Cristian Carlos Juarez. Peninsula 360 Press.
I will approach this topic from the point of view, of course, from the point of view of security - in our days - on the internet, through new protocols and a new field in engineering: digital civil engineering in which, by the look of the graphics we see on a smartphone, Apple leads this branch of engineering.
A few months ago, Apple held the Worldwide Developers Conference - WWDC, for its acronym in English - virtually, an event in which the new operating system for Apple mobile devices was announced: iOS 14 - and with it, watchOS 14 - and iPadOS 14 that would arrive in the fall of this year. Well, it's autumn 2020 and with it, the update of, so far, more than 36% of the compatible devices as of September 28th, according to with information from Mixpanel which can be found here.
The final version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 was released on September 16, with an adoption rate of 1:4; that is, 1 in 4 would have updated their device by that same weekend.
Recently, Google announced the introduction of Android OS version 11; however, 46% of mobile device users are using a version that was released two years ago, suggesting that this 46% is vulnerable to post-2018 cyber threats.
If we look across social networks, such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, we can see that the screenshots, as well as the typography used in the captions that accompany most of the images, stickers and emojisThe newest versions of the software, corresponding to Apple's devices, are visible in stories and publications.
iOS 13, which was released in fall 2019, is installed on 56% of devices that are compatible with the iOS 14 update; that Apple users can access the latest software versions is in response to the introduction of automated updates in iOS 12 - released in fall 2018, the same year Android 9 was released. The process is seamless for the user, requiring only that the device in question - a compatible iPhone or iPad - is idle, connected to a Wi-Fi network and plugged into a charger.
iOS 14 introduces strong measures that Facebook and Google have criticized in recent weeks and Apple is committed to user privacy. The importance of upgrading to the latest version of iOS 14 is a strong shield that protects the user from trackers on the network both in its highly efficient browser, Safari, as in the rest of the applications:
"(?) offers a Privacy Report so that users can easily see tracking indicators between sites that have been blocked." and "users can choose to share their approximate location (?) and not their precise location, (?), and get even more transparency about microphone and camera usage in an app."
For example, both the iPad and iPhone now provide a visual cue that lets the user know when the camera has been turned on or the microphone has been turned on.
App developers expressed their dissatisfaction to Apple, as, within a week of its release, the company released a version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 totally different from the last one beta ?a test version, not final for the consumer? to expose bad privacy practices by developers who took advantage of the permissions granted by the user to collect information without permission, as happened with Tik Tok, Instagram and other applications that also constantly used the clipboard information ?where the information is temporarily stored when using the "copy" command? without the user's knowledge. Now, this information is accompanied by a notification: when an application makes use of the clipboard, an alert will pop up to inform the user that this action was carried out.
Is it really worth intentionally circumventing the update process, not just on the iPhone or iPad, but on any phone as to seriously expose our information?
Once installed, Apple clarifies that "you can't undo iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and watchOS software updates". So the process is final.
In the next installment, we'll address accessibility on mobile devices and how Apple leads this category, one category only, on the new Digital Civil Engineering.
