News/Rumors

Android and iOS leave other competitors behind

You may think that an Android and iOS  capture the world, and that’s true. According to some analyses, shipments of these two mobile operating systems made up 92% of all others during the first quarter of 2013. The fact is that Apple and Google’s platforms managed to sell 199.5 million devices across the world during the quarter. This figure has increased since the previous year, when it reached 59%. So there’s no reason to deny, that the companies leave other competitors behind.

As the research manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team, Ramon Llamas said lately: “Android and iOS accounted for more than the lion’s share of smartphones in the first quarter, but a closer examination of the other platforms reveals turnaround and demand for alternatives. Windows Phone has benefited from Nokia’s participation, and BlackBerry’s new BB10 devices have already hit a million units shipped in its first quarter of availability.”

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And while Android continues to succeed in the smartphone operating system market, reaching almost 41% of Android hardware, Apple’s iOS is still a leader in this sphere.

Thus, IDC stated: “Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the first iPhone debuted in 2007. That appears ready to change as online rumors and speculation predict a massive overhaul of the user interface when iOS 7 debuts.”

As for the BlackBerry, there were more than a million units operating on its new BB10 platform shipped lately. The company puts hight hopes on its new hardware and software.

News/Rumors

Facebook Home won’t come to iOs

When smartphone First has become  the result of HTC and Facebook collaboration, Facebook  Home for Google Android can be considered to be a proper development of the social network. The application is designed for active users of Facebook and provides a user with a number of relevant services.

Now, to work with a social network you do not have to open a separate application: news can be displayed both on the home screen, and on the lock screen. Give “like” and comment directly from the home screen.There is also a separate notification bar. Home received its own messenger called Chat Heads, combining a messaging application to send them in Facebook and through SMS.

Home will appear in Google Play in April and will be free of charge. But this app will be compatible only witn Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note II and HTC One X. Facebook promises to release Home updates every month, adding new functions and devices. On the agenda  now are such  features like Facebook-calls and the Facebook Camera application.

Concerning Apple, “We have a great relationship with Apple,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when asked if Home would come to iOS. “Apple is a very controlled environment,” he added. What Facebook has prepared is too expansive. It would completely disregard iOS and push Apple to the background.

 

iOS, News/Rumors

US Department of Defense purchases 650,000 iOS devices

Apparently, the US Department of Defense has completed testing of mobile devices and is ready to purchase iOS gadgets from Apple. Despite the sequester of the US budget, it’s planned to acquire 650,000 Apple mobile devices.
Previously, it was about 10, 000 Blackberry, but even this number was decreased due to budget savings. However, the need for so many gadgets is so fatal that even in this situation there is no way to wait. More than a half of Apple devices are planned to be sent to the soldiers located on the battlefield and at sea. The rest will remain at the disposal of the Pentagon.
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According to other sources, new iOS-gadgets are needed to replace the old BlackBerry, which are incompatible with the new Blackberry 10 software. Statistics shows that there are about 470,000 BlackBerry at the disposal of the Department of Defense.
The decision of purchasing a new high-tech devices wasn’t canceled at all, the US government postponed it for some time due to the fact, that sequester influences IT-budget at a greater rate than in other areas of government spending.

News/Rumors

BlackBerry plans to offer security solutions for iOS and android

BlackBerry announced on Thursday it plans to offer a solution that will separate and secure both work and personal data on the most dominant mobile platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

BlackBerry’s Secure Work Space will be available on platforms other than the company’s own, as the smartphone maker looks to regain lost ground in the highly competitive mobile market. The Secure Work Space will be managed through BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, and is expected to launch in June.

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The solution for third-party platforms will include secured client applications for e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing, and document editing.

The service aims to give iPhone and iPad users the ability to access data and applications behind corporate firewalls without the need to manage and configure a VPN connection. BlackBerry touted Secure Work Space as “a secure and reliable solution” that it hopes will be the “clear choice for enterprises and governments” in allowing employees to bring their own iOS and Android devices into the corporate space.

