be prepared for a lengthy ride. You are going to need your terminal and su access.
You will be generating encryption keys and certificates, and editing Apache conf files.
First, you need a certificate

Step 1

Open up a terminal window, and su root. Then, cd over to your Documents directory.

Add a new directory in there using mkdir and call it certs like so:

sh-3.2# mkdir certs

Then cd into it.

Type this command…

sh-3.2# /System/Library/OpenSSL/misc/CA.pl -newca

You’ll see a whole pile of stuff fly by, piece by piece:

CA certificate filename (or enter to create) (hit enter)

Making CA certificate ...

Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key

......++++++

...........++++++

writing new private key to './demoCA/private/cakey.pem'

Enter PEM pass phrase: [enter a passphrase]

Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase: [enter the passphrase again]

-----

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter ‘.’, the field will be left blank.
—–

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: (hit enter)

State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]: (hit enter)

Locality Name (eg, city) []: (hit enter)

Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]: (hit enter)

Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: (hit enter)

Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: (type ‘yourname’)

Email Address []: (type ‘yourname@yourname.com’)

You should now have a pile of directories and files that look like this:

Use ls to check. If so, good.

Step 2

Now you are going to generate a private key for your web server…stay in ~/certs and type…

sh-3.2# openssl genrsa -des3 -out secureserver.key 1024

A file should be created in ~/certs called secureserver.key, so you can choose any name you want but make it a good one – you’ll need to reference it later.
This will pass the screen:

Generating RSA private key, 1024 bit long modulus

...++++++

.......................................++++++

e is 65537 (0x10001)

Enter pass phrase for secureserver.key: (enter a passphrase)

Verifying - Enter pass phrase for secureserver.key: (enter the passphrase again)

Step 3

Now we’ll create a non-password protected version of the same key:

sh-3.2# openssl rsa -in secureserver.key -out secureserver.nopass.key

The command will return this:

Enter pass phrase for secureserver.key: (enter the passphrase from step 2)
writing RSA key

You should now have another file called secureserver.nopass.key (or whatever you decided for the ’secureserver’ name), in the ~/certs directory.

Step 4

Now we’ll create a certificate request, which should wind up as yet another file called newreq.pem. Stay in ~/certs, and…

sh-3.2# openssl req -config /System/Library/OpenSSL/openssl.cnf -new -key secureserver.key -out newreq.pem -days 3650

…and noting all that goes on one line before you hit enter.

This is creating a cert request good for ten years, using that key (secureserver.key) you created in step 2.

Output will look like so:

Enter pass phrase for secureserver.key: (enter the passphrase from step 2 again) You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter ‘.’, the field will be left blank.
—–

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: (hit enter)

State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]: (hit enter)

Locality Name (eg, city) []: (hit enter)

Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]: (hit enter)

Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: (hit enter)

Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: (type ‘yourname’)

Email Address []: (type ‘yourname@yourname.com’)

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes

to be sent with your certificate request

A challenge password []: (leave it blank)

An optional company name []: (leave it blank)

Check to make sure newreq.pem is in ~/certs, and then we’ll move on to signing that certificate request.

Step 5

Next, enter:

sh-3.2# /System/Library/OpenSSL/misc/CA.pl -signreq

Output…

Using configuration from /System/Library/OpenSSL/openssl.cnf

Enter pass phrase for ./demoCA/private/cakey.pem: (enter a passphrase)

Check that the request matches the signature

Signature ok

Certificate Details:

Serial Number:

82:e1:99:21:c1:a8:de:66

Validity

Not Before: Mar 26 17:19:45 2009 GMT

Not After : Mar 26 17:19:45 2010 GMT

Subject:

countryName = AU

stateOrProvinceName = Some-State

organizationName = Internet Widgits Pty Ltd

commonName = yourname

emailAddress = yourname@yourname.com

X509v3 extensions:

X509v3 Basic Constraints:

CA:FALSE

Netscape Comment:

OpenSSL Generated Certificate

X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:

B4:DC:51:EA:17:29:DD:3C:34:EC:6D:37:02:9E:44:C0:FE:71:88:1F

X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:

keyid:19:B0:82:96:E8:2C:E9:DC:B0:9D:5F:77:DD:F6:EB:31:90:9F:1C:50

DirName:/C=AU/ST=Some-State/O=Internet Widgits Pty Ltd/CN=yourname/emailAddress=yourname@yourname.com

serial:82:E1:99:21:C1:A8:DE:65

Certificate is to be certified until Mar 26 17:19:45 2010 GMT (365 days)
Sign the certificate? [y/n]: (hit ‘y’ then enter)

1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n] (hit ‘y’, then enter)
Write out database with 1 new entries
Data Base Updated
Signed certificate is in newcert.pem

After signing, you should have all four files in the ~/certs directory…they are:

secureserver.key
secureserver.nopass.key
newreq.pem
newcert.pem

Very nice. You can park those files anywhere you like, but I’d suggest moving the entire certs directory under ~/Library/WebServer.

