Software reviews

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich review

2011-11-19T08:14:00.001-08:00

The Ice Cream man has finally arrived!!!

CNET's San Francisco team got its hands on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the flagship smartphone that's launching Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. More full-on visual revamp than simple update, an OS bump this deep and broad makes (as I've said before) Android 2.3 Gingerbread look like a stale cookie. Ice Cream Sandwich is ambitious, and packed with such a laundry list of detailed changes, it's easy to drown in the minutiae. For that reason, I'm keeping this review focused on the bigger-picture features that are new to Ice Cream Sandwich. For more detail, the screenshots gallery will be worth several thousand words. Toward the end, you'll also find a list of Ice Cream Sandwich's neater tricks.

Inside Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (screenshots)

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goodbye to the Android you thought you knew. Google has all but transformed the visuals, leaving almost no screen as it was before. Instead, it blends many Android Honeycomb tablet sensibilities--the navigation buttons, tabs for recent apps, darker colors, and more assertive look--with reworked Android flair. Google's goal: to unify the smartphone and tablet form factors, so that Android looks like Android on any screen size. From a features standpoint, it seems to work. The functionality of Gingerbread and Honeycomb is there, and in fact, the entire OS is more of a front-end overhaul of the OS' design and organization than it is a cavalcade of hard-hitting features. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of additions and enhancements that make Ice Cream Sandwich more powerful in the aggregate, but I'd be hard-pressed to pick a single game-changing addition, apart from the wild new look. From a design position, the success of ICS varies more. Much of the new look is simple, elegant, grown-up, and, dare I say, sexy. Just look to the new menu button and menu lists, the redesigned notifications pull-down, the highly organized settings menu, and the photo-editing Gallery app for examples. Most of these themes appear again and again in the native apps, from Maps to the browser. Yet, there's also a side of Ice Cream Sandwich that suffers from conflicting design ideologies, like a Honeycomb Mini that's also trying to make sense as a smartphone OS. I'll point those out below.

Interface and home screens

Widgets now live in the app tray.

Right off the bat, the default home screen is just gorgeous. It's the first place you'll encounter a new typography called Roboto--it looks crisp and clean as promised, but unless you're looking for changes, most users won't notice a big difference.

From the top to the bottom of the main home screen (there are five total), you see a transparent search bar, a stylized clock, and a round icon denoting a folder that's been prefilled with Google services. You can create and name your own home screen folders by dragging app icons on top of one another. The implementation is easy to use and looks terrific.

Resizable widgets are another Ice Cream Sandwich addition. You can drag and drop them onto the home screen from the app tray (more later), and press and hold the widget to surface the selection handles. Most of the time, a widget will resize when you drag it on the X or Y axis, but some widgets, like that for the photo gallery, don't resize.

Beneath the home screen content, five icons lead you to the phone book, your contacts, the apps (this looks like BlackBerry's menu button), texting, and the browser. You can replace all but the app icon. Below that, the three onscreen controls (a Honeycomb carryover) stand in for touch-sensitive buttons. As in Honeycomb, these Ice Cream Sandwich controls will fade in some apps to three points of light, until you tap them again. Overall, the home screen look is clean and familiar, but also new, and it pushes Android into edgier, less cutesy territory.

Navigation and app launcher

One interesting result of the three Honeycomb-borrowed onscreen controls is that they eliminate the Menu and search buttons. Instead, a very cleanly designed menu button that looks like a triple-tiered colon (and also like it came from the Windows Phone design book) moves to the top or bottom of many apps. It would be better if it were consistently at the top. Press it to access more drop-down menu options. In terms of usability, this is a simple, elegant design that especially shines in the texting and e-mail apps, where it's dead simple to append an attachment, audio, video, and photos. Bravo, Google.

Although the search navigation button has disappeared, search has not. You'll find the search field in every native app and home screen throughout the OS, complete with the microphone icon for voice search. Although you won't be able to press and hold an onscreen navigation control to use voice actions, you can launch it from the microphone icon.

Recent apps, home screen, and Face Unlock with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The apps launcher looks essentially the same as Gingerbread's, though it has a slightly different layout and a fancy graphical transition as you swipe horizontally through your apps. I really like that the Market app is persistently accessible on the top of the screen, and that the app launcher has expanded to include widgets. However, the "tiled look" for widgets that Google proudly showed off at the Ice Cream Sandwich launch event looks cluttered and confusing.

