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360 Panorama: view augmented reality panoramas in Mobile Safari
We've talked about 360 Panorama before -- it's a cool app that lets you capture 360° panoramic photos in real time by just moving your iPhone around in a circle. The $0.99 app (available here) has been out for a while, but keeps receiving amazing updates that improve its functionality and wow factor. Now the wizards at Occipital have figured out a way for you to view those panoramas as if you're actually standing at the site where they were taken. You simply open up Mobile Safari on an iPhone 4 (or any other gyroscope-equipped iPhone running iOS 4.2), point to a URL where the photo is stored, and then move the phone around. The gyroscope is detected by the browser, and then your movements control where in the panorama you are looking. The standard reverse-pinch gesture lets you zoom into a panorama, while pinching zooms out. All using HTML 5 and thanks to a recent update in iOS. If you have an iPhone that supports iOS 4.2 and has a gyro built in, go to this site in Mobile Safari to see how the panorama viewing in Mobile Safari works. It's pretty cool!
iPhone URL display poses potential security threat
Security research specialist Nitesh Dhanjani has demonstrated how mobile Safari's ability to hide a web page's URL can be used to trick users. Specifically, his proof-of-concept site shows a "fake" URL filed once the real one has been hidden, preventing users from realizing that they're not looking at the site they intended to see. Dhanjani goes on to note that in situations where a URL filed should be visible, a hacker could simply present the fake one, tricking most users. He offers more detail on his blog and says that he's been in communication with Apple about the issue. You can check out a brief video of how the trick works after the break. [Via MacObserver]
Safari tip: Force HTML5 video to open instead of Flash
As more people get fed up with the poor performance and security flaws of Adobe's Flash Player, they are uninstalling the Flash plug-in from their computers. The problem is that even if a site offers up HTML5 video as an alternative to Flash, trying to get to it from Safari on a Mac will pop up the little blue LEGO block. Mac users can now take advantage of the fact that Mobile Safari in iOS doesn't support Flash in any way, by changing the desktop user agent. A browser feature that was first widely used to get websites to serve up non-standard HTML optimized for Internet Explorer, Mac Safari 5 users can change their user agent settings by enabling the Developer menu through Preferences > Advanced. From the Developer menu, the user agent can be changed so that the browser looks like Mobile Safari 3.2.2 on the iPad, which will force sites to feed HTML5 video streams if they are available. There are, of course, some caveats. Unlike some other browsers, changing the Safari user agent only persists for the current browser window instance. Additional browser windows or restarting the browser gets you back to the original agent. John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who originally figured all of this out, provides a Terminal command that will permanently change the user agent, but since that can break other functionality, the temporary route is recommended. For sites that only serve Flash video, users can still go Flash-free in Safari by opening the site in Google Chrome, which features its own built-in Flash player. [via Mac OS X Hints]
Google Instant beta now available on iOS devices
[Changed screenshot to reflect Instant UI, sorry for the mixup. –Ed.] Google's Instant search service is now up and running on its mobile sites as well -- when you hit up google.com on your iPhone or iPad's Mobile Safari browser, you'll see search results appear as you type your query in. You may have to reload the page once or twice; when you see the line "Instant (beta) is off: Turn On" you need to click Turn On to activate Instant. As you may know from using instant search in other browsers, this is more of an average time saver than anything really revolutionary (and in some cases, I've even been bothered by early search results that weren't anywhere near what I was actually looking for). But anyone who really dislikes it can turn it off, and fans of the service should be happy to see it running on Mobile Safari. Happy, that is, when they use the actual site -- note that since this is only a feature on Google's site and not actually built into the browser's search field, you still won't get instant search results when searching from Safari's own title bar search. Still, if you happen to be searching Google after that initial search, it will probably be helpful to save that second and a half or so while you're still typing the query in.
Facebook disabled iPad mobile Safari zooming?
