Yes, we've been over the App Store approval thing a hundred times already, but never quite like this.

Apple's got a pretty strong policy when it comes to nudity, right? Right?

So Beauty Meter - an application that allows, hypothetically, a fifteen year old girl to share a nude pic to be rated would be totally out of the question right?

You'd at least expect there to be a nudity warning if you installed an app like this. I mean, it could be a non-nude hot-or-not app, there's certainly a precedent for that. In the case of Beauty Meter, however, you'll just get a warning that it might contain mature content and it's not for use by anyone under the age of 17.

Heck, in some countries 17 isn't even old enough to look at naughty things.

Now, clearly neither Apple nor the devs behind Beauty Meter can totally control who uploads what (the app even says as much when you launch it), but it makes me wonder: if an app like this can be approved, why not Drivetrain?

It's remote control for Transmission. It doesn't actually do any torrent downloading. There's no way anything it does is remotely illegal. It's pretty similar to a single-app MochaVNC, which has been in the store for ages, and I can certainly use to control Transmission from my iPod. But I digress.

Three things for certain: Beauty Meter will soon suffer the same fate as Hottest Girls, the approval process needs an overhaul, and the screenshot at Krapps is going to live in Internet infamy for a long time.

[via Krapps - thanks, @thmonline!]

Creating playlists can be tedious, and every bit of information can help. While some people maintain the ID3 tags in their MP3 files in excruciating detail, others (like me) can't seem to find the time. But when it comes to finding the tempo, no amount of manual ID3 tag maintenance will help.

If you're trying to put together a playlist that contains songs that are a similar speed, knowing the beats-per-minute of each song is immensely helpful. Luckily, there is a free download called BPM Analyzer from MixMeister that will analyze all of your MP3 tracks, and update the ID3 tags in them with exact BPM information. With that done, it's a simple matter of sorting your music library by the beats-per-minute field.

Now you can put together an upbeat energy-boosting playlist full of fast songs, a mellow playlist with slower songs, or pretty much anything you desire. And for the nerds like me, it's just another piece of information to sort and group your music by.

BPM Analyzer is available on both the Windows and Mac operating system.

[via Lifehacker]

I have a confession to make: though I am an unabashed iPhone lover, nothing will ever top the infatuation I had with the Commodore 64. The C64 was my family's first computer, and it was soon to become my computer.

Harry McCracken over at the Technologizer blog latches onto a recent story about a Commodore 64 emulator (reputedly a very good one) that was rejected for entry into Apple's iPhone App Store due to the fact that code interpreters and emulators are expressly forbidden. Unfortunately, this appears to be a a blanket application of this rule, which seems to have been intended to block things like Adobe Flash, but the point is that it was blocked.

That story lead Harry to come up with a magnificent grid comparing the venerable C64 to the iPhone 3GS, a comparison which seems apt considering the fervent popularity of each platform.

A couple statistics from Harry's form really jumped out at me. For example, the iPhone already boasts over 50,000 software titles in the App Store. Compare that to only 10,000 titles total that were released for the Commodore 64 over the course of its life. Also, did you know that the iPhone's resolution is higher than the C64's was? The iPhone's display is 320 x 480, while the C64 sported a 320 x 200 pixel display.

The comparison grid isn't serious business; it's clearly intended to have some fun with a couple iconic computing devices, and for me at least it hits home.

Remeber the announcement last week that Windows 7 upgrade coupon plans are falling into place? Buy a machine with Windows Vista within the specified window, and you'll get a voucher for a free, spankin' new Windows 7.

What about Apple hardware currently sporting Leopard? Snow Leopard is due soon, after all. So will you get a free upgrade?

Not so much.

It'll cost you $9.95 - not a huge premium, obviously, but it's still more than free. While I'm not an Apple user and not in the market for a new notebook anyway, that offer stinks.

Leopard to Snow Leopard isn't quite the same evolutionary step as Vista is to Windows 7, but that upgrade won't cost a cent? I like the sound of that much better.

Will the fee hurt Apple sales? Likely not. Most consumers probably either won't bother with the update or won't think twice about shelling out ten bucks to get current. But can you imagine the crap storm that would ensue if Microsoft was to pull that when transitioning from one OS to another?

We'd never hear the end of it.

Intego, a "leading internet security and privacy software" publisher dropped a press release on my inbox this morning that might as well have read, "Hey, Apple.. Gotcha!"

Beyond recognizing the malware threat to Macs, Apple goes further, admitting that the techniques it includes in Mac OS X aren't enough to fully protect Macs from viruses and malware. The company provides security advice, as Intego has said for many years, saying, "since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, antivirus software may offer additional protection." (emphasis Intego's)

Complete with footnotes, Intego uses the feature list for Apple's upcoming OSX 10.6 release to essentially say, "There, we told you so! Apple put thought into securing its operating system therefore it must be vulnerable!"