Screenshots

If you like this screenshot tour of Ice Cream Sandwich, you can thank, well, Ice Cream Sandwich, and its new native screenshot capability in particular. Late to the game compared with Apple's iOS (and even some Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S II), the feature is nevertheless a boon for app developers, for us journalist types, and for anyone who wants to diagnose an error or save a snap of a game for bragging rights.

The trick is pressing the hardware combination of the volume-down button and power button in the right way to trigger the native screenshot tool. Unfortunately, it took time to get a feel for it on the Galaxy Nexus. The action was awkward, and not always successful, especially at first. The ease of snapping screenshots will vary by a handset's individual proportions.

Cameras and video

The panorama feature in the Ice Cream Sandwich camera was one of the first secrets to leak. Several Android-bearing phones have seen the feature before, but only as an addition to a Samsung or HTC camera, never as a blood-and-bones part of Android. Now, Google has made it front and center, one of your three camera "mode" choices, in addition to the standard camera and video.

Google has a sense of humor.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

As helpful as it is that the software instructs you as you shoot (telling you to slow down, for instance), I wonder how many people will take panorama shots often enough to warrant its prominence in the app. At any rate, the tool worked smoothly in my tests.

More interesting and useful in my eyes is the full suite of built-in editing tools: cropping, red-eye reduction, face glow, straightening, rotating, flipping, and sharpening. There are also effects you can add like warmth, saturation, and sepia tones. In total, there are 16 color and style effects, and another four options for adjusting lighting. Google could have easily stopped short and continued to let the manufacturers add their own filters, but onboard editing makes the Android OS that much stronger on its own.

When it comes to video mode, Ice Cream Sandwich lightens things up with effects like distorting faces into silly (and vaguely disturbing) expressions and swapping in various backgrounds. I'm still deciding if I think they're more creepy than fun. Aspiring videographers will enjoy the time-lapse settings.

The joint photo and video gallery gets a few tweaks, most notably the "magazine tile" look we also saw with widgets. This time, the photos are even more cluttered, a barrage of thumbnails with little room between them to let your eyes take it in. In addition, when you open an image, you'll also see a ticker of other gallery images along the bottom. Being able to scroll through them is nice, but the visual noise it creates is not.

People and calling

Google has completely reworked the look and feel of its Contacts app--down to the color and layout--and I, for one, like it. Photos are more prominent, a good thing so long as they're higher-resolution or you don't mind a little graininess. The drop-down menu lets you set the ringtone or send all calls to voice mail. Gone is the alphabet on the right-side rail, though if you touch the scroll bar while scrolling quickly through your contact list, you'll still be able to quickly skip through your contacts.

When you place a call, the photo enlarges. The colors here are bold, with strong color blocking, a deliberately hipper look than what we've been seeing for the friendly green Android. While everything feels more open and breezier, it also doesn't feel like it visually mirrors the rest of the Ice Cream Sandwich design. This may not bother you on a day-to-day basis and it doesn't impede usability. Nevertheless, it's an oddity of (in)cohesion that shouldn't exist in a polished OS.

Tap a contact's image to quickly send messages, an e-mail, or launch a phone call.

One thing that is missing is the ability to long-press a contact's name while you're in the phone view to see options for sending a text--something you could do in Gingerbread. Now, to text, call, and even e-mail contacts from any native communications app, just tap the photo icon. The logic is easy to follow once you remember it, but it isn't immediately apparent.

Gmail

Many small changes add up to a smarter, cleaner, more stylish, and overall improved Gmail experience. Fresh icons and space to read certainly help, but it's the new way that your contacts' e-mail addresses (and photos) pop up that I love, along with the ability to drag and drop highlighted text along the screen without first using onscreen controls to cut and paste. Gmail will now also let you search offline messages dating back to 30 days.

If you misspell a word, you'll have the usual options to let Android autocorrect, or to pick from an autosuggested word right below the composition window. With Ice Cream Sandwich, you can also tap the misspelled word (it'll be underscored in red) and choose from a selection of related choices, or even add a new word to the dictionary.

