OSX Internals

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Video, WWDC

It’s the first of what should be many videos coming to you straight from San Francisco: Two Apple developers, three opinions! At least that’s the way it seemed coming out of the keynote this afternoon at WWDC. We caught up with several attendees and asked them for their thoughts. One of our favorites: “All I wanted was voice dialing, I’ve wanted it for the last two years… and then they do it, and it’s just so much better than you expect it to be.”

iPhone-friendly m4v file is here.

TUAWWWDC Live: First reactions from attendees post-keynote originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).) Original Link: WWDC Live: First reactions from attendees post-keynote

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I’ve spent a lot of time fighting with certificates, keys, and provisioning profiles in the time I’ve been working on iPhone apps for clients and myself. I finally figured out how to make it easy to manage multiple sets of certs/keys (i.e. one per client). Even if you are only working with a single set, though, it’s still helpful to keep iPhone stuff separate from the rest of your keychain. I’m going to approach this as if you are starting from scratch, but it’s easy enough to fix if you have already set up certs and keys and it should be pretty obvious how to go about it from these instructions.

First off, you need to know your tools. Keychain Access is where all of your certificates and keys (and passwords, and a variety of other things irrelevant to this discussion) live. Xcode, iPhone Configuration Utility, and iTunes all deal with the same store of provisioning profiles, but only the configuration utility is actually good at it. Download it from Apple right now and install it. When working within the iPhone Configuration Utility (hereafter referred to as iPCU) neither iTunes nor Xcode should be running since they will need to be restarted anyway to see any changes you make.

Before anything else, you need to download and install the WWDR intermediate certificate if you haven’t already. Get it here and open it in Keychain Access (hereafter referred to as KA). You’ll want to install it in either the login or System keychains (it doesn’t matter much). Now that you’re in KA, create a new keychain (File menu) and name it for the particular program portal you’re working with at the moment. I recommend saving it in the default location, ~/Library/Keychains, but if you save it somewhere else just make sure you remember where. You’ll need to set a password for it, and you can choose to be as secure or insecure as you like about it; the certs/keys would otherwise be in the login keychain, which is open by default as long as you are logged in, so anything is more secure than the alternative. Follow the program portal instructions for creating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Notice that creating the CSR created a private key in the login keychain in KA. Drag that private key to the new keychain you just created (the client keychain). Upload the CSR and go through the process of getting a developer certificate and a distribution certificate. (You’ll need both eventually, and you can use the same CSR for both; if you don’t, a new private key may be generated for the second CSR, and you’ll need to drag that from the login keychain to the client keychain as well.) Install the certificates in the client keychain rather than System or login.

When you are done with this process, you should have a private key (maybe two — see above), a developer certificate, and a distribution certificate in the client keychain. I like to set the keychain to lock after a period of inactivity so Xcode asks me for a password when it codesigns and I know it’s doing what I expect. Remember where you saved the keychain file? Make a backup copy of it now and put it somewhere safe (source control, offsite backup, optical media, whatever). If this is the only program portal you deal with, you’re done. If not, right-click (or ctrl-click) on the client keychain and choose Delete Keychain “[whatever]“.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to choose “Delete References” and not “Delete References & Files”!!! If you choose the wrong one, you will be glad you made that backup copy. KA will close the keychain, but you can open it again when you are working with that program portal again. You can then repeat the process for any other program portals that involve you.

Clearly, if someone else has created the distribution certificate you need to use you will need to get the cert and private key from that person instead. You can still put them in the client keychain once you have them, of course. If you have already been dealing with certs in your login keychain, you might have lots of private keys lying around and no good way to tell which key goes with which cert. I feel like there should be an easy way to tell, but I haven’t found it. Instead, create a new keychain and put all but one of the private keys into it, leaving one in the login keychain, then lock that temporary keychain (i.e. click its lock icon in KA). Build something in Xcode that requires the codesigning cert you are testing and see whether it asks for a keychain password. If not, the key you left in the login keychain goes with that cert; otherwise, switch keys and try again. (You can be cleverer about it by locking away half the keys so it’s a binary rather than linear search, plus you can test more than one cert at a time, but I leave that as an exercise for the reader.) Eventually you will be able to associate keys with certs and put them in their appropriately separate keychains.

