A bug in the Dropbox app for iOS?

Try this:

  1. launch your Dropbox app on the iPhone/iPad and log in;
  2. go to your computer and browse to the Dropbox settings to change your account password;
  3. go back to your iPhone/iPad and… surprise, you are still allowed to browse through your documents…

So, if you loose your iPhone, no need to rush to change your account password to protect your files from undesired access. This will not do nothing.

The only protection you have is the 4 digits passcode that you can set in the Dropbox app.

Is this enough security for sensitive information?

I suspect this issue is common to many systems using oAuth or other similar long-lived access token mechanisms. But why should it be hard to invalidate all tokens associated to an account when the account password is changed?

 

Calculate CPU usage for iOS

I have recently needed to monitor how much CPU is used by a graphics-intensive app I am developing. Instruments is a wonderful tool to find out performance bottlenecks in your code, but in many cases simply monitoring cpu usage allows for an easier way to find out what is going on (possibly in an unexpected way) in your app.

App Store: it's a hard life

It may come as a bit of a shock to many, but the truth was already known to most independent developers for iOS: the App Store is a really hard environment to live in. This has been lately confirmed in some new figures released by mobile analytics firm Adeven, which speak of almost 400.000 (i.e., 80% of all apps) “zombie” apps: apps that are seldom, if ever, downloaded. Here what TUAW says about it:

iMandala available on the App Store

iMandala is the new app for iOS that you can find on the App Store.

dic:ph 1.2 soon available from the App Store

Only a few days remains before dic:ph 1.2 becomes available on the App Store.