(Image credit Joy of Tech)

On the iPhone front the most obvious fix is the resolution of key code bypass vulnerability. This was easy enough to work around by changing the meaning of double-tapping the home button to anything other than “go to favourites”, but since most people wouldn’t be aware of that workaround it’s important that this was fixed. However, there are some less obvious but more scary vulnerabilities patched too, I want to mention two of them. The first is a flaw in WebKit that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code on an iPhone or iPod Touch simply by getting you to visit their web page, and the second is a flaw on the networking implementation that allows attackers to spoof network connections. This second one is the most interesting because the error here is so fundamental that it implies to me that the networking code for the iPhone did not come from OS X, or at the very least that some core parts of it were re-written from scratch for the iPhone. This is worrying. It’s very important to have a stable networking stack and it takes years to get one. OS X inherited it’s stack from FreeBSD, so it got a well tested stack from the off, the iPhone does not appear to have been so lucky. Granted, I’m extrapolating quite a bit here, but to see so fundamental an error in such a core system is very disconcerting. If this is a new stack expect many more security problems with it before it gets stable.

Bottom line, if you use your iPhone or iPod Touch on the network at all, particularly if you use Mobile Safari, you’d be wise to update ASAP.

Moving on to OS X we get a much bigger list of issues that have been patched. It’s mostly just the usual stuff, but a few do stand out. Firstly, the DNS flaw has finally been properly patched. This took Apple far too long, but at least it’s done now. They also patched the same problem in their custom DNS system which is technically referred to as mDNS, but which most users know as Bonjour. OS X has now been properly secured against the DNS flaw with updated BIND, LibResolver, and mDNS packages.

The second thing I noticed is a cluster of image library flaws, particularly in the code for processing and rendering TIFF images. These flaws include ones that allow arbitrary code execution. This is worrying for two reasons, firstly, attackers can place image files in web pages, and secondly, Safari considers image files “safe” so it will automatically open them after download unless you go into your settings and un-check the open "safe" files after downloading option in the General tab. When you combine this default behaviour with the so-called carpet bombing attack you end up with a really scary situation. Security experts have been urging Apple to remove that feature, or at the very least turn it off by default, for years now, but Apple are just not listening. There have been critical flaws in just about every file type Apple considers “safe” within the last few years. Just off the top of my head the list includes PNGs, JPEGs, TIFFs PIC files, DMGs, PDFs, and QuickTime Videos. So, while there are no known vulnerabilities in the safe file types if you apply this update the fact remains that there have been many in the past and that there is no reason for there to be any fewer in the future! Hence, if you haven’t disabled this option yet, I’d urge you to do so right now this minute, before you forget!

Just like with the iPhone update, I’d strongly recommend updating OS X as soon as possible. Now that the bugs are public it’s much easier for the bad guys to start using them to attack you!

Super Monkey Ball was actually the first iPhone app that I actually payed for, as well as the first app that I downloaded from the App Store on my iPod touch. I simply going to start off by saying that this game is well worth the 10 dollars.

When I first saw the demoes of this game, I have to admit that I was a little skeptical. This was mainly because I had played the jailbrake game Neverball just before this game was demoed. Neverball did not give me high hopes. The controls weren’t sensitive enough, and the physics were way off. But I digress. Super Monkey Ball happen to be the exact opposite of that. The game sported incredible graphics, superior control sensitivity, and an insanely great set of levels.

For those of you who haven’t played it , the basic premise of the game is guiding your sphere-encased monkey around a floating platform, collecting bananas a completing the stage by rolling through a glowing hoop.the game has give worlds for you to play through, each of which has ten levels. At the time of writing, I have indeed completed the game. I found the gameplay challenging, while incredibly enjoyable at the same time. The graphics are beautifully designed, and the levels are highly addictive.

The only downfall to the game is that it does not allow you to save your progress through the current level when you exit the game.

Overall, a great game, and a great first effort by SEGA and Other Ocean.

The Cupertino based electronics maker notes that downloading media
items through a computer to a media player is often a time consuming
process. Therefore users who are out and about sometimes find
themselves without access to some of their content, which sits
inaccessible at home on their computer.

New versions of the iTunes and iPhone software could theoretically
eliminate this problem by only syncing the meta data, from the person’s
itunes library to their portable device. Using this meta date, iPhones
and iPods would contain “Virtual Media Items” representing every
playlist, video, photo, or mobile game stored on the computer. Even if
the sum of those files would ordinalry be to large for the players hard
disk space or flash drive.This is possible because of meta data capable
of representing consumes on a fraction of the space required to store
the item itself.

