The line started Friday morning around 10 AM. Tim Street of mDialog was number six in line, figuring that he’d stick around until there was something better to do. He ended up taking meetings for mDialog during the wait, and was also interviewed by CNN.

He got out of the store a little after 5 PM, which by pure coincidence was when my friend Megan joined the line. Megan Westerby is the hero of this story — she had already agreed to pick up a second iPad for me if I wasn’t able to join her, so when my plans for the evening fell through I made sure to come and keep her company (not to mention put the charge on my own card). When I first found her, the line was all the way down Congress Avenue and wrapped around the block; the sun was still up and burning bright. The Apple Store employees, wearing their signature blue t-shirts for launch day, passed out bottles of water. Everyone seemed to be a bit buzzed with raw adrenaline.

YouTube celebrity Phil DeFranco and director Tony Valenzuela were about ten feet ahead of us; jokingly, I asked why they were there. “I need a new phone charger,” DeFranco deadpanned.

They had DSLR cameras out to document the experience, and captured the most satisfying part of my time in line: when an Apple Store employee roamed down the line with cards, shouting out iPad models. “Verizon 3G?” he asked, and I raised my hand. He then asked for specifics on what model I needed — I’d been hoping for a 64 GB model, but then he said 32 GB and I figured, what the heck, I don’t need that much music storage. With that compromise made, he handed me my little slip of paper, representing one iPad that was officially mine once I made it into the store. I was still a half of a block away, but the exercise of waiting then became a zen-like experience

“What about AT&T?” Megan asked. The guy assured her that there were plenty of models for AT&T subscribers left. That tune started to change over the next hour — the cards clearly represented low-stock models. Soon the folks in blue t-shirts were distributing cards for AT&T models as well.

A line of people like this is a captive audience, and there was no shortage of people taking advantage of that, passing out cards, flyers or stickers (or saying hi to Phil DeFranco). The best by far were the guys from Sonos, whose magic fanny packs made them into walking phone chargers that waitees could plug into for a quick boost of power. They weren’t even iPhone-only — Android adapters were available.

Getting to the entrance revealed why this process seemed to be taking so long; each customer was individually escorted into the store by an employee, who was inexplicably, extremely cheerful — if not giddy. About ten minutes before 8 PM, I handed my precious card to “Lauren,” who guided me to the back wall to pick out my cover (green), then to the line to check out.

According to Lauren, about 70 percent of the employees working the store (and there were at least two dozen of them on the floor alone) were Austin locals — employees at other, presumably now-understaffed Apple stores. I heard another say that he was from Georgia, and would only be there for a few days before traveling on to another location.

After we left, the store stayed open for another three hours; the last customers left around 11:15 PM. An Apple representative declined to disclose the store’s sales, but I heard one clerk say to her customer that the only Apple store with more iPads in stock was the Fifth Avenue location in New York. The rumor among conference attendees is that Apple sold out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The lines weren’t quite as long, but still present.

Under the most boring of circumstances, three hours is a long time to spend waiting for anything. At SXSW, it was pretty painful, especially when people wandering by would ask what party we were waiting in line for. But I am far from the only one here who made the pilgrimage — the brightly colored paneled covers uniting us in slightly embarrassed solidarity. And while my iPad 2 is a little clunky — and I miss my keyboard and the control I have on my laptop — I feel like I hold the Internet in my hands. There’s definitely magic to that.

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A piece I wrote last week on the impact of iTunes web preview pages on App Store SEO brought up a little side conversation about how many people found it annoying that the links launch iTunes automatically. Sometimes you don’t even have any warning that the link is going to launch iTunes if you click on a shortened link. There are a few simple steps that you can take to stop this behavior and suppress iTunes in its eagerness to run and take you to the page for that app (or other iTunes content).

Below, I have outlined the steps for Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.

The Basic Concept

The iTunes preview pages run a JavaScript function that attempts to load iTunes by opening an ITMS file. This file will launch iTunes and direct the application to open the iTunes Store to the specified content. I did not want to recommend just disabling JavaScript because that would interfere with a lot of websites that rely on the interactivity that is possible with JavaScript. We will prevent iTunes from opening by changing the way that these browsers handle the ITMS file. This approach will allow you to manually launch iTunes when you desire. In the case of Chrome, we can selectively disable JavaScript for iTunes links.

Safari (see update below)

Safari uses the helper applications as defined in the “Get Info” dialog box for each file type. In Snow Leopard, Mac OS X relies solely on the file’s extension to determine the default application. This may behave differently in 10.5, which still respects the creator code attribute.

Create a simple text file on your desktop. The content of the file does not matter. Rename that file to “test.itms” and confirm that you do want to change the extension. Now select that file and pull up the “Get Info” dialog box (Command-I, right-click, or File » Get Info).