How does an enumeration of security features imply a susceptibility to malware? That's like calling GM to the carpet for agreeing that a car parked in a locked garage is more protected than one parked on the street. The very concept of a garage offers additional protection, it however doesn't imply that the protection is actually necessary.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I expect too much from a company who sent out a press release about Conflicker which read in part, "This worm, which affects Windows computers, has no effect on Mac OS X; at least not yet. Intego's Virus Monitoring Center is on full alert in case a Mac OS X variant of this worm should appear"

Wait, is this thing going to magically change from a worm written directly to the vulnerabilities of Windows into some shape shifting super worm that defies the all the reality of modern computing, as well as all common sense and logic? Does anyone else picture Intego's "Virus Monitoring Center" as some overweight bald guy trolling Slashdot while eating Cheetos?

My advice? Save your money for magic beans. And, if the nagging voice inside your head absolutely won't be quiet until you buy quasi-useful anti-virus software for your Mac, don't buy it from Intego.

Intego were contacted for comment, but failed to respond prior to publication

I don't demand a heck of a lot from my browser anymore. I've weened myself from dependence on add-ons and plugins and moved to as many bookmarklets as possible so that I don't miss a beat when switching among the myriad of browsers installed on my system.

While I've been using Firefox for ages, I've been playing with Chromium for quite some time and become used to its speed. I downloaded Safari 4 when the final became available yesterday and was impressed.

Speed isn't the be-all and end-all for a browser, but it's pretty dang important. And yes, Firefox has gotten faster of late, but it's still not quite on par with the Webkit Wonder Twins (no, I couldn't have picked two superheros who sucked more while still having super powers - sorry Zan and Jayna).

Apart from its obvious speed improvements, how about Safari's ability to kill an unresponsive plugin (like Flash) on a page without the whole browser falling to pieces? I'll have that, please.

One other small detail that I was pleased to find was better support for the Windows 7 taskbar. Just like IE8, you'll get a hover thumbnail for every tab and window Safari currently has open. Download progress is indicated on the icons as well. It's not perfect - hovering a particular thumbnail only shows a blank page on all but your active tab, but it's better than all the other non-IE browsers have achieved so far.

Wait a minute. Did that seriously just happen while I was putting this post together?

Apple is taking the beta label off of Safari 4 today amid a flurry of news at WWDC. A public beta of the web browser has been available for Mac and Windows since February, and in fact when you go to the Safari download page, you're still greeted with a beta version of the browser. We're guessing the full version will be available later this afternoon. Update: It's available now.

Apple claims Safari 4 runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3, 4 times faster than Firefox 3, and 8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8. The company says the browser loads HTML web pages 3 times faster than Firefox 3, although the company admits that performance can vary from system to system. I'm going to venture a guess that it may differ from web page to web page as well.

When OS X Snow Leopard is released later this year, Apple says Safari will be able to run as a 64-bit application, boosting performance by up to 50%.

Safari 4 features a Google Chrome/Opera style new tab page which provides you with thumbnail shortcuts to pages you visit frequently. The browser also features full page zoom, and a smarter URL bar with auto-complete functionality.

Safari 4 is available for Windows XP, Vista, or mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer.

Update: It's worth pointing out that Safari 4 is also the first non-beta browser release to get a perfect score on the Acid3 test.

Update: Nope, sorry, nope...Chromium still beats Safari on V8 (rather soundly, at that)...Dromaeo results in in a few minutes! --Lee

Update: Ok, on Dromaeo the results were much closer. My Chromium Nightly Build won 26 categories while Safari claimed 23. I tried several Chrome Experiments, and they generally run much more smoothly on Chromium. --Lee

[via Engadget]

It's been a long-debated topic as to the pricing (and availability) of Apple's next operating system release: Mac OS X 10.6 - a.k.a. Snow Leopard. However at the annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco Apple has (if you'll excuse the pun) let the cat out of the bag and announced that Snow Leopard will be available in September for $29 (if you're upgrading from Mac OS X Leopard), with Family Packs for up to 5 computers costing just $49 - again, if you're upgrading from 10.5.

Long-touted as 'just' a behind-the-scenes update, Snow Leopard features support for Microsoft Exchange, a re-written Finder and an all-new QuickTime player with hardware acceleration and built-in YouTube uploading. There's also a tonne of new developer technologies to allow developers to handle multi-processor machines with Grand Central, and an all-round speed increase for all the OS components.

Apple's official web pages have yet to be updated with the pricing details or more information beyond the original holding pages, however in today's WWDC keynote Apple confirmed dates, pricing and some more features - as well as confirming that Mac OS X Snow Leopard is indeed going to only run on Intel-based Macs.

