An unofficial Siri port called Spire is now available as a free download for jailbroken iOS device owners. Spire is compatible with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th gens, although the sensitivity of microphones on iPad and iPod touch models may impact performance. Weighing in at about 100MB, downloading Spire will also grab the necessary Siri files from Apple via extracting the iOS 5.0.1 IPSW.

If you’re interested in installing and running Spire, you’ll need to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 on your compatible device, and then setup a Siri proxy to gain access to Apple’s Siri servers. The reason is explained by Spire developer, chpwn:

Apple still requires authorization to use Siri, so information from an iPhone 4S is still required. To insert this information, Spire allows you to enter your own proxy server address. By using this (ancient) SiriProxy fork, you can setup a proxy using your own iPhone 4S to insert the needed information reasonably easily.

Obviously this isn’t the best solution since it continues to require an accessible iPhone 4S, but for those who meet all the requirements it should be a fun mod to their iOS hardware.

Spire can be found as a free download on the Cydia store.

If you want quickly expand (or minimize) all of the detail sections within a Get Info window, just Option-click a single arrow. Instead of only expanding (or shrinking) that subheader section, all detailed sections will expand or shrink concurrently.

This may be an addition to OS X Lion only, at the least I didn’t know about it before Lion existed.

Update: Apparently it works in Mac OS X 10.6 and earlier as well, thanks to those who pointed this out in the comments.

Update 2: For those unfamiliar with “Get Info” windows, select any item in the Finder and hit Command+i or choose “Get Info” from the file menu. The resulting menu gives you details on the file or application, the ability to change permissions, file type, and more.

Want to track Santa’s progress as he delivers presents around the world? You can follow Santa Claus on his Christmas eve deliveries around the globe right on an iPhone or iPad:

• Launch the “Maps” app and search for ‘Santa’

That’s it! Santa’s current location will be shown on the world map. He moves around quick though so refresh or search again to see where he has gone to deliver gifts to next.

There’s also an official NORAD tracking app with a goofy game, but the actual tracking is still done within the Maps application.

As you might have guessed, you can also use the standard browser-based Google Maps to search for and track Santa’s location on your Mac or PC.

Merry Christmas!

This Mac setup scene depicts what many of us will be doing this weekend; lounging around the Christmas tree with a warm drink and some Apple gear. On the left looks like a MacBook Pro 13″ and the right appears to be a white MacBook, both in the holiday spirit.

I came across this great picture on Flickr while searching Google Images for a Christmas themed desktop picture and had to post it.

Merry Christmas!

Shorelines is a beautiful free app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch that generates winter scenes complete with falling snow, trees, and rolling fog. The trees are randomly generated, the snow gradually accumulates on the branches, and you can tilt the iPad or iPhone to affect the gravity and direction of the snow fall. Shaking the iOS device will even shake the snow off the trees branches.

• Download Shorelines free from the iOS App Store

Just don’t let the name fool you, there aren’t any sea shores or ocean scenes, Shorelines is all winter and snow. The eye-candy centric app is basically an interactive screensaver and doesn’t have many features, nor should it. Tap the circular arrow in the lower right corner to regenerate a scene, or the camera in the bottom left corner to save the image to your iOS Photo Album where it can be used as wallpaper or sent around.

A perfect addition to any idle iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch this holiday season.

If you have a spare Mac or PC sitting around, don’t forget to grab the retro fireplace app too.

Using keyboard shortcuts are often the fastest way to navigate around the filesystem in Mac OS X, but OS X 10.7 Lion doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut to access the user library directory by default. Here is how to add your own keystroke combo to immediately open the ~/Library folder:

• Open System Preferences and click on ‘Keyboard’
• Click the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ tab and then click ‘Application Shortcuts’ from the left
• Click the [+] plus icon to add a new keyboard shortcut, select Finder.app as the Application, then type “Library” exactly in the ‘Menu Title’ box
• Select the box below to choose a keyboard combination, I chose Command+Option+Control+L but you can pick something else
• Click “Add” and then click back to the Mac OS X desktop and hit your keyboard shortcut to confirm that the user Library directory opens

Although there are a variety of ways to access the user library directory in OS X Lion, I find keyboard shortcuts to be the fastest. You can also show the library folder at all times in the user home folder with the help of a terminal command, which would mimic the default setting in Mac OS X 10.6.

