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That was an ios 4.3 issue. It was resolved in ios 5.

Apple and Google are neck and neck in terms of absolute app downloads. But what I meant was again "selling" in terms of making money. Far more apps downloaded on iOS are purchased apps (to my mind a free app is not really a "sale").

I don't really see Androids numbers compared to Apple increasing much more as WP7 starts to eat into Android market share next year. Laugh all you want but you'll remember what I said a year from now...

This is a bit of a simplification, but development on Apple's platform is done with sandbox accounts in a sandbox version of their system. You can build for your company in your certified sandbox, but you need other things when you release to the public. So there is a build certificate. There is also a push notification certificate (though I'm less familiar with that). It looks like Google either had a sandbox push notification certificate instead of a release push notification certificate, or didn't re-generate the store certificate after generating the sandbox certificate (for proper pairing).

http://www.tipb.com/2011/11/02/notification-error-valid-apsenvironment-entitlement-string-fond-application/

Apple's certificates system is a bit befuddling, quite frankly. This is an easy mistake to make.

Not functional patents. The basic issue is Samsung's blatant copying of Apple, and in doing so Samsung tripped over some of Apple's design patents.

Look at this image to get a good idea of the extent that Samsung has been riding Apple's coattails where the iPad is concerned. It paints a larger picture of willful copying that Apple can use to bolster the court case over the design patents.

http://www.tipb.com/2011/04/19/apple-sold-187-million-ios-devices/

187 million devices. I agree that I said "Users", that was not quite right... but the user base is probably approaching 100 million as not many people would have more than two iOS devices.

up front disclaimer, I hate Apple, and will not buy any of their devices for the forseeable future. But I have good reasons for this hatred, not all of which I have time or room to fit here. Now, lets try actually citing some sources here, shall we?

The release of the iPhone 3GS (and later iPod Touch 3rd Generation) brought hardware-based full disk encryption (FDE) to the iPhone. This was designed to accomplish one thing: instantaneous remote wipe....Jonathan Zdziarski found that the iPhone OS automatically decrypts data when a request for data is made, effectively making the encryption worthless for protecting data.

source . Some of what Zdziarski says here. After a little more research, I discovered that apparently iOS 4 devices do use your passcode to encrypt the hardware keys, so they can't be read when you are logged out. source That is actually a reasonable system: the original one, not so much. Just because something uses "hardware encryption" doesn't mean it actually encrypts data effectively. As I said, the original system didn't, and wasn't intended to: it was only intended to make remote wiping your device faster (since you can just erase the key, not the whole drive.)

And as for why there isn't any iOS malware: seriously, stop and think for a second. If Apple reviews every last app on the official App Store, its kinda hard to sneak malware in, isn't it? Also, you might want to actually look up Android's security system. After about 20 seconds, I found that, surprise surprise, Android also sandboxes applications so that they can't read each others data. In other words: it doesn't matter if the passwords are stored plaintext, since other applications can't read them anyways. Hence, why all the Android malware I've ever heard about doesn't mess with the phone itself, but rather calls home/ phones premium numbers/ etc. Maybe there is an actual virus for Android that messes with the data on the phone. Never heard of it though.(edit:someone mentioned storing apps on SD cards, and then reading those. You can't do that from the phone directly any more than you can read the internal memory, and if you get physical access no encryption is really gonna help. And the same problem exist on iPhone... oh wait, you can't use SD cards with those at all. Apple likes the flash memory premium too much) If it breaks the sandboxing, sure, but if it does that on the iPhone it can do the exact same thing, password keychain or no (proof: they did). And precisely how you said they can't: through root. I'm not sure how passcode encryption effects this or what iOS version they were using, but I would presume its iOS 4.

And I never said an encrypted system wasn't better, I said it wasn't much better... which, as it turns out, it isn't. I absolutely think that passwords should be encrypted. But with another password, not a keychain stored on the device itself. Its just the tiniest bit better than plaintext, but not by much. I can't believe people on Slashdot still keep thinking "oh, encryption, that means my data is secure!"

And I'm not sure how "Google specifically designed" Android to be locked down. AFAIK all the phones that prevent custom firmware use an encrypted bootloader system, which has very little to do with Android itself. Please, inform me how Google is responsible for that. As for Honeycomb source: straw man much? Where is ANY iOS source? Android source will be out at least by Ice Cream Sandwich, relax, Google is just being prudent. For once. I know FOSS fanatics want absolutel

Look in China at Foxconn's factories where most of Apple's components are made. How much do the employees there get paid?

And what benefits did the families of these people get after the explosion?

Why does any company move manufacturing to Asia unless it is PURELY to cut down production costs by paying lower salaries and giving fewer benefits?

