Apple fixes iOS passcode-bypass hack with 6.1.3 update It has taken Apple a little over a month and two updates to do it, but the latest iOS 6.1.3 update means your beloved iDevice can now be safe again from nimble-fingered thieves. In February, an iPhone user discovered that a certain pattern of swipes and key presses would allow the password locking screen to be bypassed on …
I get it. The idea being that Apple wants to control how you use "your" device and "protect you" from yourself and so on and so forth. But the whole idea that people have to HACK their phones or iDevices just to be allowed to do with them what they want just really gets my goat. If Apple has left something in their software that allows a phone to get unlocked and allows me to install software that I want whether they like it or not and do with my device as I please, then for crying out loud Apple...LEAVE IT ALONE!!!! But to "plug up a hole" that allows a device to be jailbroken just stinks of total control. Same goes for Microsoft and their Windows 8 platform. If I want to install something that you haven't signed onto my system, then let me! It is MY device, let me do with it as I please! Especially if that thing I want to do with it is perfectly legal.
The whole thing about having to jailbreak a device just to be allowed to use it as you please really burns me up and just makes me wonder why in the world someone wants to shell out big bucks just to be told what they can and cannot do.
</rant>
An Apple logo on the back and dodgy software on the front don't go down well in Cupertino. If you're not happy with that, buy another product.
Jail break if you wish, but don't go crying when your phone stops working and you want tech support from Apple because your flimsy keyboard or home-made protocol stack has buggered things up. You can get up to those kind of tricks with certain phones, but can you walk into a stop and ask them to fix it?
I jailbreak, have done since buying the first gen. iPhone. Since then I've bought a 3GS and a 4S (my current phone). I've got a lot of software on my phone that's useful to me. If I wasn't already invested in the platform I might consider switching to Android, but the upheaval of finding replacement apps is just too time consuming and annoying.
No, I don't see jailbreaking as all that different to rooting and installing CyanogenMod. Both have me crossing my fingers and praying to the gods of no-bricking. (And yes, before anyone assumes otherwise, I do have an Android device).
Yay! Let's have a free-for-all with people loading apps from everywhere. That never caused problems with Windows did it?
Oh, what was that, there are things called rootkits, and botnets, and viruses, that people install by clicking on things that they shouldn't? That would never happen on a phone though would it?</sarcasm>
The vast majority of people are too dumb not to get their phones rooted, Apple's stance protects them from themselves.
Each 'jailbreak' is not just a convenient hook to unlock your phone, it is a security hole allowing unmanaged code to run.
Generally speaking, when software maintainers discover such holes, they tend to want to plug them.
You don't have to jailbreak your phone to use it - even how you want. If you want to install apps from outside of the app store, perhaps you don't want an iPhone.
I'd prefer that Apple brought out an Enterprise version with a Blackberry 10 style boot process (ROM starts signed bootloader etc.) While there is a sort of enforcement via Airwatch or other MDMs, I think *corporate* iPhone buyers should be able to have a higher level of assurance that the phones they bought and pay the bills on can't be rooted.
It's also hilarious to see that fandroids are unaware of how much Apple maps have improved in places other than japan.
Google maps still thinks my daughter's postcode is near Lambeth Palace - instead of Bermondsey where it should be.
Apple maps knows where it it.
Google maps also appears to be unable to differentiate between farm tracks and country roads in some parts of Hertfordshire too.
I know which one I'm trusting now.
Goggle Maps has a bad tendency to tell me to turn just AFTER intersections. It annoying that way, but I like how I can pause it and push the map ahead, unlike Apple maps. I tend to switch back and forth mostly based on which one I'm annoyed with less at any given time.
Goggle Maps has a bad tendency to tell me to turn just AFTER intersections
I think TomTom may claim prior art there :). I would love it to moderately sync up with roadsigns announcing an exit so you can match the sign with the specific exit section in places where it gets a bit too complex to read reallylongforeignplacenameswhichyoucannotreadatmotorwayspeeds.
But eventually you get used to it enough not to put too much wear on the flash memory that contains the "please turn around" sound segment :)
I've found TomTom (on the iPhone) to be rather good, driving around Western, Central and Eastern Europe and even for cycling (guided me down some nifty short cuts away from the main junctions), with plenty of advanced warning. Garmin on the other hand seemed to believe in telling me that I should have turned right at the junction visible in my rear view mirror. Google wanted to send me around the longest route, but full of interesting businesses. It persists in believing various addresses are in the next street or the next block of flats. IOS seemed to find the quickest and most accurate walking route!
I suspect some of the direction giving delays are dwon to the accuracy or quality of the GPS device in use.
Security nightmare? Security is so tight that jail breaking is getting to be just about impossible, and then when the jailbreakers Finally find something they tighten it up again. It will be a long wait for the next jailbreak, even longer than the last one.
Security is the one GOOD reason to own an iPhone.
Apple isn't terribly concerned about jailbreaks that require a bit of work on the part of the end user, because they can't be made accidentally. No one downloads jailbreak software and connects their phone then runs it. I suppose theoretically a PC virus could lie in wait until it sees an iPhone connected, but unless it could leverage that to then infect the iPhone there's probably not much point to a 'jailbreak virus'. Jailbreaks that can be done via visiting a website on the phone, which I believe is what an early one did, are obviously a REAL security issue that they'll want to plug up quickly as it could obviously affect people who have no intention/desire to modify their phone.
The "evasion" jailbreak no longer working as of 6.1.3 may have nothing to do with Apple wanting to stop jailbreaks (otherwise why not fix long ago when that jailbreak first came out?) but was probably as a result of unrelated changes that happened to break the jailbreak. After all, some people who own iPhones probably wouldn't if it couldn't be jailbroken, and the jailbreak authors are a good source of security holes for Apple to fix. Better they find something which is widely publicized due to being distributed as software (which Apple can simply look at to identify the security hole being used in under an hour) than having people who have evil intent finding it first.
"iOS is now a creaking at the seams security nightmare."
Making stuff up are we? I thought Steve Job's was required for the reality distortion field to strike.
Over 51% of Android devices need patching against exploits. Over 79% mobile malware targets Android. iOS less than 1%. No one is denying the latest and most patched version of Android will be reasonably secure and you will tend not to get malware if you only go to trusted sources. That was always the case for Windows too BTW. The problem is Android license policy is such that there are far too many insecure unpatched carrier devices out there :
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/03/08/13/android-rises-top-malware-threats-survey
http://www.dazeinfo.com/2012/09/17/malware-attack-on-android-platform/
"It's also hilarious to see that Apple are pretending maps have improved."
Hilariously, Apple maps have improved hugely. Much improved place-name aliasing for searches (actually the main problem previously). Better turn-by-turn performance than Google maps. My partner has to travel a lot and has tried both Google Maps and Apple Maps extensively for turn by turn. Almost case-by-case, Apple maps has performed better.
I still use Google maps for general map browsing though. The graphical representation and detail is simply better for UK users, with proper station and underground logos and small details helping use. Things like the actual plotting of the full extent of railway lines help the user see at a glance the relative size and significance of a railway stations.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
