Apple updates address media apps, visually impaired

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 07 February 2008 00:23

Opinion and Analysis

Apple has updated iPhoto and the framework supporting the company's pro applications, as well as adding support for additional Braille readers.

The update for Apple's personal photo manager application is for iPhoto 7, which was delivered as part of the iLife 08 package.

According to Apple officials, iPhoto 7.1.2 "addresses issues when publishing photos to a .Mac Web Gallery, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues."

It also addresses a security flaw that allowed a maliciously crafted photocast to exploit a format string vulnerability in iPhoto, potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code.

In March 2007, a similar fix was provided for iPhoto 6 after the vulnerability was revealed by the Month of Apple Bugs campaign.

It's not possible to say whether this is another case of an old bug creeping back in to a later version of a program, or if it is just a similar issue. In the latter case, you would have expected the development team to have taken a close look for vulnerabilities similar to the one disclosed.

Apple's standard practice seems to be to release as little information about updates as possible, and that's certainly what's happened with the ProKit update.

All the company is saying is that ProKit 4.5 "improves reliability for Apple's professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Express, Aperture, Logic Studio and Logic Express."

Braille Display Update 1.0 extends the existing Braille support in the VoiceOver screen reading technology to drive additional refreshable Braille displays.

The new devices supported are the GW Micro BrailleSense, SyncBraille 20 and  SyncBraille 32; the HandyTech Easy Braille, Braille Star 40 and Braille Star 80; the HIMS BrailleSense, SyncBraille 20 and SyncBraille 32; the Nippon Telesoft Seika Version 3 and the Papenmeier Braillex Trio.