iPhone Atlas

As I've already told you, managing hundreds of apps on your iPhone isn't easy. To date, I've acquired via evaluation license, beta testing, downloaded, or purchased a total of 292 iPhone apps, though only 207 currently reside on my iPhone.

The dilemma stems from the fact that new app icons typically go to the first available space on your home screens. You'll also find your existing icons rearranged after you install updates, delete apps, or perform a restore. Rearranging them again can be tedious.

Jeff Stieler, an intrepid iPhone developer, has come up with an application that takes the pain out of app management for jailbroken iPhones. Movement uses your Mac to rearrange your apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The video demo of this new Mac OS X iPhone app management utility is embedded below:

A solution for non-jailbroken iPhone users may be around the corner. iTunes 9, which is rumored to be coming soon, should have support for arranging app icons on the iPhone and iPod Touch like the proof-of-concept we covered previously.

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

Apple has released recordings of iPhone and Mac development sessions from the 2009 WWDC. The sessions are available to members of its Apple Developer Connection (ADC) Select or Premier programs, free ADC Online program, and registered iPhone developers. Premier members and anyone who attended WWDC have already been given free access to the session videos, but anyone else will have to pay.

The WWDC 2009 sessions cost $299 each for iPhone or Mac sessions, or $499 for the complete set that includes both sessions. Though that may seem expensive, remember that a full WWDC ticket costs between $1,295 and $1,595. Another plus? Unlike the conference the recorded sessions don't sell out. Oh and I haven't even mentioned the amount of cash you are saving in travel expenses.

To purchase the sessions you have to sign for one of the ADC programs mentioned above (even the free Online session). Once you have access you can purchase the videos by following this link. Apple will send you an iTunes key code that enables you to download and view the WWDC video sessions including Keynote slide presentations and other session materials.

The sessions require that you use iTunes 8.2 or later. Also you'll need plenty of disk space since the combined package weighs in at a hefty 30GB (Mac sessions are 13GB and iPhone sessions are 17GB).

The WWDC banner hanging inside Moscone Center in San Francisco.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Apple has started decorating San Francisco's Moscone Center in anticipation of the Worldwide Developers Conference, which opens Monday morning.

And as has become tradition, when the banners go up, the seemingly round-the-clock guessing game of what Apple will announce intensifies. This year, the banners say "WWDC: One year later. Light-years ahead." Now the objective for many is parsing that phrase and poring over every image on the banner to extract some sort of meaning.

The phrase itself, plus all the application icons on the banners, indicate the centerpiece of the conference will be the App Store and the new features of the iPhone OS 3.0. Apple said as much in its announcement of the conference keynote address, which is on Monday at 10 a.m. PDT. We know there will be discussion of the updated mobile operating system as well as more details on OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard. And of course, there have been previous indications that a new iPhone is on the way.

The iPhone Blog points out that the App Store did launch in July, not in early June at WWDC last year, so it hasn't technically been "one year later." Gizmodo thinks "light-years ahead" is a snarky reference to the jumble of competing smartphones debuting soon--particularly the Palm Pre, which launches two days before WWDC opens.

TUAW took out its copy editor's pen, noting that "a year is a measure of time while a light year is a measure of distance." Of course, anyone who remembers "Think Different" knows Apple slogans haven't always been bound by the traditional rules of grammar.

In any case, all the mysteries will be solved by the end of Monday's keynote speech, which we'll be live-blogging. Until then, check out the gallery of photos below that we snapped Wednesday morning.

Photos: Prep for Apple's WWDC 2009 begins

Update: Sometime after this post went live the site was pulled and it can no longer be viewed as shown below.

Ever wish you could live like an Apple employee? Now you can at least find out how to eat like one, according to Gizmodo's post on an iPhone Web app that reports the daily menu at Apple cafeteria, Caffe Macs.

Simply launch Mobile Safari on your iPhone and browse to menu.apple.com, select an Apple campus location, and boom: instantly see what's cookin' at Apple.

According to the app, the menu at Infinite Loop as of this writing includes: pizza, soft tacos, burritos, salads, roast chicken, grilled snapper, and various other munchies that are likely to keep Apple engineers highly energized and working hard to get that new iPhone out this summer.

Pangea Software's Brian Greenstone was interviewed by The Guardian this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. During the interview, Brian revealed that his company would no longer develop software products for Macs and would instead focus entirely on the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.

Like many other iPhone application developers, Pangea Software is finding plenty of money to be made in the iTunes App Store. The company has earned $1.5 million on iPhone and iPod Touch application sales in the iTunes App Store, a figure that Greenstone points out makes Mac development earnings seem like "lunch money" in comparison.

The creator of Engimo, a game that sold more than 810,000 units in about 6 months, Brian Greenstone, speaks with authority on the subject of application sales. During the interview (watch the video below), he talks plainly about what it takes to be a successful iPhone and iPod Touch developer.

