Do you own an iPhone? Then you're SMARTER than an Android user:

Both of my daughters (one teenager, one adult) have asked for flip phones because of all the hacking that has been happening to “Smart” phones. They decided they do not need or want the possible “unwanted” exploitation of anything they decide to take a picture of.

That hacking did not happen to iPhones. . . the iCloud "hack" turned out to be a hoax by a guy who wanted to sell his collection of celebrity photos collected over a number of years by a group of perverts who have a joint hobby of tricking celebrities into giving up their data. Some did come from the iCloud, but they were compromised because of weak choices of security questions and answer that for a celebrity could easily be learned from fanzine biographies.

The "hackers" went to Apple's "forgot my password," and then selected to answer the security questions to be able to change the password, and answered the security questions with the answers they learned from the fanzine bios and simply changed the celebrity's password. . . and they were in!

That is not a hack. It is social engineering combined with celebrity stupidity. Choosing a security question such as "What is your Mother's maiden name?" when you are a celebrity is beyond stupid, especially when you just got interviewed by E! and told the world your mother was named "Pauline Gumm" when she was a little girl! That may be a good security question if you are John Q. Public, but not for a celebrity.

Many of the photos that were "stolen" actually came from PC computers and Android devices. . . the Meta data on the photos proved that. . . and came from many years earlier and would not have been uploaded to Apple storage. Some actually were publicity stills from movies.

In fact, the photos were on Reddit and another site and being offered for sale for TWO WEEKS before iBrute—the supposed iCloud brute force password script the guy trying to sell the photos claimed he used to break into the iCloud accounts and steal the photos from the celebrities' accounts from iCloud—was even released. Apple announced that no one ever even attempted to use iBrute before they closed the vulnerability. . . and that no passwords were compromised. The only way anyone got in was by changing passwords.

Data on iOS devices are 256 bit AES encrypted. . . and that is a very high level of encryption. In addition, once the data is uploaded to iCloud as encrypted data, it is anonymized, split in four pieces, mixed with other users data, and AGAIN encrypted to an additional 256 bit AES level on top of the already encryption. Apple itself cannot decrypt your daughters' data. Only they can retrieve it using their passcodes through their devices. Your daughters fell for the FUD that was being spread. Of course, that was what was intended.

Have to disagree with your implied response. "...because these people are scientists and engineers automatically makes them PC tech-savvy."

BS. I know several engineers and scientists, good friends of mine. Not only are they horrible with troubleshooting PC's, they have ZERO tolerance to troubleshoot! I was talking with one of those friends one day while he was having issues with his PC. He asked if I would take a look at it having admitted he was no good with them, and what did I find?? PC-laptop was hosed up with several viruses.

Yup, he was a EE and couldn't figure out his PC's ailment. Oh, yeah... I also had to show him how to change the RAM in it. So yeah, for many... MACS are indeed for those who have no patients for PC troubles or care to resolve them.

So your experience with ONE EE means that all are not? Talk about taking the specific to the general. My experience is the opposite. Most Mac users are actually quite computer literate, being familiar with TWO operating systems, since the majority of Mac users came from the Windows environment, while most Windows users are barely savvy in the one they're working in now.

On the other hand, most engineers and savvy in the know people DON'T want to spend their valuable time trouble shooting a dumb computer, so they select one that doesn't require trouble shooting and works with them on what THEY want to get done. Ergo, the sheer number of Macs you see in the photo personally selected by people who don't want to waste time trouble shooting machines that are prone to requiring trouble shooting.

Thank you for belittling my daughters IQ and their desire to stay safe.

http://www.techhive.com/article/164132/hack_smartphone.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_20345_5-terrifying-smartphone-hacks-you-wont-believe-are-possible.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/smartphone-hack-baseband_n_810415.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DITt_qj9e5I

http://www.sileo.com/cellphone-security-can-you-hack-into-a-smart-phone/

http://www.cellphonehacks.com/general-cell-phone-hack-discussion/1104780-why-smart-phones-not-smart.html

Memory occupied by the OS in that figure is a static measure and, moreover, is not necessarily a measure or predictor of performance vis-a-vis CPU, graphics, etc.

Why would memory usage be a predictor of any of those? The actual size of iOS 8 is about 1.1GB to 1.4GB depending on the device it is installed on. The rest of the memory consumption is Apple included Apps that are installed along with the operating system that make the device what it is. . . iOS is actually very parsimonious of space and very good at memory management. Far better than Android. iOS handles all of what requires 2 or 3GB of RAM in Android in only 1GB or 2GBs. The critics keep comparing RAM in the iPhone and iPad against the larger allotments in Android devices. . . but ignoring the greater efficiencies in the Apple devices that simply don't require the larger RAM allotments.

