Test Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Galaxy Nexus - II

Multitasking on steroids

In general, the management of concurrent tasks is a strong point of Android, which also strengthens from year to year, while applications are iOS silos with an inlet, an outlet, and a sense of movement well accurate, Android applications can communicate, report and act more freely.

Time is money

Erwann Girard described the scenario that far videographer filming outdoors or in studio and had to return their Mac Pro's rush to unload on a rack and then mount her work "With a MacBook Pro 17" has become a powerful machine and the Little Big Disk storage was extremely fast. It obviously does not terabytes as in a server room, but it was up to 500 GB SSD and chaining these products can be achieved tera with excellent performance. "

There are also those clients who need to transfer large volumes of data, this task could be moved at certain times of day may be carried out on the field "From the time the computer takes the road, the interface no longer an obstacle to the preservation, one can imagine that given incremental backup will take a few seconds where it took two hours. We have customers who spend their lives moving data. An advertising agency that delivers a project, as 500 GB or 1 TB of data to put on a hard drive which then sends the customer, and I'm not talking about post-production boxes that merely this. Here we will transfer 1 TB in 20 minutes instead of eight hours with USB 2. That increased efficiency, it will change the customs. "

When the user, it should take advantage of any transparent manner Thunderbolt "Apple has worked hard to make the experience good, one branch and the volume goes up, there is nothing special. It was the ease of use of USB or FireWire with superior performance to that of Fibre Channel, and robustness comparable. It was a little the best of both worlds. Personally it is something that speaks to me, when I joined I took care of LaCie products racks with Fiber Channel 4 Gbp / s 12 or 24 TB and there were performances that were worse compared to of Thunderbolt and two SSDs! When you put things into perspective we have many advantages, an association between consumer and professional characteristics. "

The fact that Thunderbolt is based on these relatively mature "mini DisplayPort connector is known as PCI Express, PCI and it's video, it's tough, no surprise, we're on the known "(LaCie has three professional displays equipped with a DisplayPort socket, ndr). The possibility also to chain the elements, which as a convenience to limit the (re) connections when multiple returns with his laptop, one cable will connect the machine (s) disc (s) drive (s) and screen.

The possibility of Thunderbolt back to its origins, that of a fiber optic cable rather than copper is not excluded but there is still work to do and it raises other problems, "It's not buried, Intel has not closed the door on that idea, but it is not on the agenda. There is such physical frailty of the fiber that makes it unsuitable for use by the general public or for use on the ground. It is found rather in the server room, where the branch once and where they do not touch anymore. ".

The iPad 2 makes good use of his legacy

The iPad 2 comes out tomorrow in the U.S. and the first test reports were released that night. Several journalists have had the new model in the hands for a week. Overview of the opinions of each other, among technophiles blogs and public newspaper sites. A general consensus emerges, the tablet from Apple evolves very well and it could again serve as a yardstick for competition, despite some shortcomings, some of a material nature (poor camera), others to order software (iOS notifications for example) but in this case can be easily resolved. As also suggest some performance tests, developers will have huge engine with which to play. But ultimately, where Apple is unbeatable is the consistency and overall quality of its ecosystem iOS and appliances that go with it.

Mac App Store: Apple takes all

If the Mac App Store definitely creates opportunities for all developers, Apple is doing particularly well in his own store if we are to believe the list of the more profitable. On the Mac App Store U.S. - one that represents the highest volumes in the world - 9 of the 12 most profitable applications today are backed by Apple.

In the list, there are expected classics, like the three applications of iLife: iMovie (11.99 €), iPhoto (11.99 €) and GarageBand (11.99 €), and three applications iWork: Pages (15.99 €), Numbers (15.99 €) and Keynote (15.99 €). These applications have always been successful before the Mac App Store and it has further highlighted and has probably allowed many users to upgrade at a lower cost by purchasing only the software they used at Instead of buying a complete suite. GarageBand has perhaps the success of the iPad version (3.99 €).



Although priced at the floor of the App Store, FaceTime (0.79 €) has been so successful that the application has to rise to eighth place among the most profitable applications. FaceTime is still number one overall in the Mac App Store U.S., as in many other countries around the world. Conversely, Aperture (€ 62.99) has perhaps not been as successful as the number of downloads, but its higher price has undoubtedly helped Apple to earn large sums. If the price is at the top of the ladder on the Mac App Store, it is well below the prices before leaving on the application store dedicated to Mac OS X, which explains its success.