A new rumor claims that iPad 3 will be released on February 24th 2012, Steve Jobs Birthday. The rumor appeared on FocusTaiwan, but the heart of the story appears to have been relayed from a different Taiwanese paper, the Economic Daily News:

A local Chinese-language newspaper reported Friday that iPad3 might be launched on Feb. 24 to mark the anniversary of the birth of Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs.

Citing sources close to Taiwanese makers in the iPad3 supply chain, the Economic Daily News said the gadget could be launched in mid-first quarter of next year or by the end of next March.

It’d be wise to be skeptical about the exact release date given the sourcing, although the iPad 3 is widely expected to debut sometime in the earlier half of 2012.

The next iPad is expected to have a high resolution 2048×1536 retina display, and other reports have suggested it may include a quad core CPU, Siri integration, as well as a dual mode GSM/CDMA modem for the 3G models.

iChat Matte is a popular mod for iChat that removes the bubble aqua style text blocks and changes them to a flatter matte. The tweak works by replacing a few image files, but the official version hasn’t been updated for OS X Lion and an unofficial version floating around has the chat bubbles facing the wrong way. You can download that version yourself and switch them manually with Preview, or follow along the instructions below and download the attached images:

Replace the iChat Aqua Text Bubbles with a Matte Appearance in OS X Lion

This has been tested to work with iChat in Mac OS X 10.7.2:

• Open a Finder window and hit Command+Shift+G, entering the following path:

/Applications/iChat.app/Contents/PlugIns/Balloons.transcriptstyle/Contents/Resources/

• Locate the files “BigBubbleMask.png” and “BigBubbleGloss.png” and make a copy of them for backups, you can make a copy within the folder or copy them elsewhere
• Replace those two files with the versions below:




• Now launch the Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/ and enter the following command two strings:

sudo chown root:wheel BigBubbleGloss.png;sudo chown root:wheel BigBubbleMask.png
sudo chmod 644 BigBubbleGloss.png;sudo chmod 644 BigBubbleMask.png

• Now relaunch iChat and send a message to see the flat matte text boxes

If you need a test AIM account to send a message to, the SmarterChild bot is defunct but will at least respond with some spamy nonsense that works for testing purposes.

Enjoy your new, cleaner customized iChat appearance.

From time to time, the iPhone Home button can become less responsive to clicks, and pressing the button will either result in a delay, lag, or sometimes complete unresponsiveness requiring multiple clicks. While this could be symptomatic of a hardware issue caused by moisture damage or dropping the phone, sometimes you can fix the response problem with the following sequence:

• Open a default iOS application, such as Stocks, Calculator, or Weather
• Press and hold down the Power button until the “Slide to Power Off” dialog appears, then release
• Now press and hold the Home button until the “Slide to Power Off” screen disappears, force quitting the application

Why this works to fix the buttons responsiveness isn’t entirely clear, because the procedure actually just force quits the application you launched in the first step. The tip comes to us from iDownloadBlog, who reports that the procedure recalibrates the Home button. Whatever is going on behind the scenes, it does seem to work and definitely has made mine seem to respond quicker.

This should also help the iPad and iPod touch home buttons as well. If you try this and still have problems with the home button being unresponsive, you may just need to get it repaired.

Just in time for the holidays, Fireplace is a totally awesome interactive 8-bit fireplace app that fills your Macs screen with a pixelated fireplace. But don’t stop there, you can add logs, roast hotdogs and marshmallows, and even burn papers and photos. Each log ‘burns’ for about 30 minutes of pixel torching glory, and although it won’t heat up the room, it’s another great retro addition to your Mac app list.

• Download Fireplace for free here (Mac OS X & Windows)

The basic commands are: log, match, paper, marshmallow, smore, hotdog, eat, blow, water. You can lower and raise the hotdogs and smores to roast them using the arrow keys, and they actually char and turn black if you keep them too close to the fire. Typing ‘water’ or hitting the Escape key will quit the app.
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