I noticed it first a few days ago. Then people started emailing me about it. Now it's gaining increased mention on Twitter and the rest of the net: when you go to Facebook.com on your iPad you can no longer use the pinch and zoom features of iPad's mobile Safari web browser on the site. Reader Stephen F. noted in an email to me that when you go to Facebook on an iPad this line of code appears: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;" /> It's the user-scalable=0 part that disables zooming on the iPad. Stephen also pointed out that you can test this by changing the user agent on your web browser to iPad and seeing how the code only appears for the iPad. To change the user agent in the OS X version of Safari to emulate Safari for iPad go to Safari>Preferences>Advanced>Show Develop menu in menu bar, then select Develop>User Agent>Mobile Safari 3.2.2 – iPad. In short, Facebook has either deliberately or accidentally disabled zooming in mobile Safari on the iPad. If it's accidental, it's odd that they haven't fixed it in almost 72 hours. If deliberate, the question is why? Was dinner that bad? UPDATE: Zooming works again just fine again. I contacted Facebook PR about the issue, but they didn't reply.
TUAW Tips: Play internet radio in background on your iPad
Those of us who love to stream internet radio on our iPads can quickly turn into ogres when we switch to another app and the music stops. Until the iPad supports iOS 4 (soon) we're stuck with no background capability, which makes background streaming impossible.The folks over at FairerPlatform have come up with an easy way to listen to many of your favorite streams without a need to jailbreak your iPad or wait fruitlessly for Flash to make an appearance on the platform. While this trick won't work for every streaming Internet radio station -- Pandora is a perfect example of this -- it does work with others like Live365. What you need to do is find a radio-only stream that is playable in Safari, start playing the stream, and then go on to those other apps while listening to your music. As an example, FairerPlatform cites Soma FM, a San Francisco-based, user-supported internet radio station. Their music is available in the pls multimedia playlist format, which the iPad's Safari plays without a hitch. Once you've started the stream, you can do any other work you need to and the stream plays on in the background. If you're a fan of any of the live shows on the TWIT network, you can listen to those shows in background as well. Just point Safari to live.twit.tv, tap "Live Audio Stream," and then you can listen to their shows while doing real work instead of looking at Leo's face. TWIT AM uses the m3u format, which also loves Mobile Safari. It seems that most of the internet radio streams using pls or m3u work beautifully with Safari. Of course, this doesn't work with every radio station, internet or otherwise. I tried to see if a local radio station's coverage of the Colorado Rockies would stream -- nope, they use a Flash player. But this is a good trick to know until we're able to run the native streaming players as a background process on the iPad in a few days or months.
iPad still has a major browser vulnerability, says group behind AT&T security breach
You know that tiny little security snafu that allowed over a hundred thousand iPad users' email addresses out? The one that the FBI felt compelled to investigate? Well, Goatse Security -- the group that discovered that particular hole (stop laughing) -- isn't best pleased to be described as malicious by AT&T's response to the matter, and has requited with its own missive to the world. Letting us know that the breach in question took "a single hour of labor," the GS crew argues that AT&T is glossing over the fact it neglected to address the threat promptly and is using the hackers' (supposedly altruistic) efforts at identifying bugs as a scapegoat. As illustration, they remind us that the iPad is still wide open to hijacking thanks to a bug in the mobile version of Safari. Identified back in March, this exploit allows hackers to jack in via unprotected ports, and although it was fixed on the desktop that same month, the mobile browser remains delicately poised for a backdoor entry -- should malevolent forces decide to utilize it. This casts quite the unfavorable light on Apple as well, with both corporations seemingly failing to communicate problematic news with their users in a timely manner.
Google tweaks Gmail's HTML5 web app to better utilize iPad screen space
It's still not a true Gmail app (sigh), but it's a step in the right direction, we suppose. Google has today announced that it has released an experimental user interface for the iPad built on the Gmail for mobile HTML5 web app, but unlike the iPhone and Android versions, this one has been retooled a bit to best take advantage of those extra pixels. iPad Gmailers will find a two-pane view with their conversations on the left and messages on the right, and while it's not exactly revolutionary, it's certainly better than what we're being forced to use on existing smartphones (and their comparatively minuscule displays). The company's openly asking for feedback once your iPad lands, and we couldn't help but notice that it pointed to the fact that Google is still the default search engine embedded into Safari. Who knows -- maybe Steve and Eric really were talking about butterflies and buttercups the other day.