Among these nine applications, where the strangest is undoubtedly that of Apple's development environment, Xcode (3.99 €). For the first time, Apple has decided to sell its IDE, which had always been offered free until then and that was all the same installation DVD included with the Mac. If Xcode 3 is still available for free, provided to create a free developer account, Xcode is now paying 4, available to developers who pay the annual fee of 79 € indispensable to publish on the App Store, or those who want the purchase via the Mac App Store.



Fairly amazing, FDI is a box of Apple in the Mac App Store and it is today second in many countries. Why such success? IOS developers or those who chose the winning formula from Apple have no reason to buy again in Xcode the Mac App Store because they have free access through the development center. It is all developers "historic" that do not intend to change their means of distribution from a Mac App Store, which did not pay for Apple's developer program, but want to learn Xcode 4.

This is undeniably the world, but these downloads are also strong, perhaps, a sign of attraction to the public. Xcode allows you to disable the multitouch gestures on the iPad with IOS 4.3 (read: iOS 4.3: enable multitouch gestures for iPad), but there may also be curious, clumsy and maybe, who knows, the Developers who collect all versions of Xcode. Whatever the motivations, the fact is that proposing Xcode on the Mac App Store has been a great idea commercially. And according to the general trend of American reviews, Apple could have sold its software far more expensive ...



Mac App Store offers unparalleled visibility to thousands of developers. But given this performance, we also understand why Apple has created this store: The company sells its software as ever and this would justify the arrest of software sales in its physical Apple Store. By putting all of its software sold on the Mac App Store, Apple's strength so users of Mac OS X to try this new distribution channel and everything suggests that the company will go deeper into this process. After all, the beta of Mac OS X Leo was sent to developers via the Mac App Store: a system operating in the App Store, the idea would have laughed a few months ago, maybe it will be a reality this summer ...

Apple and Samsung: the enemy brothers

Apple and Samsung are currently two of the largest companies in the field of consumer electronics. They have much in common, often work together, depend on each other on certain points, but are also competing in highly strategic. So, Apple and Samsung partners can they stay long-term goals?

With the success in the first instance of the iPod and the iPhone and iPad, Apple has become one of the biggest buyers of components in the world. Sign a contract with the Cupertino Company is the assurance of almost an order book well stocked for many months. Apple has often used his position elsewhere to rain or shine on the market for flash memory.

If in the 80s at the time of the Macintosh, Apple could afford to live in isolation and develop almost everything she, in a globalizing world, this is simply not possible.

Corporation deemed to be tough in business, Apple has managed to forge some strategic partnerships. Besides Samsung, Intel may be mentioned (for the supply of processors on the Macintosh), NVIDIA (which has created several GPUs for Apple) and Foxconn (one of the largest subcontractors to Apple). Among these companies, it is certainly with Samsung that relationships are more complex. Apple remains true to its culture of secrecy and rarely evokes its relations with its partners.

Proof, if needed, she remained evasive on the processor design A4. On its website, the Apple brand wrote: "Apple engineers designed the chip A4 into a mobile processor both incredibly powerful and energy efficient.”

Mac Book Pro 13 "Core i7: The Turbo Boost function well

The 2.7 GHz Core i7-2620m team that the Mac Book Pro 13 "high-end mobile chip with the highest frequency available in the Intel catalog. It may even reach 3.4 GHz on a heart through the turbo boost, but Apple has apparently it off this feature to avoid overheating.

The Cupertino Company is yet to promote this function on the product page of Mac Book Pro, clearly indicating the frequency of 3.4 GHz that only the Core i7-2620m can be achieved in the current range. PC Pro has never yet managed to achieve this frequency in these tests, the processor remains hopelessly nailed to 2.7 GHz. Core i7-2720QM Mac Book Pro 17 "has no trouble reaching its maximum frequency of 3 GHz, so its four cores are at 95 degrees.