Users would select virtual media items for display or playback on
their portable devices just has they would today under the assumption
that the entire contents of the files sit on the device for immediate
playback. But instead of accessing the files from the device’s built in
storage. The iPhone or iPod would use a wired, Wi-Fi, or cellular
connection to remotely access the media.

Through similar techniques the user could also manage their iTunes
libraries remotely, organizing, adding, or deleting files while on the
go.

From these pictures, you can see how much of a difference the the curvature of the back makes. The un-recessed headphone jack is also very obvious. An althought the black plastic does look an little cheap. It is still overall, IMHO, an equally attractive phone.

I think that Johnny Ive and his team that he whips into photoshop mode as he stands by Steve Jobs’ side riding swiftly through the design department of the Apple campus on a glorious Apple branded chariot driven by beautiful white stallions (ok so maybe a little bit of poetic license there) do a fantastic job of making products that, if legal, I know some people would marry for their beauty.

The latest installment to the Apple design family is the iPhone 3G. Much similar to the iPhone 1.0, the iPhone 3G has one distinct difference. The back. On the 1.0 model the iPhone had a mostly metal back with a small black plastic bit towards the bottom.

This will probably look familiar to you all but what about the latest 3G iPhone design. The latest iPhone design has 2 different backs. Although the front is almost indistinguishable from the old iPhone the back looks quite different.

The 8GB iPhone 3G comes in a lovely dark-night black, with a White Apple shaped moon rising to a focal position at the top in the center that makes the phone seem dark and mysterious. Admittedly very gorgeous. For some reason the following has riddled me flabbergasted since I discovered it, this is the only one that everyone I have spoken to has really thought they wish to purchase.

What is wrong with the gleaming Aqua-fresh white iPhone? To be honest I really like the design. I also like the black iPhone design but to me it seems too plain. It doesn’t make you want to look at it and noticed it just seems regular. This is most likely a good thing in my neighborhood as I won’t be raided for my phone by some chavs who want to sell it on to the local cost cutters for £100 so they can feed their microwave pot noodle habit but I digress.

To me the white iPhone signifies that you are someone who wants to be different: stand out from the crowd make an impact. The tube may be packed to the rim with business men yelling at Helen, the secretary, about how the Q1 profits of the last four decades are not matching with this years and they will all be on their black plain iPhones and then there will be the person, who is different, and will stand out who skillfully whips out his/her white iPhone from its holster and be the one who is noticed.

Let your voice ring true in the comments below and tell me, What is so wrong with the white iPhone? Is it once you go black you never go back? Or is it that someone recently flung a kebab needle into the eye of the designer at the company BBQ at Apple thus resulting in the white version? Are you one of the silent majority who actually like the white iPhone let me know.

Steve Jobs on stage at the WWDC 2008 stage and all ears were tuned to the iPhone frequency. People lay outside bearing arms if Steve let them down but fortunately he did not.

Mr Jobs first celebrated the iPhone EDGE’s birthday. As a loving parent does he boasted about what his baby had accomplished in his first year. 90% customer satisfaction with 98% of people satisfied with the iPhone web browsing.

So far 6 million iPhones have been sold. Apple say they know what it is that people want but do they…..

His holly appleness proceeded along to list some of the things that iPhone luva’s have wanted for a long time, including.

1. 3G!
2. Enterprise Features
3. Third Party Applications
4. More Countries
5. More Affordable

Mostly it is the same hardware. They have the same screen, camera and basic look to the front but the back is slightly different. It is just like the curved plastic backs we have seen previously. It also has, which makes me happier than Mr Brightside, a flushed headphone jack so that all standard headphones will work with it without any adaptors. It does seem like they have learnt from their mistakes.

3G will of course provide better download speeds. Comparing 2 sites the Jobsinator says that it takes 59 seconds on edge and 21 seconds on 3G. Approaching the “zippy” 17 seconds of WiFi. They have also done great things with the battery in this model. Having 300 hours of standby time and 10 hours of 2G talk time, suggesting that their will be an option to turn off the 3G data downloads. This was the main concern with the iPhone being 3G and if Apple are correct with their data then we should be ok.

Also a big feature that people have been crying out for is GPS and Apple have included this and they the iPhone is taking a big step towards being about location aware applications. There were demos of applications that depended on people being able to see where they are. Apple sell the phone in only 6 countries currently and they set themselves the target of 12 for the iPhone 3G and at a stretch 25.

They ended up at 70. It’s an iPhone world after all.