You want to compare performance? That's been done in the bench marks. Samsung and several of the other Android phone makers were caught TWEAKING their benchmark routines to cheat the numbers. Apple never has done that to get faster numbers. Right now, Apple's 64bit Dual Core A8 processor is blowing away the four core processors used in Android devices.

Here is one of the supposedly top Android phones for performance. . . and the geek bench marks:

Basemark II is the only benchmark in which this Android phone slightly exceeds the iPhone 6. . . and that's because it includes a battery test and this Android phone has a battery that is almost twice the capacity of the iPhone 6's. That, however, is not what we are talking about here, we are talking about speed and performance in graphics. . . and the iPhone's dual core exceeds the Motorola's FOUR cores in every test, most of the time by wide margins. Even in the multi-core test, the iPhone was marginally better with two cores, than the Android was with four.

We’re discussing different points.

I’m not comparing Apple performance to Samsung performance. Never did.

My comment was about Apple’s performance on the same hardware i.e. the exact same unit using various iterations of iOS.

My other comment was about functionality of some meat-and-potatoes apps that have been ‘fixed’ to the point of unusability.

I use(d) both platforms and respectfully decline to engage in the ritual sumo of Apple vs. Android. My only criteria, selfishly, is a) what works for me and b) what works, period. As before, it seems utter madness that existing problems aren’t fixed while new problems are introduced but if that is Apple’s stance I can take a hint as well as take my custom elsewhere.

Thank you for belittling my daughters IQ and their desire to stay safe.

WoW! I don't think it's your daughters' IQ I'm belittling but possibly yours for buying into this stuff.

For example, first link was talking about hacking Windows Phones in 2009. . . something that was known to be easily done. They don't exist in that operating system anymore and are far harder to attack now.

Your second link puts forward the FUD idea that an iPhone 4s sitting next to your computer could read the keystrokes on your computer as you type and then send that data to a malicious hacker who has somehow snuck a malicious App on the Apple App Store to read the micro-accelerations of the desk movements???? ABSURD!!!! Some of those require TROJANS to get on the iPhone, for example. There has been exactly ZERO malware on the iPhone in seven and a half years. ZERO. That includes trojans. ZERO. These are BS that somebody somewhere thought up an theoretical idea that they could do something like that idea of figuring out you could analyze what key someone was typing with the accelerometer. . . It's sensitive, but NOT THAT SENSITIVE. Even the author who came up with this fantasy gave himself an out. But then the source of this supposed vulnerability should give you pause:

"Of course, the algorithm for figuring out what you're typing based on tiny desk tremors is mind-bogglingly complicated (read it simply does not exist, it's a pipe dream! —Swordmaker), and the whole system is easily defeated by ... just not setting your phone next to your keyboard, so the chances of such an attack by your local garden-variety hacker are low. But since we already know that the government is trying to listen in on us at all times, we're typing up this article with a phone next to the keyboard just to let them know that we know." — Source: Cracked.com

Yes, that's the satire site similar to MAD Magazine! It's a SPOOF! An iPhone reading the keys being pressed on a computer keyboard next to it by the acceleration of the desk movement? Hilariously funny! I was laughing my rear end off half way through this, after I picked my jaw up off the floor. SHEESH! I almost did not read the rest of the article, this was so far off the wall!

The other four claims on that link are possible, but mostly easily avoidable. The camera hack is not possible on an iPhone: it cannot be turned on remotely. That also takes care of the last one about Big Brother spying in 3D. The malicious charging station hack requires a lot more on an iPhone to transfer any data. The station would have to know your passcode or AppleID. Highly unlikely. Sorry, another BZZZT. Oh, and the fake cell tower? Anyone setting one of those up these days would have to know the encryption used by the carriers. Not so easy as it was back in the day of non-digital transmissions. All of this is mostly FUD.

That said, there have been reports of unknown owner, apparently unauthorized cell-towers outside of US military bases. No one knows who they belong to, or what their purpose is. There is no evidence of private phones connecting to those towers, however.

Your baseband hacking from the Huffington post is also meaningless. . . The people who are claiming this seem to think that the baseband processors have ROOM in their memory for complex code. They don't. if you stick something into the baseband code, it will simply stop working as intended and cannot send anything because you've removed something important to its operation to stick in your code. Most of them are pretty straight forward. Some work on ROMs, and are not re-programable in any case. Nor are they usually directly connected to the memory of the phones. They are very simple parts of the phone, and they really haven't changed much in the past 20 years. Weinmann's proposal was to get physical possession of the phones and REPROGRAM the baseband processor so that it could bypass control and seize control of the microphone and listen in. If you have physical possession of the phone, why not just stick in a transmitter before giving it back?

