This is a good catch over the problem that iOS 6.1 had with people being able to unlock a phone in an unauthorised manner. The problem is that something very similar indeed had happened back with iOS 4.1.
Why is this embarrassing? Well, almost exactly the same flaw affected iOS 4.1 back in 2010. What this tells me is that phone security is not systematically tested by Apple. If it were, they would have been looking for precisely this flaw. One of the most basic principles of software testing is that you should never discover the same bug in production twice - after the first discovery you should create a test that reproduces the flaw, then make the fix, and verify that the fix actually addresses the test. The test is then re-run on every single build you make in the future - if the flaw returns, the test will fail.
The only difference between the original and new flaw is that in the original flaw you only had to hit the lock button once, whereas in the new one you need to hit it twice.
I've been a little suspicious of Apple's attention to security for some time now. We've had people like Kapersky Labs complaining about Apple's cooperation (or lack of it) in developing anti-viral tools for example. And I do think that there's an institutional reason for this.
For years viruses and trojans were something that Mac users could laugh about and Windows users worry about. It is true that MacOS, being a Unix variant, was more secure. But as I've long said I have a feeling that the absence of Mac viruses was also to do with the fact that they just weren't a large enoug portion of the total market to make it worth targeting them. With iOS (and of course Mac) sales soaring I have a feeling that this attitude rather needs to change.
Yes, I agree, this particular vulnerability is nothing to do with someone trying to attack Apple or iOS. But I do think that it's symptomatic of that larger problem. Viruses are things that happen to Windows: security on iOS or Macs doesn't need to be worried about so much. But with the popularity of those operating systems, that's something that it might be worth changing.
