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Guide to Hardening iOS 5
The Australian Department of Defence, Intelligence and Security division, has produced a particularly good walkthrough for hardening the iOS environment (.pdf). I’d recommend it to the curious and for system administrators who are interested in evaluating/contrasting their own iOS deployments.
I Like The Apps, But Not The Design
A new version of the iPad is coming. The latest ‘craze’ around this version is whether or not it will come with a home button. To date, there’s been one particularly strong ‘In Defence of the Home Button’ post by Dave Caolo, which is effectively a listing of all the functions that Apple has tied to the singular button at the bottom of each iDevice.
This button isn’t going anywhere. And that’s really unfortunate, because better - or at least equivalent - options are out there.
The PlayBook is seriously lacking on apps. SERIOUSLY LACKING. But the hardware design of the device is stunning. I don’t need to pay attention to what is up, down, left, or right because of how RIM has integrated the bezel functionality. For a quick overview of the bezel options, check out the video below:
This isn’t to say that the Playbook is a winner hands down. Apple’s home button is linked to variety of accessibility options which are lacking on the Playbook. Also, Apple has a series of gestures that enable similar features as the Playbook, though I’m far less impressed at how they’re integrated. Because of how awkward these gestures tend to be, I tend to just use the home button, which can be incredibly inconvenient depending on the iPad’s orientation at the time.
My dream would be Apple getting creative and bringing the hardware design leadership of the Playbook to the app-rich iDevice environment. I’m not holding my breath through.
parislemon: What If... (Office For iPad Edition)
Watching the back-and-forth yesterday about the whole Microsoft Office for iPad thing was nothing if not amusing. The basic rundown:
“It’s coming, here it is.” “That’s not it.” “Yes it is.” “No it’s not, but we didn’t say it’s not coming.” “A Microsoft employee showed it to us.” “No…
MG has an interesting analysis on what Office for iPad might mean. I have to admit, if MS partners with Apple to bring real office software to the iPad then another sword will be levied at Google’s throat. I still - as a professional writer - despise using Google Docs for anything but the most minimal tasks: it just doesn’t meet my requirements for ‘real’ word processing.
The takeaway? Office would add to the ‘professional’ status of the iPad without taking away from the iPad’s ‘consumer friendly’ branding. This would further exacerbate the issues that Google’s tablets face while simultaneously challenging RIM’s own advertising that the PlayBook is ‘the’ tablet for professionals. It would definitely be a coup for both companies against their competitors, and so well worth watching for.
Yes, it’s over a year old and the iPad 2GS/3 is going to be out shortly. Nevertheless, it’s the first time I’ve seen this video and it makes me smirk.