Apple engineers said that baseband control of the mic really is not possible. They are completely separate modules in the phone. They literally are not connected to the microphone. The baseband processor manages the radios. . . and not the computer or the data. The computer on the iPhone controls the microphone and tells the baseband what to do. For the baseband processor to take control would be like the tail wagging the dog. This was discussed in depth on FreeRepublic back in 2011 when this first popped up. Incidentally, even your basic flip phones have baseband processors and could easily be turned into listening ports if this were true. It would not require a smartphone to do. More FUD.

The funniest one is your YOUTUBE link about hacking voice mail. . . because all of that has NOTHING AT ALL to do with smartphones at all! They hacked into the voice mail accounts at the carrier. . . and could just as easily do it with your daughters' flip phone voice mails or any other kind except for one you might have on a digital voice mail you have on a dumb machine you have at home with a fairly complex pass code! SHEESH!

The Sileo.com is just plain silly. First of all Apple is far more diligent about curating the Apple App store than this article claims. There have been three known malicious Apps that have gotten through their curating in the history of the App store. . . and those were more about getting around Apple's rules than stealing data. One, for example, had a tethering capability hidden in a popular camera app. The cost was dire. The developer not only had an App that had brought in over $750,000 in less than 3 months pulled, Apple pulled ALL of his company's apps. . . and he could not put any apps on the App store for over a year because of that little trick. Secondly, this article's claim is that the dangerous thing is YOUR phone number. . . and tracking. Apple does NOT allow apps to track location or anything about it's users. . . unless you specifically allow it for that app. All apps are sandboxed. They cannot "listen" in to your phone, messages, etc. Again, your information is antique.

Finally, your last link, which has the benefit of at least being from 2014, may mostly applies only to Android phones, and I kind of doubt even that. There is no way that listening to music, scanning a bar code, sending an SMS, finding a free WIFI, or watching a Video on an iPhone can cause it to get infected. It is extremely unlikely that could even happen on an Android phone. While there are over a million malware out there for Android, there are ZERO malware in the wild for iOS iPhones. This researcher claims his team has identified a problem in Java script that could be used to create a "worm." A Java Script worm cannot infect the operating system of an iPhone. The worst it can do is cause Safari or the browser the script is running in to crash. Big deal. The Apps run in sandboxes and cannot effect the OS install. . . or other apps. Nor can the script install itself. Ergo, no danger.

I have kept on top of this stuff for many years. Most of this is merely spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD. I find it almost unbelievable that someone who is a conservative FALLS for this line of bilge.

“...So your experience with ONE EE means that all are not? Talk about taking the specific to the general. My experience is the opposite.”

You don’t read too well do you? ... arrogant too.

I said... “Not only are they horrible with troubleshooting PC’s, they have ZERO tolerance to troubleshoot!”

Key word “They”. I used ONE as an example though most were inept and clumsy dealing with PC tech issues. My experience is 180 from yours having had almost 40 years associating with scientists & engineers in manufacturing, research and development. Most, and I mean MOST, were and still are very computer-tech illiterate, using computers only as a tool to perform their work.

“My experience is the opposite. Most Mac users are actually quite computer literate, being familiar with TWO operating systems, since the majority of Mac users came from the Windows environment...”

I’m 180 on that comment too. The PC’s users I have known for almost 30 years don’t like Mac’s and would never own one. And the Mac users I know were always Mac users and are Mac obsessed. Very few were converts from PC’s let alone cared to know both OS’s and hardware. The Mac obsessed ones had little if any troubleshooting skills with PC’s, and quite ignorant with PC’s in general.

“... while most Windows users are barely savvy in the one they’re working in now.”

Very true, as MAC users are also barely savvy in troubleshooting the one they’re working in now. Oh yeah, as you pointed out in your next quote... Mac users don’t have to worry about being tech-savvy and taking time-out troubleshooting on MAC’s since Mac’s work with them on what THEY want to get done. You sound like a Mac salesman.

Not too bias against PS’s are we now?

“On the other hand, most engineers and savvy in the know people DON’T want to spend their valuable time trouble shooting a dumb computer, so they select one that doesn’t require trouble shooting and works with them on what THEY want to get done. Ergo, the sheer number of Macs you see in the photo personally selected by people who don’t want to waste time trouble shooting machines that are prone to requiring trouble shooting.”