If you're running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on an Intel machine, the options are between a Mac Box Set (featuring Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09) for $169 or 5-User Family Pack which brings you the iLife, iWork and Snow Leopard package for $229.

If you're wanting to stay up to date on everything at WWDC, be sure to stop by our good friends at TUAW who're covering the conference throughout this week.

One of the selling points of the Palm Pre is that it can sync with iTunes just like an iPhone can, minus the ability to play old DRM-protected purchases from the Apple store. The thing is, that amazing iTunes support comes from a hacky workaround where the Pre passes itself off as Apple hardware when it's connected. It won't show up in iTunes as a "Palm Pre," it'll show up as an iPod.

What can Apple do about it, though? An escalating battle to break the hack could require Apple to release firmware updates, which is always annoying for users, or could be fixed on the software side with an iTunes update. The newest release of iTunes, 8.2, reportedly doesn't break Pre's syncing support.

What will the outcome be? Do you think we'll see a lawsuit, a firmware or iTunes-side fix from Apple, or something completely different?

According to May numbers from analytics service StatCounter, Opera is once again the most popular mobile browser in the world, narrowly overtaking the iPhone's built-in Safari browser. Of all the webpages that were loaded in mobile browsers in May, Opera had a 24.6% share to the iPhone's 22.3%. Nokia came in 3rd with 17.9%.

Opera started the year ahead of the iPhone browser, but Apple's product passed it in February. Although they're both mobile browsers, we're comparing two very different products here.

Opera is supported on a huge number of devices from different mobile carriers worldwide, while Safari only runs on the iPhone. In effect, the competition doesn't tell us as much about which browser is the better product as it does about how popular the iPhone is compared to other devices.

The visualizer that is built in to the latest versions of iTunes used to be called Magnetosphere before Apple bought it and rebranded it simply "iTunes Visualizer". Strangely, the number of visualizers that iTunes ships with now is very small, probably in accordance with Apple's declaration that their new visualizer is the last visualizer you will ever need. While I like looking at Magnetosphere, for my tastes it isn't responsive enough to the actual music that is playing.

If you're also left a little cold by the iTunes Visualizer, you might want to check out UsingMac's list of "funtastic" iTunes visualizers. In particular take a look at Fountain Music and Cubism as examples of visualizers that really respond to the music that is actually playing.

There have been plenty of "Apple stupidly rejects app X" posts over the last couple of months. The reason for rejection may vary, though usually it's blamed on inappropriate content - which makes no sense if you take a listen to some of the albums for sale through iTunes.

What makes even less sense is Cartier (yes, the fancy-pants watch, jewelry, and knick-knack people) threatening to sue Apple for trademark infringement.

Apple didn't develop the apps in question, but since they allowed the apps into the store and possibly profited from them that gives Cartier all the legal ammunition they need to release the hounds. It doesn't matter that Apple's 30% take may have netted them ten or twenty bucks in this case.

What does matter is that Apple has deep pockets. Who can afford to pay damages - Apple, or the guy who skinned his watch app with a Cartier Tank? Apple, of course.

It's a good thing Cartier was successful with their threat. Maybe now they can go after Adobe for allowing users to Photoshop images of Tank watches.

[via the Register]

Eucalyptus, a gorgeous eBook reader for the iPhone, was initially rejected from Apple's application store for the most absurd of reasons. See, Eucalyptus' extensive library of great literature comes from Project Gutenberg, an open source book project, and one of the books in Gutenberg's library is The Kama Sutra. Apple apparently objected to this during the review process, despite the fact that other approved readers like Stanza and Amazon's Kindle can also access the book. So can Apple's Safari browser, because Project Gutenberg's books are all available through its website.

Fortunately, this mistake didn't stop Eucalyptus from eventually making it into the app store, where it's now available for $9.99. Buying the app gets you an extremely slick UI, great page-turning animations, and an organization scheme for books that works a lot like iTunes does for music. I actually totally buy into the Eucalyptus marketing pitch, which is that, for the price of one book, you can have 20,000 books in a great-looking reader.

Apple has done it again, this time wielding the ban hammer on Maza Digital's Drivetrain, an iPhone app that allows a user to remotely control his or her Transmission downloads.

What gives, Apple? According to the notice sent to Maza, "This category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store."

That's some pretty backwards thinking for a company that prides itself on modern, progressive products. Drivetrain is not a torrent client. On top of that, not even Transmission is to blame for what a user chooses to download.

I'm with Torrent Freak on this one - someone better tell Apple about WebUI and Clutch so they can start crippling Safari on our handsets.

I wonder if Apple is aware that some users use iTunes to sync music that has been obtained through illegal means?

[via Torrent Freak]