Last night during iPad live I ranted on about how a web-based Jailbreak, like the recent iPhone 4/iOS 4.x/iOS 3.2.x release showed a dangerous exploit that Apple needed to patch immediately before someone evil got a hold of it and began malicious attacks.

Is this different from any other Jailbreak? Yes and no. All Jailbreaks begin with an exploit — a mistake in the software code — that lets outside code get in and run on the device. But that code doesn’t have to Jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. It can do anything. It can paint your screen a lovely color, or it can steal or your personal information and beam it back to hacker HQ. Jailbreak good, virus or trojan bad, but the root of both is the same — exploit that allows remote code execution. If a Jailbreak can get in, so to can presumably almost anything else.

Web-based exploits, like one of the original iPhone 1.x Jailbreaks and now the recent iPhone 4, etc. Jailbreak are theoretically more dangerous because they’re easier to trigger. You don’t have to download and run a program, go through all the steps of putting your device in DFU mode. You just go to a website, maybe tap a few times, and boom, you’re Jailbroken — or boom, you’re in a world of trouble.

Evildoers could conceivable make fake or compromised versions of *ra1n or Spirit, or whatnot — that’s how malware spreads in the PC world. They could conceivably make infected versions of Jailbreak or cracked apps. And they sure could make fake versions or mirrors of web-based Jailbreak sites.

Should this scare you? Yes. The likelihood of a fake Jailbreak program is probably a lot lower than a fake Jailbreak website, or worse — just a random website armed with the exploit.

Should Apple fix it immediately? Yes (even though they’ll get accused of “shutting down Jailbreak” again. Zero-day, in the wild. This is as bad as it gets. Sure it’s convenient and many people want an easy Jailbreak but this is just too easy to go way beyond Jailbreak.

Apple’s not the fastest company on the planet when it comes to patching exploits, unfortunately, but hopefully this spur them on to newer, faster, action.

In the meantime, if you’re sophisticated enough to really examine what you click or tap before you download or activate something, if you know the source of what you’ve got, where exactly it comes from, and what precisely it’s going to do before you use it, you’re probably fine. If you’re the one who’s PC keeps getting infected from Limewire downloads and fring pr0n sites, then start being careful. Don’t click or tap on random links, don’t go to websites you don’t trust.

Everything has a good and bad side. Nothing comes without a cost. Breaking into the root jail of an iPhone or iPad means you’ve stripped away Apple’s signing system and sandbox. That can help you get useful customizations and controls, and it can help bad guys get your information.

Regarding Jailbreak, exploits, and maliciousness is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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If you were looking for an excuse to jailbreak your iPhone 4 using FaceTime over your carriers 3G network may just sway some of you to bite the bullet and go through the process. This can be done by installing a application located in Cydia called My3G [$3.99]. The app allows you to run any Wi-Fi only app over your carriers 3G network. While the FaceTime video calling quality suffers a bit compared to using Wi-Fi it still looks more than decent.

Update: If you’re curious, 9to5Mac says a 5 min FaceTime call used almost 15 MB of data. Something to keep in mind if you have a data cap.

To those of you who have not tried to jailbreak, is using FaceTime over 3G worth giving it a shot? Sound off in the comments below and be sure to check out the video after the break!

[9 to 5 Mac x2 and TiPb forums]

iPhone 4 jailbreak enables FaceTime over 3G is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if you haven't already head on over and register now!

• In case you have not heard, a new jailbreak has been released and a unlock is right around the corner. So to discuss these topics be sure to visit our iPhone Jailbreak and Unlock forum!

• So far the iPhone 4’s battery life has been nothing less than stellar for myself and many others, how about you – how is your iPhone 4’s battery life?

• Are you looking for some fresh high resolution wallpaper for your iPhone 4? Then this is the thread for you – iPhone 4 wallpaper.

• Want to discuss Apple’s competition? Be sure to check out the Other Smartphones and Gadgets forum!

See you in the forums!

Jailbreak and unlock, iPhone 4 battery life, Wallpaper, iPhone competition – From the Forums is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Those of you looking to break your iPhone 4 free from it’s carrier lock have less than 48 hours to wait as iPhone Dev Team member planetbeing announced late last night on Twitter that the unlock is just around the corner. It was just yesterday that Comex released his new web-based jailbreak but not without some issues. Those issues consisted of some users losing MMS and FaceTime. Since then those issues have been cleared up and if you give the jailbreak a try you should be good to go, at least until Apple releases a new firmware update which will break this jailbreak method.

How many of you are chomping at the bit to get a hold of this iPhone 4 unlock and what carrier are you looking to be free from?

iPhone 4 unlock will be released within 48 hours is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The iPhone 4 (and iOS 4.x) Jailbreak hit last night and by the looks of our Jailbreak Forum, many of you have gotten busy and quickly.

