the tablet war is heating up

[Banshee16]

Yeah, that was Gizmodo, who ever since they stole a prototype iPhone 4 and got into hot water over it -- and are no longer invited to Apple press events nor receive review copies of hardware or software from Apple -- have been on an anti-Apple tear.

Not saying Lion is or is not great, that would be outside of my NDA. I've certainly heard many people who love it, though.

To be clear.....I was just reading the article, and unaware of Gizmodo's history with Apple.

However, if you Google "iOS lion" you don't just come across the Gizmodo article. You find articles by Mac fans on Apple's own message boards, from half a year ago.....so it's apparent this isn't just Gizmodo trying to get a dig in.

Now, a lot can change in half a year.

I won't be using it, so it doesn't bother me.

I *am* a little concerned that both Apple and Microsoft (via Windows 8) seem intent on creating "one OS to rule them all" that would run across computers, phones, and tablets. Those different formats of device have different characteristics and needs. You need something simple and quick on battery sipping mobile devices. But on a desktop or notebook computer? Why go to that length of simplification? Simplification always has a cost (ie. power/flexibility). How far down that road do you want to go on someone's main computer?

That having been said, the one advantage a "one OS" approach has is that theoretically, you can buy programs on your desktop, and also have them run on your mobile device. But.......isn't that what programs like Splashtop are for? Use your desktop, which is connected directly to hydro, and has much more RAM and more powerful processors, handle all the heavy lifting, and you control it via screen sharing on your mobile device?

I'm not a believer in the idea that tablets are going to revolutionize computing by eliminating the need for desktops or notebooks. I still believe they're a new category of device that can supplement the other forms of computer....but not replace it. They *do* seem pretty useful....but I can't see doing all my computing on a tablet. I just think the tablets seem preferable in terms of comfort, than a tiny little smartphone screen.

Trying writing a university paper on an iPad or Xoom. It's something you just *need* a real keyboard for. And not a tiny one like the Bluetooth keyboards, or the one on the EEE Pad Transformer...because that's effectively like trying to type that essay on a netbook. Remember carpal tunnel? There's a reason ergonomic keyboards are larger, with the wave format....the complete opposite of the ones done for tablets.

And given data bandwidth caps in many countries, I don't think that downloading everything from the Cloud is necessarily viable.

Aside from bandwidth issues, in my mind the Cloud is also a problem for other reasons.......such as that many (maybe a majority) of servers used for Cloud-based applications are based in the U.S. Which makes the data on them subject to the Patriot Act right? But that flies in the face of Canada's PIPEDA, which requires the security of all customer information gathered by companies, and establishes liability for protecting it. I'm no lawyer, but it's something many of my clients have been concerned about, and have outright refused to allow data gathered by applications they use to be stored on American servers as a result.

So, is that really viable? Hence, is expecting the demise of thumb drives and optical drives etc. realistic? Seems to me, at least for the next few years, they'll still be needed. Then there's the network issue. Even on a T1 connection, and then on a 4 MBps ADSL connection (fastest I can get, unless I want data caps), DropBox *still* took about 15 hours to sync about a GB of image files I put online for one of my developers to access, with an imminent timeline, before he was able to start downloading them himself. Now, that might have been network congestion, but in terms of reliability, to me, that's pretty poor.

With a 6 GB data package for my phone, I can't even imagine using Google Music (if it was available in Canada, which it isn't) to stream my music to multiple devices. Similarly, I'm usually afraid of watching YouTube videos, downloading apps, or even listening to Slacker Radio (Pandora and Hulu also aren't available) unless I'm connected to a WiFi hotspot. And at least here, the dominant players in the telecom industry are repeatedly trying to get caps installed. Given retired execs from those companies run the regulatory body, they'll likely eventually get their way, in one form or another.

Banshee

 

[Fast Learner]

Apple *is* a master at making things simple....particularly for non-techies. Of course, if I want to refer to the older generation, many of the older generation *still* find something like iTunes difficult to use. It's taken multiple tries to get my mother to figure out how to use iTunes to populate her iPod Touch, and to download apps etc. And she's not nontechnical. She can program in Basic, COBOL, Turbo Pascal, and several other languages.....and she's what....61?

iTunes is Apple's redheaded stepchild and is, in my opinion, ridiculously difficult to use. It's my single most-hated piece of software on both my Macs and my Windows PCs.

