iPhone Software

Keep a close watch on your iPhone alarms this weekend if you depend on your smartphone to wake you up on Monday morning. Once again it's time to fall back this weekend, as US clocks must be set an hour earlier at 2 AM Sunday. Standard Time should be set automatically on your iPhone, however a bug in the alarm clock software could wreak havoc with repeating alarms.

These alarms won't recognize the time change and will go off precisely one hour late. The bug has already caught people off guard in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Apple is aware of the issue, and the company plans to issue a fix in the iOS 4.2 update. In the meantime, they have issued a support document for the problem.

iTunes normally overflows with holiday spirit and this Halloween is no different. A simple search in the App Store for "Halloween" results in 1,077 iPhone apps. Over one thousand apps? Maybe a more specific search is in order, but in the meantime we're going to narrow it down to the lucky number thirteen. They're all available now for $1.99 or less.

Dev-Team has released an updated version of their simple and powerful PwnageTool jailbreak software. The new version combines the pwnage2 exploit with the pf kernel exploit from comex and geohot's limera1n. PwnageTool results in an untethered jailbreak of iOS 4.1, allowing unauthorized software to run on your device.

The second-generation Apple TV is now included in the PwnageTool device list, as well as iPads running firmware 3.2.2. Right now the Dev-Team is offering a Mac OS X version of PwnageTool, and as normally happens development of a Windows version is probably underway.

You've probably never asked the question, "What is an Apple UDID?" This acronym stands for Unique Device IDentifier, and every iOS device has one. The UDID itself is a 40-character string including numbers and letters that is unique to your iPhone hardware. Apple sets standards for how the UDID should be used by application developers to protect user privacy.

A new study by Bucknell University security researcher Eric Smith has found that third-party app developers may not be following the rules. Some apps send private data such as name and location data from your iPhone in plain text along with the UDID. Some secure the transmissions with SSL, however this also means that the data being sent to external servers is unknown.

The PayPal iPhone app already makes it convenient to access your account and transfer money on-the-go. Two people can even bump iPhones to exchange currency between two accounts. Now PayPal will add check depositing capabilities to an impending app update.

By simply taking a photo of your check with the iPhone camera, you'll be able to deposit the money directly to your PayPal account. Of course PayPal isn't the first to launch this technology in an iPhone app. USAA Bank and Chase have both integrated check scanning into their mobile apps.