That's about the same temperature reached by the two cores of the Core i7-2620m Mac Book Pro 13 "at full speed to 2 GHz. This temperature is certainly high, but rather common, however, can only imagine the Turbo Boost, the processor could blithely exceed 100 °, temperatures this time potentially problematic. The English site therefore advances the hypothesis that Apple has disabled the Turbo Boost on the chip to avoid overheating. Notebook Journal (via) confirms this hypothesis: their copy is even temporarily increased to 798 MHz time to control its temperature.

Even without turbo boost, the Mac Book Pro 13 "Core i7 is a very fast machine. The question is whether Apple disables the default Turbo Boost, or if Mac OS X disables the fly: it will be difficult to know, rise in mean temperature rise mechanically. Having ourselves a Mac Book Pro 13 "Core i7 at our disposal, we will try to verify this behavior: we will update this article accordingly.

[UPDATE] Our own tests show that the Turbo Boost is indeed active on the Core i7-2620m Mac Book Pro 13 ". On two hearts, the incidence rises to 3.19 GHz (multi-core optimized implementation), so that it goes up to 3.33 GHz on a single heart (non-optimized implementation; Turbo Boost 2.0 is supposed to extend the "boost" Yet, we observe that the frequency goes down enough quickly, in very small increments (Intel explained that Core i7-2620m had 7 frequency ranges between 2.7 and 3.4 GHz).

The falling speed of the Turbo Boost seems to be correlated to temperature: the "boost" is much better during the first tests (when the processor runs at about 80 °) during the following (the processor then proceeds to over 90 °, with a peak at 97 °). It seems that Mac OS X and / or processor finely monitorent frequency to avoid overheating: it is again a function of Turbo Boost 2.0. Even in influencing the speed of the fans for the processor to overheat (remaining under the 110 ° measure), we observed no deactivation of cores or drastic fall frequency to avoid overheating.

In short, it seems that this processor is behaving as it should, with a much finer granularity of the "boost". PC Pro Notebook Journal as a tool used by Intel under Windows to test frequency: perhaps he is assigned a bug, or maybe the management of the Turbo Boost this particular model of processor is different ( or faulty) on this platform.

Adobe introduced the "ninth Elements"

The "Ninth Elements", as Adobe calls it, was presented to the press today. The big news of the ninth edition of consumer products from Adobe Premiere Elements of the arrival on the Mac.

The entire range of Elements is now available on Mac OS X. Bridge lovers will be disappointed: the browser interface on Mac Adobe disappears in favor of an organizer who was brought from the Windows version. Files, projects and catalogs are fully compatible between both platforms. Managing photos and videos, it takes the tabbed interface that can be found for example in Lightroom: Organizing (with management of keywords and display by date), edit, create (using templates) and share (with integration of social networks).

As for video, Premiere Elements 9 is therefore coming to Mac. The tabbed interface is again formatting: Organize tab is a bin with integrated import interface, the Edit tab contains themes and effects, the Menus tab of the disk to create DVDs or BDR, and Sharing tab to share .... We like it or not, but we must admit that seems very linear operation for beginners. Unlike iMovie, Premiere Elements is multitrack audio / video (99 tracks).

We can use files from different sources into one project: the first adaptation project in the format of the first file. The files will be up scaled or down-accordingly. Premiere Elements 9 is able to clean background noise of a video taken by example with a telephone or a small HD camera. The impact compresses the sound a bit, but is really effective. Premiere Elements 9 loads over 70 effects to the questionable value, but is mostly modified at will - and are mainly used on live video, without rendering time.

Similarly, the DVD menus are the default controls the placement of videos, but it is possible to modify and enrich them, depending on the degree of experience. If we can send his film on DVD or Blu-ray (one will appreciate the humor of Adobe on the topic, since we have not finished waiting on Mac compatible players), we can also make a kind of DVD Web, a Web page that appears as a menu and allows to read videos in an interactive way ... in Flash (FLV or MP4).

Image side, Photoshop Elements 9 inherits some features of Photoshop CS5, but also embellished resolutely public functions. Photoshop Elements 9 integrates also a gallery of filters in fashion, as the effect or Lomo Pop Art, but also the effects of photomontage. These effects are presented as "recipes", built in tutorials to Photoshop Elements immediately containing the necessary tools. If you are a little more experienced, you can always have access to layers that have helped create the effect or photomontage.

