iPhone 5 to have 4in screen?

MacRumours has posted an article on its website that suggests that the next generation of the iPhone will have a 4in screen instead of the 3.5in unit it currently has. The source is an Asian blogger who quotes an unnamed source. There are so many Apple product rumours and so many turn out to be wrong it is hard not to be sceptical about this one. In fact, there are so many rumours it wouldn't surprise me if Apple was the source of some of them. It loves secrecy and putting out a few false rumours would put investigators off the trail of the real product.

I have to say though, that the iPhone does look small next to many of the other top of the range smartphones these days. Many popular models have 4in screens and some are even bigger. There is an optimum size for phones and anything much over 4in is awkward to carry. After all, trouser pockets are only so big. For me, a 4in screen would be the ideal size - not too big and not too small. The fact that the iPhone has remained at 3.5in when larger screens are available suggests that Apple believes that the optimum size is 3.5in, so whether we will actually see a bigger iPhone is anyone's guess.

Of course, changing the screen size would be awkward for apps because they wouldn't be designed to work in the new resolution. Unless, that is, the screen resolution was kept the same. That would suit me because one thing that frequently irritates me about the iPhone is the small size of the text in some apps (forgive me if I've mentioned it before). I've even deleted some apps because the text was too small to comfortably read. The perfect iPhone 5 for me would have a 4in screen with the current resolution, or rather pixels count, so that everything is that little bit bigger.

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Social networking madness

Facebook has been incredibly successful and it has rocketed from obscurity to become the most visited website on the world in no time at all. Twitter has also grown rapidly to become hugely successful over just a few short years. It seems that everyone wants to share everything and interact with their friends, relatives and work colleagues, or do they?

I think it is wrong to assume that everyone wants to share everything and the amount of social networking facilities built into modern computer software and mobile phone and tablet apps is actually becoming irritating. It seems that every program and every app assumes you want to share every detail of your life online and to connect with all your friends, relatives and work colleagues. Programs and apps have buttons, links and menus to access sharing features and everything you do they say, "Do you want to share that on Facebook and Twitter?"

The latest madness is the app I have from my gas and electric company. At one time they used to send someone round to my house to read the gas and electricity meters to see how much I had used before sending a bill. Now there is an app for that. I can read the gas and electricity meters myself, tap the numbers into the app on my mobile phone and it sends it to the company. It's more convenient for both of us.

I got an email recently asking me for the latest meter readings and I dutifully went and read the meters and entered the values into the app. That's fine, but then it asked if I would like to share this on Facebook. Yes, there was a Facebook button in the gas and electric app so I can share my gas and electric bills with all my friends, relatives and work colleagues. I just know they are tingling with anticipation of news of the latest figures.

This is ridiculous. Who on earth wants to share their gas and electric meter readings on Facebook? I declined the offer. Perhaps I should have tried it just to see what is posted, but enough rubbish gets posted and I didn't want to bore everyone with trivia. Just think, in the future I would have been able to look back using Facebook's timeline feature to see the fun I had reading the gas and electric meters back in 2011.

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Beware of Trojans posing as legitimate Mac apps

The Apple Mac is is a fairly secure operating system and it is hard to create malware like a virus that automatically installs without your knowledge. Malware authors are fully aware of this and they use a different tactic to get their malicious software onto your computer. They trick you into installing it or they disguise it as legitimate software. You may think that you are installing a well known application and because of this you might even enter your administrator password when prompted during the setup, but you end up with an infected Mac. The app you wanted installs, but it has an unwanted payload.

DevilRobber, or Backdoor:OSX/DevilRobber.A to give it its full name, installs applications related to Bitcoin mining. (Bitcoin is an online digital currency used to buy goods or services in some parts of the world). The malware opens various ports to allow communications over the internet and someone or some app could remotely execute commands on your Mac. DevilRobber can access your keychain stored on the Mac where all your passwords are held, your Safari web browsing history, your IP address, it takes screenshots, it accesses 1Password (a password manager) if you have it, and more.

So how do you get infected? From legitimate applications like PixelMator, Graphic Converter and others. It was discovered that the original applications had been modified and the malware hidden inside them. When you install these apps they install the malware too.

Before you start panicing, I must point out that these apps came from The Pirate Bay, a website notorious for pirated illegal software. The malware author must have got the original software, which is clean, added his own code, and uploaded it to The Pirate Bay. It is a tempting download. Even if you don't use The Pirate Bay or other dodgy websites yourself, your mates might if if they then pass on the app to you, you can become infected.

This emphasises the importance of getting your software only from trusted sources and this means the Mac App Store, direct from the software developer's website, a download site like Download.com, Softpedia, and similar places. These sources are clean.

How do you know if you have it and more importantly, how do you remove it? If you have DevilRobber go to your Library folder (in OS X Lion click the Go menu, hold down the Option key and click Library), and delete the Library/mdsa1331 folder. Go into the Library/LaunchAgents folder and delete com.apple.legion.plist. If you have the latest version of DevilRobber installed from PixelMator from The Pirate Bay website then delete the Library/Pixel_Mator folder and Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.pixel.plist. Don't run the app dodgy app again or it will reinstall the malware.

