Who the hell cares?
Nobody with a brain buys into over-priced crap.
Apple will this week announce something, probably a new iPhone or two. But during The Reg's recent travels in Asia we've spotted some Apple products that haven't been the subject of endless rumours. We suspect these products are so secret Apple itself doesn't know about them. But that won't stop us bringing you – and Apple's …
Android is built on top of Linux, and a large portion of it is written in C. There are also swaths of code written in C++. It is only the application framework (the stuff you see on screen) that is written in Java.
(This comment has been brought to you by the Please Use Google to Avoid Demonstrating Your Ignorance Society).
Macs are built on BSD Unix, mostly C++ and C (as Objective-C compiles down to plain old C) and as such is very secure.
However put Java on it and the security has more holes in it than swiss cheese, hence why new macs no longer ship with Java preinstalled.
I like Java, I have programmed in it for many years and I think it is a great language to teach good OOP habits (unlike C++) and a pleasant language to use.
If someone however asked me if they should use it in a production environment I'd laugh in their face. In order to make Java secure it needs a complete rewrite from the ground up (not constant patching that currently happens).
To sum up if you lock up your house securely but leave the front door key under the front door mat you are asking for trouble.
If you put Java on a secure system you need to really do your homework and unfortunately Google have been watching the TV instead http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/25/malicious_android_master_key_apps_found_in_china_symantec/
AC says "In order to make Java secure it needs a complete rewrite from the ground up (not constant patching that currently happens)."
You do know that Android doesn't use Oracle's JVM, right? It uses Dalvik JVM -- Dalvik doesn't have the same security issues that Oracle's JVM has -- and it doesn't run in a browser on Android -- the main attack vector when using Oracle's JVM.
Please tell point me to these "loads of security issues" in Android's Dalvik JVM. Android has security issues, but I haven't seen Dalvik pointed out as the attack vector for these issues.
And read up on exactly what Oracle's suit was about, and why they effectively lost. A nine-line rangeCheck function, and the "structure, sequence and organization of the Java Application Programming Interface (API)" does not make a JVM, nor does it equal "loads" of code.
>(This comment has been brought to you by the Please Use Google to Avoid Demonstrating Your Ignorance Society).
Unfortunately, in this case, the ignorance was related to Android, which is a Google product. So AC was just being cautious, as he didn't want to break the internet by Googling Google, albeit indirectly.
I was in Mensa, but I dropped out because the members were just a little bit boring. My estimated IQ is reportedly deep into the range needing 8-bits to express. I've got an iPhone *and* an Android phone (and tablet). The Nexus tablet is perfect, but the cheap Android phone is a bit - well - crap. Overpriced iPhones? I hadn't really noticed. About the same as one tire for my luxury saloon.
@Jake
"Nobody with a brain buys into over-priced crap."
I just upvoted your post because an entirely reasonable statement doesn't deserve all those downvotes.
Whether Apple products should be considered as overpriced crap is debatable but there is a case to be made depending on your requirements and the way these requirements would be met (or not) by Apple products. So, upvote.
Quite true. "I can't believe anybody thinks it's anything like butter" would have been a better name. The taste of actual butter, especially on Panasonic-baked bread toasted under gas, is simply beyond imitation.
The clue should be in the fact that it's made using buttermilk -- which is the stuff you throw away after making butter. It has by definition about as much capacity to impart a butter-like taste as the capacity of apple wood to impart a cider-like taste.
(Hey, maybe that's how they brew S*******w!)
Well, they make white cider by passing diluted grain alcohol over the remains of the apple pulp after it's been squeezed dry of real juice. Probably imparts as much flavour as using the wood.
What the hell is going on here with the "Add an icon" tab? What was wrong with having the icons below the post! Has somebody at ElReg been drinking the Metro/Unity cool-aid?
Depends what you're buying and depends on the floor! Ground floor cameras etc can be somewhat fast and loose, but summer of the higher floor back (where all the fixit places are) have some straightforward dealers found straightforward deals. My Mrs hates Sim Lim, I love it and it's bustly geekiness.
I love it too. Across the road is the even more geeky Sim LIm Towers devoted more to the component business.
Funan Digital Mall is a more laid-back, posher alternative, and has a walkway to Adelphi Mall, where you can spend more on hifi than you ever thought possible --- and where you may meet some ladies who offer to, err, massage away your feelings of guilt for having done so.
