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Apple removes hints of future products from a key file in iOS 6
Once upon a time eager rumormongers would download the latest iteration of the next generation of iOS, and like examining goat entrails to determine the next Caesar, they would delve into the USBDeviceConfiguration.plist to divine upcoming hardware products from Apple. But, with iOS 6, this is no more. Oh sure, the file is still there (and a previous version jokingly referred to non-existent software), but all traces of upcoming hints have been removed. Tim Cook wasn't kidding about doubling down on secrecy, and I have a feeling this is but the first snowflake to fall upon the tip of a silent iceberg that will soon seal the leaks bubbling around Cupertino.
Three ways to change Lion's Finder window sidebar
It took me a little while, but I finally last weekend updated to Lion, and so far ... I think I like it. I kind of miss my old Spaces feature, and I did turn off reverse scrolling right away, but it does seem to run better than Snow Leopard, and Mission Control is pretty sweet. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of, however, is the new Finder sidebar -- it's pretty bland, and not quite as clear or useful as the one in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, that's pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in Lion to switch around the order of the various devices and sources listed on the side of the screen. Finally, if you're ending up with aliases in the Finder sidebar that lose the source they're originally alias'ed from, you can drag-and-CMD-drop them to erase them once and for all. Apple of course makes all of these changes with good intentions, and maybe there are good reasons to do things like drain all the color out of the interface (maybe it allows you to focus more on the important stuff: your files in the other window). But for those of us who like the old ways best, it's good to know we've got options.
Dev Juice: Help find me a standalone property editor
"Dear Dev Juice, With Lion and new xCode 4, Property List Editor is missing. Opening xCode to just be able to edit a plist file is not what I want. So my question is how do you edit your plist files ? Do you know an alternative to xCode 4? Thanks. Thierry" Dear Thierry, If you don't mind converting your property lists to XML format (plutil -convert xml1 filename.plist), you can always use TextEdit to make quick changes. However, it sounds like you're looking for a third party GUI solution. Daniel Jalkut helpfully pointed DevJuice to PlistEdit Pro. A $29.95 shareware application, PlistEdit Pro offers a standalone property list editor. Developer Brian Webster told TUAW, "PlistEdit Pro was originally written in a fit of frustration over how bad Apple's editor was. They eventually updated it around Xcode 3.1 or so, and it was much improved, but then as you saw they pulled the standalone version with Xcode 4." In addition to basic property list editing, PlistEdit Pro also offers a preference file browser, which scans through your user defaults library for easy browsing, adds scriptability for automatically modifying plists, and supports extended search, replace, and undo features. Know of any other third party standalone GUI property list editors? (As opposed to plusutil, which is command-line only...) Leave a note in the comments.
iMovie for iPhone gets a cheeky hack for jailbroken 3GS, runs well-oiled
Not feeling hot about the trouble-prone iPhone 4, but still tempted by its optional iMovie app? Now you have a choice! Turns out to run said app on other devices (including iPod touch, supposedly) running iOS 3.0 and above, all you need are a jailbroken iOS device, iMovie for iPhone from the App Store, and two quick edits in the app's info.plist file -- change minimum system version to "3.0.0" and front-facing-camera to "false." Sounds easy enough, although we've yet to see the hacked app actually running on devices other than the 3GS demoed in the video after the break. And sorry, Redmond Pie's already confirmed that this sucker doesn't work on the iPad... yet.