Oh, puh-lease... both hardware and OS platforms have their issues. I personally find Macs annoying to work on. They’re overpriced and appeal mainly to those esthetic weenies of the entertainment, graphics and marketing industries.

Yeah, those so-called engineers and scientists in the JPL photo I’m sure bought their Macs because it was more practical and performed better and more reliability at twice the price. No, they bought them to be cool because to them a Mac is like a Mercedes and a PC is like a 1971 Chevy Camero. The horsepower is the same and they both get you to where you want to go. But the Mac user will service their Mac at the Mercedes Store while the PC user will pull it apart on his kitchen table and fix it with off-the-shelf parts because under the hood is an engine and bolts... not a bunch of plastic, wires and the “Reignac-sur-Indre”

Mac hardware and software are a lock-down, proprietary and difficult to service on your own and are restrictive in options, expandability any customization.

The (2) in the room with the PC’s I would say are the true-at-heart engineers. They want to be able to open the PC and fix it, not pussy it over to a Mac Store afraid to break a nail as the service attendant takes them for a $500-1000 repair ride while the PC user could fix most issues for $50 bucks or less!

Anyways... whatever.

It’s obvious you embrace Macs. To me Macs suck because they’re proprietary. I could care less one way or the other which is preferred. I prefer PC’s.

iFone users must be iNsecure if they need a study like this. :)

>> That’s becuase iPhone users don’t call it “butthurt”. They call it “love”. <<

That’s no surprise: Their CEO is a proud out-of-the-closet iPhag.

their issues. I personally find Macs annoying to work on. They’re overpriced and appeal mainly to those esthetic weenies of the entertainment, graphics and marketing industries.

You have hit most of the myths about Macs that ignorant people who know nothing about Macs hit. . . and prove my point. Including using the name MAC as an acronym. You really know very little and are trying to tell us Mac users who DO know what we're talking about untruths based on your total ignorance. I have owned and operated a cross platform business and computer consulting business for 35 years. . . and I know both platforms intimately. It's obvious YOU haven't a clue when you say the Macs are "Mac hardware and software are a lock-down, proprietary" when they are anything but. OS X is UNIX. . . my Mac runs SEVEN operating systems, including OS X, UNIX, Micrsoft Wndows 7.1, 8 & 8.1, and two versions of Linux. I have on occasion, just to show the Mac could do it, run all seven simultaneously. I also have virtual machine versions of MS-DOS 3.6, Amiga-OS, THEOS, and several others, all of which I can run should the need arise to meet the needs of my clients. They all run in sandboxes under OS X. Many PC Magazine reviewers have stated the the best WINDOWS COMPUTERS are Macs!

Yeah, those so-called engineers and scientists in the JPL photo I’m sure bought their Macs because it was more practical and performed better and more reliability at twice the price. No, they bought them to be cool because to them a Mac is like a Mercedes and a PC is like a 1971 Chevy Camero. The horsepower is the same and they both get you to where you want to go. But the Mac user will service their Mac at the Mercedes Store while the PC user will pull it apart on his kitchen table and fix it with off-the-shelf parts because under the hood is an engine and bolts... not a bunch of plastic, wires and the “Reignac-sur-Indre”

Your claim that those aerospace engineers are so vain they buy a computer to "look cool," demonstrates the level of your Apple derangement. You project onto any Apple user your total distortion of reality. . . because you believe the FUD. . . and literally know nothing about Macs except the FUD. You are the example that proves my point exactly.

That map shows Alaska high on iPhone usage and Arizona low. Maybe there’s a conservative Republican who owns real estate in both states who could explain why. If she has the time ...

Too damn tired and it’s late. The Windows list is Windows XP, 7, and 8, 8.1. . . but 8 is only on a disk image I keep around because one client has refused to upgrade to 8.1. Sorry about that.

Both Mississip and Taxachusetts score high. Yet there is only one Apple store in Mississippi but ten in Massachusetts. How does that work?

"For $800 you are buying a battery powered, miniaturized fully functional computer"

For 350 bucks I bought a new laptop.

"Miniaturized pocket computers with phone capabilities are expensive. There is really no avoiding that fact."

I see. I got a brand new fire phone with a one year contract for 99 cents. In fact I got two of them. Our plan has 4 phones, two fire phones 1 track phone and a high end blackberry that my wife uses for work Her work place gave her the phone and gives her a per diem to pay for her part of our plan. Our plan totals 130 bucks a month we have data and unlimited calling and texting. And the data we hardly ever come close to using our limit in fact we just were informed that our unused data is being rolled over. Now add to that I got Amazon Prime free in the deal. Plus 5000 points to buy apps that I still have not used. (1 point is roughly equal to a penny) Consider all that I got in the deal I am sure you will agree my fire phones were anything but expensive.