The “Open with:” section should show “iTunes.app (default)” at first. Click on the pull down menu there, select “Other” and then pick Safari. You will have to enable “All Applications” in the file selection dialog box. Clicking “Add” will return you to the “Get Info” window. Be sure to click “Change All…” to have that behavior work for any ITMS file, including ones you may download from iTunes web links in the future.

You must log out and back in for these changes to take effect. Restarting the computer would accomplish the same result.

You can still launch iTunes by clicking on the “View in iTunes” button on the preview page.

To reverse the setting, go back to the ITMS file (or create a new one) and change the “Open With” entry to iTunes.app and then click “Change All…” to make sure it will be used in all cases.

Firefox

Firefox uses a different method to define the helper app. Open a new browser window or tab and type “about:config” into the address bar. After dismissing the warning, you will be presented with a long list of options. Fortunately, we can use the search box at the top of this window to filter the results down to just the option we need. Type “itms” in the filter box and you will see an entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” as the only result (if you don’t get any results, keep reading for a solution). Double-click on the “false” entry below the “Value” column and change it to “true” and then close the window or tab. Restart Firefox to make sure the change is saved and used the next time you launch Firefox.

Now you should get a dialog box asking you what you want to do about this content type when you go to page. Click “Cancel” to prevent iTunes from opening or click “OK” to launch iTunes into the iTunes Store. Do NOT check the “Remember my choice for itms links” box or iTunes will automatically launch in the future. Unfortunately, I did not see this dialog box come up consistently, but here is what it should look like.

What if I don’t have an an “itms” entry in about:config?

If you do not have an entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” in the “about:config” page, do not panic. You can add a new entry by right-clicking on the page and selecting “New: Boolean” from the pop-up menu.

Type “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” into the preference name field and click “OK” to create the entry.

The next step is to make sure the boolean value itself is set to “true” so that Firefox will ask what you want to do with iTunes links.

Additional Measures

If iTunes still launches automatically, check the settings in the applications tab of the Firefox preferences window and search for “itunes” in the filter box. If any content types are set to open with iTunes, change those settings to “Always Ask” and this should stop iTunes from opening. To double-check, do another search on “itms” and make sure it is set to “Always Ask” here as well.

To reverse the setting, return to the “about:config” page and double-click on the “true” entry for “network.protocol-handler.warn-external.itms” to change it back to “false” and disable the dialog box asking you what to do.

Chrome

Chrome has not implemented the “about:config” settings in Chrome for Mac, but it does have a nifty feature to disable javascript on specific sites. Open Chrome’s preferences and click on the “Under the Hood” tab.

Click on “Content Settings…” and then select the “JavaScript” tab.

Click on “Exceptions” and then use the “+” button to add “itunes.apple.com” and make sure this site is set to block JavaScript. Now when you load an iTunes web link, the site will report that iTunes cannot be found because the JavaScript function that is looking for it has failed to run and return a result.

While this solution works to shut down iTunes, it also means that you cannot click on the “View on iTunes” button on the page to launch iTunes manually. If you really want to get to the iTunes Store, copy the URL from the address bar and open the same page in Safari, or simply launch iTunes manually and search in the store.

To reverse the setting, return to the list of exceptions and delete the entry for “itunes.apple.com” by clicking on the “-” button.

No More Autolaunching!

Automatically launching applications and slowing down my computer is almost as annoying as websites that start playing background music when you visit or DVD’s that play ads for soft drinks that cannot be stopped when all you want to do is watch a movie. Well, not nearly as bad as the stupid discs that will not let you skip to the movie, but still annoying. The steps above will help you take back control.

Safari Update

Many of you have reported that Safari/iTunes seem to reset our little fix, so here are some additional options for those experiencing this issue.

Safari relies on the Finder to define the default applications in the “Get Info” dialog box for each file type and the system to define the default helper application for URL schemes like “itms://” used by iTunes. With Chrome and Firefox, we can use settings within the app itself. With Safari, we have to modify the way the system deals with the files and URLs or add a plug-in to Safari itself.

Some may want to check out GlimmerBlocker which works by installing a proxy server on your local machine. All web requests from any application will be routed through this proxy. When the web page is returned to the requesting application, the page can be rewritten according to rules defined in the proxy.

Another approach is to change the system URL schemes for “itms://” to block Safari from launching iTunes even though the script still runs on the preview page. To do this, you will need to install RCDefaultApp and disable the “itms” URL type.

