I’ve been getting a few visitors through hiderefer.com lately. As a software developer I know what that means. Peel has most likely been cracked and is distributed through a website that routes every link through hiderefer.com or a similar site.

It’s no big news, Peel has been cracked before and I usually don’t waste my time looking into that. This time however I decided to disassemble the cracked version and see what had been changed. After collecting the data from otool I ran diff on both versions.

diff cracked original 
1c1
< /Users/hjaltij/Misc/Cracked/Peel.app/Contents/MacOS/Peel (architecture ppc):
---
> /Users/hjaltij/Misc/Original/Peel.app/Contents/MacOS/Peel (architecture ppc):
27066c27066
< 0001c754    bne    0x1c850
---
> 0001c754    beq    0x1c850
37227c37227
< /Users/hjaltij/Misc/Cracked/Peel.app/Contents/MacOS/Peel (architecture i386):
---
> /Users/hjaltij/Misc/Original/Peel.app/Contents/MacOS/Peel (architecture i386):
64993c64993
< 0001c2ec    jnel    0x0001c3e7
---
> 0001c2ec    jel    0x0001c3e7

That’s not much, only two changes and since Peel is a universal binary it’s just one line for each architecture. I’m no assembly expert but it doesn’t take much to see that a condition has been changed so it evaluates to the opposite of the original. I took a look at the method in Xcode and saw that it wasn’t actually doing anything critical. Instead the method checks if there is any license information in the user’s preferences file and reads it if so. So by inverting these conditions the cracker did not bypass the copy protection but instead made it so that if the user decides to buy a license he will have to enter it every time the application starts.

I’ve always thought that you shouldn’t spend too much time on copy protection because it will eventually be broken but it might be worth the while to see what the cracker did even if it’s only for a good laugh.

I frequently get asked what mp3-blogs I follow so I thought I should make a list of some of my favorite blogs.

These are the blogs I have in my Peel at the moment and recommend:

• B-Town Hit Parade (Icelandic)
• Einar Birgir (Icelandic)
• Fluxblog
• Gorilla vs Bear
• I Guess I’m Floating
• The Yellow Stereo
• Zýrður Rjómi (Icelandic)
• Big Stereo
• Headphone Sex
• Kickin’ the Peanutes
• Music for Robots
• Said the Gramophone
• Unipiano

I’m in the middle of changing the blog’s layout right now so don’t be surprised if you see broken images or other elements in awkward places. It should be finished in the next days.

I recently spotted Peel on the front page of Maclife. It’s featured in an article about 50 killer applications for under $50. It’s always pleasant to see your work featured and it really inspires me to work harder on version 2.0.

Speaking of version 2.0, I’m getting Beta 2 ready and I’ll soon send out an email to those who applied for beta testing.

I’ve been quite busy working on our latest game. It’s called Soft Freak Fiesta and is a multiplayer game for the iPhone/iPod Touch. It’s out now and you can get it for free if you act quick.

Soft Freak Fiesta on the App Store

I’m back from San Francisco after getting my brain stuffed with so much material that it almost hurts. The conference was great and the people I met aswell but the food sucked (as expected). What I learned is that don’t hesitate to skip sessions for labs. The problem with the sessions was that they were often either too basic or too advanced.

Some sessions marked as ‘intermediate’ should have been filed under ‘beginner’ but I tried to leave those as soon as I got the idea of the material covered. On the other hand, the expert sessions were sometimes so hardcore that the engineers had to rush through the material to get everything done in time. I wouldn’t mind having some of those sessions a bit longer and at a decent pace.

However the labs rocked! Apple engineers are very, very nice people, both patient and willing to help. Talking to the person who made the stuff you are dealing with is invaluable.

Overall, I would highly recommend going to WWDC for any serious developer. Also, you are guaranteed to meet other like minded people, which is both useful and fun.

I’ll be attending WWDC for the first time this year, sucking in as much as I can in five days. It’s going to be a blast for sure. I haven’t decided what to see yet but at a quick glance it seems to be packed with both sessions and labs. If you are going aswell please leave me a comment, I’d love to meet up.

Sources tell me it sold out faster than ever and I’m guessing that the iPhone is playing a big role this year.

Peel 2.0 has been in development for a while and I’m now ready to seed out a beta version.

If you would like to be involved in the beta testing process please send me a short email with the following info:

• Your name, email and your twitter name (if you are following peelapp)
• If you’ve used Peel before
• How comfortable you are with geeky stuff
• If you are a musician, mp3 blogger, journalist, developer etc
• Anything else you think is relevant

If you are not comfortable answering some of these questions don’t panic, just ignore them. It will however help me a lot when going through the bug reports and suggestions.

Still interested? Email me at hjalti@hjaltijakobsson.com

Thank you.

I just created a Twitter account for Peel so if you want to get all the details on how Peel 2.0 is coming along, start following here:

http://twitter.com/peelapp

Please don’t hesitate to reply with your suggestions.

- H

Ps. You can also follow my personal account here:

http://twitter.com/hjaltij

I’ve been working very hard on the next version of Peel for the last few days. It’s been more than a year since I started a new fresh project for Peel 2.0 and unfortunately I haven’t focused enough on getting it done. I’m really feeling good about this now and I think it’s coming along strong this time. Here is a sneak peak of the current state of the app.

If you’ve used the current version of Peel, you should be able to see a lot of improvements.

Here is a list of few of my favorite new features:

• RSS Support
• The ‘web’ feature has now been replaced by a RSS-view displaying the post containing the song
• Folder structure
• Smart lists (two showed here, ‘Today’ and ‘Unplayed’)
• Clicking a song in the RSS-view plays the song
• Currently playing song is highlighted in the RSS-view
• Refreshing blogs has been sped up a lot
• Last.FM support

Hope you like it and don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you think something is missing.

Ps. It should be noted that this is not just a Photoshop mock-up and some of the interface elements will probably change.

Interesting post describing the process we go through when creating a new game.

This means that ideas are very important to us. Polished game mechanics, innovative features and games that fit the intended platforms perfectly are all things that we look to incorporate in an initial idea. A lot of our time is spent on ideas. Everyone can participate and pitch their ideas. At any given time.

Available in iTunes Store

• Review by AppVee
• Review by RazorianFly

It’s about time, but I’ll just shout HURRAY like a real fanboy.

Apple Developer Forums

Next week the Iceland Airwaves festival will kick off for the 10th time. The last four years me and my friend Addi have put together an event calendar since the festival homepage doesn’t have one. We’ve added a nice feature so you can generate your own calendar with only the bands you’d like to see.

Check it out here: Iceland Airwaves 2008

Ps. This might be the best time to visit Iceland and listen to great music since the Icelandic Krona has collapsed.

Nude remixed by James Houston