iPad By Davis: “Apple updates its ‘Why iPhone’ page with news of its ninth customer satisfaction award” plus 9 more

Apple updates its ‘Why iPhone’ page with news of its ninth customer satisfaction award
Fantastical for iPhone updated, new settings and other improvements
Editors' Choice: Asphalt 7: Heat, Digifit, TV Forecast, and more
Apple buys indoor location startup WifiSLAM for $20 million
How to accept Game Center friend requests on iPhone and iPad
Anatomy of the Apple ID password reset exploit
Best Free iPad App of the Week: Repix – Remix & Paint Photos
What Does a 10 Year Old Do with an iPad mini? Read, Read, Read
iPad App Store Now Shows Warning for Apps with In-App Purchases
iMore show 342: Mobile accomplishments

Apple updates its ‘Why iPhone’ page with news of its ninth customer satisfaction award

Posted: 24 Mar 2013 01:37 AM PDT

Apple updates its 'Why iPhone' page with news of its ninth customer satisfaction award Last week Apple sent out marketing emails informing its customers of reasons why they should buy the iPhone 5. Apple also launched a web page called "Why iPhone" which listed a host of features, one of which was touting the iPhone as the J.D. Power and Associates choice for customer satisfaction for a staggering eight years running. Well that page was quickly outdated earlier this week when we heard the iPhone had picked up the award for the ninth year running.

Apparently love can be measured. And it keeps adding up to iPhone. In nine straight studies by J.D. Power and Associates — that's every study since the first iPhone was introduced — iPhone has been ranked "Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Consumer Smartphones." iPhone ranked highest in the study, which reviewed the following categories: performance, physical design, features, and ease of operation.

Apple wasted no time updating its "Why iPhone" page with the news of its ninth award and to make it stand out even more, it made a point of just crossing out the eight with red pen and writing a nine next to it. This achievement should not be underestimated, the award is given for customer satisfaction across so many levels and to win the award every year since the iPhone launched is something rather special if you ask me!

Source: Apple

Fantastical for iPhone updated, new settings and other improvements

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 08:11 PM PDT

Fantastical for iPhone updated, new settings and other improvements

The popular and totally awesome calendar app Fantastical for iPhone has been updated with a new setting that allows you to display only one day at a time in the event list. The default setting is an infinite list that shows all future events. A few bugs in Fantastical have also been addressed.

For users who sync their iPhones with an Exchange account, you will no longer be able to add multiple alerts to your events since Exchange actually doesn't support this feature. And issues with time zones has also been fixed as well as incorrect text coloring and too many characters in the DayTicker in some languages.

Fantastical for iPhone has been my favorite calendar since its debut and the new setting makes it even better. I was never a fan of the infinite list because I could easy get lost or overwhelmed with seeing future plans all at a glance and much prefer only seeing one day of events at a time.

What about you? Do you like the small update to Fantastical? If you don't use Fantastical, what calendar app do you use?

$4.99 - Download now

Editors' Choice: Asphalt 7: Heat, Digifit, TV Forecast, and more

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 05:43 PM PDT

Editors' Choice: Asphalt 7: Heat, Digifit, TV Forecast, and more

Every week, the editors and writers at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a couple word games, a TV guide, a fitness app, a racing game, and an iBook.

4 Pics 1 Word - Ally Kazmucha

I don't play a ton of games on my iPhone and iPad but when I do, strategy and letter games are my absolute favorite. I've been addicted to Letterpress since it came out and am always looking for more word games to play.

4 Pics 1 Word is a little different than traditional word games and makes you think a little more. You'll be presented with 4 photos and you'll have to figure out what word they all have in common. The more you complete the harder they'll get. It makes it the perfect game for when you just need to kill time and don't want to get too involved in a game that will hold your attention for a long time. You can quickly pop in and out as you want to play which is great for short periods of boredom.

Free - Download Now

TV Forecast - Joseph Keller

Despite the fact that episodes are available on iTunes or through Hulu, I still watch a lot of my favorite shows live. TV Forecast is my favorite app for tracking the shows I watch. For the most part I can keep when each show airs straight, but if it's a new program, or perhaps one that has been on hiatus for a period of time, it's helpful to have something to remind you to tune in. I really appreciate the ability to set alerts. TV Forecast will give you the air date of a show no matter how far in the future it is, so long as it is available, and will also provide a synopsis of upcoming episodes. At $0.99, TV Forecast is definitely worth a shot if you're look for something to keep track of your favorite shows.

$0.99 - Download Now

Digifit iCardio - Chris Oldroyd

This week I have chosen a fitness app that is working out really well for me. For some reason in the UK the app is called simply iCardio but it is the same as Digifit iCardio in the United States. Digifit is an all in one fitness logging app that lets you log your fitness activities, be that running, walking, hiking, biking or even inside fitness activities.

