Category Archives: iPhone

Angry Birds Magic Spots

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If you play Angry Birds Seasons, you’ll want to know what I am about to reveal!

While working my way through the Seasons Greedings section of Angry Birds Seasons, I would occasionally stumble over something surprising and wonderful. After taking careful aim and releasing my first bird shot on a given level, the bird would hit its target and….bam! All hell would break loose. In an instant, all (or almost all) of the pigs and blocks were destroyed in a massive blast. When the smoke cleared, I saw that I had bagged a new high score — much higher than I could have otherwise attained. It could be tens of thousands of more points than the minimum needed for a 3 star score (see my Angry Birds: The All-Purpose Guide to Three Stars [Part 1 and Part 2] for more on how to achieve 3 star scores).

What was going on? I didn’t know. So I went to angrybirdsnest.com, an Angry Bird’s fan site, seeking the answer. There I learned that these supernova explosions were due to “magic spots.” It turns out that, if a bird hits a certain spot just right, it will trigger one of these supernova explosions. At first, people thought that these spots were glitches in the game’s software and that they would be wiped out in a future update. But no, they seem to be intentional. And they remain.

Here’s how they work:

• As far as I know, Magic Spots only exist in Seasons Greedings. And they only exist on levels where there is a pig wearing a red Santa hat. I am not sure that every level with a Santa pig also has a magic spot. But if the level doesn’t have a Santa pig, there is no magic spot.

Beyond this, there is no way to tell where, or if, a magic spot exists on a given level. That is, nothing about the magic spot location looks special in any way.

• Although I am not 100% sure of this, it appears that a magic spot explosion is possible only on the first shot of a level. After that, all plays out normally. Certainly, after the Santa pig has been destroyed, your chance is over. [Update: I have now confirmed that magic spot explosions can work after the first shot – if the Santa pig remains untouched after the initial shot.]

• Actually, the name “magic spot” may be a bit of a misnomer. The trigger for a supernova is apparently not so much hitting a precise spot as it is hitting a spot that causes the necessary effect to the Santa pig. Typically, you may need to get the pig to roll in a certain direction. Simply destroying the Santa pig will not have the desired effect. A corollary to this is that there may be more than one spot that causes the explosion.

All of this means it can be quite frustrating to reproduce a magic spot explosion. You can hit what seems to be the the correct location in the exact way needed — yet no supernova occurs. This is probably because your hit did not have the needed effect on the Santa pig. You may have to try the same shot over and over — dozens of times — just to get one supernova.

• The damage that results from a supernova will vary each time you hit the magic spot. Even if you get a successful shot off, you may want to try again. Your next success may yield an even higher score. The best spots are the ones that allow you to finish off a level with just the one shot. I can’t say this with certainty, but it seems that my supernova scores are higher than they would be if I had accomplished the same destruction with a conventional shot. It’s as if you get special bonus points for the supernova devastation.

Magic Spot Levels

Here are my four favorite levels with magic spots (there are others beyond these four):

1-18: Aim your bomb bird for the triangular gap near the center top. If you do it right, when the bomb explodes, you’ll wipe everything out in one shot. My best effort yielded a high score of 119,100.

1-21: Get your first shot to go through the snow, right under the area where the Santa pig resides. Do it just right and the resulting explosion will send sticks flying. I’ve never achieved complete destruction here. You’ll need one or two more birds to finish off the level. But you’ll wind up with a higher score than without the supernova.

1-24: Hit the blocks that form a ceiling above where the Santa pig resides. According to reader comments on angrybirdsnest.com, the goal is to get the Santa pig to roll 90 degrees to the right. I can’t confirm this. However, I can confirm that if you hit the ceiling in the right spot, you can wipe out the level with just the one shot. You won’t get total destruction with every blast. But if you do, you can get a score in excess of 100,000 (my best is 98,310).

1-7: This is it: the motherlode, the super-est supernova of all. To set off the explosion, send the bomb bird in a high arc so that it lands directly atop the final right-most column of bricks. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, even if you hit the spot, nothing will happen. But when it works, watch out. You can achieve a near total wipe-out leading to incredible scores. Initially, my high score for the level was 73,300, good enough for three stars. After a couple of magic spot explosions, I pushed my score to 117,510 — almost 45,000 points more than my prior three-star score!

Are Magic Spots Good or Evil?

One the one hand, magic spots add an element of fun and surprise to Angry Birds. When you hit one these spots, especially after an hour of trying, you’ll jump up and cheer. On the other hand, they add a further element of luck to the game — which I regard as a negative.