Apple should be ashamed of it, imo. It has so many things wrong with it: an unintuitive UI; if you want to play just one song you have to make a playlist and put just that song in it (otherwise it will proceed to the next song automatically); organizing apps is a ridiculous hassle; it will stop downloading podcasts you've subscribed to if you haven't listened to that particular podcast in a while; the "description" of a podcast is stored under the "Video" tab of the "Get Info" modal dialog box, even if it's an audio podcast; determining whether you have app updates requires switching to the apps tab and clicking the tiny "check for updates" text link at the very bottom of the window; you can't sort your apps, music, podcasts, or any other list of information by the column headers; etc.

So very bad. iOS 5 and iCloud will take care of some of that, but it'll still be a lousy audio and video player, etc. Oof.

(Tell us what you really think, Fasty!)

 

[Banshee16]

Do you have a link on these WiFi hotspots being infected? I am curious to read a little more about these scenarios.

Firewalls are needed if there are open ports on the phone. If the phone OS doesn't expose network ports during normal operation then the overhead of a firewall is not really needed as there are no listening services to exploit. Now with that said I have not port scanned an iPad yet to see what might be open.

Now in the future if more network services are used that rely on open, listening ports on the device then a firewall might kick up on the priority scale of need. Unless of course the port in question is one you would leave open even with a firewall in place.



Yeah - the PDF vulns are lame and certainly something to be concerned about. And you are right that security does need to be considered as these phones continue to get more powerful and even more feature filled.

That's all I'm saying.

And I'm not saying that Apple products are the only ones needing protection. The difference (that I see) is that it seems like Apple doesn't really encourage security awareness. I've read articles that Apple has actually denied there being problems, when meanwhile customers were getting hit by an exploit.

RiM at the very least includes firewall software, and has built their reputation on the security measures they put in place in their devices.

I *did* find this article, listing open ports used by Apple devices (including iPhone 4).

Well known TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products

Seems like a lot more than 1 open port.....though I'm not a networking expert, and I don't know if all of those are used by iOS 4, or just one or two of them.

I'll try to find that other article. It was a conjecture piece by a consultant talking about security concerns regarding the newer generations of smartphones. It wasn't pointing out (that I remember) a specific threat active in the wild. So maybe it was a fluff piece. I don't know. I *do* know that most of the guys that I know in network security *have* expressed similar concerns with the security (or lack thereof) in mobile devices (and WiFi, period).

I think what becomes more of a concern is when you start seeing reports of potentially government-sponsored hacking and such, and the appearance of things like Stuxnet, which, from my understanding depended on a component that could infect things like thumbdrives, and then move from those thumb drives to the computers *inside* a nuclear installation, when inserted into computers inside the facility (since those computers weren't actually connected to the internet, due to security), one has to wonder if eventually smartphones could be used to perpetrate a really bad attack or infection somewhere.....virus infects server, is downloaded to smartphone, smartphone connects to network inside a secure facility (or is docked to a PC or whatever), and then passes the infection along. I think that's the kind of nightmare scenario they're talking about.

The article referenced the idea that the more powerful processors, and greater memory on the newer devices could theoretically give one of these devices enough power that you could have a scenario where (for instance), a guy with an infected phone goes to a Starbucks for a coffee. He has WiFi on. He connects to Starbucks (since the same login credentials seem to be used at all locations), and his phone then infects the router, and/or infects the mobile devices of all other users connected to that hotspot at the time. They then go their separate ways, infect their own home networks, infect other Starbucks locations, etc. etc. etc.

It was an article about a year ago. Might be a little tricky to find, but I'll see what I can do.

Could a phone be used, theoretically, to launch DOS attacks, for instance? Do they have enough computer power?

If they have a lower level of security than an AV protected, firewalled, router-protected PC, and they become more prevalent, then you've effectively got a rapidly growing population of devices with increasing computer power, but little security. Seems to me, it would be a hacker's paradise.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

iTunes is Apple's redheaded stepchild and is, in my opinion, ridiculously difficult to use. It's my single most-hated piece of software on both my Macs and my Windows PCs.

Apple should be ashamed of it, imo. It has so many things wrong with it: an unintuitive UI; if you want to play just one song you have to make a playlist and put just that song in it (otherwise it will proceed to the next song automatically); organizing apps is a ridiculous hassle; it will stop downloading podcasts you've subscribed to if you haven't listened to that particular podcast in a while; the "description" of a podcast is stored under the "Video" tab of the "Get Info" modal dialog box, even if it's an audio podcast; determining whether you have app updates requires switching to the apps tab and clicking the tiny "check for updates" text link at the very bottom of the window; you can't sort your apps, music, podcasts, or any other list of information by the column headers; etc.

So very bad. iOS 5 and iCloud will take care of some of that, but it'll still be a lousy audio and video player, etc. Oof.

