Month: July 2010

Apple Blatantly Lying About the App Store Hacking Issue

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 6, 2016

After issuing a somewhat weak statement about the App Store hacking situation, Apple is now blatantly lying to our face and downplaying what seems to be a massive criminal activity.

Apple recently told Dayton Morris that around 400 or so iTunes users were impacted by the fraud, which, considering there are over 150 million iTunes users, only represents 0.0003% of them.

Oh great, they seem to have this under control, you might think. Wrong, and it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Here is why...

Thuat Nguyen, the developer who was first caught taking advantage of the the iTunes App Store got 41 of his applications rank in the top 50 of the book category. Now tell me, how can 400 iTunes accounts boost an app sales all the way up to the top 50? Right, they can't. You need muh more purchases than that to rank at the top of your category. Each app needs to be downloaded thousands of times on a period of time to rank that well.

Let's use conservative numbers and assume that to rank at the top of the Books category you need 1,000 downloads for 30 days. So each app would need to be downloaded 30,000 times (1,000 downloads x 30 days) in order to take the top spot because one account cannot buy the same app over and over again.

All the sudden, we are far from the 400 accounts Apple claims were impacted by the fraud. I might not be exactly right about these numbers, but I'm sure I'm not too far from the truth.

Apple impassiveness has been pretty flagrant lately and I'm not really sure the "no-talk policy" Apple has been maintaining for years now is a good things for both the company and its customers.

Thoughts?

Worth Watching: iPhone 4 Stop-Motion Disassembly Video

Sébastien Page ∙ July 6, 2010

TechRestore has published a pretty impressive video of the disassembly of an iPhone 4. What's really amazing about this video is that it was made with 1784 high resolution photos combined to make a stop-motion expose of the iPhone 4, revealing every detail of construction, from packaging down to the chips on the logic-board. Enjoy!

Apple Issues Weak Statement On App Store Hacking

Sébastien Page ∙ July 6, 2010

Over the weekend, reports started showing up revealing the iTunes App Store had been hacked. The hack seemed to be on 2 levels. Someone hacked into people's iTunes account and purchased applications without their consent. The goal was to buy a bunch of apps from a developer named Thuat Nguyen in order to help his apps rank in the top of their category.

Apple kinda fixed it by removing Thuat Nguyen's apps from the App Store. Today the company issued an official statement:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.

If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

Did Apple actually fix anything? Not really, and that's what bothering me here. Apple doesn't admit being responsible for people hacking into your account. Basically Apple is saying that you're on your own and if you have a problem you should get in touch with your credit company.

Apple's apathy has been pretty obvious lately. If you thought Apple cared about you as a customer, the way they handled the iPhone antenna issue and these App Store hacks might make you change your mind.

Awesome Pac Man Wallpaper for iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 20, 2016

Seriously, isn't this the most awesome wallpaper for iPhone you've seen so far? It lines up perfectly with your icons to give you a glimpse of retro on every page. The downside? It's been designed for 4 rows of apps. If like me you prefer having only 3 rows of apps per page, then you may want to use my tweaked version instead:

Original wallpaper download link My tweaked version download link (optimized for iPhone 4)

[via Engadget & Madin]

Dev Team is One Step Closer to An iPhone 4 Unlock

Sébastien Page ∙ July 6, 2010

MuscleNerd has been teasing us quite a bit lately on Twitter. One of his most recent tweets suggests that although the new baseband OS is giving them a hard time, the Dev Team is indeed one step closer to an iPhone 4 unlock, which requires a complete rewrite of the unlocking tool UltraSn0w.

Now that the Spirit jailbreak is ready and the Dev Team is being this close to finish up the work on the iPhone 4 unlock, we can only imagine (and hope?) that both the jailbreak and unlock will be released in a few weeks when Apple ships an update to iOS 4 in order to fix the antenna issue.

$20,000 iPhone 4 Diamond Edition for the Rich and the Famous

Sébastien Page ∙ July 5, 2010

If you're looking for a white unlocked iPhone 4, you can either wait for its release around mid July, or, if you have an extra $20,000, you may want to go for the bling bling version by Stuart Hughes.

