Apple in its grandiose announcement today has delivered the most amazing news, giving Apple’s mobile OS a name.  The world is stunned with this, the most original name ever conceived for an operating system!

Yes, that is correct.  The company that names all of their products so they begin with the letter “i” has finally after multiple releases of devices running the OS has decided to name the aforementioned OS.  It took many painstaking months to come up with this amazing name and now we can all be wowed by its magnificence.

Ok so by now you should have figured out that the above paragraphs are extremely sarcastic.  In all seriousness, how can this even be an announcement?  Why couldn’t they have come up with something else at least a little original?  Maybe they should have contacted the team that names their desktop OS to come up with something less lame.

On top of this super crappy name, it is not the first IOS.  Cicsco (which is likely super angry right now) has an operating system called “IOS” that is used on its routers.   Originally called the “Internetwork Operating System“, IOS’s only naming difference is the capitalization of the “i”.

I am not a lawyer and would never try to be, but I suspect that Steve Jobs is going to be getting some calls from lawyers over this one.

Check It Out> IOS

UPDATE:: In looking around it looks like I was not the only one to pick up on the Apple IOS name stealing.  Crunch Gear also has an article on it.

UPDATE #2:: Apparently this time Apple actually asked Cisco first if they could use the iOS name for their OS.  This still doesn’t change the fact that it is a terribly lame name for the operating system.

So while technically this is an operating system blog, it is hard to pass up posting about the iPad. For the uninformed, the iPad is the new tablet computer from Apple. To say the least it is not getting the warmest of welcomes right now. Here are a couple of its shortcomings followed up by some humor at its expense:

No Flash support
No Multitasking
No USB
No Camera
4:3 Aspect ratio
Locked into using iTunes
Its name sounds like a feminine hygiene product
No GPS
Models with 3G cost more and is still locked to AT&T
It has a MASSIVE bezel around the edge.

Check It Out> Fail Blog, Youtube

In the “No Big Surprise” category this week is the announcement that Mac cloner Psystar, has lost the Apple lawsuit. Psystar sells Mac clones for much less than Apple, which is typically a very closed platform. It was Psystars circumvention of Apples copyright-protection that caused them to lose the lawsuit. Did anyone actually expect a different outcome to this lawsuit?

When it comes to monopolies and anti-trust issues, how is it possible that Apple is excluded? While they do have a relatively small portion of the operating system market shouldn’t rules be applied to everyone equally? Of course fan-boys, no matter what side they are on, do not want the rules to apply to them. IF Apple was to be a little more flexible they could actually sell more copies of OS X and gain more than an embarrassing market share.

That being said, Psystar substantially over estimated their products ability to sell. They anticipated selling 12 MILLION computers by 2011. Granted this is allowing for at least one more year of sales, but they are more than a little behind on their quotas.

To date Psystar has sold only 768 clones.

Thats right, 768 clones have been sold by Psystar. For the amount of publicity they have received (which is essentially free advertising) this is embarrassing to say the least.

Check It Out> Maximum PC, Psystar, CNN

This post is from our new OS Attack author Andrew Seay. Please help him feel welcome – Paul

Charlie Miller, aka Safari Charlie, recently revealed the exploit code which allows an attacker to take complete control of any iPhone using a series of text messages which are not displayed on the receiving handset.

A two time winner of the MacBook in the annual Pwn2Own contest, Mr Miller informed Apple almost 2 months ago that he would be revealing his attack method at last week’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The attack, which uses several sequential SMS messages to invoke a memory overflow and execute the remote code contained in the messages, gives complete remote control of the phone including the ability to place phone calls, access the web, locate the owner via GPS, and possibly most disturbingly, the ability to control the camera and microphone remotely.

Apple was exceeding slow to respond, announcing just this past Friday that it has released a patch to protect it’s millions of users. The availability of the patch however, does not fully mitigate the threat as Apple does not push updates to its mobile handsets. By default iTunes only checks for updates once a week and once identified and downloaded, iTunes will automatically offer the optional update to users upon their next sync. Unfortunately this delayed deployment method coupled with allowing the update to be postponed  and the fact that many users delay installing updates due to time constraints or simply because they use the phone predominately untethered may mean that a large segment of iPhone users will remain unpatched for much longer than needed.

As we become ever more dependant upon mobile platforms, I firmly believe that we have already reached the point that updates should be pushed to subscribers instead of relying on users to seek out protection.  Failure to do so harkens back to the early days of Microsoft updates and disabled firewalls.

I fear that until mass quantities of mobile subscribers become compromised by similar types of attack, users will remain largely reliant upon security through obscurity (and the bliss of ignorance).  Unfortunately, the rapid growth of these platforms and the potential monetary gains such attacks offer seems destine to very quickly turn our mobile lifelines into just one more very large and pervasive attack surface for evildoers.

12 years ago on August 6th 1997 Steve Jobs shocked attendees at Macworld in Boston by announcing a partnership Microsoft. This video is one that brings back a lot of memories and always makes me laugh. When it comes to working with Microsoft, Apple fans are not exactly the most enthusiastic of people. And the news that Internet Explorer was going to be the default browser on Macs was not exactly well received.

“We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose”. Steve Jobs was a true visionary and whether or not Apple fanboys love Microsoft one thing is for sure, Microsoft breathed new life into a struggling competitor. Looking at Apple then and now it is good to see just how much things have changed for the better.

Check It Out> 9to5Mac