Apple patched a security vulnerability last week with the iOS 4.3.5 release. Certificate validation vulnerabilities were the issue, while 4.3.4 patched PDF vulnerabilities.

4.3.5 applies to the iPad and iPad2, iPod Touch (generation 3 and 4) and the iPhone 3GS and 4 (GSM). The Verizon iPHone4 will upgrade to iOS 4.2.10.

I highly recommend all security updates, and these can be done by connecting your device to your computer and opening iTunes. Check for updates and follow the prompts.

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I saw a lengthy tip on making the Locations field more useful the other day on Macworld.com, but the truth is, I’ve been using a better way for a while now. Here it is:

When you enter an address in the Notes field, it become a clickable link on the iPhone/iPod Touch that will open the Maps application.

Phone numbers will also be clickable, and will dial the phone when clicked.

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Rob Griffiths at Macworld.com published an article today that made my jaw drop. Why didn’t I think of that? Here’s a great way to get some precious megabytes back, if you are short of storage space, from your iTunes installation.

Updates that never die

iTunes downloads and installs software updates for iPods and iPhones connected to your computer. You knew that. Did you know that a copy of all the updates are kept on your hard drive? I didn’t. Turns out that I had all the iPhone software updates back to version 1.0… 13 copies, I think. I trashed and deleted all but the last 2 before I thought to count them. If you’ve done iPods since the beginning, you’ve got a lot of unnecessary stuff (technical term) clogging up your drive.

If you trash all the updates, and need to do a reset, the latest version of the software will download and all you’ve lost is a little time. So why keep em???

Look in your Home Folder’s Library Folder -> iTunes folder and open the iPhone (and/or iPod) Software Updates folder, and there they are. If you need to make up some quick megabytes, here’s a good place to start. Rob’s Mac Pro had 40MB of iPod updates, and more than 2GB of iPhone updates (as did mine).

Rob, many thanks. This is a great tip!

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Police and U.S. Military have been using iPhones and iPods as translators for a while now. We can too!

There are several apps available, such as the Collins Pro Spanish-English Translation Dictionary. Check the iTunes App Store for translation apps for the language you need. Some will be easier to use, and some will have more capability. Check a few out, until you find what works best for you.

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iPhones 8 rolled out, and it’s different. Not terribly different, but under the hood, no doubt changed a lot.

New Stuff

Genius

The Genius Sidebar, where you can “make playlists from songs in your library that go great together” is cool, I guess. The best part, at least from Apple’s point of view, is that it will “recommend songs from the iTunes Store that you don’t already have”.

Fact is, it only is able to access data collected by human surveys. It can’t listen to the music… it looks for matches in metadata. Change the genres, song titles etc, Genius will be confused.

One gripe. To make the sidebar appear/disappear, you click on an arrow which looks a lot like the forward or reverse arrow button for slideshows. Not as intuitive as it could be.

I’ll play with it, when I have time to spare. Not excited about it, but will report back.

HD TV shows

For $2.99 you can buy your fav TV episodes in HD. You can even buy a Season Pass, and get ‘em all. iTunes acts as the HD player, and you get an iPod-ready version optimized for the small screen.

More fun stuff

You can change podcast settings from the default… how many episodes downloaded and kept. Previously only global changes were possible.

Grid view is pretty cool… The new visualizer is very cool.

If you have an iPhone, disable automatic syncing in Preferences (Devices). You can also see previous backups, and delete them if you want to. I’d be a little careful with this option, until you are sure you really, really want to lose the backup.

Prefs (Devices) is also the place you can look for remote speakers connected with AirTunes, disable iTunes volume control for remote speakers, allow iTunes control from remote speakers and look for iPhone and iPod Touch remotes.

Screen Reader friendly

iTunes 8 is now screen reader friendly. Macs and PC users can manage their library using VoiceOver in Leopard, or Window-Eyes in XP and Vista. You can do your purchasing and downloading with your screen reader as well.

Problems?

Typically, people have had issues with the new release. MacFixIt has a number of articles with fixes for various problems, but my guess is that the number of people with these problems is small. If you do have any difficulty with iTunes 8, definitely go to MacFixit and MacInTouch and check them out.

I would love to hear from anyone who wants to share their experience of the new iTunes.

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The inexpensive iPod Shuffle is a great little music player. It just got better… Apple cut the price by $30! Later this month, a 2GB version, priced at $69 will be available.

The current Shuffle, weighing in at half an ounce, with 1 GB of flash memory but no screen, first appeared in Sept. 2006, for $79. It now is priced at $49, a 38% price cut.

This is a record low price point for Apple. The original iPod Shuffle debuted in January 2005 with a 512 MB model costing $99 and 1GB for $149.

“This is the most affordable iPod ever”, according to Apple’s vice pres. of global iPod marketing, Greg Joswiak.

The 2 GB iPod Shuffle should hold about 480 songs.

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Does it seem fair that iPhone users get the new functionality, but iPod Touch’ers have to pay? No, it doesn’t, but there is a good reason for the charge.

Apple must charge for substantial enhancements that that don’t have revenue recognized on a subscription basis, or it has to restate prior earnings. The iPod Touch does not have revenue recognized on a subscription basis, but the iPhone and iTV do. That’s the reason for the free updates for the iPhone and iTV.It’s an accounting issue, more complex than I want to understand, frankly, but the expense of restating prior income is not to be considered, trust me.Perhaps Apple could have planned better. Perhaps not. It’s a moot point.

If you think the new features aren’t worth $20, don’t buy the upgrade.

I sure think it is…

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