michaelwyres.com » apple

Who Is Spamming My Apple iTunes Email Address?

Michael Wyres — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:20:32 +0000

Spam. We all hate it.

When I created my Apple iTunes account, I created and used a specific email address – (not my main email account) – for use with the iTunes account. I have only ever provided that email address to Apple in creating that account, and dealing with Apple services.

So why has the following spam – (click image for larger view) – attempted to pass through my mail filters to this email account in recent days?

Did Apple share my email address with spammers? I would hope not, and would highly suspect this not to be the case.

Is there an app on my iPhone that has gleaned the address from the phone, and reported it back to its creators?

Far more likely.

It would be interesting to see if others have experienced the same, as it seems Apple’s application vetting process might have missed this one.

I’ll have to look into this.

The Only Way Forward for BlackBerry?

Michael Wyres — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:27:51 +0000

Ever since Research in Motion (RIM) pushed aside its two co-CEOs in favour of Thorsten Heins earlier this year, many analysts have been pondering how the maker of the once-popular BlackBerry smartphone family might bring itself back from the brink of extinction.

Certainly, the traction gained in the smartphone market by Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and even Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 (WP7), has had a crushing effect on the position of RIM in that market.

The steady, yet rapid fall of mobile phone operating systems such as the BlackBerry OS, Palm/WebOS, and even to a lesser extent Nokia’s ageing Symbian offering, has shown that the current market simply isn’t prepared to support a fourth major mobile operating system.

So what exactly can Thorsten Heins do to bring RIM back from the edge of the abyss, if the market doesn’t care for another mobile OS?

In a nutshell, if you can’t beat them – (and RIM won’t) – join them!

What RIM should really be doing is developing applications to run on iOS, Android, and WP7 to deliver the popular Blackberry functionality on those platforms.

People use iOS, Android and WP7 because they like them, and really want to use them, so new handsets from RIM aren’t likely to be the answer.

The answer is to bring the unique features of the BlackBerry – the features that made them popular – to the popular handsets.

Find just the right price point for those applications, and a new chapter for RIM might be just around the corner.

But they don’t have long – or people will forget about them completely.

iOS5 Over The Air Updating

Michael Wyres — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:02:15 +0000

Well, we’ve had Apple release the first delta update to iOS5, so we can now see “over the air” updating for the first time – and I was impressed.

Only 44.2mb, downloaded, verified, and installed in 13 minutes on an iPhone 4 – (not a 4S) – and all is well.

Certainly beats plugging it in and downloading 650Mb all the time! Nice one Apple.

Setting Your iOS5 Device Up For Wireless Sync

Michael Wyres — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:53:06 +0000

So, you’ve managed to update your iDevice to the newly released iOS5 – hopefully you didn’t have the problems that some have had.

Now that you’ve done it, how do you setup one of the coolest new features – wireless iTunes synchronisation? You’ll never need to connect up your device to your computer with a cable ever again.

Well, you will at least one more time!

The first thing to do is to connect your device with your Apple cable to the computer you normally sync with. Once iTunes finds your device, go to its summary page and make sure that “Sync with this [iDevice] over Wi-Fi” is ticked, like so:

Click “Apply”, and do a normal sync to save this new setting to the device itself.

Now, disconnect the device – and you may never need to connect it by cable again. Make sure your device is connected to your wireless network.

Go into your “Settings” app, and under “General” go to “iTunes Wi-Fi Sync”, like so:

Once inside you can click the “Sync Now” button – watch what happens in iTunes on your computer. Your device will also sync automatically whenever you plug it into your charger, and you can tell it to sync from within iTunes on your computer, and it will find your phone on the network.

Pure magic – and about time!

Apple Search Engine?

Michael Wyres — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:44:41 +0000

Okay.

Right from the start, I’ll put my hand up and say that this has all been speculated before, and that I don’t have any REAL lead on this, but is Apple seeking to launch its own search engine to compete with Google and Bing?

The simple answer is “who the hell knows?”

However, over the weekend I noticed some interesting activity in the logs for this website, with the apparent repeated polling of it from a single IP address over the last couple of weeks.

Now, I’ve blanked out the complete IP address for privacy’s sake, but the 17.x.x.x range from which this polling came from belongs to Apple themselves.

Notice that the polling is quite regular – every 20 minutes. They’ve only hit the main page, and nothing below, so maybe whatever it is about is just in testing.

Or it’s about nothing at all.

Every 20 minutes does seem a really small interval. Yahoo – (who crawl my site far more often than even Google) – doesn’t usually come by anything more than a few times a day.

Given the pendulous regularity, it does look like some kind of robot activity. I’ve not had an Apple related article on my front page for quite a long time.

It might mean something – though it probably means nothing. It’s just curious.

Anyone else seen similar activity?

Apple iTunes Price Gouging in Australia?

Michael Wyres — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:18:04 +0000

With more than a few under-my-breath chuckles, I read with interest the following article posted in/on the Fairfax newspapers/sites this morning by noted Australian financial commentator, Michael Pascoe:

An interesting read, and on the surface, he makes some excellent points. The difference in pricing between the Australian and US iTunes stores is certainly an eyebrow raiser – but I do note that he makes no attempt to seek any explanation for the difference. Are the costs Apple is required to collect for the Australian publishers of the music – as opposed the the US publishers, which may be a completely different publisher – higher? Quite possibly.

Delving a little deeper, the true folly of the article is exposed – and most significantly, Pascoe misses the point on what exactly iTunes provides BEYOND the music itself. He highlights that the album “Art of Lounge” by Janet Seidel – (who?) – retails on the US iTunes store for $US7.99, and the Australian store for $AUD13.99. He even states that you can go to her concert and get a copy with your name on it for $AUD20.00.

How much does it cost to go to the concert? If it is more than $AUD14.99, his point falls flat. Lets have a look at how much this album costs in Australian stores:

Yes, that’s right – $AUD34.99 – if you can be bothered getting off the “lounge” and getting in your car and driving down to your local Sanity store – costing you time AND even more money. If you choose to buy it from Sanity online, you’ll get it in “10-20 days”. I’m sure going to her concert is a fabulous experience, and is quite possibly worth the extra cost – but iTunes doesn’t have “concerts”. This is a completely different product. Apples and oranges.

Suddenly, iTunes shows it’s real value. Less than half the retail cost, and you can have it straight away – or at least as soon as your internet connection can get it to you. You haven’t wasted time, money, petrol, and effort going to pay the full price, and you don’t have to wait up to three weeks if you buy it online. Sounds like good value to me.

Pascoe’s article suddenly sounds more like an advert for Janet Seidel than anything else.