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WWDC 2013 Expectations

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Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a security issue, but I don't think it is what is causing the Android malware issue. The Intents system on Android is a security issue because most developers don't use it smartly and end up exposing their apps to SQL injection on the internal SQLite database they use. Actually, the fact that Android uses a virtual machine for it's code has pretty good security benefits over running native code as on iOS.

Actually, the fact that Android uses a virtual machine for it's code has pretty good security benefits over running native code as on iOS. Howso? I'm trying to think of what a VM could guard against aside from illegal memory accesses, which of course iOS hardware (like any other modern hardware) guards against for native code.

As everything must eventually exit the VM to use hardware or certain features, you have more control over the boundary. On iOS, as you run native code, you could theoretically do direct device access in assembly and the OS has far less control over that. It is also possible to inspect the bytecode for a Java program and know with much more certainty what it's going to try and do, which instructions it will try and run, etc.

Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#84
post #75

"... and did so by introducing something new. The touchscreen." That's something that still annoys the crap out of me. Long before the iPhone, plenty of people were happily using PalmOS and Windows Mobile touchscreen devices and downloading apps for them. If he doesn't think the Palm Treos mattered, he wasn't paying attention.

Right. Speaking as an ex-happy-palmos and ex-angry-winmo user, what the iPhone introduced was the finger-usable (i.e. capacitive) touch screen, rather than the stylus-based (resistive) one - which genuinely was a paradigm shift.

Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#85
post #74
post #43

Here are my predictions based on what I've read and some guesswork, and being very bored. iOS. The visual refresh for iOS will make it feel modern and present a new design language for developers, ribbon, leather and wood textures are eradicated, however no fundamental changes such as widgets. There will be some relenting in the iron-fisted control of default apps, but only a couple of apps will be allowed (Browser a…

I want many of those changes to happen, but I think you're being optimistic. I think Apple will keep support for Conroe (Core 2 and its contemporary Xeon counterparts) for another OS release. Conroe was one of the biggest performance jumps between Intel processor generations in some time, and Apple used the NVIDIA 9400M IGP to give their Core 2 computers passable graphics performance.

I probably am being optimistic you're right. I also hope you're right and they do keep support for Conroe, I currently have an iMac and Macbook Air both running Core 2 Duo. Not sure I will buy Apple hardware again anyway as currently I just want an i7 in a desktop chasis. More and more of what I do is virtualised (be it Vagrant, remote servers etc) so I just need power at a reasonable price.

Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the fact that Android uses a virtual machine for it's code has pretty good security benefits over running native code as on iOS. Howso? I'm trying to think of what a VM could guard against aside from illegal memory accesses, which of course iOS hardware (like any other modern hardware) guards against for native code.

As everything must eventually exit the VM to use hardware or certain features, you have more control over the boundary. On iOS, as you run native code, you could theoretically do direct device access in assembly and the OS has far less control over that. It is also possible to inspect the bytecode for a Java program and know with much more certainty what it's going to try and do, which instructions it will try and ru…

On iOS, as you run native code, you could theoretically do direct device access in assembly and the OS has far less control over that.

But the hardware access protection ensures user code doesn't access anything it's not supposed to. And its up to device drivers to manage devices and ensure that access to them by user code is done properly.

Static inspection of Java bytecode can allow you to verify the safety of some things and so do fewer checks at runtime; but to my understanding, native code has all the same protections in the end as code running in a VM.

Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#87
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File systems are an anachronism from when stored everything in filing cabinets (the original meaning of "file system"). Search and tagging have shown us a better way forward, we should just relegate file systems to behind the scenes work as they are on phones.

While the naming is vestigial, the concept is not. Hierarchies are still the best way to navigate and organize data and objects, and search is only one component of that. It works on phones because phones have limited use cases. A computer needs to be general purpose.

I don't think so, we just still stuck in the past. It is definitely quite reasonable to get rid of the file system as a user concern, how many people bother organizing their files into folders anyways? They would be better served by tagging and other enhanced meta-data to make search more effective.

Re: WWDC 2013 Expectations

#88
post #75

"... and did so by introducing something new. The touchscreen." That's something that still annoys the crap out of me. Long before the iPhone, plenty of people were happily using PalmOS and Windows Mobile touchscreen devices and downloading apps for them. If he doesn't think the Palm Treos mattered, he wasn't paying attention.

Right. Speaking as an ex-happy-palmos and ex-angry-winmo user, what the iPhone introduced was the finger-usable (i.e. capacitive) touch screen, rather than the stylus-based (resistive) one - which genuinely was a paradigm shift.

I used my fingernail on my Treo all the time. I was happy to switch to capacitive touch but sometimes I miss the precision and ability to use any old stylus.
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