IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior • Hacker News Board

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#201

Post by dlss » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 9:54 PM UTC

sthulbourn wrote: post #199

dlss wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care whether something is defective by design, or defective by lack of design: I care that it's defective, period. Interesting. As an engineer, I very much care about causes. Especially systematic ones. They allow me to better reason about the kinds of problems my system is likely to have, and to proactively mitigate them. I believe that sudoman's tl;dr is something like "If Domino's executives ate at Domin…

> Apple's own software almost certainly uses different APIs than what they force developer apps to use. I think it's foolish to think that Apple uses private frameworks for their apps exclusively, when they could be using the public frameworks that other 3rd party apps use. It's more likely to be: Apple uses the public frameworks for the majority of their apps but use the private frameworks for controlling the underl…

I don't understand why you didn't google before your comment. For the search "iPhone private api" we get:

http://fajkowski.com/blog/2009/05/21/clicker-app-rejected-fo...

https://github.com/kennytm/iphone-private-frameworks

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/12/private-iphone-api...

http://www.tipb.com/2010/04/06/ibooks-private-apis/

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/15/apple-relents-and-is-now-allo...

http://gigaom.com/apple/cut-the-drama-people-private-apis-th...

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#202

Post by sjwright » Sun, Oct 16, 2011, 11:14 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #110

mw1234 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing "No backup, never cleared" which is what the old "2. Cache" scenario used to be.

I disagree. If it's not worth backing up (locally), it doesn't deserve protected status on the phone. Or to put it another way, if it's important enough to retain when storage space is low, it's important enough to retain for when you have to recover from a backup.

Interesting, I appear to have been voted down for a calm and considered opinion.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#203

Post by rabenfrass » Sun, Oct 16, 2011, 11:34 AM UTC

dlss wrote: post #201

sthulbourn wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's own software almost certainly uses different APIs than what they force developer apps to use. I think it's foolish to think that Apple uses private frameworks for their apps exclusively, when they could be using the public frameworks that other 3rd party apps use. It's more likely to be: Apple uses the public frameworks for the majority of their apps but use the private frameworks for controlling the underl…

I don't understand why you didn't google before your comment. For the search "iPhone private api" we get: http://fajkowski.com/blog/2009/05/21/clicker-app-rejected-fo... https://github.com/kennytm/iphone-private-frameworks http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/12/private-iphone-api... http://www.tipb.com/2010/04/06/ibooks-private-apis/ http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/15/apple-relents-and-is-now-allo... http://gigaom.com…

And I don't understand why you post random links about issues you are not familiar with, which is what you would need to digest them.

Some APIs are not ready for developer use, end of story. Apple does right to forbid their use to avoid crashes on the next iOS upgrade. It's not some plot to gain advantage. CoverFlow clones were always welcome, page curl is already published (clones were welcome before that, I coded one btw), JSON parser already published, some other APIs have no place on developer space.

Your complain should be: Apple doesn't open source their system.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#204

Post by dlss » Sun, Oct 16, 2011, 10:11 PM UTC

rabenfrass wrote: post #203

dlss wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you didn't google before your comment. For the search "iPhone private api" we get: http://fajkowski.com/blog/2009/05/21/clicker-app-rejected-fo... https://github.com/kennytm/iphone-private-frameworks http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/12/private-iphone-api... http://www.tipb.com/2010/04/06/ibooks-private-apis/ http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/15/apple-relents-and-is-now-allo... http://gigaom.com…

And I don't understand why you post random links about issues you are not familiar with, which is what you would need to digest them. Some APIs are not ready for developer use, end of story. Apple does right to forbid their use to avoid crashes on the next iOS upgrade. It's not some plot to gain advantage. CoverFlow clones were always welcome, page curl is already published (clones were welcome before that, I coded o…

> Some APIs are not ready for developer use

If they aren't ready, why does apple use them?

> Apple does right to forbid their use to avoid crashes on the next iOS upgrade

Why doesn't this argument apply to apple? Are there any other methods of preventing crashing?

> Your complain should be: Apple doesn't open source their system.

No. My complaint is that apple doesn't treat developers as fellow programmers, but more like "end developers" or something. Apple gets to do it differently. Case in point being OP's post.

