iPhone App Development, Windows Firewire Hacks

Apple announced its long-awaited software development kit for the iPhone last week. We did a few stories on it, so reader comments were spread out among Editor in Chief Harry McCracken's take on the SDK, a Macworld piece, and other articles (go to our iPhone archive to browse all of our coverage). But the message came through loud and clear: Most readers love the SDK, but some are upset it can be programmed only on a Mac. Tell us what you think of the SDK and other Apple announcements.

A security researcher in New Zealand has published a tool that allows hackers to access PCs via the Firewire port. Many readers lamented security concerns if a hacker has physical access, and a discussion of physical security ensued. How do you keep your machine safe?

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Ten Questions I Still Have About iPhone Software

goshenind says: Good set of questions. My takeaway from yesterday's event is that Apple is playing to win in the smart phone business, which is good since they have some formidable competitors out there. The second takeaway is that all these cool iPhone apps are going to run on the iPod Touch as well, which means that Apple just tightened its grip on the high-end media player market. If you're Microsoft, what is the answer to the iPod Touch? The Zune was designed to compete with the Classic iPod. Do they just flush the Zune and come out with an MP3 player that's running Windows Mobile? Keep an eye on that one.

Read the posts in this thread and contribute your own opinion.

iPhone SDK: What Apple Got Right

trevor97007 says: Sure Macs are nice, but they're so damn expensive it gives people who can only afford PCs no option for iPhone programming. I was expecting to see a cross-platform SDK, but apparently Apple thinks that only consumers and enterprises with Macs are worth their time and that Windows compatibility is there just to shut people up. If they really want companies to buy the iPhone, then they need a Windows SDK.

Cweberusa says: The iPhone OS is essentially Mac OS X plus new APIs to access the touch screen and accelerometers. In essence the iPhone is a Mac in disguise, and the fact that it plays as well with a Windows PC as it does now (from a user perspective) is awesome. However, for development the situation is different. Some features of the iPhone SDK, such as iPhone emulator, debugger, performance tools, etc., are relatively straightforward to implement on regular desktop Mac OS X, given the shared code base and all, but very hard (to say the least) on Windows. Plus, the SDK builds on the existing Mac OS X XCode IDE, which doesn't exist under Windows. The iPhone SDK is not just a cheapish collection of tools. It's the real deal, giving you full access to all features of the iPhone. It's what Apple engineers use themselves.

Read the posts in this thread and contribute your own opinion.

Windows Hacked in Seconds via Firewire

RastaMon says: With the advent of the side channel attack defeating AES encryption, we have returned to the point that no machine is secure if the bad guys have physical access to the machine.

Evildave says: No machine ever has been secure if "bad guys" could get at it, encryption or not. Even with encryption and no hack they can image your hard drive fairly quickly, then take the data elsewhere to do a more time-consuming brute-force crack. Even if the encryption were "perfect" (and Microsoft has a long, long history of security that is far from that), it's absolutely no protection against data destruction that can be done logically (boot disks and/or flash) or physically (got a hammer?).

Texaport says: Microsoft has always maintained that if someone has physical access to your equipment, then it isn't your equipment any more.

Dermatea says: I partly agree that if some baddie has physical access to your computer, the machine might as well be theirs. However, since this "hack" relies on a built-in feature of FireWire, wouldn't it be easier to guard against physical attacks using physical means? Like, what about putting a cover over your I/O ports that unlocks via fingerprint scanners and whatnot. Many laptops already have fingerprint scanners, so why not PCs?

Read the posts in this thread and contribute your own opinion.

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