I did not want to modify the way the system deals with all HTTP requests or install a System PreferencePane. I chose to use GreaseKit, a Greasemonkey extension for Safari. After you install GreaseKit, you will need to install a script to block iTunes from launching on web preview pages. There is an existing script that will do this, but it includes some minor advertising for apptrackr.com. I wrote a simplified script that you can install to Stop iTunes from autolaunching that does not modify any other elements of the preview pages. This script will also work with Greasemonkey on Firefox.

Enter the variety of remote control apps for the iPhone, which let you operate your desktop Mac from your iPhone as if you were sitting in front of it. Some of these apps use the common VNC protocol to allow remote control, and others use their own proprietary methods. All of them will let you control your Mac (or a PC) from your iPhone.

Jaadu ($24.99)

Jaadu is the most polished and powerful of all the iPhone remote control clients. It offers SSH encrypted VNC, which is a key feature if you connect to your Mac via public Wi-Fi networks, although the SSH encryption in Jaadu doesn’t operate with Snow Leopard Macs (Jugari promises a fix soon).

The actual remote control is quite intuitive. By default, control is a combination of moving the mouse pointer and sliding the desktop behind it.  You pinch with two fingers to zoom in and out of the remote screen, and the iPhone’s soft keyboard can be used for typing. Jaadu provides a pop-up box for using modifier keys, as well as keys that don’t exist on the iPhone keyboard. It works well for limited typing, but you would not want to write an essay this way. Jaadu includes nice extras such as clipboard transfer and support for a wide variety of VNC servers, including the built-in Mac OS screensharing.  Unfortunately, you do need to modify and configure your firewall to allow SSH, but Jaadu does have software that will attempt to automatically configure it for you.

LogMeIn Ignition ($29.99)

LogMeIn’s primary feature is that it requires zero configuration of the computer being controlled, and it works securely and automatically across all kinds of networks (other remote control clients usually require manual router configuration). The software works with LogMeIn’s suite of Mac and Windows remote control products, and is a polished and powerful piece of commercial software.

After installation, you are presented with a list of computers to which you have access, and that’s all you need to configure it. The actual remote control isn’t as smooth or intuitive as Jaadu.  Your two basic modes are either the background moves or the mouse moves. Similar to Jaadu, LogMeIn has a pop-up keyboard and modifier keys.   Personally, I use this program as my preferred method of remote control because I can easily control a fleet of Macs and PCs.

iSSH ($4.99)

iSSH, like Jaadu, offers integrated encryption of VNC sessions; however, the remote control functionality seems to be thrown in as an afterthought in what is actually a very powerful system administrators’ tool, offering all kinds of remote access including SSH, X11 and telnet.

Similar to other remote control clients, you move the mouse by sliding your finger across the phone’s screen. A very nice feature iSSH offers is a “transparent” view of the keyboard, so you can type while still seeing as much of the remote screen as possible. Actual performance seemed a bit slower than LogMeIn or Jaadu, and the app appears less stable, occasionally crashing. The crashing aside, it’s overall an excellent value.

MochaVNC ($5.99) and MochaVNC Lite (Free)

The Lite version of Mocha is absolutely worthless; it works OK as a viewer, but you can’t do any normal typing, as the developers do not support the Mac’s modifier keys, such as “command,” unless you buy the full version. Neither version offers integrated encryption, and the performance was slow and unreliable. At a dollar more than the more polished and feature-rich iSSH, MochaVNC is not a good value.

RemoteTap ($4.99)

RemoteTap is a “VNC-like” application, although it doesn’t actually use a standard VNC server. Instead, you download the free RemoteTap preference pane on the computer you want to control. This preference pane is much more powerful than normal VNC servers, offering support for advanced features like command macros, multi-touch gestures, and direct access to Spaces, Front Row, and application launching.

RemoteTap’s remote control works very well, with a unique “magnifying glass” interface that expands the area of the remote Mac screen without the need for a lot of manual zooming in and out. Overall, RemoteTap is very polished and feature rich, but it is missing support for standard VNC or encryption, so it is not a good choice for those with a mix of Mac and PCs or who need to connect over the Internet.

RDM+ Remote Desktop ($9.99)

RDM+ Remote Desktop works in a similar manner to LogMeIn, utilizing a central server to enable remote control of Mac and PC desktops from an iPhone without requiring manual configuration of routers or firewalls. You install a small piece of software on the Mac or PC you want to control, and then purchase and install the app on your iPhone. RDM+ Remote Desktop provides the usual basic remote control features; you can pan, zoom, click and drag on the remote computer as well as type text. However, the controls on the iPhone felt awkward and were not as intuitive to use as many of the other remote control apps.