> And I don't understand why you post random links about issues you are not familiar with

You're projecting :-/

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#205

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Mon, Oct 17, 2011, 10:14 AM UTC

mbr wrote: post #173

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With free software, you have the option to do whatever you like to it, but no-one has the obligation to work on it on your behalf. Absolutely and that's the problem. Say my wife (not a programmer) doesn't like it, she isn't going to learn to program, understand the code, make the changes she wants and implement them. While it's theoretically possible, it's so impractical as to effectively be impossible. The number…

Your wife and all non-programmers get a major benefit when they use free software. When your wife uses proprietary software, she can never have any level of confidence that the software does what it claims to do and nothing more. Microsoft or Apple can do anything they want behind her back, and the only chance she'll ever have of knowing about it is if some disgruntled employee decides to spill the beans and doesn't…

I don't dispute that that's a benefit, I do dispute that it's a big enough benefit to counter all the downsides from the perspective of a regular user.

Part of this is that I think the whole "programmers eyes" benefit is over stated.

"Can be examined" and "is examined by people who know enough to do a useful assessment" are different things. The number of programmers who really understand security isn't that high and the number of those who are committing time to review this sort of code is a fraction of this.

Most exploits aren't down to subterfuge, they're down to incompetence and the people coding (and reviewing) Linux are no less prone to that than those working on Windows or OSX. Those programmers are still human and still make mistakes. Oh, and not everyone reviewing the code has my best interests at heart. I'm not saying that security through obfuscation is good (it's not) but nor is openness without some drawbacks - on balance it's good but it's two steps forward, one step back.

And even if there are exploits in there for the NSA and the like, that's not actually that big a deal for most people. Don't get me wrong, I don't subscribe to the "privacy is only for those with something to hide" line, but security is about trade offs, and I can't see that the potentially greater security that comes from the code being open isn't worth the trade offs that come with it for non-technical users.

For me the positive thing about OSS is that to a large degree it keeps the competition honest. OSS keeps a focus on security and openness that I don't think existed in the same way before it was so prominent. I think this is a massive benefit, just one that I don't have to use OSS to take advantage of.

Because of this I love that OSS exists, and benefits from the fact it does, I just don't want to use it.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#206

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Mon, Oct 17, 2011, 12:49 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #187

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for free as in beer, not free as in speech. But I'd say that's a pretty niche scenario. In over 20 years of PC use I can't say that I've ever come across it, either personally or seeing a friend or colleague go through it.

I think it's less niche than you say. Instead, there's been an entire culture built up around avoiding windows licensing. Non-technical users have frequently asked me for 'free' windows, and many folks know they have pirated stuff but avoid the security upates because they know it'll break their licensing. Others have Windows installer discs that are pirated but valid - 'free, working Windows'. For the most part, it…

That's different though. The first example was someone who thought they'd bought a valid license but had been duped. This one seems to be about people who want Windows but don't want to pay for it.

Those people need to do a total cost of ownership assessment and work out whether they go with something FOSS or something closed. While FOSS is great in cash out the door terms if you value your time it may not be as good a choice.

But again both are scenarios around free as in beer, not free as in speech.

* Incidentally, I should note I'm not against FOSS. I'm typing this into Chrome and I work for a company who build their products using Java and JBoss and who run an extensive Linux infrastructure. For us those have been great decisions but for my family who are not IT literate, I think the FOSS assessment looks very different.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#207

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Oct 17, 2011, 8:00 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #194

qjz wrote: post #145

Apple - iCloud - Your content. On all your devices. That is the title of Apple's main iCloud page at http://www.apple.com/icloud/ . iCloud is seamlessly integrated into your apps, so you can access your content on all your devices. This is Apple's definition for the iCloud service. It doesn't matter what the data is, it's your data and Apple is promising to sync it between your devices, to preserve your experience. I…

But it's not clear that Instapaper is allowed to put the files in Documents. According to the Data Storage Guidelines cited in the article: 1. Only documents and other data that is user-generated, or that cannot otherwise be recreated by your application, should be stored in the /Documents directory and will be automatically backed up by iCloud. 2. Data that can be downloaded again or regenerated should be stored in…

Still, when user saves a webpage to Instapaper he/she probably wants to see it as it was when it was saved, and not magically updating itself afterwards. So I think that 'exactly this article at exactly this point in time' should qualify as 'content that cannot be recreated'.