Enjoy background audio with MLB's At Bat
As if I weren't excited enough to buy Major League Baseball's (MLB) iPhone app At Bat (here's an example of my previous gushing), they've added a new feature that makes it easy to listen to games while using other apps. While Apple doesn't allow 3rd party apps to run in the background on the iPhone or iPod touch,* Silicon Alley Insider notes that you can listen to audio in Mobile Safari while using other applications. It's this trick that MLB exploited with At Bat 2010. With the tap of a button, At Bat will push an audio stream to Mobile Safari. Note that MLB didn't come up with this trick, nor is their app the first to exploit it. ESPN Radio does it, as well as Scanner911 and FlyCast. Still, it's nice that MLB's devs acknowledged that some users might want to check email or hop onto Twitter while listening to game, and made it easy to do so. Now if only Pandora would follow suit. *Yes, you can enjoy the benefits of background apps with a jailbroken iPhone, but that's a different post entirely.
Find My iPhone now works in Mobile Safari
Apple's MobileMe site at me.com used to be completely useless on the iPhone or iPod touch in Mobile Safari -- you'd get a splash page telling you to set up your contacts, calendars, and mail accounts, but that was about it. No webmail access, no direct access to galleries, iDisk, or even Find My iPhone. Apple introduced standalone apps that addressed some of these shortcomings (iDisk and Gallery), but there was still no way to access Find My iPhone unless you resorted to workarounds. Things have improved somewhat with the new MobileMe page. Instead of simply admonishing you to set everything up on your Mac or PC, MobileMe now provides you with a link to instructions for setting up mail, contacts, and calendars. There's also links to download the iDisk and Gallery apps from the App Store. What's most useful about the change is you now have the ability to use Find My iPhone from an iPhone. This might seem dumb at first -- "If I have my iPhone in my hand, why do I need to find it?" you may ask -- but if your household has multiple iPhone users and one of them leaves an iPhone at a pub, until now your only option was to dash home and try to find it on your computer. Now, you can access all the Find My iPhone features right at the moment your friend or significant other gets that wide-eyed, "I just misplaced a paycheck worth of electronics!" expression on his or her face. You can send an immediate message to the iPhone to get that loud, pinging submarine noise, which just might help you find the iPhone before you even leave the pub. Find My iPhone is still only available as part of a yearly $99 MobileMe subscription.
New Gmail Mobile site released for iPhone (and Android)
Back in March I made a plea for a native Gmail application on the iPhone. As it turned out, Google was working on a new version of the Gmail Mobile site that takes advantage of HTML5 features like database storage to provide caching functionality on the iPhone and Android phones. The demo was compelling; a super-fast Gmail experience that includes long-awaited features like full label support, the ability to apply changes to multiple messages at once, and a floating action bar (dubbed the "floaty bar") that allows you to archive, delete, mark read/unread, add or remove a star, or mark messages as spam without having to scroll to the top or bottom of the thread you are viewing to do so. The demo was certainly exciting, but though I was hoping would be released soon, I was fearing we were still a year away from seeing this new version of Gmail Mobile. Boy, was I wrong. This sexy new web version of Gmail Mobile was released yesterday, and as a heavy Gmail user I have only one word for it: Glorious! Okay, I'm a blogger, so we know I never only have one word for something. But if you've been using the built in Mail app on your iPhone to avoid the clunky web version, it's time to try Google Mobile again. While it's a huge, massive improvement on the previous version, the new Google Mobile is not without areas that could use improvement. For one, it is very slow to load. For me, I'm willing to put up with this since once it does load everything is significantly faster than it was. But it would certainly be nice to see an improvement in this regard, and that's something that was hinted at on the Official Gmail blog post announcing this new version. Another small annoyance is that the buttons are smaller than standard iPhone buttons, and there are more of them. It's manageable, but does require a bit of extra care and attention. All in all, a very solid improvement, and one that makes working with email on the iPhone significantly more pleasant for Gmail users.