F-Secure has more information about DevilRobber here, here and here.

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Kindle Fire - everything you need to know

The Kindle Fire is Amazon's answer to Apple's iPad - a brand new tablet with some interesting features and a killer price. Will you be buying one this Christmas, either for yourself or your family? Here is a roundup of Kindle Fire information that will help you to decide:

• iFixit Amazon Kindle Fire Teardown
• Kindle Fire at the Amazon Store
• Fire aside, other Kindles also shine, David Pogue
• Wired: Is this really the tablet everyone's talking about?
• ZDNet: Amazon's Kindle Fire: Snappy consumption, impulse purchase device
• Reuters: Amazon Kindle Fire unboxing video
• PC Mag: Amazon Kindle Fire review
• Techradar - Amazon Kindle Fire: What you need to know
• CNN Money - Amazon's Kindle Fire: Hope or hype?
• The Telegraph: Amazon's three new Kindles in pictures
• Engadget Amazon Kindle Fire review
• Kindle Fire TV commercial
• Kindle Fire (enthusiast) website

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Mobile Flash is dead

Last week Adobe announced that it would end development of Flash on mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets. It said, "We are no longer going to be actively developing the Flash Player for Mobile Browsers." This is disappointing, but at the same time it is also not surprising.

The reason is that Flash works fine on Windows computers, but the company has always had difficulties getting it to run satisfactorily on other platforms. For example, it has been on the Apple Mac for years, but Flash has had problems with performance and using too much resources. In fact, at times in the past Flash has been so bad on OS X that some MacBook laptop users disabled Flash and prevented it from running using utilities like Click to Flash (go to the Safari menu and click Extensions to install it). Open a couple of web browser tabs with Flash on, even simple adverts, and the CPU usage would be up to 50 or 60%!

Adobe converted Flash to the Android platform and it appeared on some smartphones and tablets, but it didn't take long for YouTube videos to appear that showed the battery charge running down at an alarming speed. Flash on mobile devices was not good and it still isn't. It sort of works, but it doesn't work well.

So Steve Jobs was right, Flash has no place on mobile devices. However, it is hard to see why Flash couldn't have been made to work on mobiles and tablets. Some have fast dual core processors and lots of memory and future models will surely be even more powerful. Adobe just seems to have given up. Perhaps HTML5 and other technologies are simply better in the long run. That may be true, but there are a lot of websites right now using Flash that can't be accessed on mobile devices and it's irritating.

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Is Siri a threat to Google?

Siri is the voice controlled personal assistant on the new Apple iPhone 4S and there has been a lot of talk recently about the threat that it poses to Google. For example, there is Yes, Google, Siri is a serious threat, Siri, are you stealing searchers from Google?, How Siri will eat Google's lunch, and even Google's Eric Schmidt: Apple's Siri could pose a threat.

Does Siri really spell the end of everything for Google? Of course not. Siri is one app on one mobile phone and it is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to search. The mount of publicity the iPhone gets you would think that 90% of the world was using it and that anything it does will completely revolutionise the way the world works. The reality is that iPhone users are a very small minority of global mobile phone users and an even smaller percentage of the total searches occurring on a daily basis, most of which come from desktop and laptop computers and not iPhones.

This does not mean that Siri is insignificant and can be ignored and it could have quite a big effect on search, at least for Apple iPhone users. If you want to search for something, such as local businesses, pizza, cinemas and so on, an iPhone 4S user with Siri will simply speak into the phone. Siri will then go and look up the information you need and display or speak the results. The problem for Google is that Apple controls the whole process and decides which service to use to perform the search. Apple may not use Google search and it may use someone else's or even create its own. Google searches return a long list of results and these included sponsored links and adverts from which it earns money. Siri's results do not, so Google loses out.

However, Google is already losing out on searches on the iPhone anyway and if you want to locate local businesses, services, entertainment and other things, there are lots of apps that do that. Apps like Yelp, Qype, AroundMe, Thompsonlocal, Acrossair, Layer, Flixter, Booking.com, Voucher Cloud and many more are all available. When you want to find something you use these rather than using Google search anyway. Siri may pose a bigger threat to these apps and whether you want a pizza or a plumber you may simply ask Siri where the nearest one is. Who needs Yelp, Qype or AroundMe?

Don't forget that Google search is the default on Android phones and the Android market is growing at a phenomenal rate. Siri on just on the iPhone 4S and therefore isn't much of a threat. There just aren't enough users for it to make a difference. Even a few years down the line when all iPhones have Siri, it will still be just one one among a sea of Android devices all with Google search. Is Siri really that much of a threat?

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Where is Apple going with OS X?

First Apple introduced the Mac App Store as a one-stop shop where Mac users could purchase and download software, now there is sandboxing. What does this mean and where is Apple going with OS X?