"Dont Criticise Apple"
Criticise Apple all you like:- all we ask is that it's a valid, rational and considered criticism - rather than the tribal "I'm too cool to like Apple & all Apple users are plebs" juvenile rantings generally found on any Reg article which mentions Apple/Foxconn/Cupertino/etc.
all we ask is that it's a valid, rational and considered criticism - rather than the tribal "I'm too cool to like Apple & all Apple users are plebs" juvenile rantings
.. ironically displaying the devoidness of thought they accuse Apple users of.
It's OK, though. I'm confident that will disappear the moment they reach maturity..
Yes, I'm going for downvotes. Why? :)
Friend with a high end Android phone that went faulty - had to send it away - was going to be 3+ weeks so he had to buy another one. Loads of hassle and ended up buying a replacement - most people using a phone for work could not manage without it for 3 weeks. iPhone user has a faulty phone and you go into a store and typically get it replaced there and then.
Cost him time and far more than the iPhone would have cost - so 'service' has to be factored in.
Another friend has an Android phone that crashes all the time - misses calls, wastes time and probably costs him business - so reliability and having control over the hardware and OS is a bonus. So purchase cost is only one element of ownership.
"So the best selling point of a iPhone is when it breaks you can get a replacement the same day if you live near an apple shop?"
If it hasn't burnt your house down.
Also, in case no-one's said it already, the two extra clicks required to add an icon now are bloody stupid and completely pointless.
I'm not following the point you're trying to make, are you saying that Apple makes perfect phones and you're more likely to run into problems using something else?
So far the only phone I've ever owned that died on a software update was an iPhone and the replacement had a wonky home button. Not to mention this was after having to book an appointment they then kept me waiting for (those Apple stores are practically a punishment in themselves!).
Joking aside I do think Apple is generally one of the better companies when it comes to repair/replacement but you're paying for that privilege and TCO is a hard thing to nail down, I could argue that the outdated design of iOS would waste more of my time than the alternatives...
You could probably see all this stuff on sale in Canal Street, NYC.
I had a colleague years ago who delighted in seeing how many genuine Rolex watches he could score for ten dollars on Canal Street. He was a consultant based in Minneapolis and would return there each weekend bearing priceless gifts from New York.
I would definitely buy the iPho tee shirt. Somebody should set up a stand the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, in between the remaining Vietnamese restaurants and the Apple store. Or maybe it should be on the far side of the restaurant, so that one can acquire the appropriate stains first.
And I realize that you're focused on Asia, but let me mention the "iBoard" that I saw for sale in the Tallinn town square a few weeks ago--a cutting board with a familiar emblem embedded in the surface.
"At $SGD25 a pair, these 4GB beauties are under $US20 or just £12.50, a sum so small it is hard to believe it is possible to sell them at a profit."
Oh I believe it, and it makes it all the more ridiculous what Apple charges for them. I think you'll find the manufacturing cost for one of these to be closer to $5.
"Criticise Apple all you like:- all we ask is that it's a valid, rational and considered criticism - rather than the tribal "I'm too cool to like Apple & all Apple users are plebs" juvenile rantings"
I stay out of it generally, but the problem is the Apple fanbois then go on pro-Apple rants (claiming Apple "invented" or "reinvented" products they didn't, altering history to claim vendors copy features from Apple even when those features turned up in their products before Apple's, claiming they can do no wrong and that design flaws don't exist or are features, and on and on.)
"Macs are built on BSD Unix, mostly C++ and C (as Objective-C compiles down to plain old C) and as such is very secure."
BSD UNIX is secure because UNIXen have taken security seriously ever since the Morris worm of the late 1980s, numerous security flaws have been fixed in the last 25 years. C and C++ are probably the worst languages to use if security is the prime consideration.
"However put Java on it and the security has more holes in it than swiss cheese, hence why new macs no longer ship with Java preinstalled."
It was actually because Apple insisted on keeping control over Java updates for OSX, and were usually 6 months to a year (or more) behind the official Java version. Compared to C and C++, Java is a bank vault. Not that I disagree with the decision, if someone gets a Java-using app they can install Java then, no reason to have it sitting there being vulnerable the rest of the time.
"BSD UNIX is secure because UNIXen have taken security seriously ever since the Morris worm of the late 1980s, numerous security flaws have been fixed in the last 25 years. C and C++ are probably the worst languages to use if security is the prime consideration."
That is a discordant comment, Henry Wertz 1.
The BSDs (including OS X), and Linux are both built on K&R C with inline assembler. C++? Maybe not so much ... C++ is not useful when working close to the silicon. IMO, anyway.
When security is a prime issue, hire adult programmers. K&R works fine, if you know what you are doing. Management hiring kids is a management problem, not a programming issue.
As a side-note, the Morris worm was not kernel related.