Mobile web traffic reports show Symbian, OS X on top
Ready for the latest dose of facts and figures to chat over at the nerd water cooler? Here goes! The latest AdMob report, which tracks mobile web traffic from a variety of handset models and operating systems, has found some rather interesting -- if not completely unsurprising -- results. For starters, we're told that the biggest web surfing phone on each US carrier is a touchscreen model, and breaking that down, we find that the iPhone, Nokia N70 and BlackBerry 8300 take the top three spots (in order of mention) globally. As for OS, Symbian is still leading the pack from a worldwide perspective with 43 percent of requests, though the iPhone ain't far behind at 33 percent; oh, and in case you were wondering, Apple's darling generated 50 percent of all US mobile web traffic in February. More numbers in the links below, should you be inclined to visit.[Via mocoNews]
iPhone OS 3.0 brings the speed for JavaScript
Ars is reporting the 3.0 speed improvements to Mobile Safari's JavaScript engine range from 3x to 16x -- a blessed boon to web developers everywhere. No one seems to know if Mobile Safari will be sporting Nitro or SquirrelFish or what, but whatever it is, it'll be faster. If you check out the benchmarks originally posted on Wayne Pan's blog, iPhone OS 3.0 blazes past 2.2 in every category except divisions (the benchmarking tools are available at Craig Hockenberry's blog here).It's nice to see progress, but I don't think anyone expected Apple to let the JS engine in Mobile Safari lay fallow for long. Every day browsers like Opera Mini and Android's WebKit-based browser are getting better. Heck, even WinMo's version of IE is supposed to support H.264, Flash and Silverlight. Will the upgraded js engine and technology like CSS3 and Canvas draw more developers to iPhone web apps? I doubt it, but the speed improvements will make many browser-based services feel more responsive. That's certainly a win for consumers.
Third-party apps enhance web browsing for iPhone, iPod touch
Earlier this week, there was a sudden influx of web browsing applications in the App Store. Mac Rumors points out that some of them, most notably Edge Browser [App Store link], have very old release dates even though they only showed up in the store recently (Edge Browser's release date is listed as Oct. 13, '08). It's important to note that these aren't true third party browsers, but enhancements to Mobile Safari. What's interesting is that Apple has previously rejected applications for "duplicating functionality" of some of their own software. Specifically, Podcaster was rejected because it "...duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes," while MailWrangler was denied for duplicating "...the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality." Perhaps Apple is now loosening the reigns a bit. Applications like Edge Browser, Incognito [App Store link], QuickSurf [App Store link] and WebMate: Tabbed Browser [App Store link] offer web browsing functionality in one form or another. For example, Incognito allows for history-free browsing, QuickSurf speeds things up by omitting most images and WebMate queues up all links for later viewing.Sure, they aren't full fledged, third party browsers, but it's baby steps we're after.[Via MacDailyNews]
iPhone 101: Add mobile websites to home screen
Many websites and services offer great mobile versions without being packaged in an App Store application. If you want to be able to quickly access these sites from your home screen, follow these steps: Launch Safari on your iPhone Browse to a desired mobile site (most sites will automatically redirect you to the mobile version once they determine that you're using an iPhone) Click the Favorites (+) button at the bottom of Safari Click "Add to Home Screen" Type a name for the icon that will appear on your home screen Click the "Add" button You will now see an icon on your home screen that will launch directly to the mobile website. Since I'm headed to Washington D.C. next week, I found this handy for the Metro mobile site and the Allpoint ATM search site.