Elements 9 uses the engine of Photoshop CS5 for example offer repair or correction of the photos shown taking into account the content: you can now automatically fill the missing areas of a panorama, rather than the crop, or remove elements noise of an image (a kind of automated cloning tool). The results are convincing ... until we do not zoom to 100%. Finally, like Photoshop Elements Premiere 9 integrate social networks: it is possible to export his creations on Facebook or Flickr.

Change of strategy

Overall, the whole approach of the Apple security that Charlie Miller and castigated early March, although he conceded being "somewhat responsive to bugs that has been providing it with:" Apple does not pay security researchers. Apple assumes that it has no security problem and did not need to work with researchers. "Worse, he said," Apple is certainly capable of producing a safe product, but do just not yet made the effort. "And, in fact, Apple may have changed his tune: he moreover subject - among others - pre-release version of Mac OS X Leo.

In addition, Apple has recently recruited several experts in computer security: David Rice, a former NSA, Ivan Krstic, former director of the OLPC, or Windows Snyder, who has contributed to strengthening the security of Firefox.

And he has this apparent convergence between Mac OS X iOS. Apple uses sandboxing widely within IOS, but not in Mac OS X, maybe it will evolve. ALSR arrived in IOS with version 4.3, its use may be extended with Leo. Code signing is also utilized to secure iOS. With the Mac App Store, it used to protect applications distributed through this, against piracy. But perhaps Apple plans to go further ...

Safari, a victim of his age?

But if there's one application that one might be tempted to apply this perspective, it's Safari. A French window all the more sensitive it is open to a world where hostility is not lacking. And then, Apple has fallen behind Google and its sensitive Chrome: it is fully designed to isolate processes from each other and HTML rendering extensions, is the concept of sandboxing, confinement in bins sand, literally.
Safari for Mac could give the impression to use the sandboxing for plug-ins like flash, but isolation is not complete - it is just there to prevent the component to crash the browser.

Mac OS X Lion could change somewhat the situation: a new process is associated with Safari, and it could be exclusively dedicated to rendering HTML, Safari Web Content (read: Safari 5.1: separate processes and WebGL). But it remains far from that Chrome isolates each tab in a dedicated process. And for Miller, Apple has "failed - or did not seek" to make regularly available for Safari updates made to its rendering engine, WebKit. As to better illustrate this assertion, Chrome has already enjoyed a patch for the vulnerability exploited in the last Pwn2Own to make him fall.

Faults! Yes, but it is still necessary to exploit ...

But it is on one side and holes on the other, the possibility of exploiting them. Mac OX 10.5, Apple introduced two devices to protect its operating system against this: the ASLR and DEP. The first, and Address Space Layout Randomization, is to introduce an element of chance in the distribution of data areas in virtual memory. And thus limit the possibilities of executing malicious code introduced in memory overflow the buffer, for example. DEP completes the first device by prohibiting the execution of injected code still in memory areas reserved for data. The DEP is closely tied to the hardware architecture of the computer.

In Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, the ASLR is too partial. Charlie Miller underlines that "there are many things that are not random, as the location of the dynamic linker [which deals with memory and seek to link shared libraries when an application is launched], or stack and heap [two areas in memory where some data are stored temporarily]. "And for the DEP, the situation is no better: it only applies to 64-bit process. Charlie Miller, he must report this to the world in the face: "In Windows, ASLR is complete and they have the DEP." And if, for Apple, the move to 64 bit improves security for Miller " this makes the circumvention of DEP that more difficult. "But not impossible.

Certainly, as pointed out Charlie Miller, Apple has made available to developers - and uses in Safari - tools from further strengthen security: "canary." These are reference values that are placed in a buffer and to verify the data stored in the stack to monitor potential buffer overflows, the first data corruption in this case to just be the canary. But again, the expert pointed out that using this type of security systems based on the specific compiler may require a migration to environment and development is not entirely suited to large projects with a strong history.

Apple and security issues

The reputation is not everything. And, as usual, Mac OS X did not fail to fail at the last edition of Pwn2Own at CanSecWest. This time, it is the French Security VuPen who managed to find and exploit a flaw in WebKit HTML rendering engine of Safari - in particular.