Visual Voice mail

Remember the visual voice mail demo from the ICS launch event in Hong Kong? So do I. I haven't been able to test this yet for the simple fact that the Google Voice app in Android Market does not yet use the compatible developer API. So stay tuned.

Facial unlocking

We've known since last May that Google's facial-tracking software would make it into Ice Cream Sandwich one way or another, and here it comes in the form of Face Unlock, a security option that lets you unlock the phone by holding it up to your face for a few seconds. It's one of those quirky features that's fun to play with, but even Google's copywriters warn in the software that it's less secure than a PIN or pattern, adding that someone who looks like you may succeed in unlocking your phone.

Google has expanded its spell-check and word-replacement tools, so you sound smarter on smartphones.

In fact, I was able to take a photo of myself (with the HTC Rezound) and hold it up to the Galaxy Nexus to unlock the phone. If the facial recognition engine fails, however, you'll still have a four- to nine-digit PIN or a traceable pattern as a fallback.

I should note that neither the pattern nor the facial unlocking works if your IT group requires a PIN in order for you to access your corporate e-mail. For security purposes, every time you disable Face Unlock, you'll have to quickly set it up again in order to use it. It worked in the dozen times I used it.

Android Beam

One of the most interesting new features in Ice Cream Sandwich, Android Beam uses NFC to transfer things like maps, contact information, and the name of a running game or app between two compatible phones in close proximity. Since I only had a single phone to test, I haven't been able to explore this feature. However, to make it work, go into the Settings, and find the More menu under Wi-Fi. Make sure NFC is enabled, and that Android Beam shows that it's ready to transmit.

Extra stuff

You can swipe alert messages away one by one from the pull-down notifications menu, from the recent programs list, and from your browser tabs.
Double-tap the clock on the home screen to set an alarm.
New Gmail messages flash the name of the sender in the notifications bar.
When you receive an incoming call, pull the ringing icon over other (at first invisible) icons to answer, hang up, or send an editable text message reply (as in: I'm busy, I'll call you right back!).
In Maps, zoom in far enough (with two fingers) and you'll see the buildings start to get some 3D shape. Glide two fingers up and down the screen to tilt the screen for a better view.
Contacts you have starred as "favorites" in Google+ will show up with a high-resolution image in your contacts cards, so long as "sync contacts" is enabled in the separate Google+ app.
Repeatedly press the "Android version" line item in the About Phone settings to find a little "green" Easter egg.

Where Ice Cream Sandwich soars, falls short

Nobody can accuse Google's Android team of putting forth a weak or insubstantial OS update. Ice Cream Sandwich has tweaked Android's style from head to toe, giving it a far bolder identity than ever before, often with a polished look and logical feel. For the most part, Google has succeeded in splicing together Gingerbread and the tablet-centric Honeycomb OSes to create a single experience that can work identically on both phones and tablets. It can't have been easy merging two OSes with different identities. Yet sometimes the seams show.

On the one hand, the OS has surfaced many previously buried features, like placing the Market icon on the top of each screen in the app tray for easy access, and making the search bar persistent across all home screens. It's also easy to call up recent apps via a navigation control, and move widgets to the app tray where they can be seen. The long-press will still unearth more features at times (like on the home screens), but Google is moving away from that particular convention, and I think it's a benefit.

Data usage tracking is brand-new in Ice Cream Sandwich.

On the other hand, there's that recurring issue of cohesion and occasional clutter (which the tablet design will surely resolve for larger devices). Ice Cream Sandwich is a patchwork of visual themes, and one that lacks flow throughout the entire experience. The elegant home screen and notifications menu have one motif, the recent apps and browser tabs another, the crowded photo and widget tiles a third, and the high-contrast address book and calling screens a fourth. It's as if three separate groups of designers came together in the 11th hour. This may not bother you, and to be sure, the sometimes-disjointed look and feel don't detract from Android's usability, but this lack of visual unity isn't seen in iOS, Windows Phone, or BlackBerry OS 7.