(Tell us what you really think, Fasty!)

Yes.....I have to say, I'm not that impressed with it....and it's such a central piece of the puzzle for them. I can admit that I'm a Windows/DOS person....part of my preference will be by virtue of having used them for so long.

But I *do* find iTunes almost needlessly convoluted. Many Apple products I have used have seemed rather easy to work with (at least for simple stuff). I can't say I'm a big fan of their version of Office. My partner uses it on his Mac, and when he sends me a proposal we're working on, and I have to do work on my Windows based Office installation, there are definite compatibility issues. Things go *way* slower than when I'm just working on a document, from start to finish, on a Windows machine.

The audio program I've generally liked the best was Zune, actually. And I don't even *have* a Zune player. The only reason I got to using it was because I have an XBox 360, but didn't have Windows Media Center on my last Windows install....so Zune is what is used for streaming to the 360. I originally installed it just for that, but then started finding myself using it for just about everything media related. To me, it just seemed easy to use, had a really pretty interface, and just worked.

Similarly, I'm not a fan of Windows Media Player. In Windows 7 64 bit, it's got some definite bugs. Next to iTunes, it's caused me more problems than any other piece of software on my computer. There's this really annoying bug where, when you initiate media player (only in 64 bit, not 32 bit), when it prompts you to make it the default player of different media types, if you click one of the options to set it up, and do one wrong click, it automatically associates all media file formats to WMP, but then greys them out as options. Then, because they're greyed out, none of them play. At all. In any program. I've had this happen to me like 5 times. Then I've got to reinstall all my audio codecs, or, simpler, do a system restore from the night before. But again, a program shouldn't have such a damaging bug. It's not as bad as wrecking Windows Installer, but it's close.

I think my biggest issue with iTunes at this point is the whole backing up thing I referred to in an earlier post. That was very frustrating. My wife just started her mat leave, and all her clients were on that phone. If we hadn't been able to get the older back up by re-syncing it to the old computer, she'd have been out of luck. And, apparently all because I didn't pick an option correctly in a menu like 3 or 4 levels in.

There are some other weird things. I have 3 profiles on my PC. One for me (personal), one for my wife, and one for business/admin. For whatever reason, even though it's the same install of iTunes, and the same account, songs and movies I've either ripped to iTunes, or purchased in the iTunes Store, or downloaded from my Blu-Ray digital copy disks onto my personal profile don't appear in my business/admin profile.....even though it's the same iTunes account. It's silly.

And the licensing. Because I have 3 profiles on this computer, any time I want to use a purchased song or movie on one of the profiles, it uses up 3 of my 5 device licenses....even though it's one physical machine used by me and my wife. That's just stupid. 5 licenses should mean I can use it on my desktop, my laptop, my wife's laptop, her iphone, and my iphone. That's my definition of separate devices.....not one desktop being counted as 3 devices because there are 3 user profiles. It gets even more complicated than that at times, as my laptop has a personal profile and a work profile.....so it counts as 2 devices as well under this profile.

Banshee

 

[IronWolf]

And I'm not saying that Apple products are the only ones needing protection. The difference (that I see) is that it seems like Apple doesn't really encourage security awareness. I've read articles that Apple has actually denied there being problems, when meanwhile customers were getting hit by an exploit.

Yeah - I'm not sure many of the people in the game have factored security in too much, save for maybe RiM, though I know even their server software for enterprises has vulns reported. It is sad to have seen Apple deny problems, though they did acknowledge them later. Frankly, a lot of companies should be taking a better look at security.

I *did* find this article, listing open ports used by Apple devices (including iPhone 4).

Well known TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products

Seems like a lot more than 1 open port.....though I'm not a networking expert, and I don't know if all of those are used by iOS 4, or just one or two of them.

I think that is just a list of potentially used ports not ones necessarily opened by default.

I did see one blog post that said there was one 'iPhone sync' port open nearly all the time and that other ports might open as an app is open and then close when it was closed.

I'll try to find that other article. It was a conjecture piece by a consultant talking about security concerns regarding the newer generations of smartphones. It wasn't pointing out (that I remember) a specific threat active in the wild. So maybe it was a fluff piece. I don't know. I *do* know that most of the guys that I know in network security *have* expressed similar concerns with the security (or lack thereof) in mobile devices (and WiFi, period).

Cool - I was curious how much was based on active threats or the theoretical.

Could a phone be used, theoretically, to launch DOS attacks, for instance? Do they have enough computer power?

If they have a lower level of security than an AV protected, firewalled, router-protected PC, and they become more prevalent, then you've effectively got a rapidly growing population of devices with increasing computer power, but little security. Seems to me, it would be a hacker's paradise.