I wonder if the diamonds can prevent the iPhone death grip? One thing I know for sure though is that it looks incredibly tacky.

[via Engadget]

8 Great Puzzle Games for iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

I've been in a puzzle games mood lately, so yesterday I asked on Twitter for recommendations. I thought I'd share some of these recommendations with you:

Tiki Totems Flood It Theseus LetsTans Crayon Physics Blocks Mania Frenzic Edge

If you know more great puzzle games, feel free to share in the comments.

Spirit Jailbreak for Every iPhone iOS 4 on Its Way

Sébastien Page ∙ July 5, 2010

Yesterday I was telling you the Dev Team is working hard on an unlock for iPhone 4. Some of you may have wondered why the Dev Team would be working on an unlock when a jailbreak is not even ready yet, right?

That's because according to MuscleNerd, a jailbreak for all devices at iOS 4 is already taken care of by the upcoming release of Spirit by Comex.

Now the question is: when will Spirit for iOS 4 be available? With Apple supposed to release an update to iOS 4 in the upcoming weeks to supposedly fix the antenna issue, I doubt Comex will release Spirit beforehand and give Apple a chance to patch the exploit.

I bet you can't wait for Spirit for iOS 4, can you?

Yes, the Dev Team is Still Working on an iPhone 4 Unlock

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

For those of you wondering, yes, the Dev Team is still working on an iPhone 4 unlock. These 2 tweets from MuscleNerd and PlanetBeing just confirmed that they are actively working on the unlock, which doesn't seem to be an easy task.

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Having fun on iPhone4 baseband with @planetbeing...step 1: arbitrary code exec...done. (LOTS of steps left tho!)less than a minute ago via webMuscleNerdMuscleNerd

Even though Apple has been working hard on patching the holes, it's good to see that PlanetBeing has a whole "bag of tricks".

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Apple added an anti-blacksn0w trick this time around. ;) i have an ever-growing bag of tricks though, wrapped in a nice python script.less than a minute ago via webplanetbeingplanetbeing

There is no ETA for an iPhone 4 unlock, or even a jailbreak, which seems to be the priority.

The App Store Was Hacked

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Two iPhone developers have uncovered what seems to be a massive hack of the App Store. After seeing the rating of their apps dramatically drop, Patrick Thomson and Alex Brie looked more into it and realized someone had been hacking into people's iTunes account to buy apps developed by someone called Thuat Nguyen.

By hacking into people's account and buying his own apps, he was able to rank 41 of his apps in the top 50 of the Books category, which seems to be the only category affected.

None of the apps contain legit reviews except for one app, which has 2 reviews from people complaining they had never purchased this app and that their App Store account had probably been hacked. Someone even mentioned his App Store account showed purchases he never made for $200.

By the time you read this, I'm sure Apple will have been alerted and removed these fraudulent apps from the App Store. I also assume Apple will give the money back to people who were hacked.

For the time being, a safe thing to do would be to change your iTunes Store password.

I think this is the first case of App Store hacking publicly revealed. Unfortunately, I also think this is just the beginning, and with the success of the App Store, we'll see more and more of these.

[via The Next Web]

Frash: Android Flash Ported to the iPad

Sébastien Page ∙ July 4, 2010

A few weeks ago, Comex, the developer of Spirit, shared with us a video of Flash running on the iPhone. Today, Comex introduces Frash, which is basically a port of Flash for Android on the iPad.

Frash can currently run most Flash programs natively in the iPad MobileSafari browser, but support for other devices (3GS and iPhone 4 only due to hardware requirements) is on the way, as well as support for iOS 4.

Comex won't release Frash until it is stable and that might take a while. If you're a developers and you want to join the effort at http://github.com/comex/frash.

Twelve New Ways To Hold Your iPhone 4

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 25, 2016

Until Apple figures out a way to fix the antenna issue, NPR came up with 12 new ways to hold your iPhone 4 to make sure you get the best signal without having to buy a case.

Check out NPR for 12 interesting ways to hold your iPhone 4.