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ExtraBITS for 23 August 2010

We were all over the Web this week, noticing iOS birthday bugs, free software for browsing your iPhone via your Mac, SmileOnMyMac’s name change, how the iPhone can help in online dating, and a wonderful collection of DIY iPad stands.

iOS Calendar Misses Grandparents’ Birthdays — “Sorry for forgetting your birthday, Grandma!” It turns out that the iOS calendar won’t display birthdays of people whose first birthday was more than 77 years ago. This is true only of birthdays in the special Birthdays calendar that’s generated automatically from birthday information in Address Book. The only workaround for the moment is to create birthday events in a different calendar, though it’s probably not worth much effort, since Apple will undoubtedly fix the bug in the next iOS revision by searching for “77” in the code and replacing it with a larger number. Thanks to reader Carl Pohle for alerting us to this
one!

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Phone Disk Browses iOS Devices for Free Through 1 December 2010 — For those who want direct access to their iOS device’s filesystem, Macroplant is making their Phone Disk utility available for free through 1 December 2010. Phone Disk lets you mount your device like any other disk and copy files to and from it, without any need for jailbreaking. You can even copy files into app directories by clicking the Phone Disk menu bar icon and choosing the desired app from the Change Connection Root submenu.

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SmileOnMyMac Renamed to Smile — It’s always a problem when a name ceases to describe a company or program properly (et tu, iTunes?), so the long-standing Mac software company SmileOnMyMac has now shortened its name to just Smile in recognition of the fact that they now develop software for iOS devices as well. We suspect it’s also an experiment in subliminal advertising – is it possible to read the word “Smile” without smiling?

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The iPhone’s Role in Online Dating — The dating site OkCupid does interesting research on their user base, with the latest finding being that better cameras take better photos that make their subjects look more attractive. Not surprising, but it is unexpected that the iPhone is the second-ranked camera phone, and isn’t much behind most point-and-shoot cameras (and well ahead of the low-ranked Kodak EasyShare, which will ensure you never get a date). Lastly, although this could be good or bad, depending on whether you’re a single 30-something or thinking about what phone to get your teenage daughter, it seems that iPhone users of the site sleep
with roughly twice as many people as Android users do. Hmm…

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Do-It-Yourself iPad Stands — Thanks to iPad stand manufacturer LapWorks for putting together this slideshow of clever homemade iPad stands made from things like the iPad’s own packaging, rubber-banded pencils, Legos, Tinkertoys, a bathroom plunger, a cereal box, and even an extremely relaxed cat.

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