All of these apps have their plusses and minuses. The best value for the money is probably iSSH. The most polished commercial-grade software is LogMeIn. Jaadu is simply the most powerful pure VNC client, and RemoteTap offers some unique Mac-only functionality for LAN use in a home or office. MochaLite works well as a free viewer if you just need very basic functionality.  Which ever way you go, these apps will let you access the desktop of your Mac from anywhere, so go ahead and stay in bed and convince your boss you are sitting at the office.

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The seeding yesterday by Apple of version 10A433 of Snow Leopard, which is presumed the Golden Master edition of the upcoming OS iteration, has led many to believe that Cupertino will be pushing the official launch date of the software up. The official line was, and always has been, that Apple would ship 10.6 on an unspecified date in September, but many Apple news and rumor sites are reporting that the date will in fact be much earlier, according to their various sources.

While there is some speculation that Snow Leopard could be arriving as early as Aug. 24, the money is on John Gruber’s proposed launch date of Aug. 28, since he has a good track record with this sort of thing. Backing up Gruber is MacDailyNews, which claims to have heard the same date from multiple independent sources.

If it were to launch on that earlier date, it would beat Windows 7 out of the gate by a considerable margin of nearly two full months, with Microsoft’s latest entry sporting a street date of Oct. 22. It would also score points with consumers, since software hardly ever beats its stated release time frame.

Snow Leopard currently sits high atop the Amazon.com sales rankings, with the individual and family pack sitting at spots two and three, respectively. No doubt Apple’s aggressive pricing strategy has more than a little to do with the success of pre-order sales. Just $29.99 will get you a single-user license, while the family pack, which allows installation on up to five machines, costs a very budget-friendly $49.99. Windows 7 first appears at No. 23 on the best-seller list, two spots below OS X Leopard 10.5.6.

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Of course, lending credibility to the pictures, they were later pulled and replaced with a less revealing one. The iPhone is supposedly set to debut around September on China Unicom’s network, the second-largest operator in China.

One image shows the iPhone syncing. Note the iPhone is on China Unicom’s 3G network, and will never be on a Wi-Fi network. That was a main sticking point in negotiations. Along with that previously reported news, there are a few more details from Macworld.

The iPhone is supposedly a WCDMA model. It bears the seal of approval of Chinese environmental regulators for a period of ten years. Other rumors floating around suggest Apple will be paid around $440 for each phone, though selling price will be less. Supposedly, China Unicom has a multi-year deal and has guaranteed a minimum of one million units sold per year. However, it should be noted that officially Apple and China Unicom are still in talks. Still, it’s hard to disbelieve one’s eyes.

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In a surprising move, Apple has signed on with a handful of other major mobile device manufacturers to end the madness of proprietary charging interfaces and agreed to one standard for all, according to Reuters. That’s in Europe, anyway, although there’s hope that the agreement could result in more cross-compatibility on this side of the Atlantic, too.

Along with Apple, five other cell phone manufacturers have agreed to the deal put forward by the European Commission, which is not binding and instead depends on voluntary cooperation from the private sector. The other five companies are Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Research In Motion, Motorola and Samsung, which means that Apple basically had to toe the line or risk looking like the villain in a field of heroes. Hopefully no one breaks rank, since that could result in the agreement becoming insubstantial.

The agreed-upon standard is micro-USB, which is already fairly ubiquitous, so it will be a huge bonus for consumers if this goes through as planned. I’ve got about four or five micro-USB cables lying around within eyeshot, in fact. Devices from companies that agree to the standard will have to ship with a charger that matches the specifications put forward by the commission, though eventually the two will be allowed to be sold separately. The time frame for implementation of the new standard is said to be within 3-4 years, and the hope is that by adopting a single charger, people will have less cause to throw out their old ones when they purchase a new phone.

For Apple, the agreement will lead to the inclusion of an adapter rather than the abandonment of the dock connector standard they’ve so consistently championed. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement following the deal’s announcement that it’ll ship future iPhones with a dock-connectable micro-USB adapter, which is completely in compliance with the specifics of the new agreement.

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I did see a handful of Apple employees on the list of panelists speaking at SXSW, an interactive, film and music conference and festival hosted annually in Austin, Texas. It appeared they were there more for personal reasons than officially there on behalf of Apple.

Is Apple so confident in their place in the industry that they can ignore their core user group? Was their absence simply due to other factors, like a busy schedule or timing conflicts? Surely Apple has enough “evangelists” on staff to send a few.

Apple wasn’t the only big company missing from the floor… There was no Mozilla or Microsoft or Avid. Yahoo, Google, Mapquest and others were represented, as were a slew of smaller companies offering services, products or software.

Should Apple have had a presence at the conference? Have they ever before? To be honest, this was my first time at SXSW and I was more surprised than anything at Apple’s absence, especially considering the SDK announcement the day before SXSW started.

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