“With BlackBerry Balance technology, we offer the industry’s only true compromise-free separation of work and personal data and applications,” said David J. Smith, executive vice president of Enterprise Mobile Computing. “With Secure Work Space for iOS and Android devices, we’re extending as many of these features as possible to other platforms, critical in today’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) world. BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 offers administrators a single, intuitive platform enabling them to effectively and securely manage a variety of devices while protecting their corporate assets and at the same time providing employees the flexibility they desire.”

Closed beta testing for Secure Work SPace has already begun, and general availability is expected to be offered by the second quarter of this year. More details have been promised at the BlackBerry Live conference in May, to be held in Orlando, Fla.

“The vast majority of smartphones on the market aren’t adequately secure for corporate or government work,” said Robert Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group. “Currently BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 combined with BlackBerry Balance or Secure Work Space has the only volume solution which has been designed from the ground up to provide the security most IT departments require. With this announcement BlackBerry is expanding beyond their own top to bottom approach to security to address this need on other platforms.”

Last year, BlackBerry, then known as Research in Motion, launched its “Mobile Fusion” mobile device management software for enterprise customers. That added the ability to manage iOS devices, in addition to BlackBerry and Android handsets.

Once a dominant player in the industry, BlackBerry has fallen on tough times in both the government and enterprise markets. The company has pinned its hopes on the newly launched BlackBerry 10 platform, and touted this week that an unnamed company in the U.S. has already placed orders for one million BlackBerry 10 devices.

“An order for one million devices is a tremendous vote of confidence in BlackBerry 10,” said Rick Costanzo, executive vice president of Global Sales at BlackBerry. “Consumers are ready for a new user experience, and BlackBerry 10 delivers. With strong partner support, coupled with this truly re-invented new platform, we have a powerful recipe for success.”

Apps Lists, News/Rumors

Tumblr iOS app updated

Tumblr on Monday rolled out a new version of its universal iOS app, bringing a number of new features to the microblogging service including photosets, a photo collection creation tool previously available only as a standalone app. Given the popularity of photos on the social network, we’re not surprised three of the five features added in this release are image-related.

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Announced on the Tumblr Staff blog, the Tumblr v3.3 update for both iPhone and iPad includes folds photoset functionality into the flagship app, granting users the ability to create and share photo montages through the company’s blogging service. Previously, Tumblr launched the feature as the Photoset standalone app in October 2012.
Alongside the photosets integration, a redesigned camera interface has been introduced with enhanced features to simplify the process of formatting and taking pictures to post to a user’s blog. Finally, the refreshed app automatically fetches titles for copied or entered URLs, allows users to double tap a post to like and single tap their avatar to make changes.The latest Tumblr update for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is a 12.4MB free download from the App Store
As you can see, visually speaking it’s not much different. Under the hood, there aren’t any major changes either: this is strictly a new feature release.
Here’s the full Tumblr 3.3 for iOS changelog, unnecessary exclamation marks and all:
• Brand new camera!
• Create photosets straight from the app.
• Double-tap posts to like!
• Tap the avatar in your profile to change it.
• Link posts: Copy or enter a URL and we’ll fetch the title!

News/Rumors

PayPal launches new iOS SDK

PayPal said on Friday that it is rolling out a new mobile software development kit that will let Apple iOS device users make in-app purchases via the company’s payment service without having to switch apps.
Announced to through a blog post from the SXSW Festival, PayPal’s new SDK also expands customer payment options to include the company’s card.io technology, which allows users to take a picture of their credit card instead of manually inputting the information.

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As noted by The Next Web, with the new software, developers can create apps that offer an enhanced user experience. Currently, when a purchaser pays through PayPal in a third-party app, they are taken to either Safari or PayPal’s own iOS app to complete the transfer.

