The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

After a long wait, Squarespace customers finally have an iPhone app of their own. Squarespace is a hosted blogging/CMS service that competes with the likes of WordPress.com and Typepad. Having used all three, I can say that interacting with Squarespace (posting, changing your site's look and feel, etc.) is unlike the others. Instead of a separate control panel/dashboard, Squarespace previews changes in real time on the same screen. It's really nice.

The iPhone app [iTunes link] seems to be an extension of its browser-based sibling. For example, check out the live preview mode pictured at right. You can also manage multiple accounts, post, upload multiple images at once (awesome) view stats and more. The UI looks nice as well.

While bloggers on other platforms have had compatible apps in the App Store for a while now, this is Squarespace's first solution. We're eager to play around with it. Squarespace for iPhone is free and requires a paid Squarespace account.

A few of us here at TUAW received an email from Apple this morning stating that Apple TV-compatible versions of previous iTunes LP purchases are available for download. You'll remember that LP purchases made before the Apple TV 3.0 release would need a second download to work with the Apple TV. Apple is now offering those downloads.

The email from Apple is very straight-forward:

"With the latest versions of iTunes (9.0.2) and Apple TV software (3.0), you can now use iTunes LP on your Apple TV. We have updated the iTunes LP that was included with [your previous purchase here] so that it can now be viewed on Apple TV in addition to your Mac or PC...."

From there, the message provides a download link. Grab it, sync your Apple TV and you're off. My own is syncing as I type this, so we'll let you know how it looks and behaves later today. In the meantime, enjoy iTunes LP on your Apple TV!

Forbes Fortune bestowed a significant honor on Steve Jobs today, naming him their CEO of the Decade. Fortune outlines the incredible leaps in business, technology and industry Apple has made since Steve's return. For anyone who might not remember, the 90's were not kind to Apple and nearly everyone thought the company was finished.

Consider this incredible fact: Apple launched OS X and iTunes, opened the first two retail stores and introduced the first iPod ... all in the same year (2001). Fortune also goes on to describe how Steve changed the film industry with Pixar, the music industry with the iTunes Store and the cell phone industry with the iPhone and the App Store.

He also kicked cancer's ass.

This is precisely why I'm excited about the prospect of a new piece of hardware from Apple. I won't call it a tablet because that's not what it will be. Apple didn't invent the digital music player, the mobile phone or mass distribution of media. But, they did demonstrate how to do those things the right way, which no one else could come up with.

If there's a new product coming, comparing it to contemporary tablets or netbooks is a huge mistake, because it won't behave like any of them.

Click below to watch Fortunes' video on this announcement.

[Via MacDailyNews]

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There was a report this week that Mac OS X 10.6.2 will block Atom support, leaving Hackintosh owners stuck at 10.6.1. Intel's Atom processors have been used in netbooks by MSI, Dell and ASUS for their low cost and modest energy consumption. Hackintosh owners were disappointed.

Shortly after that report was published, Electronista noted that a newly-released build of 10.6.2 (10C535) brought it back. Of course, we're talking about "support" for hackintoshes in a developer build of the OS, so keep that in mind.

The moral of the story: Apple can kill this when ever they please, so have fun while you can.

[Via Engadget]

There's an exciting announcement at All Tech Related this week that has us saying, "We can't wait!"

ZodTDD, the developer behind GpSPhone (a Nintendo Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch), announced the development of an N64 emulator for the iPhone and iPod touch. Zodttd believes that the current generation iPhone and iPod touch have the graphic CPU horsepower necessary to run those games. "...I can't promise it will run games top notch just yet, as things are too early to say. There's hope though, with a 3D accelerated graphics plugin, as well as an ARM dynarec."

As iPhone Savior points out, the toughest challenge could be fitting the controls onto the screen in an unobtrusive yet usable way. That was my main complaint about Resident Evil for iPhone [iTunes link] -- my hand is often in the way of what I'm trying to see.

Note that this will require an jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch.

[Via iPhone Savior]

Last week, we learned that Apple would be revamping some US retail stores, including a new iPod touch-based point-of-sale (POS) system. A new scanner accessory allows Apple to replace the old Windows CE-based sales handhelds.