You go to any country in the Western World and there are areas where properties are expensive and the cost of living is high. In pretty much all cases, those areas are so expensive because they are close to commercial parks and big business estates because people like living as close as possible to their places of work.

The net result is that the very presence of those companies and workplaces has forced up the costs of living close to them - so whether or not CEOs of corporations care to admit it, the fact is that companies have a huge effect on social infrastructure. Consequently, if you are working and your cost of living is rising because you live close to your place of work, then you have a right to expect to take home at least the same salary, in real terms, year-after-year.

If you have given people a good enough salary to allow them to live relatively comfortably, then you cannot expect them to suddenly start accepting lower living standards just because you don't want to pay them any more.

Regarding the broader tablet/mobile market, many gestures are now patented. Apple has at least 15 gesture-related patents, Some others have suggested that other interface designers are reluctant to implement identical gestures, for fear of Apple's patent portfolio.

Thank you. That's the one that lingered in my mind. So the time-bomb failures are
1) Sony PS3 leap-year bug in 2010
2) Microsoft Zune bug 2 Januaries ago
3) An iPhone DST bug for Europe in November 2010
4) The latest iPhone's January 2011 one-time alarm bug

All are large companies and don't account for the indie app bugs we don't get to hear about on the front page. This furthers my point that something is seriously wrong with developer training in the past 5 years, both degree-less and degree-holding.

I'm sure Mozilla can do a good job, but there are already similar attempts underway - one is OpenAppMkt.

I guess Mozilla has an advantage in that they can bundle it with the browser, but to me it seems more like mobile users would be using such a thing than desktop users, and I don't know of any mobile devices that ship with Mozilla as the default browser.

I suspect they figured no one would bother to use to try and make a phone call.

also, I thought the world claimed it was multi-core? This teardown summary says it's single core.

A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon]

meanwhile, from the summary:

number of ARM cores: 1

hmm.

Marketing sells a product. It's rather meaningless after the product is sold since the user doesn't have to rely on marketing to form an opinion. They form them from using the product directly. Claiming Apple is 'shitty' and then admitting that people think they are good is a bit contradictory. The simple fact is, that they have some of the best satisfaction rates in the industry, and THAT is money you can bank on.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/survey_apples_app_store_customer_satisfaction_android_close_second.php
http://internet2go.net/news/hardware/apple-retains-customer-satisfaction-crown

There were over a million apps downloaded to iPads the first day of it's release and over half a million sold in a week. Exactly what sort of distortion reality are YOU standing in?

Apple also controls a huge share of the mobile browser market by huge margins. It doesn't matter how much hardware is out there in the mobile market, but who's actually using it to browse the web. When it comes to mobile devices, Apple DOES have a say in future mobile browsing trends:

http://www.tipb.com/2009/03/02/iphone-mobile-browser-share-67/

Try harder...

The fact is, a consumer retailer like Apple can stock and sell whatever products to choose to its customers. What they don't stock is really none of your business, and if you don't like, take your products and have someone else carry it.

This is just another non-issue. The problem with Apple is that they are too successful, they need to keep out the riff raff.

Hm, I'm not so sure about that. Schiller has already intimated that Apple is now operating a cartel with certain app developers when responding to a question about why Sports Illustrated's and Playboy's apps are not banned:

“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format”.

I also suspect that Apple's App Store practices will lead to an antitrust investigation at some point. The iPhone is gaining dominance in the smartphone market and if its capricious App Store behaviour continues, accusations of monopolistic behaviour are bound to crop up.

Although, I am curious what a security risks a jail broken phone poses in a download only app/community.

http://www.tipb.com/2009/07/03/jailbroken-iphones-security-risk/ Ask Jonathan Miller - but what does he know, pft.

I’ve been using Skype over 3G ever since it came out (first with VoIPover3G, now with 3G Unrestrictor) and I have to say that quality sucks. I get dropped calls, sound dropping in and out, weird noises during the call, etc."

We have the largest and fastest 3G network in the world here in Australia (44mbps downlink in the cities, 21mbps everywhere else – 99% of the population have 3G), and being a fairly small population – congestion isn’t an issue. VOIP over 3G works, but it totally sux. Like really, unless you can’t afford to make a phone call (unlikely if you have an iPhone) then it’s not worth the mucking about.

Cellular data connections are very bursty with high amounts of latency. Fine for browsing the web, or streaming media where the player has a buffer, but pretty awful for having a real-time duplex conversation. Which is why I really am ok with just using Skype over wifi.

A few people post quotes to the effect "quality is so-so but it's good enough for me," but most responses seem pretty negative towards the call quality.