While the business decision may work out for Pangea Software and for and iPhone and iPod Touch users in general, we're sad to see Mac users suffer yet another blow to their gaming platform. Mac fans have always struggled to find games for their favorite computing platform, and the search just got harder.

Mac OS 7 which, also known as System 7 (Wikipedia), has begun a port process to the iPhone.

According to the Web site: "Welcome to the MacOS iPhone Project! We are Dedicated to putting MacOS on the iPhone. We hope to be launching the code soon, but we are wanting [sic] to complete something before fully releasing stuff, so please bare with us! But heres [sic] what we have [been] working [on] so far."

The team goes on to describe some of its work. The most difficult issue so far: getting the System 7 cursor working with the iPhone touch screen. Once that was overcome, the team was able to demonstrate the ability to access menus. The sample pictures on their Web site show the emulator running MacPaint, MacDraw, Calculator, and other system functions.

The emulator isn't without flaws; the team points out that when people go through the process of shutting down Mac OS 7, the emulator crashes, "the iPhone will hang for a few minutes and then return to the home screen."

System 7 was code-named "Big Bang" and often referred to as Mac OS 7. It was first released on May 13, 1991, by Apple. It was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997. New features in System 7 included cooperative multitasking, virtual memory, personal file sharing, an improved user interface, QuickTime, and QuickDraw 3D.

You can find more information about this new emulation project at the MacOS iPhone Project, photos on Flickr; while the site does not mention this, a jailbroken iPhone would be required to install and run this app or any other emulation app due to iTunes App Store restrictions. These restrictions prohibit any kind of emulation of other operating systems from running on the iPhone.

We'd also like to see the team post a video demonstrating the app going through its paces.

Forget the iTunes Remote. The newly released Air Mouse 1.5 ($5.99) makes a mean universal remote out of the iPhone and iPod Touch. With it, you'll be able to control almost any program on your Mac or Windows computer.

I was always a big fan of this app, which works with the help of a Windows and Mac servers to establish a local network between the computer and the iPhone. It then gives you two modes for controlling the keyboard and mouse: a touch pad, and a slightly less effective (read: higher learning curve) and more traditional air mouse that you activate by pressing a button and arcing your arm. Version 1.5 completely blows away every competitor we've seen by adding an incredible array of new features without bumping up the price.

It's a common dilemma: you have two computers--perhaps one at work, one at home--but only one iPhone, to which you'd like to sync music and other data from both systems. By default, Apple doesn't allow for this scenario in iTunes. When an iPhone is synced with one computer's iTunes library then connected to another's, all music is grayed out and cannot be synced. Other data are also inaccessible. There are a number of solutions to this problem, some easy but fraught with issues, others more complicated but with more pleasing results.

Trick the library One option is to trick your iPhone into thinking that it's connecting with the same library on both computers.

The easiest way to do this on two Macs is to copy the files

• iTunes Music Library.xml
• "iTunes Library"

from /Users/[your username]/Music on the Mac your iPhone is synced with to the same folder on the secondary Mac (the one on which the music is greyed out).

On two Windows systems, copy the files

• tt>iTunes Music Library.xml
• iTunes Library.itl

from \Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\ under Windows XP or 2000, or \Users\[your username]\Music\ under Windows Vista on the primary synced machine to the respective (same-named) folders on the secondary systems.

This is a simple fix that works for many users, but it can cause other issues down the road. If you run into any issus after applying this procedure, you can rebuild your iTunes library via the instructions in this article.

Third-party transfer Another option is to use third-party software like TouchCopy. This tool, and others, can transfer music, playlists, album art and more from multiple computers to a single iPhone or iPod touch. It's available for both Mac OS X and Windows--a major boon for dual-platform users.

Deeper modification Finally, if you're willing to dig into text files and modify the iTunes libraries on your two systems, you can follow this procedure from Andrew Grant. The process will modify any iTunes Library so it can also be synced with the iPhone. Per Andrew "You can then either manually manage your iPhone on a second computer, or sync different data on different machines."

Apple's recently released Mac OS X 10.5.6 is causing a few minor issues for iPhone users. Some users have reported an inability to synchronize with iTunes after the update. An Apple Discussions poster writes:

"I have just upgraded my MacBook Pro (Intel G5) from OS 10.4.11 to 10.5.6. It was a seamless upgrade. However, I noticed when I plugged in my 15-day-old iPhone (not jailbroken, version 2.2) to sync, it failed to appear in iTunes. In fact, iTunes didn't even open. Bizarre! Everything was working fine before the upgrade. I'd love to hear some thoughts. I don't think this is a USB issue."

This issue can generally be resolved by simply downloading and reinstalling the latest release of iTunes.

Users are also experiencing an inability to recognize iPhones in DFU mode. A potential fix involves replacing some of Mac OS X 10.5.6 components with files from 10.5.5 -- particularly kernel extension IOUSBFamily.kext. A safer fix is to archive and instal then reinstall Mac OS X 10.5.5.

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