Tidbits of news and other things I find interesting

According to Gizmodo a student was forced to Pay $675,000 to RIAA. What was his crime you say? He did the unthinkable. He shared 30 songs. Is it me or is the RIAA getting a little carried away with this.

Ok Apple, you better fix this one. Now it seems that those passwords that we all like to use to lock our iPhones are quite useless. According to this article from PC World, not only can you easily access all the favorites on a locked phone, with a little playing we were able to access not only text messages but read all the emails on a locked phone. You can even send an email. Geesh Apple, come on.

Try this at home:
1. Turn on your locked iPhone
2. From the password screen hit emergency call
3. Now double tap the home button
4. Shazam! you now have access to all the favorites.
5. If you click on any of the blue arrows to the right you can access all kinds of goodies.

Try this goody:
1. After you are reading one of your favorites info click on that person’s email
2. From the new email screen hit cancel.
3. You can now read all the emails and even change accounts if there are some.

Yeah real secure. I hope that Apple fixes this ASAP.

Update: It’s not just if you have iphone firware 2.02, my buddy has 2.01 and it does the same thing on his.

Update 2: You can change the behavior of the double click of the home button and do a workaround to keep your phone secure. To do that do the following:

1. Go to settings
2. Click general
3. Click Home Button
4. Now change your setting to Home.

That will lock it back up. Enjoy.

Apple, have you lost your way?

I am a little disappointed at the latest app that Apple has decided to pull from the App store. They have pulled 4 apps in the last week. First it was Netshare (luckily I grabbed that one) which its only fault was to give a much needed/wanted function to the iPhone, tethering. Then it was BoxOffice, not sure what that was about. Then there was I Am Rich, ok that one I get. Today, I open up my fresh copy of Google Reader just to find out that Apple has pulled PhoneSaber from the App store!?! Um…What!?!

How could you Apple? How could you deny the hordes of Star Wars fans the sheer joy and pleasure of pretending that their iPhone is a lightsaber? What happened Steve, were you embarassed by a couple of guys pretending they were in a lightsaber fight with their iPhones at the Apple Campus? Maybe, Woz challenged you to a virtual duel and kicked your butt!

Ok, actually THQ wireless asked TheMacBox (the makers of PhoneSaber) to pull it since they own the rights to Star Wars wireless development. But I like my story better. I can see it now …Woz comes in to see Steve and whips out his PhoneSaber and does his best impression of Darth Vader “Steve….I am your father.” I love my version!