Moreover, even as Ice Cream Sandwich simplifies some actions, it also adds other nonobvious features, like swiping to close browser tabs and recent apps. (I have no objections to Easter eggs to reward power users, like the little Android guy you see when you repeatedly tap the Android version number in the Settings.) It also isn't clear that the grid numbers you see next to a widget in the app tray (1x1, 2x4) correspond to a grid that shows up on the home screens when you move around app icons and widgets. When you answer a phone call, it isn't until you press the incoming ring button that you can drag it to answer, hang up, or reply in a text. My point is this: though Ice Cream Sandwich solves some problems with the OS learning curve, it also creates a few others.

The first piece of good news is that these are all issues that Google can tackle in succeeding updates, while also working to make the back end more powerful still. The second piece of good news is that there's plenty of room for invested hardware makers like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola to continue creating custom graphical shells to run on top of the OS. Android is no longer plain old vanilla, and I suspect this new design could be more polarizing among the spectrum of users, not less.

At the end of the day, Ice Cream Sandwich does succeed in moving Google forward, and reaffirming its staying power as a mobile OS. With its bold personality, Android 4.0 is also a sign of Google leaving less of its cultivation to the handset makers, and taking a stronger role in defining its 'Droidy personality.

iOS 5 features compared to Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20068741-233/new-ios-5-features-compared-to-android-blackberry-windows-phone

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Apple has unveiled the next iPhone at long last, and with it comes iOS 5, which we first learned of in June. We got demos of 10 of the 200 additions and enhancements, including the hotly anticipated over-the-air system updates, new message notifications, and group messaging. The iOS 5 update rolls out on October 12.

Deep voice integration through the Siri app (beta) was revealed at the iPhone 4S launch event today. This is the deep voice integration we expected, and in addition to handling text composition and replies, reminders, and meeting requests, it also reaches for a more conversational tone in its voice search. Questions like, "Do I need an umbrella today?" yields results like, "Yes, it sure looks like rain." A new icon of a microphone will soon join the virtual keyboard.

While all the new features bring happy tidings for Apple fans, many have already existed on Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone operating systems. That's not necessary a knock on Apple; all the platforms eventually ape each other's best features, and remember how long it took Apple to enable copy/paste on its original iPhone? What it does reveal is that Android, and even Windows Phone and BlackBerry, are applying real pressure.

Here's a look at how some of Apple's major iOS 5 updates line up with those on rival mobile platforms. We've included dates and the names of Apple's new features when available.

	Apple iOS 5	Android	Windows Phone	BlackBerry OS
Grouped notifications	Notification Center	Notifications pull-down (2008)	Live tile updates (2010)	Notification icons on home screen
Group, multimedia messaging (free within ecosystem)	iMessage	Standard messaging; third-party apps (Kik, GroupMe)	Standard messaging; third-party apps	BlackBerry Messenger 5 (2009)
Twitter sharing, integration	iOS 5, October 2011	Sharing an original Android feature; status updates via apps	Coming with Mango update in fall	Twitter photo-sharing available
Over-the-air updates	iOS 5, October 2011	Original feature (2008)	Original feature (2010)	BlackBerry OS 5 (2009)
Magazine, RSS subscriptions	Newsstand	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Reminders lists	iOS 5,October 2011; includes geolocation	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Browser reading mode	iOS 5, October 2011	Third-party apps	Third-party apps	Third-party apps
Rich text formatting	Mail app	Third-party apps	Office documents	Third-party apps
Camera shortcut on a locked phone	iOS 5, October 2011	HTC Sensation, Pantech Breakout have a Lock screen shortcut	Hold and press shutter from sleep position (Pocket-to-picture; 2010)	Must wake up phone
Games recommendations, see achievements	Game Center	Not available	Xbox Live (Achievements; 2010); enhancements with Mango	Not available
Voice controls	Siri	Voice actions; third-party apps	Original feature (2010); expanded in Mango September 2011	Third-party app

2011-09-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

IE10 wakes to the Web--and to Windows

Microsoft fleshed out IE10's impressive list of new technologies at Microsoft's Build conference for developers. New items on the list such as Web Workers, Web Sockets, 3D Transforms, Application Cache, and IndexedDB are music to the ears of many Web developers who want to make rich, interactive Web sites.

But it's important for a much larger developer group, too: IE10 also is a key foundation for Windows 8 applications. That's why Microsoft is boasting of IE10's ability to run "chromeless" in a full-screen mode and a touch-friendly design.