Why luck? Aside from the telltale Santa pig, there is no way to know if a magic spot potentially exists for a given level. Even with the Santa pig, you don’t know for sure that a magic spot is present — or where it may be. Further, no matter how skillful you are, it seems impossible to achieve the supernova explosion with any reliability — even if you know exactly where to aim. Yet, if you don’t master these shots, you have no chance of climbing to the top of the Leaderboard. The magic spots are bit like finding the golden eggs. But the eggs don’t affect your score.

On balance, I vote thumbs up for the spots. Once you discover them, they become yet another intriguing twist to this great game. As far as I know, magic spots exist only in Seasons Greedings. I am hopeful that we have not seen the last of them.

P.S. For those of you who are curious: My Angry Birds Seasons high score is 6,430,780 (currently I am 17 on the Game Center Leaderboard).

Picturing an iPhone at an Exhibition

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Recently, I attended the “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay” exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Unless you plan on visiting Paris after these artworks are returned, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some truly fabulous paintings, including Van Gogh’s Starry Night. If you live in the Bay Area, don’t miss it.

But this column is not about my museum recommendations. Rather, it’s about iPhones.

As at many museums, the De Young offers an audio tour of its exhibits. You rent an audio-only playback device and headset. For the Post-Impressionist guided tour, it costs $7.

But wait? Wouldn’t it be great if the Museum offered an Exhibit Tour iPhone app? It could be a win-win. The museum would save the cost of purchasing and maintaining hundreds of audio playback devices and headsets. Attendees (at least those with iPhones) would be saved the hassle of having to carry around an additional piece of equipment. As a bonus, an iPhone app could be far superior to the audio-only guides that now exist. It could include supplementary graphics and video in addition to the audio. It would have an easier-to-navigate touchscreen interface.

Depending upon the museum’s policies, the app could serve as a permanent souvenir of your visit — or it could be set to expire after your visit is over.

For all this to work smoothly, two critical details would need to be worked out:

1. How would you get the app on your iPhone?

The simplest way would be for the Museum to submit the app to the App Store and, assuming it gets accepted, have it available for you to download. As one especially relevant example, you can already get a Tour app for the Orsay Museum.

But what if you arrive at the museum without the app pre-purchased? Assuming the Museum has decent 3G coverage (for iPhones and iPad 3Gs) or free Wi-Fi (for all iOS devices), you could download it on the spot.

Still, I believe the best solution would be if the Museum could directly and locally transfer the app to your iOS device. In theory, this could work by connecting your iPhone to a Mac server containing the app. Or it could be done wirelessly via a local Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection (perhaps similar to how Bump works, if the app is not too large).

2. How would you pay for the app?

If the app is available via the App Store, there’s no problem. You pay for it as you would with any other app.

If the app is directly transferred locally at the Museum, you could pay for it via cash or credit card, just as you would have done to rent the separate audio device.

As many of you have probably realized by now, there’s one big problem with the entire local transfer and payment scenario: It’s impossible to do. Why? Because Apple won’t permit it.

The only way to install apps on your iPhone is via the App Store. There is no sanctioned pathway for the museum to directly transfer an app locally. [OK. Technically, this is not entirely true. As one example, there are ways for developers to permit users to load beta versions of an app for testing. However, such methods are cumbersome and not designed for the type of large-scale quick transactions that museums would need.]

Which is all too bad. This is a huge missed opportunity. It’s yet another example of how Apple’s restrictive policies prevent using iOS devices in ways that would enhance its functionality.

Apple could create a special section of the iOS for locally-transferred apps. It could include a check to make sure that you are not illegally copying apps obtained from the App Store or otherwise copy-protected. And Apple would have to give up its 30% cut of the sale of such “local apps.” In return, amateur developers could use this to create apps to share among friends. Various institutions, from retail stores to museums, could use it to provide apps at the point-of-sale. But it will only happen if Apple loosens its grip on iOS access. I expect it will happen someday. But it won’t be this year. Or next.

Printing in iOS 4.2: Now We Know

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Now we know how printing will work in iOS 4.2.

At the Apple Event on September 1, Steve Jobs focused on new iPods. However, he also made mention of the forthcoming iOS 4.2 (due out in November), especially noting that it would support wireless printing via a Print Center app. Beyond that, he offered no details as to how exactly it might work.

This, of course, led to speculation among the Mac media regarding the different possibilities.

One faction suggested that needed printer drivers would be downloaded to the iPhone on demand, similar to how things work in Mac OS X. You could then print to any driver-matched printer on the Wi-Fi network to which your iOS device was connected. I thought that this was an unlikely solution, as the size of driver software is quite large — and could quickly lead to iOS devices (especially 8GB ones) running out of free space.

A second possibility was that printing would work only via printers that have the needed driver software built-in. The prime example here is Hewlett-Packard’s line of ePrint enabled printers. This would be a fine solution except that it would severely limit the range of printers that an iOS device could access.

