The current theory according to the article is that booking.com's app downloads a 2.4mb file of links for its "universal links" data (that annoying thing where you get taken to an app rather than a website and you can't disable it without removing the app...) which causes the database to slow down/become corrupt.
Therefore if you've not got booking.com's app installed, you should be okay (for now). Needless to say the fact that a third party app can break such a core OS feature rather shatters iOS's reputation for security above all else...
Technically it's not insecure (the app doesn't get to set data it shouldn't), it's just a DOS.
Seems odd that they wouldn't test this particular case (or put a predefined limit on it). This seems like exactly the kind of thing someone would do without thinking about it too hard (I'll just write a script and....) and cause an issue.
I'd really like to have more control over the feature anyway. I want to redirect Twitter links to a 3rd party app and turn off these links for Amazon and a few other apps.
You're right, I guess "stability" is probably more accurate.
At the end of the day, it represents app(s) breaking the phone in very fundamental ways, in spite of the sandboxing iOS enforces (obviously this is a different vector in reality, but from a layman's point of view the end result is the same), in a way more severe than any Android app (which arguably have a reputation of being "less secure") has broken that OS as far as I am aware.
This stability/security was one of the reasons I've stuck with iOS for so long, but this particular issue has forced me to reevaluate my thinking somewhat, as I'm sure it will for many others.
To me it's just a bug, they'll get it patched. None of my data was at risk. For security I won't worry about it.
Now the inability to click links on my phone would drive me NUTS. Seems to me like a case of 'someone did something crazy, Apple wasn't ready, these things happen'. But I may have had a different tune if it hit me.
There are some annoying bugs I hit from time to time (especially involving CarPlay), but they haven't driven me off yet.
Yeah, you are right. It's just a particularly annoying bug because: 1. It broke my phone pretty fundamentally, 2. It was a third party app that broke core functionality (in a roundabout way), which shouldn't be possible on iOS, 3. Lack of response from Apple, 4. Such a bug would be much lower impact on Android due to (IMO) silly restrictions on iOS. These factors combined with a lingering slight dissatisfaction with iOS has left me a bit annoyed (but I'll probably forget all about it soon!)
I'm not a fan of the app launches from Safari. If I wanted to use their app, I would have opened their app. App launches (especially those opening up the App Store) seem eerily similar to pop up ads of the late 90s.
Hardly surprising, given it's installed by default. And that clicking on an address (say, on a website or a text message) leads up Apple's Maps by default.