Next up, we’ll look at provisioning profiles. There are three kinds of profiles: development, ad hoc, and app store. Both ad hoc and app store are considered distribution profiles, but they behave differently. In fact, ad hoc profile behave more like development profiles than app store profiles. (Note: there may be still yet another profile type for enterprise distribution, but I have no experience with that.) A development or ad hoc profile permits an app with a particular app ID (or ID prefix) to be installed on any of a set of physical devices when signed by one of a set of certificates. For ad hoc, it’s only one certificate: the distribution certificate. A device must have the provisioning profile installed on it to run the app, which Xcode does automatically for development profiles. I’ve had a lot of trouble with ad hoc profiles, and I’m still not confident I can get things working 100% of the time, but I have a better grasp on it than I used to. For the sake of my own sanity I am going to assume that you have figured out how to set up app IDs, devices, and provisioning profiles in the program portal.

There isn’t a whole lot more to it, really, except keeping track of which profiles belong to which portals if you are dealing with more than one. I recommend naming the profiles carefully when you create them or, failing that, keeping a text file listing what each profile identifier is for. Whenever you have a new profile you’ll want to use to build an app, I recommend installing it in iPCU rather than Xcode. It seems to work more dependably for me. Also, if it’s an ad hoc profile, I recommend installing it on the device using iPCU rather than iTunes if at all possible. If you use the multiple certs/keys keychains trick, I’d like to tell you that there is a similarly good way to manage provisioning profiles; I don’t know of one. The good thing, though, is that Xcode is smart enough to check the currently open keychains when presenting you with a list of provisioning profiles in a project’s (or target’s) build settings. If the cert for a particular profile is not available (even if the keychain is locked, its contents are available as long as KA has it listed), it will be grayed out with a message saying <matching certificate identity with private key not found in login keychain>. No matter how many provisioning profiles you have installed from other program portals, only the ones related to the certs and keys you have open will be available, which helps avoid silly mistakes.

I hope this is helpful to someone out there. I know I wish I’d known this stuff when I started developing for the iPhone. Enjoy!

(Via Ruby Discoveries and Idioms.) Original Link: Managing iPhone Development

Apple Nehalem-based Mac Pro in-depth impressions: “new”

(Via Engadget.)

Tablet announced tomorrow?: “

Here’s the post.‘ It basically goes like this:’ Apple has said it is increasing its embedded device list this year.’ Ten-inch touch screens seem to be flying around Asia en route to Apple for late Summer.’

If there is a tablet with higher resolution/independence, developers are going to need a few months to tweak their apps for launch.” What if that $20 minimum Premium App Store happens to be for higher resolution apps?

Also, ARM’s new line of Cotex A8 architecture processors are tablet-worthy.’

Plus, I need something to look forward to…So here’s why we might see a tablet intro tomorrow.

Speaking of which, we’ll have the 9to5mac LivePanel open for the iPhone 3.0 Event.’ Stop by to see all information sources in one page.

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(Via 9 to 5 Mac – Apple Intelligence.)

iPhone 3.0 Might Include Copy & Paste [Rumors]: “

Digg founder Kevin Rose apparently let go with some rumors about where this Tuesday’s iPhone 3.0 software update will take Apple’s smartphone. If what Rose said at his Diggnation SXSW party holds true, users will get copy and paste abilities by pinching and dragging two quote icons to create ‘copy boundaries,’ then a dialog to cut, copy, or paste in previously copied text. Rose has been spot-on before, but we’ll have to wait to see if he goes two for two.

Here’s the video of Rose dishing on what he’s heard at Diggnation:

Many are saying the move is intended to nix a majorly noticed gap between the iPhone and the upcoming Palm Pre. How does pinch-able copy & paste sound to you, iPhone users? And does it tempt anyone else into getting on the i-bandwagon? Tells us your take in the comments. [via Gizmodo]

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(Via Lifehacker.)

iTunes 8.1 to include voice rendering of music titles: “

The iPod shuffle’s new voice feature is a great navigation tool for screenless browsing of your music collection.’ But how does that little device read all of your music titles/artist/genre, etc. to you?’ That takes a lot of CPU power for a device the size of a tie clip.’