“Developers should have the freedom to focus on innovating for their customers, not spending time worrying about handling the complex task of payments,” PayPal CTO James Barrese said in the post. “But we listened when our developers said they wanted better capabilities from us, and now we’re doubling down on our developer programs to deliver the best tools in the industry.”

In addition to the in-app integration, the e-payment giant introduced new JavaScript PayPal buttons that can be implemented with just five lines of code.

Finally, PayPal is beta-launching REST, OAuth and JSON versions of its most popular APIs, payment processing and immediate settlement, to help streamline integration for developers. In the post, Barrese noted that the SDK will first be rolled out to iOS devs, with support for other platforms coming down the road.

News/Rumors

Apple to turn to HTTPS for Apps Store

“Early July 2012, I reported to Apple numerous vulnerabilities related to their App Store iOS app. Last week Apple finally issued a fix for it and turned on HTTPS for the App Store,” Elie Bursztein blogs. “I am really happy that my spare-time work pushed Apple to finally enabled HTTPS to protect users.”

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“The Apple App Store and associated applications, such as the Newsstand, are native applications provided by default with iOS to access/purchase content from the Apple App Store,” Bursztein writes. “While the Apple App Store is a native iOS app, most of its active content, including app pages and the update page, is dynamically rendered from server data. The server data is mostly standard web data (HTML/Javascript/CSS) with custom extensions/keywords.”
Bursztein writes, “The following attacks are carried out by an active network attack that is able to read, intercept and manipulate non-encrypted (HTTP) network traffic. Hence those attacks can be carried on any public Wifi networks including airport or coffee-shops networks. Being on the same networks as the victims is all it takes.”
The following attacks are carried out by an active network attack that is able to read, intercept and manipulate non-encrypted (HTTP) network traffic. Hence those attacks can be carried on any public Wifi networks including airport or coffee-shops networks. Being on the same networks as the victims is all it takes.
By abusing the lack of encryption (HTTPS) in certain parts of the communication with the App Store, the dynamic nature of the App Store pages, and the lack of confirmation, an active network attacker can perform the following attacks:
- Password stealing: Trick the user into disclosing his or her password by using the application update notification mechanism to insert a fake prompt when the App Store is launched.
- App swapping: Force the user to install/buy the attacker’s app of choice instead of the one the user intended to install/buy. It is possible to swap a free app with a paid app.
- App fake upgrade: Trick the user into installing/buying the attacker’s app of choice by inserting fake app upgrades, or manipulating existing app upgrades.
- Preventing application installation: Prevent the user from installing/upgrading applications either by stripping the app out of the market or tricking the app into believing it is already installed.
- Privacy leak: The App Store application update mechanism discloses in the clear the list of the applications installed on the device.

Apps Lists, News/Rumors

Marvel Unlimited now in iOS

For years, comic fans have asked Marvel to offer its digital subscription service on Apple’s iPad, but users were restricted to reading back issues with an iOS-incompatible Adobe Flash-based reader. Marvel began offering an HTML5-based, iPad-compatible reader a few months ago, but on Thursday the company launched its companion Marvel Unlimited app for iOS.

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The free application requires users to subscribe to the newly renamed Marvel Unlimited service, which costs $10 per month, or $60 for a full year. The application comes with a free trial, though users must separately sign up for the subscription outside of the application, allowing Marvel to avoid Apple’s 30 percent share of all in-app transactions.

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Marvel Unlimited has access to a back catalog of more than 13,000 comics spanning over 70 years. Marvel adds classic and newer issues every week, with comics as recent as 6-months-old available via the subscription service.

Those who subscribe to Marvel Unlimited get full access to the archive on the Web and with the Marvel Unlimited application available for iPhone and iPad. Members can also select up to 6 comics at a time to be read when not connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Marvel was an early adopter of the iPad for digital comics, and had an official application available on the App Store when the first-generation iPad debuted in 2010. That application, which offers sales of newer comics the same day their print counterparts hit shelves, allows users to download high-resolution scans of comics through the service ComiXology.