iPhone OS 4.0: Multitasking support hidden away for pre-3GS devices
After Thursday's iPhone OS 4.0 event, when asked why multitasking was being excluded on devices older than the iPhone 3GS, Apple said that the older devices just couldn't do it. However, that wasn't quite true. A developer, who's been messing around with the iPhone OS 4.0 preview, has found that by simply switching just one variable in preferences, multitasking can indeed be enabled on the iPhone 3G. As far as we know, there won't be a flag in the final release version of the OS, but it looks like you can switch it on by tweaking one file on your own phone (which will require jailbreak). Of course, jailbreakers already have access to multitasking, and they'll be able to use Apple's official method as well, it seems. Steve and Scott Forstall have a little explaining to do -- why were we told yesterday that all of the devices before the 3GS couldn't multitask? It's certainly possible that they don't do it well, or that they can't handle as many processes as the 3GS might be able to handle. Unfortunately, this looks like Apple is trying to force an upgrade rather than get the software right (as this NSFW blog post complains). It was even mentioned yesterday (from the Engadget liveblog): "If that's an incentive for them to upgrade to a new device... terrific." We'd hope that Jobs and co. wouldn't purposely force a hardware upgrade, but it would be nice to to have some clarity about exactly what the problem with is multitasking on an older iPhone.
Terminal Tip: Disabling Leopard's Dock spring windows
I seriously hate the way that Leopard's spring-loaded download pane works. So this morning, I asked our team if there were a way to get around it. "Of course," said Brett, and he pointed me to this Mac OS X Hints page, warning me that it was a kludge. Kludge it may be, but it was a kludge that worked just fine. I didn't quite follow the directions in that post, though, and I thought I'd share my approach because it worked a lot more easily for me. First, I opened Terminal and changed directories to ~/Library/Preferences. I made a backup copy of com.apple.dock.plist (probably completely unnecessary, in retrospect) and converted the original version to XML from binary: plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.dock.plist. Next, I opened the preferences property list in TextEdit and did a global search/replace on directory-tile, changing all instances to directory. I saved and then did a killall Dock. When my dock returned, it returned with the normal, happy, uncomplicated folders you see here. When clicked, they open normal, happy, uncomplicated file browsers. Yay. Thanks, Brett, and thanks Mac OS X Hints.Also thanks to TUAW readers Brandon, who points out that you can Command-click the folder and Rich who suggests adding folder aliases rather than the folder itself.
Keynote '08 Picture Frames hack
Brian sent us (thanks!) what is probably the very first Keynote '08 hack. He found that there's a new stroke option in the program called Picture Frames, which are various types of framing graphics to put around a slide. The standard choice screen lets you choose from 12, but Brian opened up the Keynote files, and found that there were actually 72-- apparently Apple included Frames for its own Themes, but didn't allow the user to use them separately.Fortunately, all it takes to show the extra frames is their names in an xml (actually a .plist) file inside the Keynote .app folder, so Brian cracked it open, and added all the names. Turns out, also, that no matter how much you stretch it, the Picture Frames choose can only show 50 at a time, so Brian even created a customized .plist file that shows his 50 favorites-- all you have to do is download it from him, put it inside your Keynote .app file, restart Keynote, and you've got access to almost all the Picture Frames that Apple does.It's pretty clear why Apple didn't want people playing around with custom frames too much (opening a Keynote file with a custom frame requires that you have it installed, apparently, so sending a Keynote file to your friend without the custom frame could lead to trouble), but who knows why they didn't at least give you the option of using all the frames everyone has. Thanks to Brian's superfast hack, now you can.Update: Just to make it clear, it's fine to use these hidden frames, since everyone has them installed. The problem with sharing frames comes when you send someone a slide with a frame you created-- they don't have that frame installed, and so they won't see it.
Selectively hide the dock and menubar in some apps
Yet another slick tip I found while parsing my Mac OS X Hints feed is a fairly simple hack for setting the dock and menubar to auto-hide based on which app is in the foreground. This can come in very handy if you usually like to see these elements, but often work in screen-hungry apps that can't auto-hide them on their own. I'm even interested in trying this on Photoshop, which can hide the dock and menubar, but only when in full screen mode (which I don't often like to use). The tip essentially involves using something like the Property List Editor (a free app included in Apple's Developer Tools) or Pref Setter to copy and paste two short lines of code into an application's info.plist file. The hint contains everything you need to hack away, including a hint from The Rob himself which I'd like to echo: definitely make a backup of the app, or at least the info.plist file, before you copy and paste your way into a problem. That said, enjoy having the best of both worlds.