What I really love about this app is its ability to connect to my Polar H7 Bluetooth heart rate monitor. This allows me to accurately record my workouts and know exactly the amount of calories that I have burned; no more guessing required! I use it for my spinning class and it is a real motivator when you're finding it tough, just look at the app and see how many calories you have burnt; it really drives you on.

I am a huge user of My Fitness Pal, you can add me as a friend if you like (Username: chrisoldroyd) and this app automatically syncs to My Fitness Pal and adds in your calorie burns from whatever exercise you have chosen. It does it all automatically so that's one last thing to worry about.

Digifit also has an online account where you can also upload your workouts and see what you have been doing in a lot more detail. All in all this app is a great companion to your fitness programs. The app is free but if you want to enable the sensors, they have to be done through an in-app purchase.

Free - Download Now

Asphalt 7: Heat - Chris Parsons

I've always been a huge fan of racing simulators and one of the best series of those on iOS has been Asphalt. Asphalt 7: Heat doesn't change that, it remains one of the best racing games out there and is visually incredible all things considered. Sure, it does have quite a few in-app purchases should you decide you need them but thus far I've had no issues with playing through avoiding them. Fast cars, plenty of environments to choose from, great replay value and even controlled support if you need it -- can't really ask much more from a racing game. Asphalt 7: Heat is available for $.99 in the iTunes App Store.

$0.99 - Download now

Markdown: A MacSparky Field Guide - Rene Ritchie

90% of what I write these days is in Markdown, a plain-text formatting syntax developers by Daring Fireball's John Gruber back in 2004. I've been hand-typing HTML since the 90s, and I can type HTML fast. But with Markdown, I can fly. Where HTML wraps everything in containers, forcing you to think and write in small sets of loops, Markdown wraps things in nothing more than plaintext characters, allowing for a much more linear, more natural flow.

Yet despite using Markdown to write almost every iMore post in the last few years, I remain a very superficial user. Never mind the Merlin Mann's and Bret Terpstra's of the world, I'm barely out of Markdown second grade. Which is why I've just bought and begun reading -- and watching -- Markdown: A MacSparky Field Guide.

Crafted for iPad, and replete with text and screencasts, David Sparks and Eddie Smith, Markdown: A MacSparky Field Guide, covers not only Gruber's Markdown but Fletcher Penny's MultiMarkdown as well. It also includes how to use Markdown on the Mac, Windows, iOS, and the Web.

I don't know how much more Markdown I really need -- part of its appeal is its simplicity -- but I do know I want to understand it better, and Markdown: A MacSparky Field Guide, looks like a great way to do just that.

$9.99 - Download now

LetterSlider - Leanna Lofte

Like Ally, I'm a huge fan of word games and a new game I've been spending time with is LetterSlider. Remember those puzzles that featured a grid of tiles with an empty space and you had to slide them around to complete the picture or put the numbers in order? Well, LetterSlider is very similar, only you are sliding around the tiles to spell words. Each letter has a point value and there's a double-word and triple-word tile. The goal is to earn as many points as you can in 2 minutes. Because moving the tiles requires a sliding motion and spelling words also requires a sliding motion, these gestures can get a little confusing. Regardless, LetterSlider is still fun.

$0.99 - Download now

Your choice?

Now that we've chosen our favorites for the week, we want to hear yours! Did you pick up a killer app, accessory, or game this week? Let us know in the comments below!

Apple buys indoor location startup WifiSLAM for $20 million

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 05:18 PM PDT

Apple buys indoor location startup WifiSLAM for $20 million

$20 million has bought Apple WifiSLAM, a startup specializing in indoor location mapping. Apple confirmed the sale, but wouldn't discuss specifics or future plans. Jessica E. Lessin of the Wall Street Journal reports:

The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user's location in a building using Wi-Fi signals. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps. The company has a handful of employees, and its co-founders include former Google software engineering intern Joseph Huang.

Their website, wifislam.com, is already down. Their YouTube account, which contains several demo videos, remains up, as does their Twitter account, though neither has been updated recently.

Apple has acquired numerous mapping-related companies over the years, including Placebase, Poly9, and C3 technologies, and used them to create features like Flyover in iOS 6 Maps. Presumably Apple will keep updating their new Maps app, both as part of iOS 7 and iOS 8, and hopefully one day de-coupled from the main firmware distribution as well. What, if any, role WifiSLAM technology will play in that future remains unknown.

I'd settle for it being able to help me get out of CES alive. You?

Source: Wall Street Journal

How to accept Game Center friend requests on iPhone and iPad

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 11:50 AM PDT

How to accept Game Center friend requests on iPhone and iPad

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you've got Game Center. Once you log in, you're ready to start playing games with other opponents. You can share your Game Center ID with others and receive invites to become friends. From there you can view each other's achievements and challenge each other to games. If you aren't sure how to accept a Game Center friend request, here's how.

