I don't buy that's a reasonable excuse to force the client and server to be the same language.

First off, I don't buy that a client necessarily needs to do validation at all if the server is doing it. In fact, if you're doing complex validation on the client end, I think that is a Bad Thing (TM). What if your validation is wrong? Well you could just fix your server. But now your client's validation doesn't match, unless you're going to go around and force all your clients to update. Maybe at gunpoint or something. Who knows. But regardless, your client is going to think input is valid, and your server won't. Have you handled that case? What does that UI response look like? Have you unit tested it? Were you silly enough to think if it passed validation on the client end, it MUST pass on the server end? Cause if you did, you're screwed.

So I guess my simplest answer would be, if you need to do complicated validation why the heck are you doing it on the client? Just send it to the server, and then let the server return an error. That way you can fix your validation quickly server side if anything goes wrong, and you don't end up in test case hell in case the server and client disagree. You can also update your validation without touching your client code. And it really reduces your test cases and simplifies your unit testing flow.

For very simple validation (i.e. a credit card is always X number of digits, or a user needs to fill in these fields before they can press the submit button), I could see doing client side work. But that validation is so simple it's not hard to re-code. It's also usually so tied to the UI layer, you're going to be writing a lot of platform specific code any way.

I also still don't buy that being able to share code like that is worth the cost of locking entire ecosystems to a language and stifling language development in favor of a monoculture.

Again, if this is the metric we're working on, I could just take it up one level and say everyone should learn JavaScript instead of Java (and everyone should stop using Java) because you can't run Java in a web browser... Well... I take it back. Maybe it's an argument for the return of Java applets instead. :)

I don't think writing logic should be a gating factor that keeps a developer from using the right tool for the job, or keep a developer or a community locked in single language programming hell. There are edge cases (I've worked on an Android/iOS app that kept a bunch of code in JavaScript because it runs on both), but this doesn't even make the answer automatically "Java". I could very well say that developer should just go learn JavaScript because it runs on everything.

But more to the point, I don't usually see server architectures and client architectures sharing too much in the way of logic code, and the code they share typically isn't that complex, and doesn't usually require much work to port from one language to the next.

Android Java knowledge is reusable for... Server side development?

The biggest time suck for learning a new platform is the platform itself, not the language. If we're comparing platforms, Android is like programming on the moon, and server side development is like programming on Saturn. A new programming language should only take a week or two to learn. The platform takes years. Android doesn't have much in common with a web platform. Unless Tomcat got an API to do mobile UI and touch handling, and Android got an API for failover and distributed services, they don't really have much in common at all.

If a developer is scared to cross to any platform because they don't want to be multi-lingual, they're doing it wrong. Java, Obj-C, Swift and C# are all pretty much the same thing, just with some syntax changes. Heck, there is even a family tree there. Java was based on Obj-C, and C# was based on Java. Swift is based on all of them.

It's amazed me how attitudes from LLVM in the last few years has gone from:
"OMG WTF why is Apple doing their own compiler why can't they contribute to GCC they want to make everything proprietary"
To:
"Hey, LLVM is a pretty great tool."

I'm happy to see LLVM making such great strides.

iPhones have always been able to sync data out of their secure storage to the user's computer since launch. How did people think USB sync worked? Magical leprechauns that flew out of your phone carrying the data?

Heck, one of these is the developer daemon that runs on the phone to install apps from Xcode. Again, how exactly did people think Xcode did that?

These tools all require the phone be logged in, and that the right key exchange take place.

I can't tell if the "security researcher" here is just trolling, has never actually used an iPhone, it is just stupid.

You should be able to configure it all by IP, which works great across subnets. I have a few OS X services configured that way.

They support third parties, a lot of which implement management on Windows and Linux servers.
http://www.enterpriseios.com/w...

IBM happens to be one of those vendors:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software...

The problem is that this isn't a federally enforced law, it's a state enforced law. Obama can tell federal agents to no longer enforce any of these laws, but that won't change anything in since the feds aren't the ones supporting these laws to begin with.

