At the time we wrote Longitude, there was no API for Latitude, and so we had to reverse engineer some stuff and figure out how to update Latitude as if we were using the mobile web site. Since then, Google has released an official API making updates much much simpler to perform. However, this change also involved changing the login mechanism. Before, you would enter your credentials into Longitude, and we would send those to Google’s login page just as if you had done so manually using Safari. Now, we send you to a Google page where you login and they return a token to Longitude.

This brings us to Longitude 2… the big purpose of version 2 is so that not only is the app an update client, but you can also see where your friends are. The difficulty in implementing that feature is that Google doesn’t provide an API for that, so once again, it requires some reverse engineering and pretending to be a browser. Using the old login method, that would be fine, because once we’ve logged you in, we can request the necessary information and Google would happily return it to us. This isn’t possible using the new login method, since we no longer have your credentials. There are some third party Latitude apps in the App Store that work around this, but using the method they use, the login session is short-lived and requires re-logging in on a regular basis.

That being said, we’re researching some methods of retrieving your friends’ locations without requiring you to sign in all the time.  Hopefully we’ll have some promising results soon!

Is there anything else you’d like to see in a future release on Longitude? Let us know in the comments!

We’ve had a busy year.  Lots of projects for lots of different people, but little progress on our own mobile apps.  Until now…

We’ve got several new products in development, and while we can’t share any details right now, we promise they’re very exciting and we can’t wait to share them with you!

One exception…

Longitude. No one was happy that we discontinued Longitude. Frankly, neither were we… but time was not on our side. Almost a year later, after much demand – and a need for – an update to Longitude, we’re back on it and almost ready for a beta release. Google’s Latitude app works, sure… but sometimes it doesn’t update for days, sometimes it’s updates are within thousands of feet, and it doesn’t utilize the beautiful iPad display! We’re fixing those issues.

There will be two releases: one on the App Store and one in Cydia.  The apps will be virtually identical, except the jailbroken app will provide the option to update on an interval in the background rather than waiting for location updates, and it will provide an SBSettings toggle.

The App Store release will come as soon as possible, but the jailbroken release won’t be available until the iOS 5 untethered jailbreak is released (though we’re hoping that will be sometime in the next week).

To be more specific, we wanted Longitude 2.0 to be perfect. Since the release of iOS 4.0, there have been several Latitude apps released to the App Store – but none that offered quite the customizability we wanted to offer. We built many prototypes and spent countless hours testing different combinations of possibilities (mainly related to update frequency and precision in the background), but as other business priorities surfaced, Longitude kept being pushed to the backburner. In October, we finally got the time to finish the app, and submitted it to the App Store. Two weeks later, the app was rejected and we were informed that the app was crashing on older devices (iPhone 3GS). Since we’ve all upgraded to iPhone 4, we didn’t have any 3GS accessible to test the issue, and so once again, Longitude 2 was placed on the backburner. Since then, we’ve been extremely busy preparing to launch a new product (which you’ll hear about soon) and simply haven’t had the time to dedicate to diagnosing and repairing Longitude’s crash issue.

Monday, Google finally released their own Google Latitude for iPhone. Once we heard this news, we quickly installed it and began testing it. After a couple days of use, we’ve determined that it’s constantly running in the background and updating our locations as we move around. It’s not always as precise as we’d like it, nor can it update at a specified interval (due to limitations of iOS’ backgrounding APIs), but it does work.

Since it’s an official release from Google and it’s free, a large percentage of users who would have otherwise purchase Longitude will now simply download Latitude. Given that our potential customer base has decreased significantly, that we would now be competing with a free official app, and that we have many other far more exciting (you’ll know soon enough) priorities right now, we have decided to discontinue Longitude at this time. The existing version shall remain in Cydia for use on devices that don’t support multitasking, but for devices that do, we recommend using Google’s Latitude.

We apologize to all of those who have been waiting patiently for Longitude 2. It just doesn’t make sense for us to spend additional development time on nor release a product that we would then have to support when there’s a free official alternative. For those of you who have purchased Longitude, we thank you.