While you can always accept friend requests as soon as they come in by tapping on the notification, you can also accept multiple invites at once or accept individual ones at your own liesure.

Launch the Game Center app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on the Requests tab on the bottom right of the lower navigation menu.
Here you'll see a list of all the people that are requesting to be friends with you.
Either tap on individual names and tap the Accept or Ignore button or scroll down to the bottom and you'll see an Accept All and Ignore All button. Choose one of them.

That's it. The contacts will either be added to your Game Center friends list or rejected based on which option you chose.

Anatomy of the Apple ID password reset exploit

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 11:49 AM PDT

When The Verge broke news of Apple's password reset vulnerability, they cited a step-by-step guide that detailed the process of exploiting the service. They declined to link to the source for security reasons, and rightfully so. However, now that Apple has closed the security hole the topic of how it worked and why is worth exploring.

While iMore doesn't know what the original source was, we were able to reproduce the exploit independently. In the interest of helping people understand how they were put at risk, and allowing anybody designing their own systems to avoid similar security holes in the future, after a lot of consideration and carefully weighing the pros and cons, we have decided to detail and analyze the exploit.

Normally the password reset process has 6 steps:

On iforgot.apple.com, enter your Apple ID to begin the process.
Select an authentication method - "Answer security questions" is the one we would use.
Enter your date of birth.
Answer two security questions.
Enter your new password.
Be taken to a success page saying your password has been reset.

What should happen in a process like this is that each step can only be performed once all of the steps before it have successfully been completed. The security hole was a result of this not being properly enforced in Apple's password reset process.

In step 5, when you submit your new password, a form is sent to the iForgot servers with the password change request. The form being sent takes shape as a URL that sends along all of the information needed from this last page to change your password and looks something like this:

https://iforgot.apple.com/iForgot/resetPassword.html? forceBetterPlusPasswordRules=true&password=NEWPASSWORD aolParameter=false&borderValue=true&confirmPassword NEWPASSWORD&findAccount=false&myAppleIdImageURL https%3A%2F%2Fappleid.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2F MyAppleId.woa%3Flocalang%3Den_US&appendingURL &urlhit=false&accountName=johnny%40apple.com

In the steps above, an attacker would be required to properly complete steps 1-3. The URL had the effect of allowing them to skip step 4, achieve step 5, and get confirmation in step 6 that they had successfully reset a user's password. With a fix now in place, if you try this, you will get a message saying "Your request could not be completed." and you'll have to restart the password reset process.

The necessary URL could be acquired by walking through a normal password reset on your own Apple ID, and watching the network traffic being sent when you submitted your new password in step 5. The URL could also be constructed manually by somebody if they looked at the HTML of the password reset page to see what information the page would be submitting in the form.

When Apple initially put a maintenance message on the iForgot page to prevent users from doing a password reset, it suffered from a nearly identical problem. While you could no longer enter your Apple ID and click Next to get to step 2, if you already knew the full URL with the form info needed, you could put it into your browser and be taken right to the "Select authentication method" page.

https://iforgot.apple.com/iForgot/authenticationmethod.html? language=US-EN&defAppleId=johnny%40apple.com&urlhit=false

From here the rest of the password reset process worked as normal. Upon being made aware of this, Apple took the entire iForgot page offline.

It is still unclear if this exploit was ever used in the wild, but hopefully Apple's response was fast enough to stop any would-be attackers. Apple also issued a statement to The Verge yesterday in response to the security hole, stating "Apple takes customer privacy very seriously. We are aware of this issue, and working on a fix.", though we have yet to see any comment from them regarding how it happened or how many users may have been affected.

Update: After finding a link to the original step-by-step guide (via 9to5Mac), it appears that the original hack was slightly different, though with a similar underlying principle of modifying requests to Apple and with the same end result.

Best Free iPad App of the Week: Repix – Remix & Paint Photos

Posted: 23 Mar 2013 10:37 AM PDT

One of the best things about using an iPad is all the great apps that we can run on it. There are excellent apps for just about any purpose you can think of. Better still, there are lots of great free apps for the iPad. Our Best Free iPad App of the Week posts highlight these apps.

This week's pick is Repix – Remix & Paint Photos, an excellent new photo effects app released just a couple weeks ago. Here's a little of its App Store description:

Paint unique remixes from photos using magical Repix brushes!
With the brushes you can turn your photos into something special. Just sit back, choose a brush and let the creative juices start flowing through your fingertips.
With Repix you can remix photos exactly the way you want and make your photos stand out. Just choose a photo and start remixing. You can use the carefully handcrafted artistic, effect and color brushes to...

Read the whole entry... »