Off to Apache

Thank goodness Apple decided to update the Apache server in Leopard – I was getting mighty tired of digging around for version 1.3 implementation instructions.

Apache 2.2 was a welcome upgrade.

Further, the configuration files in the base install are almost ready to go – you need to add/change about a dozen lines total.

Step 6

Mose on over to /private/etc/apache2/extra and open up the httpd-ssl.conf file
(you’ll need to have admin access for editing – I do this stuff in Xcode while logged in as root, but that’s otherwise your call).
Scroll down to ‘Server Certificate’ and make sure the following lines are commented out:

Then add this line:

In the next config group, ‘Server Private Key’, comment out…

…and add…

Again, under ‘Certificate Authority (CA)’, comment out…

…then add:

And one last time, under ‘Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL)’ you’ll comment out…

…and add:

Save and close, boys and girls, because you are almost home.

Step 7

Open up the httpd.conf file under /private/etc/apache2,

then scroll all the way to the bottom where it says ‘Secure (SSL/TLS) connections’ and UNCOMMENT this line:

Now, the stock httpd.conf file should have the line that says…

…already uncommented, but if there is a # in front of it take it out. Everything else in the Apache config file should be kosher.

Step 8

If you’ve gotten this far, you are probably going to want to do some editing to your hosts file, so you are hitting the URL locally.
But, if you gotten this far you probably don’t need me to tell you how to do that either.

Restart your web server, and pour yourself a nice stiff cocktail.

The camera has be upgraded to 3MP with support for Video and auto focus. The camera application has a switch that lets users swap between still photo and video mode. The camera shoots video at 30FPS, VGA with audio, auto-focus, auto-white balance, auto-exposure. Isn’t it cool?

The iPhone 3GS supports digital compass as well as voice commands too. The new compass application shows your orientation, and has integration with Maps. If you double click, the map will re orientate itself. All rumors doing rounds on the web are coming true. The surprises are very limited this time.

The iPhone OS 3.0 GM build is available to developers to test their apps. The offical final release of 3.0 would be on 17th June along with the release of the new iPhone 3GS.

In India it would be released quite late than other countries as usual.

Messed Up Icons With iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 5

With the latest release of iPhone OS 3.0 seed 5, the icons of the applications are being messed up. This mostly occurs when we install updates to the applications from App store. Few applications will not have any icons altogether, few apps have icons of their neighbouring apps like shown in the figure. iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 is lot more buggier than beta 4 or beta 3. Also I have observed beta 5 drains the battery very fast. My iPhone lost more than half of its power over night even without performing any tasks while lying idle. Seems Apple has purposefully made beta 5 buggy so that users are forced to move to the final version expected in the WWDC.

On the screenshot we can observe that, PingPongLite application doesnt have icon at all and NewsPro and Bloomberg have same icons.

However on a positive note, if we restart the iPhone, all icons are restored to their original application icons.

Update:

The messed up icons issue has been fixed with the latest iPhone OS 3.0 GM build. Also with the GM build my iPhone runs relatively for a longer duration on a full battery charge than what I used to get with beta 5. (But still I feel 3.0 is consuming too much of battery than 2.2.1)

Internet tethering allows the user to share their cellular data network to their desktop machines over bluetooth or USB.

iPhone Internet Tethering Settings

Internet Tethering

In addition, subscribers to Apple’s MobileMe suite of cloud services will be able to locate stolen a device geographically using the web interface.

WWDC 2009

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the premier technical event for developers and IT professionals innovating with Apple platforms. Over 1,000 Apple engineers will be at Moscone West to present the latest Apple technologies and provide you with code-level guidance. You’ll learn how to harness the power of iPhone OS, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard in the most efficient and sophisticated way possible — saving you time and accelerating your development. Bring your MacBook and your imagination, and prepare to make your ideas happen.