Mobile Safari search via toolbar points to clearer results
Google quietly fixed a problem yesterday that bugged at least a few iPhone users -- the results page it returned when searching through the toolbar in Mobile Safari. In a pre-Tuesday world, Google would return its standard, not-iPhone-formatted results page. Why? I honestly don't know, but personally didn't question it too deeply. It was what it was. I'd do my search, zoom into my result, and be on my way. That was so 2008. Now searches through the toolbar return nicely-formatted-for-iPhone results. Just as it should be. Thanks to DJT for sending this in.
British ad watchdogs nix iPhone "whole internet" claim
What is the "whole internet," anyway? Is it a place you can go, or is it really just an idea? Can you put it in your pants? Apparently not, if the UK's Advertising Standards Authority's point of view is to be taken as gospel. Complaints to the oversight agency by British consumers who were dissatisfied with the Apple claim of the "whole internet" on the iPhone have now resulted in a ruling: Apple ads in Britain that say "all the parts of the internet are on the phone" need to be pulled off the air, according to a BBC report.The reasoning behind this order is fascinating: the iPhone can't be said to bring users the entire internet because it doesn't support... wait for it... yes, Flash and Java. Goodness me. Not that Apple's iPhone ads are free from controversy in the 3G era, but I don't recall any of the ads for the current iPhone making the specific "whole internet" claims -- although the spots for the original version did say something like that. If anyone can point to a specifc ad that's raising the ire of the ASA, please do let us know.Thanks to Grant, Martin & Richard for sending this in.
Site updates around WoW Insider
There have been a few tweaks and updates the past few days around here at WoW Insider. First of all, you've probably noticed that our comments system has been upgraded a bit, and now in addition to signing in with your standard Weblogs, Inc. name and password (more information about how to do that here), you can choose to sign in with with your AOL or AIM screenname. Unfortunately, there is no way to link your Weblogs, Inc. profile (which you can see by clicking on your name in any of your comments) with your AIM screenname, so you'll have to recreate your profile (or just keep using your old signin). But if you're new to the comments section, you can now use your AOL SN to leave a comment. This is a fairly new system, so there are still a few glitches floating around -- if you have a problem with anything, let us know, and we'll try to fix it and/or get back to you.Since we're talking about profiles, now might also be a good time to point out that you can change that default picture that goes with your profile. We've got lots of icons to choose from (and even more here), so if you're still using that boring gray question mark face (what are you, a low level questgiver?) spice it up a little bit by clicking on your profile page and putting a picture in there. The more colorful our comments section can get, the better.And finally, some good news for iPhone and iPod touch users -- while you can always see the full version of our site on those devices by using MobileSafari to go to wow.com, you can now see an iPhone-formatted page at i.wow.com. And if we may say so, our designers did a really great job on it. They continue to work hard to make our site better all the time, so stay tuned for more updates to WoW Insider and the other sites in the Joystiq network.
iPhone-tuned edition of TUAW
Got an iPhone or iPod Touch but having trouble with the full-size version of TUAW? Try i.tuaw.com, our mobile Safari-tuned experience. Smaller, faster, lighter and unlike our m.tuaw.com pages (which work great on BlackBerry), you can add comments to posts. We realize it took a while, but we think you'll enjoy the experience of not watching Safari crash or lag horribly. Fun fact: nearly all of our mobile traffic comes from iPhones -- who knew?
Keep your iPhone from losing its cookies
I've been getting more and more frustrated with the fact that every time I load up Google Reader on my iPhone, I have to log in again. I tried it with and without my 1Password bookmarklet, checked my javascript and cookie settings, all to no avail. And it's not just Reader, everywhere I turn, I'm logging in again. It was with great relief that I discovered the cure. iRemember is a lightweight hack that makes a few tweaks and tells you it's "safe to uninstall" before Installer even finishes cleaning up. Do you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch with a foggy memory? Add http://repo.ispazio.net to your sources in Installer, refresh and search for iRemember. Your favorite web apps will give you a much warmer welcome. [via Lifehacker]