The next step they wanted to tackle was pricing. Now we are not going to go into the pricing too much here look for a post later when we have more details of the prices in different countries. The iPhone 8GB will be $199 and that will be the highest price the world over for that device and we mean with conversion rates as well. The 16GB will be $299 and that will have an optional white version. It will have, as far as we can tell, worldwide rollout on July 11th so add the date to your upcoming.org.

Today was a day of many tissues some of tears of joy, some of sorrow for the loss of a further $199 from peoples pockets and the other tissues were for the people who got really exited by the new device. Safe to say, the Jobtopian company has done it again.

His holly Steveness first said he would talk about the iPhone 2.0 Software. Now we had heard a lot about the SDK from previous events such as the iPhone software roadmap. We all know that Apple are trying to push enterprise on the iPhone and also trying to make it a better experience for developers by, well, letting them develop for the thing!

Steve started by trying to push the iPhone onto new users with its (wait for it) PUSH capabilities (so sue me) push email, calendars, contacts are all prominent in the iPhone 2.0 exchange support.

Steve then handed over to one of his minions, or iPhone man Scott Forstall, to talk more about the iPhone SDK. When I say more he basically recapped everything that was talked about at the iPhone Roadmap event.

Some of the games that were previously demoed were again such as Super Monkey Ball which now has 100 levels. All the apps looked amazing and their will be plenty to choose from at around $9.99 US price.

The next main thing that Scott went to talk about is IM. The reason why applications aren’t allowed to run in the background is mainly for battery life and cycle use. So the iPod and Mail apps of course don’t take up either of these?

Apple’s solution anyway, is to use a service similar to texting. Apple will use a persistent IP connection with the phone and it will then have the ability to ping the server and download any badges, text, sounds and all the other fun novelties that an instant messaging service provides. The best bit is that all developers have access to this feature so we might not just see it in IM clients.

Steve took over the reins again and discussed iWork and Office support integrated in a fuller environment on the iPhone. You can also bulk delete e-mail and save photos from e-mails to the phone. Moving to clean up about the iPhone 2.0 Software, Steve spoke about the AppStore. As this is an International Mac Blog then I feel I should point out that the AppStore will be available in 62 countries and you can download applications through iTunes and WiFi and if under 10 megabytes then you can download over the cell towers.

The final way people can get the iPhone apps is if an enterprise wants to create a new app just for that company they can use iTunes to distribute it over their intranet. iTunes for business. Who would have thought of it.

That finished up the iPhone software powwow due out early July.

Thousands of people were gathered to ogle at the leader of the fanboys Steve Jobs as every syllable that left his and his teams lips was noted down by around 5200 attendees.

Speculation almost left this conference dry with so many rumors flying out of control and the numerous spy photos but even if apple basically confirmed it themselves before hand then there would still be speculation.

There will be more detailed posts to follow but for now this is the quick rundown of what the head hancho and Apple Inc announced today.

1. iPhone 2.0 firmware
• Launching early July
• Download Applications over Wifi,iTunes or cell service depending on size of file.
• Games will be launched with the release with most titles at $9.99
• AppStore to be available in 62 countries.
• Full iWork and Office support, now able to open powerpoint and keynote.
• Contact Search, Scientific Calculator, Parent Controls and increased language support

2. MobileMe
• Replacing .Mac with me.com
• “Exchange for the rest of us”
• Push e-mail, contacts, calendar and the rest of that fun stuff.
• Web 2.0 application to use all of these features. Very good user interface.
• All current .Mac users will be upgraded early July.
• $99 US a year no other countries price point confirmed.
• 20GB of storage online

3. iPhone 3G!
• 3G Capable iPhone. 2.8 times faster than the current edge.
• GPS-Built into the device.
• 5 Hours 3G talktime. Competition is 3 hours.
• 6 Hours 3G Browsing
• No more recessed headphone jack!
• Comes with White or Black backs.
• $199 US for 8GB model and $299 US for 16GB model
• Available July 11th

4. OS 10.6 : Snow Leopard
• No new end-user features to speak of
• Enhancing Stability and laying groundwork for bigger things.
• Grand Central lets developers build for multi-core macs.
• Quicktime X adds support for more codecs
• Safari has its own Javascript Engine enhance efficiency by 53%
• Software to support 16TB of RAM. You have to be prepared for the future.
• Out of the box exchange support
• Aims to ship in about a year


In effect these are the major announcements and their will be more detailed posts to follow tomorrow as we discover more. Hopefully you found this useful sound off in the comments below and tell us what you think.

Be prepared to find individual posts covering thoughts on the WWDC announcements tomorow and be sure to join us at Talkshoe at 4:15 EST and discuss your thoughts live on air with us.

]]> http://impodcast.tv/2008/06/10/wwdc-2008-roundup/feed/ 0