Since iOS 4 allows wallpaper and multitasking, and iPhone 4 is available officially unlocked in many countries, we’re curious why you’re Jailbreaking this time around?

Better notifications? Glance-able information for the lock screen? Drop-down settings access? Themes? Removing Wi-Fi-only restrictions? Wi-Fi hotspot? AT&T unlock? What’s keeping on the Jailbreak these days?

Why did you Jailbreak iPhone 4? (If you did) is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Suffering from a FaceTime “waiting for activation” error? So was I. The one thing I wanted to try most on my new Canadian iPhone 4 was FaceTime. I’ve made no secret about being jealous of Chad and Leanna, so the instant iPhone 4 was in my hand and on Wi-Fi I went to hit the FaceTime button and… found no button. I checked my Settings immediately and saw, under the FaceTime on/off toggle the chillingly cryptic words: waiting for activation. What the h3ll?

To make matters worse, Rene’s was working fine. Intolerable!

Now FaceTime functions over Wi-Fi but it uses your phone number to identify and connect with other iPhone 4 users. Since my carrier, Fido was — of course — having problems during the iPhone 4 launch, with some people having to wait up to 24hrs for their SIM to work, I immediately thought they might be the culprit. I also did the usual trouble-shooting steps of reseting the network connections, turning my iPhone 4 on and off, removing and replacing my SIM, and even did a full restore. No luck. My phone and SMS were working fine, so Fido was looking like less of a culprit. Unfortunately.

So off to the Apple Store I went. It was the day after launch and they were still packed but the manager heard my plight, found me someone to help, and they immediately escalated me to an iPhone genius-type-person. He told me I needed the Fido 7.2 carrier update. It downloads over the air (OTA) but you can help it along by going to the Settings, General, About page and waiting a few moments.

Next he took me through a few easy steps:

1. We went on Wi-Fi
2. We did a hard power down (holding down sleep + home until the power off slider appeared).
3. We rebooted.

And voila, the buttons popped up and I was able to make my first FaceTime call!

If you’re having the same “waiting for activation” error, try the steps above and let me know how they work for you.

How to fix FaceTime waiting for activation error on iPhone 4 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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By now you probably know that I am big into productivity apps and I am always looking for the next big thing. I use a lot of task management apps on the iPad, and there are some great ones for sure. However, I have just come across the ultimate task management app for your iPad; OmniFocus. This is, without a doubt the best app for utilizing David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology. What makes this app stand out so much are three things: good design, Forecast and Review. But, I am probably getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning. Note, a lot of the features I am going to discuss are not unique to OmniFocus, but I think it is fair to describe them so you know what is contained in GTD and can get a better grasp for how it is used. For this review I literally rebuilt my tasks in the app form scratch except for the made-up Inbox screenshot below. I had to do that since I am already organized

Gather your stuff

The first step in using a task app is to get all of your tasks together in one spot. This spot is known as the Inbox. You can add items to your Inbox by tapping the Inbox icon on he left of the screen. This allows you to enter the basics such as a name and maybe even a description of what it is you are trying to do and a date you want it done by. You can also assign Contexts and Projects, but more on that in a minute. For some people (like my wife) adding a bunch of items in a list with due dates that can recur is enough for you. If that is the case, stop right now and use another task management app. OmniFocus is more robust than that and it would be a shame for you to only use a fraction of its power. Now, it is time to move beyond the Inbox.

Organize

So you now have a lot of individual tasks. OmniFocus helps you out by allowing you to create projects for your tasks. Think of a project as a logical grouping of related tasks. For example, I might have a project to paint the house, which involves several tasks: buying paint and supplies, taping, mixing, etc.

On the OmiFocus sidebar located on the right of the screen in landscape or the overlap menu in portrait contains the link for creating projects. Once you tap it, you are presented with a screen that displays what projects you have. If you don’t have any, tap the plus sign in the top right. A project can have a few different types: Sequential, Parallel and Single. Sequential means that the project you are about to start follows the typical finish-start task relationship in project management. So, back to my previous painting the house example, you must finish buying the paint before you start to paint the house. Parallel means that the tasks do not have to have a specific order. For example, I have bills due this month, it doesn’t matter when I pay them as long as they are paid by the 30th. Last we have Single. Single is used if there really is a single task to your project, or, how  I use it, a general grouping of unrelated tasks that fall under a bigger more general umbrella like “Personal” or “Work”. Hmm, let’s talk about those bigger umbrellas now.

Once you have projects outlined you can group them together into logical areas of your life. Tap the plus button in the top left and choose folder. Some examples of my folders include: Personal, TiPb and a couple of work-related folders- that’s it. Every project, every task in my life can be put into projects within these folders.