The better the browser's support for new technologies, the better next-gen Windows apps can be. In particular, the apps based on browser technologies will run handily on tablets built with ARM processors, an area Microsoft cares passionately about as it watches millions of iPads fly off Apple store shelves.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still dogged by IE6's reputation as slow and lacking support for many Web standards. It was released a decade ago and still is widely used, thanks in large measure to the fact that it's bundled with Windows XP. Microsoft started digging itself out of its browser hole with IE7 and IE8, but IE9 was the real statement that showed the company's competitive juices were really flowing.

IE9 brought support for a lot of browser standards: including HTML5 video and audio, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), CSS3 (the new version of Cascading Style Sheets for page formatting), the canvas for 2D drawing. As important, its JavaScript performance leaped, and the browser ignited the current race to build hardware acceleration into the browser for better speed and lower power consumption. And behind the scenes, Microsoft has become active in standards development.

Related stories:
• Web apps get the ultimate endorsement: Windows 8
• IE9: Microsoft is back in the browser game
• Firefox for Android tablets makes first appearance
• Google's post-JavaScript Web plan raises hackles

It seems, though, that only so much could be added to IE9. At some point, Microsoft had to call it done--especially given that some standards are still developing.

IE10 fleshes out the standards support. Some modest additions appeared in the first and second platform preview editions--test versions that Microsoft uses to help Web developers ease into supporting the browser and to get feedback.

Supporting the standards
The third platform preview arrived yesterday with a slew of new features, many of them very important to Web apps' look and abilities. On the list of new IE10 standards supported:

• CSS Text Shadow makes it easy to make shadows beneath text, giving something of a 3D look. It's not rocket science, but it adds polish and it's a feature in high demand.

• CSS 3D Transforms can endow objects with perspective to give them a 3D look, for example making it look like a page of an online book is flipping out of the screen as it's turned.

• CSS3 Transitions and Animations can move objects around the screen, rotate them. That makes Web sites and apps more dynamic, in particular in response to user actions such as clicking a button that pops up a dialog box..

• A host of CSS3 abillities including as grid, flexbox, multicolumn, figures, regions, and hyphenation help with making Web page layouts more elaborate and magazine-like. It also helps them adjust to different screen sizes.

• IndexedDB provides a build-in database useful for Web apps that need to store data, notably when they're running when a computer is disconnected from the network. IndexedDB is used, among other technologies, for offline Google Apps access, for example.

• The HTML5 Application Cache (AppCache) feature lets the Web app itself be stored on a computer for offline use.

• Web Sockets, coming back into circulation after a hiatus caused by a security problem, enables high-speed communications between browsers and Web servers. That's good for apps with live data, for example a game that needs to keep multiple players in sync.

• Async scripts lets Web pages break down their programming into chunks that run when they can, no longer holding up critical parts.

• Web Workers let programmers assign parts of a Web app to JavaScript threads that execute in the background, getting out of the way of primary tasks such as running the user interface. They also help take advantage of multicore processors.

• HTML5's Drag-and-Drop interface lets programmers set up Web pages so people can, for example, drag photos to be uploaded onto a live patch of a Web page. Google uses it for accepting Gmail attachments.

• HTML's Files interface lets Web apps manage data stored as a file, for example letting people select a group of files from an operating system's file system or uploading a video divided into multiple separate "blobs" of raw data.

• CSS3 Gradient gives better control over Web objects' colors--a background gradually changing from black to gray, for example--without having to download bulky graphics files.

• SVG Filter Effects let programs process SVG with graphics changes such as lighting effects or blurring.

• The Navigation Timing interface lets programmers precisely monitor events such as Web page loading speeds.

Still missing, unsurprisingly, is WebGL, a low-level interface for 3D graphics that's useful in particular for Web-based video games. That seems like the kind of thing that Microsoft might like with Windows 8 apps, but the company has expressed serious security reservations about WebGL. In addition, Silverlight 5 is getting new 3D abilities, and Silverlight apps can be made into Win8 apps that will run on both Intel and ARM processors, too. Last, it's notable that WebGL uses Khronos Group's OpenGL interface that competes directly with Microsoft's DirectX interfaces.