The other choices I had with the same company and plans was a minimum two year contract plus almost 300 bucks down for an android phone and all the way up to 900 bucks and a two year plan for the high end iPhone BTW all of those plans had an additional monthly surcharge ranging from 5 bucks for the android to 25 bucks for the highest priced iPhone.Why anyone would choose to pay all that extra money is beyond me but hipsters gotta be hip I guess.

Eventually the highend phone phenomenon will go the way of drive in theaters. There will still be some but it will be a novelty. It will only stay viable as long as the hipster crowd believes having [Insert uber-cool name brand phone here] makes them the hippest of the hipsters. Once that meme dies its over for overpriced high-end gadgets.

O

"Agreed, I go with the following: Just because you're educated, it doesn't mean you're smart. It just means you're educated."

Agreed! And further just because you have a degree does not mean you are educated. It just means you met the requirements to pass those classes. IF you got educated during the process consider yourself lucky. Because more and more college is not about education it is about getting a piece of paper to frame and hang on your wall. And to me that is one of the saddest things about America today...

You are correct and I apologize. I will immediately bow to your years of wisdom and tell my daughters to get smart phones and do everything in the world they want with them.

I will also tell all the IT people at my present job that they are idiots and I found a guy on the internet who says so and we should listen to him.

How about you give me a phone number and they can call you and set up a class?

I own a iPhone yet consider this report total unmitigated bullshit !

College is NOT an indicator of intelligence nor ability to survive in the real world......iPhone or android aside.

I just like the simplicity of the iPhone, Mac and iPad. Use the products daily in my heavy use of each for work, general use and entertainment . IMHO the apple variants have held up better to the abuse travel, work expose the products to than my PC / Android products.

I do wish gorilla glass was on Apple products .... But my otterbox armored up case has saved my iPhone more times than I can appreciate .

My opinion....my experience with the two different brands and types.

Stay safe !

I have used Macs since the 1980s and love them. I also have had to use PCs because that is what my work environment uses.

I have a new HP with Windows 8.1 at work which is so awkward to use it makes me crazy. It is also as slow as molasses going uphill in winter and has been in the shop or on the phone with the Geek squad numerous times.

My Mac mini on the other hand is super easy to use, fast as blazes and allows me to use multiple apps at once with no slowdown.

I do wish gorilla glass was on Apple products .... But my otterbox armored up case has saved my iPhone more times than I can appreciate .

Apple has been using Gorilla glass and its decedents since the very first iPhone. Who told you they were not? In fact Steve Jobs was the one who suggested it to Corning.

. . . Jobs flew to Corning, New York to meet with Corning CEO Wendell Weeks and explained that he wanted the iPhone’s screen to be made of glass, but that it had to be durable and he needed enough of it within six months to be produced for all the iPhones he was planning to sell. Weeks apparently told Jobs about the development of Gorilla Glass, but said he wasn’t set up to actually mass-produce it. Jobs, in typical Jobsian fashion, apparently placed an order for a ton of Gorilla Glass anyway, repeatedly telling Weeks, “Don’t be afraid. You can do this.” Corning’s official version of the story is simply that the company “began developing a tough new cover glass for electronic devices in 2006.” The iPhone was unveiled in early January of 2007 and went on sale in late June.
So that was the first version of Gorilla Glass, which was then followed up by the introduction of Gorilla Glass 2 at CES a year ago. Gorilla Glass 2 was basically Gorilla Glass, except 20% thinner than the original. With the recent introduction of Gorilla Glass 3 – which should find its way into devices later this year — Corning is using “a completely new glass composition, with durability enhancements developed at the structural level of the glass.”— Source: Techland - TIME MAGAZINE — By Doug Aamoth — Jan. 11, 2013

When the iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, he had a slide with Corning Gorilla Glass listed as the screen of the iPhone. Apple's agreement with Corning specified that Corning could not list Apple as one of the customers. . . and Apple had Gorilla Glass as an exclusive for the first 3 years, taking the entire output of corning.

In addition, from an article on the number of jobs created in the US from 2012, Apple lists on their website:

"Corning employees in Kentucky and New York who create the majority of the glass for iPhone"

I have a VERY SMART daughter who has me on her cellphone plan. We all just got G5's for $1 each, which proves we are all BRILLIANT, as the %#@$%$ thing requires a "G5 For Dummies" book to figure it out.