Ah, the trials and tribulations of being best in class. As Apple has experienced today on the launch of the 3G iPhone, being on top brings endless scrutiny and any small foible or stumble is magnified greatly.

I was one of the brave souls who was actively searching for the iPhone 2.0 firmware updates early and in fact found it like thousands did, a day early. I installed the new software yesterday and began downloading software from the new App Store in iTunes. Everything was going swell; I had purchased a few different applications and everything was neatly downloaded to my phone via itunes and the install was quite painless. I even downloaded directly from the phone itself, later “pushing” the downloads from my iPhone back to iTunes without nary a problem.

This morning I tried to connect to iTunes again to download some more applications and found what most in the world found: Server connection could not be completed. It had finally happened. The illustrious iTunes Store had been brought to its knees by all of the adulation from Apple’s fan base and new customers. This is being heralded as a “Catastrophe”, “Disaster” and other choice terms usually reserved for Apple’s competitors such as Microsoft or RIM. But this time, the normally “can-do-no-wrong” Apple was being lambasted by all of the same media who usually fall over themselves to heap praise on the fruit-named wonder.

As I sat and pondered this scenario I discovered another flaw with the App Store and the blissful new software distribution model that has come from it. I tried to access the applications that I had downloaded hours before, only to find that none of the applications would load. The free applications load just fine, but the paid-for applications such as Super Monkey Ball and Texas Hold’em would fail to open each time. Apparently these game which are protected by Apple’s DRM must need to authenticate with Apple’s servers before they will be allowed to run.

So, there I sat with new applications that I’d paid good money for and now could not use because of network issues or because Apple’s servers were on fire, etc..

I did not know that this was the case and honestly I am now a bit leary of relying on applications bought from the new store in the future.

You can bet that once applications become runnable on hacked versions of the 2.0 firmware, I will once again actively seek these versions rather than the officially sanctioned Apple versions.

Well, this year I actually was pretty busy but Apple really failed to “wow” me with anything. Sure, I was intrigued by the Macbook Air, and of course the movie rental news was something I was happy to see. The AppleTV update was one that directly affected me since I recently got one for Christmas and this coupled with the movie rentals means that I might finally be able to remove the entire Blockbuster rental nightmare from our lives.

But overall, the only thing that has even remotely sparked that twitch I have for reaching for my credit card, was the Time Capsule product announcement. The only reason that I haven’t really jumped for that (yet) is probably due to the fact that I really want to know more about it and how I might be able to use it, before I purchase one. It sounds like a great solution for me and if it works like I would like, I might be able to incorporate it into my iLife while adding it to the AppleTV for a massive, wireless, media bomb floating in between my mac and my TV/Stereo.

I am pretty sure that I will get the Terabyte version at some point, I’d just like to find out what sorts of gotchas Apple has put in place on it. You see, Apple always seems to cripple or in some fashion, lessen the devices and software that it produces by either implementing something that gets in the way or disallowing some aspect of its usability in a real world environment. I don’t know if they intentionally go out of their way to do this or if they just seem to come down on that side of idiocy on everything they create. I sometimes think that they do it intentionally, only to see what its users will do, faced with its inevitable shortcomings. The Apple faithful are a pretty crafty sort and usually go out of their way to make up for their cult leaders’ inadequacies.

So, Macworld has come and gone, and yet I have no tracking numbers from FedEx to worry about or banking statements I need to explain to Kim. I guess it was a pretty good Macworld if you look at it from her point of view. Me, I’m just biding my time and will probably bust out the plastic before too long, we’ll see.

As I posted recently, I’ve been trying to find the absolute best iTunes controller program out there and I’ve been waffling back and forth between CoverSutra and the newcomer: TotalTunes Control.

After I had just made what I thought was the final switch to TotalTunes Control, Sophia from Sophiestication Software has gone and outdone herself with the upcoming version 2 of CoverSutra.

The new CoverSutra has everything you could possibly want and more. The newest version offers a new searching capability that looks and acts very similar to Spotlight and allows you to quickly find and go to any playlist, artist, album or track that you want to. She has added much more capability in custom shortcuts that now allow you do almost anything with a keyboard shortcut.

My only knock against this latest version is that it uses a bit more RAM than older versions did. In my tests, it routinely uses about 45MB of RAM where it used to use no more than 20MB. This is not too big of an issue and I am sure that she will work on getting this down through revisions that I am sure are to come. There is a small graphical glitch with the title text on the new searching feature as well, but this is only cosmetic and does nothing to hinder its use.

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with the new features and I believe that I have moved back to CoverSutra for good. However, Louka Desroziers has not been sitting idle with TotalTunes Control either as he has released yet another version that offers some more refinement that brings his “free clone of CoverSutra” a bit closer. On the other side of things, the developer of Synergy has also recently updated his program although it seems to be struggling to keep feature parity and the “coolness factor” is just not in the same realm as the other two I’ve mentioned.

It is nice to have options depending on your budget, but for me I am going to continue to support CoverSutra for the time being.