It must be said that VuPen has made a specialty of so-called "intrusion friendly" or, in other words, the penetration test. Among the clients VuPen Security include including Microsoft, Shell, Sagem or IGN. Their job is the testing of security policies applied to information systems. Teams efficient enough that during the 2009 conference on Security Workshop VuPen has sold out and has attracted the interest of representatives from the retail, telecommunications, or the Army.

For IOS, it's even Safari which served as a gateway. And it's a regular who has taken on the task: Charlie Miller. Security analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, Charlie Miller has been awarded four times during Pwn2Own. Twitter, he describes himself as "Mr. Apple 0-day", ie one that runs from previously unknown flaws in the software firm at the apple. A specialty of Miller, the Fuzzing. An approach to vulnerability research developed mainly by Ari Takanen, CTO of Codenomicon Finnish. Jared DeMott, Charlie Miller, he co-authored a book dedicated to the subject, "Fuzzing, for software security testing and quality assurance", published in 2008 by Artech House. At the end of the book, a case study is also devoted to the search for vulnerabilities in QuickTime Player.

The basic concept of Fuzzing is relatively simple: it is looking application interfaces accessible from the outside and saturate the corrupted data - in the sense that they are not consistent with what the application is supposed to address - and then see what happens ... In a way, we can see a parallel here with the compromise of websites SQL injection: in both cases, the software is not adequately protected against attempts injection data does not correspond to that it must wait for a legitimate user ...

Last year, Charlie Miller stressed in particular that OS X "has a broad surface attack involving open source components, third party components closed [with Flash], and Apple closed components [Preview, etc.].." Each of these software elements can be an attack vector. Recently, as part of an interview with German magazine Heise, he explains his stubbornness to attack Apple's software: "I use various Apple products and it is in my interest that they are as safe as possible [. ..] If you listen that Apple (or Mac fan boys) you believe that Macs are impossible to hack, which is not the case. "

Especially for him, it is important to know the faults to measure the level of software security, it does not boil down to this: "you must take into account those who threaten you, the resources available to them. "So, for him too, right now," a Mac with Snow Leopard is the safest choice [to surf the Internet] mainly because of its market share. "But the Mac's OS is it more secure? No, he answers without reservation: "In my experience, it was easier to find and exploit vulnerabilities in Mac OS X systems in modern Windows (Vista and 7)." Indeed for him, Web browser is the safest Chrome, Google. And recommend the passage of any extension disable unnecessary.

Mac OS

Mac OS X1 is a line of proprietary operating systems developed and marketed by Apple, whose latest version (Mac OS X v10.6, "said Snow Leopard) is installed on all Macintosh computers sold today. Mac OS X is known for its simplicity, reliability and user friendliness. Apple engineers had only one ambition for Snow Leopard: Making a marvel of a prodigy. It is more reactive bottom-up and performance has improved at all levels. It offers new features like Spotlight search customization options and an improved icon view that can browse a document or watch a QuickTime movie.

The sixth version of Mac OS X, even if appearance does not seem to be a real "revolution", just a "big update" of Leopard 10.5. However, major changes under the hood ": deletion of PPC, 64 bit, new Finder, Grand Central Dispatch "," OpenCL " etc.... This is another milestone in the long and sometimes tumultuous development of Mac OS X. OS X is more reliable, smoother, faster! It is always possible to use some good old software like "AppleWorks". SNOW LEOPARD does, however, more on Mac PowerPC processor (G3, G4, G5) and only works INTEL Mac. PPC Mac owners will have breaking the bank to taste the joys of " Snow Leopard."

The iMac

In January 1998, Jobs announced the first positive result for over a year. In May, he presented the next release of a new type of Mac: iMac, offering a compromise between power and money to satisfy basic users. He also explained that the project would be based not only MacOS X Rhapsody (NeXT technology) but also on MacOS 8.

The year 1998 was a year of profit for Apple iMacs are selling like hotcakes. In 1999, the output of the PowerMac G3 Blue and the announcement of the release of the iBook kept up the wave motion. Then came the announcement of the generation of G4 PowerMacs.

In January 2000, the release of iTools Internet tools dedicated, demonstrated the new strategy strongly oriented Internet firm to Apple, as Steve Jobs announced that he remained at the head of the company.