Gary Allen of ifoAppleStore has given AppleInsider an exclusive look at the thing, and it's pretty cool (that is, if retail hardware is your bag). It's an iPod touch with a magnetic stripe reader, a barcode scanner and Apple's proprietary payment-processing software. The iPod rests inside what AppleInsider calls a "slip-on shell" that plugs into the dock connector; it includes its own battery to power the two scanning peripherals.

Apple Store employees will use the devices to accept purchases made with credit cards, debit cards and cash; they can even make returns and activate a new iPhone.

It looks like a clever device. If you see one in the store (or if you use one), tell us what you can.

[Via The Apple Blog]

Last night Philadelphia's baseball fans had something to cheer about, and soon her Apple fans will, too. After years of waiting, an Apple Store is finally set to open within the city itself at 1607 Walnut Street.

Probably.

It's not set in stone yet, as the proposed design is yet to go before the city's Art Commission. Let's hope Apple has a better time of it than they did in Boston, where Boston's Back Bay Architectural Commission had trouble approving the Boylston Street store's design.

By contrast, The Art Commission's executive director, William Burke, seems enthused, telling Metro, "...[Apple is] going to clean all that off and purify the design. It's a nice building that contributes to the character of the street."

The store currently closest to Philly is the Ardmore Apple Store. Other than that, you've got to go out to Jersey.

[Via MacNN]

Running a jailbroken iPhone has its risks, as a Dutch hacker has demonstrated. Specifically, he used a bit of port scanning to find jailbroken phones with SSH running in his native Netherlands. From there, he sent unsuspecting users a message that reads, "Your iPhone's been hacked because it's really insecure! Please visit doiop.com/iHacked and secure your iPhone right now! Right now, I can access all your files."

The URL directs the users to Paypal and requests €5 in exchange for instructions that explain how to remove the hack. But how did he get in? By relying on users' forgetfulness. All iPhones have a default root password. Those who forget to change it are vulnerable to this very kind of attack.

Asking for money is kind of a bummer but much less obnoxious that other things he could have done. The moral of the story is pay attention and be thorough when jailbreaking your iPhone.

[Via Ars Technica]

In preparation for the holiday rush, Apple has stepped up iPhone production, according to ITProPortal. Specifically, Apple has supposedly increased orders to both Primax Electronics and Foxconn Electronics (both companies manufacture iPhone components) from 17% to 20%.

In a recent quarterly earnings call, Apple COO Tim Cook noted that iPhone 3GS supplies were short in September, but noted that supply lines have been restored and he expects Apple to meet the demand of this year's shopping season.

In other words, If you're hoping to receive an iPhone this year, know that Apple has done its part. Now it's up to you to badger your gift-giving loved ones.

[Via Macsimum News]

Gift image: stock.xchng

wpbeginner has posted a terrific list of 10 iPhone apps that every blogger will love. The first item on the list is, as you'd expect, WordPress for iPhone. Version 2.0 was released earlier this week and it's a huge improvement over its predecessor. It supports blogs powered by both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org. WordPress 2.0 for iPhone is free.

Add as many blogs as you like and manage comments, posts and pages all from the app. Adding new pages and posts is as easy as editing existing ones. Best of all, you can delete, edit approve/unapprove and spam comments with a few taps.

Of course, not every blogger uses WordPress, and the other apps on the list acknowledge this. Shape Writer aims to make it easier to enter text by letting you trace the "shape" of a word rather than type its letters. Proper names and acronyms can be "taught" to the app by typing them once. They'll be traceable from that point on. Shape Writer costs $3.99US.

Also on the list is Jott, a voice-to-text app that records your voice, converts it to text and lets you send the result nearly anywhere, including a WordPress or Blogger blog (as well as Twitter, Facebook and more). I haven't tested it, so I can't speak for how well it works. If it does what it claims (speak up if you've used it), Jott for iPhone will make it much easier to publish long posts from your iPhone (provided that it supports your preferred platform). Jott for iPhone is free and requires a Jott Assist Plan, which starts at $3.95/mo. Mel reviewed the similar Voice on the Go service last week.

Visit wpbeginner for the rest of the list. As for me, I get a lot of use out of Instapaper (for reading reference articles when I'm away from my computer) and Evernote (pretty much the same reason) among others. If you want the simplest blog-from-your-iPhone solution, check out Posterous. All you need to do to set up and maintain a Posterous blog is send an email to post@posterous.com. It doesn't get simpler than that.

[Via Wired]