Basically you'd be down to what the government had to do to force racial integration: Send in the army to keep Tesla dealerships open and protect the Tesla dealerships against state law enforcement. While I'd like to see you, you can understand why that might cause problems in this political climate. There is also a decent argument that Obama might not have this authority because their is no Federal counter law to the state law. Any way you look at this, Congress needs to pass a law for Obama to do anything. The example you're giving is the reverse: a President ignoring existing federal law. Here, it's the opposite: Obama would have to make up new a new federal law to override state law that does not exist. Not really the same thing.

Pretty sure giving them any access to any box or building would legally meet the definition of "working with."

You have to give credit to Apple for making these statements, because if it comes out that they did help the government, these open letters could be used as ammo against them in a class action lawsuit. So either Apple is stupid for making these claims when a no comment would be a better option legally, or they're not actually working with the government.

From everything I hear, it's the second option. Everyone I know at Apple is obsessed with security and privacy, to the point where I don't see Apple willingly giving anyone access. I know that's just my opinion, but even before this NSA thing happened, they were crazy about that.

I think part of that is a lot of their employees have very... strong feelings... about the way Google does business. Apple doesn't even want the information available for them to data mine themselves. They're basically denying themselves the opportunity to inspect data so no one will ever sell user information and run ads. It seems like most these policy decisions were made before the NSA spying case, which makes me believe they were legitimate convictions. Either that, or the government was already bugging Apple, so Apple made these changes.

China is going to shortly release a state sponsored phone running their own OS and hardware that is totally "secure."

It's understandable that a nation like China would want to get in on the cell phone industry more deeply. Being able to insure a monopoly in China by scaring everyone away from the competition would create a huge, profitable industry internally. I just have a hard time taking what they're saying at face value.

And yes, before someone mentions it, I know the US does similar things for their own ends.

"is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses."

And machines couldn't do the same things?

I guarantee you once we have machines that can write code, we'll put them to work on how to break other people's machines. The NSA will see to that.

I think this lawsuit is more about the Kindle Fire, which is sold as a kid acceptable tablet, not the Fire Phone, which has barely even launched.

The "Apple ships and underpowered processed" gets an ehhh from me.

It's clocked low, but it's a 64 but processor with many branching features from desktops.

It may be slower clocked but it punches well above it's weight class. Which is usually missed because most PC kiddies only look at clock instead of benchmarks, and think 64 bit is only something that let's you use a lot of RAM, and don't really understand things like processor features.

"Watts Up With That? has a more skeptical take on the calculations."

And if you look at the site it's pretty much a site full of straw men and attacks on climate change friendly politicians and scientists, with little actual scientific facts (besides the grandiose endorsement of it's own content.)

Why is this link even here? Did someone just randomly Google it and stick it on there because, hey, it's on the internet? Or did someone want the site to get more page views?

C'mon editors. This is news for nerds. Not news my uncle sent me in his email about how Obama is part of the illuminati.

I wear a Nike Fuelband. It's not really a "smart watch", but it's a nice reminder I need to get up and walk. I can hit a button and get a semi accurate reminder of how active I've been for the day. It pings my phone when it needs my attention, and in since it's not my phone I can wear it to the gym and let it's accelerometers rate my activity. I know, I could ask myself if I've exercised enough for the day, but when I'm deep in a programming puzzle, I need the nudge.

Why do I bring up the Fuelband?

It would be great to have a Fuelband that can do calendar reminders, and maybe some sort of digital wallet thing. Maaaaybe read only interface to my text messages. My needs aren't extreme. I think that's why most wearables have fallen flat. A lot of the Android wear smart watches have features like cameras, microphones, voice control, blah blah blah... So much crap I don't need, that I'm paying for, and that will run the battery down. I want an accessory for my phone. Not a watch computer onto itself. I don't need a duplicate of every feature I have on my phone. Just tell me what room my next meeting is in so I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket.

Wearables are in an unnecessary arms race right now. What wearables need is a simple set of features done well, and done in a compelling way. That has Apple written all over it, but we'll see what Microsoft brings to the table as well.