Rich Mogull and Glenn Fleishman of TidBITS, the "Mac news for the rest of us" site, have been wondering why Apple has yet to patch OS X for the security vulnerability found in the DNS (Domain Name Service) software. Many vendors have already released DNS patches to guard against exploitation, but Apple isn't among them. As Mogull and Fleishman point out, "Because DNS is so core to the functioning of the Internet, this vulnerability is perhaps the most significant security problem to face the Internet in the last decade. All users who connect to Mac OS X-based servers for DNS lookups are at risk..." In case you're wondering, yes, Windows has already been patched.
We've speculated before on
this site that perhaps Apple's development teams are over-extended,
being pushed to meet release dates that perhaps their software isn't
ready for. What's our evidence? Consider:
- The DNS vulnerability discussed above remains unpatched in OS X.
- The recently-released MobileMe service has received a "torrent of criticism" since its launch. They even lost email for some customers. Things are so bad that Apple offered 30 days of free service to paying customers.
- iPod/iPhone App Store updates caused data loss for some users.
- iTunes 7.7 reportedly doesn't synchronize well with the iPhone , replacing deleted applications, taking an unusually long time to backup, and possibly creating corrupted backups.
- iPhone users report that the iPhone 2.0 software has problems , such as lag while typing, opening applications, and doing the most basic things. It's said that many applications, including Apple-made applications, are crashing upon launch.
- Safari lost its edge as the "fastest browser" on the Mac platform to FireFox.
- Security researcher Aviv Raff reports that security vulnerabilities in the iPhone and Safari can be used to dupe users into visiting malicious sites or by spammers to flood an inbox with junk mail.
- After being criticized in the past about installing unwanted software with the Apple Software Update utility on Windows, Apple does it again with MobileMe .
And these are just the recent examples I was
able to find in a few minutes of searching.
Given the software development challenges it seems to be facing, it is interesting to note that Apple is rumored to be looking at custom chipsets for future Macintosh models, as these would seem to increase the complexity of Mac OS X development at a time when Apple appears to be having software quality problems.
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