[Security Now] iOS Security by Steve Gibson

Whenever I listen to @SGgrc‘s GREAT lecture, it’s hard to stay unimpressed.

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My father joined 30 year old Mac family

It has been about a month for my father switched his computer from Windows environment to Mac’s. Knowing he would never be encouraged to do it by himself, somehow it’s been forced by me, disguised as presenting him a gift of Macbook Air 13″. Many of us were growing up with computers as joyfully given gifts from our parents, and reciprocating their love with same joy was one of my recent happy memory.

Like so many of his age group in Korea, my father couldn’t have a right opportunity to get acquainted with modern digital technologies. Also for being a white-collar government official who had to deal more with political or human issues, he couldn’t have enough time to train his hand to type effectively on a keyboard, to learn about how to exercise his ownership over his machine.

After his retirement, occasionally he had to learn more about how to control his computer in a different level. He had to learn how to type a document, save it as a file, send it via email, sync his iPhone, etc. What mostly had been helped by his secretary whom he had when he held his office in the government, should be handled by himself nowadays. It has not been too bad to do normal activities under normal circumstances.

But what could he do when bad things happen? Should he keep purchasing virus cleaners? How could he fix the situations like losing his important files? And unfortunately, it did happen to him. Being forced to take an effort to free his Windows from malware grasp, he had to erase the system, losing his files.

Anyone may encounter bad situation like this from any types of computers. But I can’t still accept that such defeat had to happen like this easily. And why is it always Windows? Being a professional with conviction, being his son, I had to rescue my father from Windows hell.

So far his conversion experienced almost no difficulty. Once realized his web-based activities are not changed at all, he felt enough confidence in using Mac. As expected, system-based activities like finding a file or deleting an application were much easier to learn than Windows. There is one challenge caused by being a user of Korean banking systems, which requires Windows’ Internet Explorer with ActiveX. By helping him to acquainted with virtualization application like Parallels, my father were able to use Windows inside Mac only for a limited time.

Though my goal to free him from Windows had to be compromised, minimizing his exposure to dangerous world could be suffice at least for a while. After all, my father were never more happier to have truly his own computer which makes him proud. My father began to understand why it means to be like owning a BMW, when you own a Mac.

Being a Mac user for five years myself, I couldn’t help but to believe that if anyone has to choose a system for his or her digital livelihood, it should be Mac for safer and less irritating experiences. Maybe I’m a little biased, but I think it’s quite difficult to judge millions of happy users for 30 years to be wrong.

Can App PREview Process be helpful?

Recently, our team has submitted an iOS app to the App Store to be reviewed.

Unfortunately, due to Apple’s own policy, this app was rejected and we couldn’t release it.

Personally, I have known this would happen. What this app tried to do was something questionable, at least in its intention, even if there is no technical violation.

Our team’s strategy was very simple. If Apple didn’t publish anything against about what this app tried to do, we could challenge Apple to accept the end product. If Apple didn’t say NO publicly, we should try it. That was the argument of the team leader.

However, Apple’s decision after reviewing was solid and there is no way we can reclaim time we spent to develop this app. The only comfort we could get was that Apple’s reviewer himself also felt sorry for us, recognizing it’s not a technical violation but just a political issue.

I just wish we could have known about Apple’s policy on this long before designing and developing the app. At least for me, if I could present public documentation about this matter, maybe I could persuade the team leader not to waste our time.

Or, it could be so much better if there are people in Apple’s side, who may answer our questions, BEFORE we start designing & developing something. I wonder if it’s helpful to have PREview team, like REview team.

Of course, there are a lot of instructive materials, teaching us what should we consider when developing an iOS app. But I just wish there is an actual Apple Genius whom we can talk to about very special and rare idea of ours, we just can’t help but to try out.

It’s just wishful thinking of mine.

Going to WWDC!

Finally, the developer of PopToo of fXceed is going to WWDC! Expect to learn a great stuff and meet great people!

iOS Tech Talk 2011 in Seoul

[This blog does not contain any technical information. Also, I am an Apple fan, probably my blog will be purely subjective.]

Today, December 8, was very special day for me.

It was my birthday, which was meaningful to me and my parents.

Also, it was the event day for iOS Tech Talk in Seoul, which was meaningful to every iOS developer in S. Korea.

One of the greatest things I didn’t expect from this event was to be able to meet the same instructors who were at the WWDC. In other words, this Tech Talk event can be considered as the extension of WWDC, not the another kind.

To some people, including myself, these instructors are the Rock Stars. They were touring around the world to excite their fans. Some people took pictures with their stars. I didn’t do it because I thought it could be perceived as objectifying them, which could be impolite. However, I just hope I don’t regret not taking pictures with them, later.

Aside their professional authority in the field of software development, the instructors were extremely friendly. They were so generous enough to pay good attention to people they never met before, who kept asking annoying questions. Probably, it’s their job requirement as the  Apple Evangelists. However, it’s impossible to ignore but respect their effort.

This one day event did impress me a lot, strengthening my positive perception about Apple and its people. They do know how to make their fans happy.

Allow me to reuse the tweet I shared: With these enthusiastic, friendly and yet extremely professional masters, the future of Apple will stay to be bright, I think. Even if Steve is no longer with them, with us.

I definitely want to attend WWDC 2012. Not only because I am eager to learn new technologies, but also I want to continue the joyful conversation I was having with the masters. Now it’s clear to me that, everything about Apple has become very personal to me.