Nostalgia Rocks, N Rolls N Hacks As Well
Thursday, 2. July 2009, 01:13:20
Back in the 80s, one of the most exciting parts of owning a computer was the ability to hack programs and enable new functionality in them. People would spend hours trying out different codes to unlock the back door into the program that developers had left in.When Palm released their first webOS phone, the Pre, last month much ado was made of the fact that the phone uses applications programmed using exactly the same languages that websites are programmed with. What no-one expected was for some designer to leave a back door code in the final firmware, giving a load of early adopters a rush of nostalgia.
Remember that code people, and take note that the the capitals in it do matter. Typing that code while in the e-mail application will allow mail to be read in landscape mode. Presumably this was disabled as a feature because the keyboard becomes useless in that mode, but for just reading your mail it's great to have a wider screen.
I wonder what other secrets they've left hidden in the phone?
(30%)
WIDGETIZE
SqueakeyCat # 2. July 2009, 01:45
qlue # 3. July 2009, 17:35
It's an old trick really, leave a 'secret' on the product, if initial sales aren't quite phenomenal enough, then let the 'secret' be known but with a hint that there's more to be discovered.
How many vinyls did the record companies sell to the christian anti rock 'n roll groups just by hinting that a particular album contained some 'backward masking'?
After all, the only record players that I've ever seen that were specially designed to play records backwards were the ones that the traveling anti-music evangelists had.
Cois # 6. July 2009, 10:21