# iPad update! But it ends up to be several weeks old....



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

When I synced my iPad this evening I was alerted that there is an update 3.2.2 available. It's downloading now. When you install it, pay attention to the prompts in iTunes....Initially iTunes encouraged me to download and install it, then it warned me that I had stuff apps and stuff on my iPad that weren't synced, so installing the update before syncing would be a bad idea. I've now synched the iPad and am downloading the update (it's predicted to take six minutes, so isn't huge).

Apparently the update is a small one, but it fixes a security issue with some PDF files. So probably best not to tarry in installing it on your iPad.

PS: I don't sync my iPad that often, so if everyone else got this weeks ago, please accept my apologies for the false alarm! (and it ends up that is the case)


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

Yep, that one was the one that was issued to keep folks from jailbreaking their iPads.  Came out about three or four weeks ago.  

Don't feel bad though, I rarely sync my iDevices either.  I really hate doing it as I've lost paid media that way, and have worked out better (for me) ways of making sure my data is backed up someplace other than iTunes.  And even before I stated jailbreaking, I rarely updated firmware unless there were features I simply HAD to have--which, as it turns out, isn't always a bad thing, since Apple makes it somewhere between difficult and impossible to downgrade firmware even when it creates problems.  (Pity the poor souls who "upgraded" their 3G phones to 4.0--it took three later updates before Apple mostly fixed the issues created with that!)

No reported issues with 3.2.2 though, unless you planned to jailbreak (or had already done so!).


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Interesting, I remember doing one awhile ago (month or two?), but never got the word on this one.  Only reason I sync'd tonight was because I'd bought an MP3 album from Amazon and wanted to make sure it got onto the iPad.

(added later)  The announcement from Apple said that the update was security-related, something to do with viewing PDFs.  Naturally they'd do that to make sure nobody skipped it!  Even though I have no particular jailbreaking aspirations, Grrrr....I've promised myself that when it is time to upgrade/replace my iPad, I'll get a second or third generation Android tablet, and this reminds me of the reason!


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

Well, to be fair, the most recent jailbreak did take advantage of a known exploit using PDF's in mobile Safari.    The 3.2.2/4.0.2 (iphone) update patched that hole, which might have been a security risk.  But interestingly enough, the update cannot be applied to the three year old original iPhone, or to early iPod Touch models.  So it's such a security risk that they left a whole generation of devices vulnerable?    Even Microsoft patches XP vulnerabilities, and that software's been obsolete for ten years!

(And the best part--the jailbreakers issued a patch to fix the vulnerability on hacked phones...a patch that does in fact work on the models that Apple effectively abandoned.)


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Hackers offering a better product than the suppliers give to legitimate customers....shades of DRM!


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## geko29 (Dec 23, 2008)

VictoriaP said:


> (And the best part--the jailbreakers issued a patch to fix the vulnerability on hacked phones...a patch that does in fact work on the models that Apple effectively abandoned.)


They offered an interim workaround too--before Saurik was done writing the actual fix, somebody else posted a package that inserted a confirmation window before any PDF was loaded in any application. So assuming you went to a site with a malicious PDF, rather than automatically executing without any notice to you (as the stock Apple software would do), you'd have to click "yes, I want to open this PDF file" before anything bad happened. Not perfect, but if you weren't expecting a PDF to be there, it makes it pretty obvious what you should do.

Then when the actual patch came out, it automatically uninstalled the workaround for you. That's a great user experience, IMO.


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