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by gte910h 5252 days ago
No, there is an optimized Javascript interpreter only in safari, then there is the UIWebView control which you can use a less-optimized javascript interpreter in your app.

http://www.quora.com/JavaScript/Why-has-Apple-limited-the-Ni...

Here is the why: http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/nitro_ios_43

>It’s a trade-off. Most OSes allow marking memory pages as executable for performance reasons. iOS disallows it for security reasons. If you allow for pages of memory to be escalated from writable to executable (even if you require the page be made permanently read-only first), then you are enabling the execution of unsigned native code. It breaks the chain of trust. Allowing remote code to execute locally turns every locally exploitable security flaw into a remotely exploitable one.

1 comments

Great, so they just know that there are more vulnerabilities in their own optimized engine, still they use it in their own browser. At the same time they ban anything else on the system, claiming that it promotes security. Doesn't sound convincing to me at all. Meaning, that if I, as user will find a more secure browser - I won't be able to use it, since it's banned on pretense that it'll compromise security (hypothetically, not that I use iOS as a user anyway).
The entire premise of this thread is false. UIWebView uses the optimized engine as of iOS 5.

This is just an example of Apple releasing new code in the browser first before extending it into other apps being turned into an excuse for people to ignorantly or dishonestly bash Apple.

The reason it was put in Mobile Safari first is obvious-- Apple controls the source code there. Thus they can deal with any instability caused by the engine in the wild there.

If they immediately put it in all the UIWebViews in the system then many third party developers apps would become unstable due to these bugs.

I find it quite astounding that people are trying to make hay out of Apple using a phased roll out for a key piece of technology.

It just shows how any opportunity that can be used to mischaracterize Apple is seized upon, and even when the situation that led to the original issue is long resolved, people continue to report it as fact.