Miller informed Apple of the bug in October, but did not tell the company he had created an app to demonstrate the flaw. Apple's reaction was swift: It bounced Miller from the iOS developer program and banned him from reapplying for a full year.
Although Miller was unable to test the patch in iOS 5.0.1 because his app had been yanked from the App Store, he pointed out the appearance of the update, and as he had done earlier this week, defended his research.
"Even if some thought what I did was unethical, I hope public reporting of that flaw sped up time to patch release to make things safe for us," Miller said on Twitter today.
Apple credited Miller in its security advisory for reporting the bug.
Other patches plugged holes in FreeType, iOS' font-rendering engine, and quashed a bug that let people with physical access to a passcode-locked iPad 2 view data on the tablet when Apple's Smart Cover was opened.
iOS 5.0.1 weighed in at between 39MB and 45MB on multiple iPhones and iPads owned by Computerworld staffers when the devices retrieved the update over the air.
Connecting an iPhone 4 to iTunes, however, revealed a massive update of some 790MB.
To do an over-the-air update, select the "Settings" app on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, then touch "General" and finally "Software Update."
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.
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