Sandboxing is a programming term and it means that an application is limited in what it can access on the computer (or device). It can't delete files, it can't install and run other apps, it can't control other apps, it can't mess up your system. An app can only access its own files and private workspace. Sandboxing was created as a security feature that prevents malware and malicious apps from doing things they shouldn't. If an app can't access the rest of the system then it can't do any damage.

In some situations sandboxing is useful and if a web browser is run in a sandbox then any malware you come across on the web cannot damage or infect the computer because it can't access it.

Sandboxing is not useful in all cases though because it limits what an application can do. For example, suppose you want a utility that scans the disk searching for files. I recently looked at several of these and they are very useful. If these were limited to running in a sandbox then they would not have access to the system and they would not work. You want to find files fast on your Mac? Tough. (Spotlight does not find all files everywhere - it is a limited search facility.)

Another example is an FTP program. I use one to upload pages from my Mac to my websites. It would not work in a sandbox because it could not access any files apart from its own. iOS on the iPad and iPhone uses sandboxing and apps cannot access anything outside of their own workspace, except where iOS lets it - usually just the photos and videos. Install an FTP app on the iPad or iPhone and it is practically useless. If you have a note-taking app or an accounts program or some other app that saves files, just try loading those files into another app. You can't.

It is acceptable to have sandboxing on an iPhone because the apps you use are simple anyway, but a desktop computer is a completely different thing. Sandboxing may be secure, but the lack of freedom is very limiting and we might end up with only dumbed down apps that have limited functionality in the Mac App Store. Apps that do clever things by accessing the system, or adding extensions, plug-ins and add-ons, won't be possible.

Apple is forcing all apps in the Mac App Store to run in a sandbox. The deadline to implement this was originally November, but it has been extended to next March.

What is worrying is that this is yet another step towards the iOS way of thinking. The Mac/OS X has an app store like iOS. There are iOS-like features in OS X Lion. There is sandboxing of apps just like iOS. What is next?

I suspect that in the not too distant future Apple will decree that all apps for the Mac must be purchased and installed from the Mac App Store, just as with iOS. No apps will be installable from elsewhere. There are two reasons for doing this is and one is that Apple likes to keep control of everything, just as with iOS apps. Apple believes that if it controls what apps are available and what they can do, it will reduce user problems and user support because only approved apps will work.

another reason is the money and Apple takes a cut of every app sold in the Mac App Store. At the moment developers only put their software in it out of choice, but if every app for the Mac had to be purchased from there, just think of the revenue Apple would generate. It would get loads of money for doing very little, just as with iOS apps. I think this would be very tempting for Apple.

This scenario may work on the iPad and iPhone, but it is not one I would like on the Mac. I don't want to be limited to running only apps that Apple lets me run, I don't want apps to be limited to only functions that Apple says I can use, and I don't want Apple block useful apps I use just because it doesn't approve.

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Get Magican for Apple Mac OS X

It is useful to be able to monitor various aspects of the Mac, such as whether downloads or uploads are taking place and how fast, the amount of memory being used and the amount free, the disk space used and how much is left, how much CPU time an app is using, and so on. One day we may have hardware that is so powerful we don't need to worry about these things, but CPU power, memory, disk space and internet bandwidth are limited right now and this doesn't look set to change any time soon. The problem is even greater if you have an older Mac with lower specifications.

It is surprising that facilities aren't built into the operating system to do this. Of course, there is Activity Monitor in OS X, but when it is maximised the window is too big and when it is minimised there is too little information available. If only there was something in between, a small app that provides updates on the essential resources.

There are several utilities available and one that is worth a look is Magican. It is currently free, although I suspect that at some point in the future you'll have to pay for it. It's only version 0.9.53 at the moment, so maybe that's why it is free. Grab it while you can!

Once it is installed you will notice two things and the first is a menu bar icon. It only provides access to uninstall, preferences and quit though. The main feature is the mini toolbar in the bottom right corner of the screen.

In the screen shot it is showing the up and download speeds (nothing is using the internet at the moment), but clicking the icon at the right hand side shows CPU, GPU and disk temperatures. It can automatically alert you if they rise too much.

Mouse-over this mini toolbar and a small window pops up that displays either the top apps using the most memory or the most CPU. Move the mouse away and it disappears.

The icon at the left-hand side opens the full application window and this has six tabs that display a variety of information and provide access to various tools. Here is a snapshot of the Stat tab (click to zoom in):

This is great information and it is attractively presented too. You can see the disk space, temperatures, battery health, memory usage, CPU and network activity. There are subtabs too, showing processes, network and file activity.

The other tab icons in the toolbar access cleaning functions so you can erase caches and logs, unused languages and duplicate files. You can view installed applications, widgets, plug-ins and other items, and remove unwanted ones. You can view documents, movies and music, send items to the Trash or permanently delete them, and get information about your Mac.

This is a really nice app and it is well worth installing if you want to monitor your Mac and access cleanup functions.  The only downside is that it uses more memory than I'd like for a system monitor - around 120Mb.

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