The third platform preview of Internet Explorer 10 so far is only available as a download with the Windows 8 build issued to developers. That's fine for folks coding up Win8 apps. But those who don't want to mess with an experimental build of an operating system--Web developers spring to mind as one likely group--will have to wait.

Microsoft doubtless will get the new software into more hands eventually--after all, IE10 isn't just for Windows 8. New platform preview versions won't arrive on the earlier eight-week schedule, though, as Microsoft moves to a more relaxed twelve-week cycle.

One big question for Microsoft is whether it will move to a rapid-release cycle the way Google has with Chrome and Mozilla has with Firefox. Right now, it seems unlikely, and Microsoft has promised IE9 support will last until 2020.

That raises the prospect of Web developers faced with a requirement to support today's IE years into the future. That might not sit well, given the power of the Microsoft Windows distribution channel for browsers and the fact that Microsoft's cutting-edge IE10 will look pretty old in a decade.

2011-05-20T07:52:00.001-07:00

Windows 8 Remains a Mystery as Microsoft Anticipates Surging Market Demands

Microsoft has always had surprises for its customers. They have a very special trend for software development. It is quite difficult to anticipate what they will roll out whenever they announce such a move. For example, the upgrade of Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 came as a surprise to many.

A close look at the development of the Windows brand of software reveals that Microsoft is dynamic. Some customers still complain about the compatibility of the Windows operating system with other computer applications but truth be told, Windows is a great brand. Recently, the corporation unveiled Windows 7, which ideally is an upgrade of Windows version 1.0. This displays the corporations intend to solve the compatibility aspects that most users of the former version have pointed out.

What Microsoft is doing is laudable; it is a mechanism of identifying the pitfalls and shortcomings of its applications in attempt to better its software to meet the demands of the market currently. The world is going technological, if it has not already done so. The Chief Executive Officer of the corporation, Mr. Steve Ballmer hinted that Windows is undergoing evolution. It is in doubt whether this will interfere with the release of the chain of the operating system.

The CEO intimated that the software would undergo massive changes in the future that will make its look very different from the way it does today. He emphasized that the software in the future will be very different from its current look. Currently, the software works just fine. In fact, it is the most common software and the best so far. It is very easy to use and manipulate towards the performance of different tasks.

Currently, Microsoft is working on Windows 8.The corporation has not disclosed the features of the software yet. From the words of the CEO, we can anticipate a unique product that encompasses major improvements of the previous operating systems and that meets the current requirements of the market.

Windows 7 almost five times more secure than XP

2011-05-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 is four to five times less vulnerable to malware infections than is Windows XP.

Those are the findings of Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report (PDF), which detailed in depth the state of software vulnerabilities, exploits, security breaches, and malware in 2010.

Overall, the study found that infection rates for newer Microsoft operating systems with the latest service packs are consistently lower than those for older OSes, giving Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 the highest marks for security.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Looking at the number of reported infections per 1,000 computers, Microsoft found that Windows 7 64-bit had the lowest number at 2.5, while the 32-bit version had 3.8.

Windows XP with SP3 came in with 15.9 infections per 1,000, while XP with SP2 had the highest number at 19.3. Breaking down the numbers, Microsoft's stats mean that Windows 7 is around four to five times more secure than XP.

Windows Vista's infection rate was considerably lower than that for XP but still turned out to be double that for Windows 7.

Drilling down further, the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista are less infection-prone than are their 32-bit counterparts, which Microsoft attributes to a couple of factors.

First, the 64-bit versions of both systems may appeal to more tech-savvy users, presumably ones that would better know how to secure their computers. But second, Windows 64-bit offers a feature called Kernel Patch Protection, which protects the Windows kernel from unauthorized changes.

Analyzing server-based operating systems, Windows Server 2003, which offers both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, had 5.8 infections per 1,000. Windows Server 2008 R2, which comes only in a 64-bit flavor, had 3.6 infections.

Security holes in applications versus those in operating systems or Web browsers accounted for most of the vulnerabilities last year, according to Microsoft. However, the total number of holes found in applications fell 22.2 percent from 2009. But exploits that take advantage of Java vulnerabilities rose dramatically in last year's third quarter, surpassing every other category, the report noted.