iOS7 Impressions

[Joelist]

Well, I have been able to spend some time with iOS 7 courtesy of my work iPad. Thoughts so far:

1) No more skeumorphic crap. Everything has a consistent look and "feel" in the OS now. That is a good thing as the faux wood and leather stuff was ridiculous.

2) Flattened UI. This is also a good thing as it reduces the need for GPU and CPU cycles to do things.

3) Unified settings area. also good as it makes things easier to do.

4) Still fast and stable.

On the other hand....

1) Still has the way over-siloed iOS model. Apps can't interoperate and the OS does not have a lot of built in functionality.

2) Mobile Safari and other apps still BADLY need text reflow. Without it the mobile browser is borderline useless for actually READING content.

3) Can't be customized at all. Like this was a surprise....

4) Still has baffling behavior in email, lacks a central place to manage files and all the other issues that stem from the file system being blocked off.

Is it better? Yes. Is it what it needs to be? No.

With Blackberry basically dead, someone needs to move into the corporate space. Corporate IT doesn't trust Android (loose security model) although they will no doubt start making strides to either get normal Android properly locked down or there will be a special "secure" version of it created.

iOS could be this OS if they would make it fully "business usable". If they don't, Windows Phone can also move in here as it already is secured and a lot of the missing functionality will be on board with the 8.1 update. And as stated above I have to think either Google itself or an OEM will specifically address Android's security problems very soon as they see the opening as well.

It should be interesting to see who makes the "move" here.

 

[Backstep]

If you truly want safety and security, use pen, paper, snail mail and a land line. No matter the security the device you're using, once it hits the cloud game over.

 

[Joelist]

Backstep, corporate devices operate in a completely different manner than the smartphone the typical person on the street uses.

IF they go to a cloud (mostly they do not) that "cloud" (really a server cluster) is high security and usually ecrypted to AES-256 or better. Also their connection to that cloud is encrypted as is the actual local memory of the phone.

More likely they connect via a Secure Gateway to an encrypted gateway server and from there to their corporate intranet. So their data security is very tight. Also, they are provisioned for automatic wipe in the event of being lost, stolen or even too many unsuccessful attempts to access the phone (to prevent brute force password crackers). Add in other features like all apps and even most processes running in sandboxes and a properly configured corporate smartphone is not easy at all to crack - of course what they give up for this is some of the "flashier" use cases the typical buyer likes.

 

[Backstep]

Backstep, corporate devices operate in a completely different manner than the smartphone the typical person on the street uses.

IF they go to a cloud (mostly they do not) that "cloud" (really a server cluster) is high security and usually ecrypted to AES-256 or better. Also their connection to that cloud is encrypted as is the actual local memory of the phone.

More likely they connect via a Secure Gateway to an encrypted gateway server and from there to their corporate intranet. So their data security is very tight. Also, they are provisioned for automatic wipe in the event of being lost, stolen or even too many unsuccessful attempts to access the phone (to prevent brute force password crackers). Add in other features like all apps and even most processes running in sandboxes and a properly configured corporate smartphone is not easy at all to crack - of course what they give up for this is some of the "flashier" use cases the typical buyer likes.

Joelist, I understand what you're saying, but Snowden showed in this digital age nothing is secure. If the gov can read your info in almost real time, what is stopping an individual or group with the same equipment and skill set from doing the same? At least with pen, paper, snail mail and land line there are strong laws. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Joelist]

Don't forget Snowden did not hack anything. He had access to what he leaked from his jobs first at NSA and then at Booz Allen consulting for them to NSA.

So if someone who actually works at the company decides to steal its data and do whatever with it, I hope they enjoy federal prison because that is where they will end up.