It turns out the Spirit and JailbreakMe jailbreaks disable the iPhone’s code signing check, whereas older jailbreaks such as redsn0w (even the newest releases of it) and blackra1n do not disable this check.

Combine that with the fact that the latest version of Longitude is a “fat binary” – meaning that the app itself contains two versions: one for older processors, and one optimized for the processors in the iPhone 4 and iPad.  What we didn’t know when we released 1.6 is that fat binaries can’t be signed the same way as non-fat binaries.  We’ve since learned and corrected the issue, hence the release of 1.6.1.

For those of you who don’t know, code signing is something the iPhone does as part of its security architecture.  After a binary (the app) is compiled, what’s known as a checksum is generated using some crazy math operations, and then that checksum is signed and stored as part of the binary.  You might be asking yourself, “what’s the point?”.  There are two reasons to sign applications:  First, to make sure they’re from a legitimate source.  In the iPhone’s case, it’s to ensure only apps that are approved by Apple can run on the phone.  Of course, we see how well that worked..  Secondly, though, it’s to ensure that the application remains unmodified.  If even a single byte is changed, the app’s signature is no longer valid.  This is good to ensure that applications aren’t tampered with, so you can’t, for example, install an app that’s intent is to log into some third party service but instead sends your login information to a malicious hacker.  In other words: code signing is good.

Longitude 2.0 will be a free upgrade for users who purchased Longitude since the release of iOS 4 (June 21, 2010), and a $0.99 upgrade for all other existing users.

Version 1.6 fixes iOS4 compatibility, plus fixes an old bug where the iPhone would power on to perform an update even if completely powered off.

• offline reading
• bookmarking
• search
• remember last position

Until then, thanks for your patience and your feedback!

First, support for the iPad.  FindMePhone extracts the necessary data from MobileMe to display it in a friendly, familiar interface on the iPhone, and the data MobileMe provides for the iPad was a bit different – something the app didn’t expect, so we had to adapt.

Secondly, and certainly more importantly, it solves the problem of being told that you’re not connected to the internet when trying to sign in, despite the fact that you very clearly are.  Apple changed something on their end that resulted in the iPhone not trusting one of their security certificates, so the app refused to sign in.  Though we’re not exactly sure what or why they changed it, we’ve managed to work around it.

Unfortunately, we jumped the gun on the release of 1.0.1 and since all worked well in the simulator, we used the same build commands we’ve always used in the past and pushed an update out, expecting everyone’s issues to be resolved.  As it turned out, it was quite the opposite: FindMePhone 1.0.1 crashes as soon as its launched!

After a day and a half of changing a thousand settings, trial and error, and tons of frustration, we eventually discovered that something had changed in the new iPhone OS 4.0 SDK that was preventing any app we compiled for the jailbroken platform from running on the actual device.  After removing the 4.0 SDK and re-installing the 3.2 SDK, all was well.  We psuedo-signed the app just as we did before, but this time, it worked exactly as expected.

As of the time of this writing, FindMePhone 1.0.2 has been submitted to ModMyi (thanks to them for hosting for us!) and Rock Your Phone, so it should be available in Cydia and Rock within the next 24 or so hours.

Thank you all for your patience through this rocky series of events!

FindMePhone is the only way to use MobileMe’s Find My iPhone feature directly from the iPhone. Keep track of your kids, keep tabs on your employees, or use a friend’s iPhone to find out where you lost yours!

Locating an iPhone using FindMePhone requires that the iPhone you wish to locate is linked to an active MobileMe subscription with Find My iPhone enabled.

FindMePhone communicates directly with MobileMe. Your credentials are transmitted securely, and never sent to our or any third party servers.

Unfortunately, Apple would not approve this for the App Store due to the fact that it accesses MobileMe in ways that they do not support. Thus, this app is only available on jailbroken phones at this time.

FindMePhone is currently available on Cydia and Rock Your Phone for $1.99.