[image credit - http://www.h4x3d.com]

There is a definite turn of perception over the last few weeks about Apple – no doubt some of it down to issues with MobileMe and the iPhone 2.0 but my sense is it’s more due to their growing popularity and whilst that helps the bottom line it comes with other less obvious changes. Increased scrutiny is one and in his column on the BBC website today Bill Thompson looks at where that can start to hurt. He focused on security and the lack of transparency from Apple, closing with this telling quote

 

Building system security is a collaborative activity, and Apple is not currently playing as a member of the team

Before the fanboys come out and accuse me of throwing stones from glass houses I’m happy to accept that Microsoft has a far from clean slate here. I remember Code Red, I remember NIMDA and some of the things people see in Vista (like UAC) are a direct result of our efforts to address those kinds of issues. Our products are not perfect but from a security perspective they’re certainly better. From a transparency perspective the change has been perhaps even more dramatic with resources like The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). Today at the Black Hat conference we announced an initiative to start sharing details on software vulnerabilities with security vendors ahead of Patch Tuesday. Computerworld has likened this to crystal-ball gazing as we attempt to predict each month whether newly found bugs in its software will be exploited. Starting in October, we will add an "Exploitability Index" to the security bulletins we issue.

Anyway, back to the headline and Bill’s story. Are we starting to see Apple being held to the same standards as the rest of the industry as a result of their huge success over the last few years? Even their internal emails are leaking which is very un-Apple like.

[update #1] just noticed a related post by Techcrunch with a very similar apple image :) and an even better cartoon image from Hugh on the topic