The answer?’ It doesn’t.’ All of the voice rendering will be done on the PC or Mac in iTunes 8.1.” That’s why the PC voice will be a woman (built in voice system) and the Mac will be a man’s voice.’ iTunes 8.1 will put some extra voice data in your music files (see below) to include the name of the band and title of the song.’ While this will be relatively small in size, the space changes will take up more space than before, thus growing the size of your library.’ Eventually, Apple might include this audio data in itunes downloads.’ Heck, they might even have Jimmy Page’s voice tell you the next song is Led Zepplin.’ A value add!

Apple filed a patent for this a few years ago as well…see more’ below…

From the Patent Application

In order to achieve portability, many hand-held devices use user interfaces that present various display screens to the user for interaction that is predominantly visual. Users can interact with the user interfaces to manipulate a scroll wheel and/or a set of buttons to navigate display screens to thereby access functions of the hand-held devices. However, these user interfaces can be difficult to use at times for various reasons. One reason is that the display screens tend to be small in size and form factor and therefore difficult to see. Another reason is that a user may have poor reading vision or otherwise be visually impaired. Even if the display screens can be perceived, a user will have difficulty navigating the user interface in ‘eyes-busy’ situations when a user cannot shift visual focus away from an important activity and towards the user interface. Such activities include, for example, driving an automobile, exercising, and crossing a street.

It is noted that text strings that correspond to standard text strings can have pre-recorded audio files. Such text strings may correspond to common user interface controls, such as ‘play’, ‘stop’, ‘previous’, etc., and to common menu items such as ‘Music’, ‘Extras’, ‘Backlight.’ These audio files can be created using a voice talent or speech synthesized from the voice talent’s recordings. The other text displayed as part of the media player user interface that is usually user specific, such as contacts and customized playlist names can all be synthesized by building a voice from the voice talent recordings. This provides consistency by having the same voice for all textual data to be presented to the user.

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More from Hrmph

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(Via 9 to 5 Mac – Apple Intelligence.)

Enable SpeedStep support on any capable Intel CPU: “As described on Wikipedia, SpeedStep ‘is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies (including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software. This allows the processor to meet the instantaneous performance needs of the operation being performed, while minimizing power draw and heat dissipation.’

Apple implements SpeedStep on certain Macs, but not all of them (and if you’ve built your own Mac, you may not have any SpeedStep support). Here’s how to enable SpeedStep on any Mac: Use the xnu speedstep kernel extension. Just download IntelEnhancedSpeedStep.kext.1.4.5.zip, then copy IntelEnhancedSpeedStep.kext into /System/Library/Extensions. Don`t forget to repair permission (in Disk Utility) when done, then reboot your…










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(Via MacOSXHints.com.)

How To Install a Second Hard Drive in the New Mac Mini [Mods]: “

iFixit has posted a fantastic, step-by-step tutorial tutorial explaining how to swap out the new Mac Mini’s optical drive for a second hard drive.

Being the compact Mac Mini (and involving 2.5-inch laptop drives), you knew it would be a bit more complicated than your standard, tower bay component swap. The process does require a few moments of soldering and careful notation of various internal wires/sensors, but the tutorial has big, beautiful pictures to hold your hand every step of the way.

Also, to make things a bit easier, they’re offering a 1TB, 5400RPM upgrade kit for $250 that includes all the necessary tools and components. You could maybe do it cheaper, but that’s how these guys pay the bills for these fancy tutorials. [iFixit]

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(Via Gizmodo.)

iMac 2009 Review [Review]: “

Apple may seem different than other companies, but the recession is kicking their ass too. The move they made with the new iMac was the smartest they could make under the circumstances—it’s a great deal.

In this new iMac release, Apple didn’t invest in a radical new design. That sort of thing doesn’t go over in an economic downturn. The case is identical to all other iMacs since August 2007, down to the brushed aluminum body and the occasionally annoying high-gloss screen. What Apple did instead—something they won’t let you forget—is drop the price of the 24′ iMac from $1800 to $1500 while spiking the performance.