Now, to maximize your time completing tasks within your projects, you can use what are called Contexts. Think of a context as a way to virtually group your tasks into a place or method of communicating. For example, I have an errands context I assign to tasks that I need to do while I am out shopping. I have an email context for when, if I am doing email, I can get those specific tasks completed and so on. But what is the best part about contexts in OmniFocus? You can create location- based contexts! For example, I create a location context for Starbucks (where I do most of my writing). I assign that context to tasks I need to get done when I am at Starbucks. When I arrive, I tap on that context and using the iPad’s location services, it finds my location and tell me relevant tasks that I have selected that need to be done in this location. Another example might be creating a context for different office locations at work. I need to speak to certain people at a location. I assign that location context to a task and OmniFocus only shows me contexts for that location.

At this point things might start to sound a little overwhelming. I mean, you have a billion tasks with a million projects, even with contexts and due dates, how do you keep it all in order? That is where OmniFocus really shines. Where other task management apps end, the power of OmniFocus really shows it’s stuff.

First, you can filter your projects and tasks by seeing only what is the very next action (task) in each project to be completed, see what tasks are available across projects (even items that are on Hold, more on that in a minute), what active tasks are remaining and all of your tasks. You can easily focus on specific projects by tapping and holding on the title. It magically makes the other projects go away so you can focus on the project or task at hand. Using the same method, you can quickly expand all or collapse all to make viewing even easier.

Forecast and Reviews

Forecast is a simple yet infinitely useful calendar/timeline function that shows you dates in boxes for the upcoming week and a box for past and future. Inside of each box is a number representing the number of tasks you have due on that day. When you tap on the day you want, it gives you a list of the tasks due for that day. This is an great tool for people that are looking ahead to what needs to be done and they want to manage accordingly. The Forecast tool allows you to easily tap a task and change a due date for example. Most other task apps simple have a couple filters to do this, the Forecast tool is the best I have used so far.

Review allows you to literally review your projects on a weekly basis. You can change this interval to another time, but I think one week works well. This is so incredibly useful. It acts like a reminder, but without nagging. You can review your project, add tasks, adjust due dates and more knowing that in a week, it will be time to review these projects again. Of course this is something you should be doing anyway, but building it into the app was pure genius.  You can do more than just marking  a project complete. You can change the status of the project to Active (which is the default), On Hold (if you don’t know when you will complete it or need more information), Completed (Yeah, it’s done. Think if it like you are archiving the completed project) and Dropped (Canceled).

Syncing and conclusion

Of course, it is great to have this data on your iPad, but what about syncing? OmniFocus gives you options. First, they have their own beta syncing service. This is great for folks that don’t have another OmniFocus product or don’t use another syncing service. You can sync to MobileMe, your own WebDav server or over Wi-Fi with the Mac desktop version of OmniFocus. These services can be used to sync with the iPhone version of this app (no, it’s not Universal).

I did not cover every aspect of OmniFocus here (yes, there is more…) but I think you have a good indication of what it does and how well it does it. Oh, and did I mention it’s pretty with a cool app icon? Those are great bonuses, but this is clearly leaps and bounds ahead of what else is out there and our patience for this app release has truly been rewarded; thanks OmniFocus. It would be nice if there was a lite version of this app as the $39.99 price might be too steep from some. However, if you use the GTD methodology, then you are probably already hooked.

[$39.99- iTunes Link]

Pros

• Beautiful, intuitive design
• Workflow to add tasks is painless
• Multiple organization options
• Different sync options

Cons

• Expensive
• No way to sync to the web via a website (like Toodledo)
• No lite version is available for users to try before buying

OmniFocus for iPad- app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Two Galaxy S-class reviews: Samsung Vibrant Review, Samsung Captivate Review. Froyogeddon has begun. We go hands-on with Android 2.2 on the Evo 4G, the original Droid gets Froyo this week, and the Droid X gets Froyo “later this summer.” Check out our Android tips and tricks, including The Android Dictionary.	RIM purchases BlackPad.com domain. BlackBerry tablet anyone? BlackBerry 9780 caught on film running BlackBerry 6 AT&T sending out invites to special BlackBerry event in NYC?!
Docs To Go on N900: Maemo Document editing Nokia E73 Mode Keyboard Shortcuts	Sprint Pixi gets WiFi via radio hack Palm webOS App catalog tops 3,000 apps; 4,000 total apps available HP: ‘We support homebrew’
iPhone 4 Jailbreak What you need for the international iPhone 4 iPhone 4 vs Samsung Captivate	Windows Phone 7 in video AT&T to be premier carrier for Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 multitasking – sort of

Best of Smartphone Experts, 1 Aug 2010 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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