Everything Apple touted at WWDC – step inside our no-hype-zone™ Apple kicked off the 2015 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco on Monday by revealing three new OS releases due out by the end of 2015. Here are some of the key points from the introductions of OS X El Capitan, iOS 9 and WatchOS 2 – without all the usual dreadful hype that surrounds these sorts of PR events …
From the developer release notes:
"App Transport Security
App Transport Security (ATS) lets an app add a declaration to its Info.plist file that specifies the domains with which it needs secure communication. ATS prevents accidental disclosure, provides secure default behavior, and is easy to adopt. You should adopt ATS as soon as possible, regardless of whether you’re creating a new app or updating an existing one.
If you’re developing a new app, you should use HTTPS exclusively. If you have an existing app, you should use HTTPS as much as you can right now, and create a plan for migrating the rest of your app as soon as possible."
Though not related, there's some more VPN / Proxy functions you might be interested in too... https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS9.html
I'm sure what they meant is that apps using HTTP to communicate rather than HTTPS has been deprecated, not that you must use HTTPS protocol for everything even when your app requires a different protocol. If they required that not only SSH apps, but all mail apps would go away, being unable send an email when speaking HTTPS over port 25 :)
being unable send an email when speaking HTTPS over port 25
There are people who keep trying (according to my mail server logs).
In any case - it is all moves in the right direction. Quite like to annoy non-USA governments which do not have the power to subpoena Apple account data quite a bit. It will be interesting to see on how this will work in countries with "Great Firewalls".
They're probably tackling the most pressing problem first by stating it that way, but I suspect the idea is to require all comms to take place of encrypted channels.
The problem with email is that the RFC does not mandate encryption, nor does a secure connection with your own provider guarantee encryption all the way as inter-MTA traffic (for instance, between your provider and the recipient's) is also not mandated to be encrypted.
I'm pretty sure I read an article a while back about search companies' frustration at not being able to get at the content within apps to index and learn more about people.
This search API seems to be a game changer in that regard. Apple will have a level of access to data that Google can only dream of.
In the news:"We do it in a way that does not compromise your privacy - we don't mine your email, your photos or your contacts in the cloud to learn things about you," said Mr Federighi, contrasting Apple's approach with Google's Android.
"We honestly just don't want to know."
in other news: "The OS can also identify unknown phone numbers by looking into your Mail messages and looking up contact details."
So is there anything that can't be described as "like Windows/Android already does"?
Maybe the ability to enable/disable permissions to individual resources before and after app installation? But iOS had that for ages.
For the rest I'd agree, although I'm interested to see if iOS 9 and OSX are indeed going to be smaller and faster. Especially the "faster" promise is one that Microsoft has been using for, errr, yes, almost 3 decades, but Apple seems to mean "with the same hardware" as opposed to Microsoft's "if you much a much, MUCH, MUCH faster machine to go with it...
OK, assuming it means what you say it means I'll give you the permissions thing - if I wanted to install lots of apps on my phone then this would bug me on Android (and when a built in app that I can't remove wants extra permissions it's really annoying - live with the outdated app that may not work or may have security holes or install a new app that can do more with the phone!)
But the Windows thing was pure FUD. Vista was a dog on slow hardware, and only went very well when it was very good hardware running it. But from there things have got much, much better.
My 10" Eee PC was poor on XP, unusable on Vista but worked very well (except for the screen size) on 7 - far better than it did on XP.
My current laptop (admittedly a very expensive one) works so much better on Windows 8.1 than on 7 (With the exception of BlueTooth as the manufacturer did not release drivers for it).
And I am testing Windows 10 on 8 year old hardware (including a spinny disk) and it flies! Without any special drivers at all.
Vista sucked, but the releases since have all been huge improvements over the previous version in terms of performance.
This post has been deleted by its author
Well I chuckled at:
"iPad users will also be able to watch videos while using another app by pulling the video into a corner, resizing it down to a picture-in-picture box"
Which I had on my Galaxy S3 around 3 years ago, and while a lovely tech demo, was completely pointless, so I assume iPad owners will become equally as bored with the novelty.
How could iOS 9 drop compatibility with 32 bit binaries when it runs on 32 bit hardware like iPad 2 and iPhone 4S? Until they drop compatibility with all pre-A7 CPUs, they can't even drop 32 bit code from the OS let alone 32 bit app compatibility.
But I agree, it refers to the amount of free space needed at install time, iOS 8 didn't take up all that much space (I think a little over one GB) The problem was that if you did the install over the air (rather than connected to iTunes) it was really inefficient in however it was doing it. Guess they heard the criticism and addressed the issue for iOS 9.
Well with Leopard/Snow Leopard and Lion/Mountain Lion the names are recognisable and it's easy to tell which is the original and which is the bugfix. But whoever decided to name them landmarks in Planet California and come up with Yosemite/El Capitán really hasn't stepped foot outside of the state.
"Please say Autumn."
We're a UK-owned company, but our writers and editors are Americans. Fall means autumn, and autumn means the Fall.
Let's all work to get along, huh?
(PS: US readers > UK readers in the latest monthly stats. Sorry, Brits. We're trying out best with bonkers boffins headlines.)
C.
Grammarist.com says
«Fall and autumn are both accepted and widely used terms for the season that comes between summer and winter. Some who consider British English the only true English regard fall as an American barbarism, but this attitude is not well founded. Fall is in fact an old term for the season, originating in English in the 16th century or earlier. It was originally short for fall of the year or fall of the leaf, but it commonly took the one-word form by the 17th century, long before the development of American English. So while the term is now widely used in the U.S., it is not exclusively American, nor is it American in origin.
Autumn came to English from the French automne in the 15th or 16th century, but it didn’t gain prominence until the 18th century. After that, while fall became the preferred term in the U.S., autumn became so prevalent in British English that fall as a term for the season was eventually considered archaic. This has changed, however, as fall has been gaining ground in British publications for some time.»
Over in the US, 'El Capitan' is a rock formation in the Yosemite National Park.
Back here in Europe, 'El Capitan' is Francesco Schettino, captain of the ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia.
It will be hard to patiently wait for next years' 'Il Duce' release, and the Russian-only releases, 'Man of Steel', and 'Man of Fire'.
I'll get my coat.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