My first foray into the 3rd party music controlling applications was one called Synergy . I really liked that it was a menubar application and allowed me to control iTunes from my menubar. It was very small, unobtrusive and did what I was looking for. However the application did not get updated for awhile and then when it did, it became a new version and the developer wanted more money for features that I did not feel warranted an upgrade. Not to mention that there was no upgrade path for existing users which left me feeling abandoned. So I searched on and finally found another application called CoverSutra. Besides the cool name, it was a really cool application that did everything I wanted and more. I thought I was in heaven as the app was still small, a menubar application and offered integration with Last.FM which I was quickly becoming a big fan of and to this day still use daily.

I purchased CoverSutra for $22 which was over three times as much as I paid for Synergy but the application was just so good that I had no qualms paying for the quality. I would still be using CoverSutra if it wasn’t for a new application called TotalTunes Control which in it’s latest beta version is now my favorite application for controlling iTunes.

What started as a CoverSutra clone is now quickly becoming an even better application with new features such as being able to select playlists from within the controller window and even being able to set up favorite playlists for quick access if you have lots of playlists like I do. With TotalTunes Control you can also customize the fonts that are used in the control window, which is nice because a lot of us use themes or just want to use a different font. In my case, I am using Bauhaus for my control window and it is just elegant to look at now.

There were still two main features that CoverSutra offered that were not in TotalTunes but after what can only be considered a blistering pace, the developer for TotalTunes is adding functionality left and right. The lack of Last.fm integration is being added and there will be new custom album art displays added as well.

The best part of all of this is that TotalTunes Control is a completely freeware application. The developer, Louka Desroziers, is a wonderful developer and is so responsive that he sets the bar for freeware applications. Even though this is Freeware I encourage you to donate to him through his website to encourage his fine work.

As you read this, there are countless individuals on University lines, Internet cafes and war-driven connections that are furiously working towards one goal. That goal is the eventual unlocking of the latest Apple product that is the iPhone or otherwise known in some circles as the Jesus Device, iPhoney, or just simply the “the next greatest thing”.

The goal of unlocking the phone is based on several shortcomings, perceived or not, that the iPhone has as it is currently shipped by Apple. There are some very unique, industrial individuals in this “crusade of openness” if you will call it that. Almost to be expected, the infamous DVD Jon (Jon Lech Johansen who has been a thorn in Apples side for quite some time now with regards to breaking the iTunes music stores encryption) has become a general in the first salvo of the offensive geared at smashing Apple’s software-based defenses and rendering the currently locked device wide-open. The goal is to eventually create digital telephony anarchy in that one can use AT&T as Apple had planned or even use T-Mobile or other carriers if someone so pleases. This fight is one that will take place in the depths of the Internet where the DMCA cannot reach or that Apple legal cannot easily follow.

As of this writing, the open iPhone advocacy as we will call them, has currently succeeded in a few small skirmishes to begin the battle. First the iPhone has been hacked using a sort of end-around that allows for the iPhone to be activated without requiring AT&T to do so. This allows for the operation of the iPhone’s attributes that are not phone-related such as Wi-Fi, Email, and of course the iPod functionality.

iHackers, have also figured out how to delve into the file hierarchy, by cracking the 82 MB restore image file. They’ve started dissecting the first firmware that Apple released just 24 hours after the phone’s launch and already we know several things about the device that were not widely known before.

Apple has included several applications that are not normally visible, namely Demo.app and FieldTest.app. The FieldTest application allows one to view the number of cell towers that the phone is currently seeing as well as the signal strength and which carriers are involved with those towers.

The iPhone’s finder application called “Springboard.app” lists some very interesting files that could possibly foretell the future of the phone’s relationships with cellular carriers. There are .png files inside the package contents that show icons for “Default_CARRIER_ATT” as well as “Default_CARRIER_TMOBILE”, and “Default_CARRIER_VODAPHONE”.

Some have found evidence of a DisplayOrder.plist file that adds a row of application icons for special purpose apps that include testing apparatus such as FieldTest, and MALogger as well as the SpringBoard applications and the DemoApp as well. These are presumably enabled through a debugging mode meant for developers. You can access the FieldTest application by dialing *3001#12345#*

There are supposedly references to Translator and Unit Converter widgets but as of yet these have not been verified and for now we must wait to see if these will surface in a future software update from Apple.

There is also a .plist file (the preference files for Mac OS X) that sets the default audio levels for the device. This could be the method of fixing some of the woes of those who complain that the volume is too low on the device especially in noisy environments.

Interestingly, the Ringtones that ship with the iPhone are in .m4a format and are identified as iTunes v6.05 as made in Quicktime 7.02. Just today, a proof-of-concept was posted that showed someone with the first documented custom ringtone on an iPhone. The ringtone was the famous sound of the intercom “bleep boop” from the Fox “24″ television show. Everyone knows that Jack Bauer would definitely be using an iPhone to deactivate a nuclear warhead!

The file system of the device has been extracted and can be found at: http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php?title=SystemFileAndDirectoryList

Many will be watching the progress closely and as more things get opened up the battle will surely only intensify. Stay tuned.