A third possibility was that there would be no true direct iOS device-to-printer printing. Rather, you would print to printers accessible via Printer Sharing on a Mac. This would allow for the widest range of printer compatibility but has the downside of requiring that a Mac (or PC) be active and accessible as an intermediary between the iOS device and the printer. If your Mac is asleep, for example, you can’t print.

Today, Apple posted a press release that offered details as to how the new AirPrint feature would work in iOS 4.2 — largely resolving the debate among these three alternatives. So…which of the three options turned out to be correct?

The answer is two answers: iOS 4.2 will use both the second and third methods.

Devices running iOS 4.2 will be able to directly print to “HP Photosmart, Officejet, Officejet Pro and LaserJet Pro series ePrint enabled printers.” Apparently, this includes some HP printers not yet on the market — as I could not find reference to ePrint versions of all of these printers on the HP site.

In addition, “iOS 4.2 devices can print to printers shared through a Mac or a PC.”

The one thing that you won’t need to do to print from an iOS device is download printer software to the device.

A beta version of the iOS 4.2 software is available right now, but only for members of Apple’s iOS developer program. Developers report that, for printer sharing via a Mac, an update to Mac OS X 10.6.5 (currently in beta) is also required.

If you are an iOS developer, you’ll want to get the new “Drawing and Printing Guide for iOS.” It contains complete details on how printing will work, including screenshots of the new Print Center app in action.

One oddity: The press release states that printing will work with “iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (second generation and later).” Based on what I have seen thus far, the printing feature requires multitasking — but multi-tasking is not available on the second generation iPod touch. Is this an error in the press release?

Update: Yes, the press release is in error. According to an iOS Developer page (login may be required): “Printing is available only on iOS devices that support multitasking.” The iPod touch 2nd generation is not listed as compatible.

Apple Patent to Kill Jailbroken Devices? Nope!

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For better or worse, Apple likes to keep the iOS as closed as possible. But calm down folks. There are limits beyond which even Apple won’t venture. Killing your jailbroken iPhone, without your permission, is one of them.

A few days ago, the Web was buzzing about an Apple patent, filed back in February 2009 but just now revealed, that describes new security measures that may someday (assuming the patent is ever implemented) appear in iOS devices.

Of particular interest, the language of the patent contained several references to jailbreaking, such as: “…an unauthorized user can be detected by noting particular activities that can indicate suspicious behavior. For example, activities such as…jailbreaking of the electronic device, unlocking of the electronic device, removing a SIM card from the electronic device,…can be used to detect an unauthorized user.”

It further stated: “When an unauthorized user is detected, various functions of the electronic device can be restricted.”

Numerous Web postings (such as this one from CNET) suggested that this could mean that, if Apple detects that you have jailbroken your device, it could remotely wipe your iPhone — or otherwise “kill” or “brick” it (the exact verb varies among different postings). Most ominously, Apple could do so without advance warning and without the permission of the owner of the device.

In other words, whatever else the new security measures might be able to accomplish — they would be yet another means by which Apple blocks jailbreaking.

I remain extremely skeptical that Apple has any such intent here. The truth is almost certainly more benign. This can be discerned via several phrases of the patent text, such as:

“The owner may desire to find out where the lost electronic device is located or who may have gained possession of or stolen the electronic device.”

“In some embodiments, an alert notification can be sent to a responsible party when an unauthorized user is detected. The ‘responsible party’ can be any persons suitable to receive the alert notification, such as, for example, the owner of the electronic device, proper authorities or police, persons listed in a contact book in the electronic device, or any combination of the above.”

In other words, the intent here is a system designed to help the owner (authorized user) protect the data on their iOS device, should that device be stolen. In this sense, it is an extension of what you can already do via Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe.

The logic is that an attempt to jailbreak your iPhone might indicate that someone is attempting to gain unauthorized access to your (confidential and protected) data. In this instance, and with your permission, certain security measures could be taken to prevent the unauthorized access.

The suggestions that the measures described in the patent would be used by Apple as a sort of virtual neutron bomb, killing any and all jailbroken iPhones (even if the jailbreaking had been done by the owner of the device and even if the owner would object to such “killing”), are simply ridiculous.

I have certainly been critical of many instances of Apple’s behavior in this arena over the years, especially as regards Apple’s restrictive App Store policies. But the current speculation assumes that Apple would go well beyond anything it has done this far. I don’t buy it. Actually (with the usual caveat that I am not a lawyer), it seems doubtful that Apple would have the legal authority to do so.

It’s one thing to try to prevent jailbreaking methods from working or to refuse to offer support for jailbroken iPhones. But, especially considering that jailbreaking is legal, to delete personal data from your iPhone without your permission? I don’t think so.

Let’s all take a deep breath. It’s time to calm down.