Restructuring

In late 1996, while the situation has not changed, Apple announced the acquisition of NeXT and the re-integration of former CEO Steve Jobs. This merger was to integrate the core NeXTStep development of future MacOS (Rhapsody project, scheduled for 1998). In early 1997, Amelio was forced to resign after failing to regain control. Jobs then found himself assigned duties to wider society, and did not need to pray for decisions to restructure the firm at the apple.

In August 1997, at the Boston MacWorld, Jobs turned his speech in a tone of novelty and change, including the announcement of new advertising campaigns, new Macs, the progress of Rhapsody, and especially to an agreement spent with Microsoft. This agreement allows both companies to exchange patent for 5 years, Apple offered $ 150 million in shares to Microsoft, and Microsoft paid an undisclosed sum to Apple's intellectual property problems emerged during the development of Windows.

On the clones, which eventually flew more customers to Apple without increasing sales of Macs, Jobs took the decision to recover the licenses that were granted, thereby halting the production of manufacturers.

In November 1997, Jobs announced that the sale of Macs would also now live: online or by telephone, and the output of Power Mac and PowerBook G3.

The appearance of the PowerBook

The idea of granting licenses to expand production of Macs was abandoned by the new CEO (Michael Spindler, who was appointed in June 1993). In 1991, the PowerBook first appeared. It was a great success. Apple then began to study the Personal Assistants, who later would lead to the release of the Newton in August 1993. The handwriting recognition system, not very developed, does not provide a very favorable opinion of the users. In 1994, the Power Mac first arrived.

These machines, using a processor developed by the joint powers of IBM and Motorola, proved well able to compete and surpass the speeds of the latest Pentium processors. Besides this, licenses were granted to some companies to build Mac clones turning MacOS (Power Computing, Umax ...), but this opening was not sufficient to address the backlog of trade policy from Apple. In addition, the release of Windows 95 did not help things. In January 1996, while Apple crossed its biggest crisis, the Performance machines, low cost, was another failure, and Spindler was forced to resign. Gil Amelio replaced him.

The output of the Macintosh

This event took place January 22, 1984. It was a success until Christmas, when buyers began to hesitate, unconvinced by the lack of connectivity to hard drives. In 1985, disagreements between Sculley and Jobs were getting worse. At that point, following an unsuccessful ploy to Jobs, the board spoke in favor of Sculley. Jobs resigned. The months that followed were not financially profitable.

Sculley capacity to lead a software company was then questioned. The first conflicts with Microsoft appeared: the release of Windows 1.0 was subject to a compromise which indicated that Microsoft would not use technologies utilized by Apple. The Mac came out of the shadows with the emergence of tools and software for desktop publishing (PostScript, PageMaker, ...).

In 1987, the Mac II confirmed this resurgence, to the point that the idea that Windows could not disturb the development of Macs was rapidly expanded (1989). But PC clones appeared, and the release of Windows 3.0 in May 1990, capable of running on all these clones, was a major concern for Apple, which remained only manufacturer of Macintosh.

History of Macintosh

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were two high school buddies and friends to whom we owe the creation of the first Apple machines. Their first steps in building computers were Hewlett Packard (Wozniak), and Atari (for Jobs). This is Steve Wozniak, who had the first inspiration, creating what would later become the Apple I (we are then in 1976). Jobs motivated his friend, and on 1 April 1976, they created the company Apple Computer, in order to sell the Apple I. This first machine was not a success, and it will take until 1977 before the Apple II is not the first success of the company.

The Apple II

In 1980, the Apple II, and the firm at the apple already had several thousand employees. Jobs began work on the project Lisa.

But the leaders, not being satisfied, withdrew the project. So he became interested in another project: the Macintosh, a personal computer at $ 500.

Alas, all development has an end, and in 1981 the company experienced its first crisis as sales diminished, Wozniak suffered a plane crash questioning his professional life ... and to top it off, the first IBM PC came out, prompted by the sheer size of IBM, Apple machines quickly surpassed.

Jobs quickly realized that Apple needed a direction at the height of its commercial competitors. Also, it Sculley (President of Pepsi-Cola) who took the helm of the company in 1983 (by the way, "Think Different" appears both on Macs than on Pepsi commercials ... or randomly. ..?). The cohabitation between the two men was not the easiest.