Late last year, the company also debuted its “Marvel Now” series, in which new print comics come with a download code that offers a free digital copy of the same issue. Users can enter that code on Marvel’s website, and the comic can then be downloaded and read through the official Marvel Comics iOS application.

Marvel Now comics also include integration with an augmented reality application for iOS called Marvel AR. The application uses the rear camera on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to scan a page, which then streams a video related to that content.

News/Rumors

Android accounts for 96% of all mobile malware in Q4

According to a new report released today from security specialists F-Secure, Google’s Android accounted for 79% of all malware in 2012 and an astounding 96% in forth quarter 2012.
Apple’s iOS, which powers the industry-defining iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iPad mini, accounted for a mere 0.7% of malware in 2012.

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Android malware has been strengthening its position in the mobile threat scene. Every quarter, malware authors bring forth new threat families and variants to lure more victims and to update on the existing ones. In the fourth quarter alone, 96 new families and variants of Android threats were discovered, which almost doubles the number recorded in the previous quarter. A large portion of this number was contributed by PremiumSMS—a family of malware that generates profit through shady SMS-sending practices—which unleashed 21 new variants.

Quite a number of Android malware employ an operation similar to PremiumSMS. It is a popular method for making direct monetary profit. The malware quietly sends out SMS messages to premium rate numbers or signs up the victims to an SMS-based subscription service. Any tell-tale messages or notifications from these numbers and/or services will be intercepted and deleted; therefore, the users will be completely unaware of these activities until the charges appear on their bills.

The rise of Android malware can be largely attributed to the operating system’s increasing foothold in the mobile market. Android’s market share has risen to 68.8% in 2012, compared to 49.2% in 20112. On the threat side, its share rose to 79% in 2012 from 66.7% in 2011. Symbian on the other hand, is suffering from the opposite fate. In 2012, it only held 3.3% market share which is a huge drop from 16.5% in the year before3.

Its share in the threat scene also reflected this drop, going from 29.7% in 2011 to 19% in 2012. Nokia’s decision to halt all Symbian development in February 2012 may have contributed to the huge drop in numbers. As its market share declines, so does malware authors’ interest in the platform as evidenced by the statistics seen in Q4 where only four new families and variants of Symbian malware were recorded. As for the other platforms, i.e., Blackberry, iOS, windows Mobile, they may see some threats popping up once in a while. But most likely, the threats are intended for multiple platforms similar to the case of FinSpy4
.

News/Rumors

iOS free apps leak more personal data than Android apps

Popular free apps on Apple’s iOS platform are sharing significantly more user data than the most popular apps on Google’s Android platform, according to a study recently released by Appthority.
Appthority’s App Report for February 2013 looked at the top performing free mobile apps across both iOS and Android, as free mobile apps are more likely to rely ad networks and analytics companies as a means of generating revenue. Despite Android’s reputation as a less secure platform, Appthority found that it was iOS apps that are allowed to engage in more risky behaviors.

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The study found that all 50 of the top free iOS apps — and 92 percent of the top 50 free Android apps — send and receive data without encryption. iOS apps get more access to user data, with 60 percent of the top apps tracking user location, 54 percent having access to a user’s contact list, 60 percent sharing data with ad or analytics networks, and 14 percent accessing users’ calendars.
Fifty percent of Android apps shared data with ad networks, while 42 percent tracked user locations. Only 20 percent of Android apps, though, had access to users’ contact lists, and none were found to access the calendar. Entertainment apps were found to be the loosest with user data, with games and business apps close behind. Educational and finance apps were found to display the fewest risky behaviors.

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A number of questionable policies and security concerns have painted Google’s Android platform as inherently less secure than Apple’s iOS. Android does appear to be more vulnerable to malware than iOS, but mobile malware affects only one percent of apps. The larger concern, the study concludes, should be over how mobile apps handle personal information and company data.