I would imagine as the phones continue to grow in power they could be used in such a fashion. And yes, they might become a greater target in the future if attention isn't paid. I think Apple is relying on a controlled market place, sandbox nature of their apps and such for some of there security. Hard to say if that will be enough in the long run.

 

[Banshee16]

Do you have a link on these WiFi hotspots being infected? I am curious to read a little more about these scenarios.

This is *NOT* the article I was referring to.....but it's using several examples from the other article I had mentioned, so they're likely including some of the same research articles in their references.

HowStuffWorks "How Cell-phone Viruses Work"

It doesn't talk about WiFi......but it does talk about viruses infecting Symbian devices and then passing from one device to another via Bluetooth and MMS.

One of the big problems is the number of OS'. However, the market has changed since the article was written...bit bet Android and iOS make up a much more significant portion of the market than they used to.

I know it's easy to accidentally click on an unfamiliar MMS or text message. And if malware were buried in a photo (for instance) embedded in the MMS, or maybe in a VCF file in a spam e-mail or something, I could imagine it being something easy for someone to do by accident.

One thing I don't understand is whether a virus could work for all Android phones for instance, or it it would be something like "all unpatched Android devices using Android 1.5 or earlier" etc. etc. If it's the former, seems to me like it would be easier to write viruses than if it was more like the second scenario.

Banshee

 

[Relique du Madde]

I was going to mention something... but it was already mentioned.

Also, the a virua that uses smartphones to propogate already exists. Luckily no government agency has decided to make an ultimate weapon out of it like stuxnet.

 

[Banshee16]

I was comparing the EEE Pad Transformer and Playbook tonight, and the Playbook's screen was sharper, and it actually seemed a little quicker than the EEE Pad. I'm surprised the device does so poorly in reviews.

The weird thing is that on paper, pretty much all the Android tablets have higher resolution screens than the Playbook, but hold them next to each other, and the screen of the Playbook just blows them away in terms of sharpness. I'm not sure if this is something related to drivers etc......but honestly, out of all the devices I've looked at, the Playbook seems to have the best screen of all of them...even better than the iPad 2.

I'm curious if the difference is due to software/driver differences?

Banshee

 

[Felon]

So, the Toshiba Thrive has arrived, and it looks like I'm going to b getting one unless I find a shoe dropping while I'm sifting through reviews.

Remember what I said was the one other thing besides Flash that a tablet has to have going for it? Sure you do. Ports, baby. HDMI? Check. USB? Mini AND standard. SD? Full-sized (which means your micro just needs an adapter, which should come with any self-respecting micro).

Oh, and can you say "removable battery"? There hasn't been a need to, but finally we got it.

I was holding out for Amazon's tablet, but scuttlebutt is that Apple screwed them by creating a run on the tablet component market as they slap together about 15 million iPad 3's.

 

[Banshee16]

So, the Toshiba Thrive has arrived, and it looks like I'm going to b getting one unless I find a shoe dropping while I'm sifting through reviews.

Remember what I said was the one other thing besides Flash that a tablet has to have going for it? Sure you do. Ports, baby. HDMI? Check. USB? Mini AND standard. SD? Full-sized (which means your micro just needs an adapter, which should come with any self-respecting micro).

Oh, and can you say "removable battery"? There hasn't been a need to, but finally we got it.

I was holding out for Amazon's tablet, but scuttlebutt is that Apple screwed them by creating a run on the tablet component market as they slap together about 15 million iPad 3's.

I've been considering this one as well. If I'm getting a gen 1 Android device, it's either this one or the EEE Pad Transformer. The keyboard dock and battery life there are pretty impressive.

The Thrive *does* look cool. I go to the gym enough that I don't care about 1.6 lbs A more rubberized back to make it hold still, and all those ports? Not bad. And the replaceable battery is nice. I get concerned about the fact that these batteries in these devices lose their ability to keep a charge. I'm not a huge fan of buying stuff and throwing it out a year later.

I'm not sure why, but even though the device came out yesterday, there's only one review from a major tech site.

Here's a good review.

Toshiba Thrive Review - Android Tablet Reviews by MobileTechReview

Interesting...Lisa comments that yeah, it's bigger than most other tablets....but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of trying to copy the iPad 2, it goes its own way and focuses on meeting a different set of needs.

It's kind of nice that you could plug in a USB mouse and have it work....or a keyboard, or use it in conjunction with your digital camera, to view photos as you're taking them...or even plug it into a printer or portable hard drive.

Banshee