The baseline chip used to be a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo; now it’s a 2.66GHz, with the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics now found in almost every other Apple product. iMacs used to come standard with 2GB of RAM, now there’s 4GB in the entry-level 24 incher that I tested, along with a 640GB 3.5′ hard drive.

The 20′ iMac is cheaper at $1200, but doesn’t carry as much value: It comes standard with only 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. You’d really need to up the RAM to 4GB, so that brings the bill to $1300. At that point, you’re just $75 away from doubling the internal hard-drive capacity. Now, at $1375, you’re a stone’s throw from the other system, the $1500 iMac with its noticeably larger screen—a screen that, mind you, Apple asks $900 for when sold a la carte. (I reviewed with the iMac side-by-side with the 24′ Cinema Display; they’re essentially identical even though iMac is CCFL while the Cinema Display is LED.)

The $1500 model really sits in the sweet spot. Stepping up beyond that may not make much sense either. Apple charges $1000-a thousand dollars!—to swap 4GB of RAM for 8GB. The good news there is that there’s an easy-access RAM-swap hatch, so Apple is almost encouraging you not to buy the extra RAM now, but to upgrade on the open market later when prices drop to sane levels. You can swing a 1TB hard drive for $100 more. However, if you save the $100, you keep the 640GB internal, and have the money for most of a 1TB external too.

People who are serious about gaming or video work do have higher-end iMac choices. There’s a 2.93GHz system for $1800, and you can jump to 3.06GHz for $150 more than that. At those levels, you also get dedicated graphics processors: There’s the basic Nvidia GeForce GT 120 256MB, then the $150-more GeForce GT 130 with 512MB. Another $50 on top of that gets you the ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB. Those choices are good if you know what you’re looking for because, as the good people of iFixit found out, the iMac is not built for the average user to upgrade anything but RAM. Still, for most people—for most uses including anything less than serious gaming—it doesn’t make sense to buy above the $1500 2.66MHz iMac, especially given the performance I’ve seen.

And what have I seen? Well, you can see from these benchmark charts (which I also ran in the Mac Mini review) that the new iMac stays on top the whole time, through batteries of tests, when compared to both the Mac Mini and the far more expensive MacBook Pro (using the same graphics chipset):

Xbench test results

Geekbench test results

In real world testing, I made further discoveries of the iMac’s pre-eminence among its Mac peers. Ripping a 26-track CD in iTunes took just 3 minutes and 50 seconds on the iMac, while it took nearly 10 minutes (OK, 9:45) on the Mini with 2GB of RAM.

Playing Quake 4 with framerate counter turned on also revealed hidden power. While the Mac Mini kept up with the action and detail by dropping frames—45fps average, down to 20fps during heavy fighting—the iMac mostly maintained a smooth 60fps, dipping into the 50s when things got rough.

No matter what your level of PC knowledge is, you realize that there are faster, beefier desktop systems. Apple itself has the $2500-and-up Mac Pro (with similar graphics card options and much more serious core processors), and if you really know what you’re doing, you can build or customize your own system anyway. In the Windows world, the options are almost limitless. Because of all of those other options, the number of people who will be ordering up an iMac for over $1800 will probably be small.

It also makes buying a Mini—and the necessary peripherals—less justifiable. The message, heard loud and clear in this time of financial strife, is that $1500 will get you a system that would have cost well over $2000 not long ago, and that spending less than that will mean compromises that might not hold you over for long enough. I know some of you think $1500 is too much money for a computer, and I can respect that. But for people with the right kind of budget, the new entry-level 24′ iMac is a smart buy. [Product Page]

In Summary
Low-end specifications have been notably boosted

Price has decreased—$300 per configuration—in spite of performance bumps

Very difficult to upgrade by hand, except for adding RAM

The included keyboard is trimmed down to its barest key set, but you can ask for one with a number pad at no extra cost

$1500 for the 24′ might still be considered pricey by some potential buyers, and the $1200 model doesn’t present as much value

Screen glare can be annoying, and the screen and back are easily smudged (see gallery)

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(Via Gizmodo.)