Today, roaming charges have been dropped across the European Union. If you live in Berlin and travel to Budapest, you can keep using your existing data plan at no extra cost, and you keep (more or less) the same data allowance. That’s neat for Europeans, but it’s also good news for international travelers, because you only need to buy one SIM card at the start of your trip, and then you’re covered until you go home.
iPhone 8 will lack blazing-fast data due to Qualcomm fight
Apple’s next-generation iPhone won’t offer the same super-speedy gigabit LTE speeds as rival smartphones, according to a new report.
Qualcomm is the only company currently offering modems that support gigabit LTE, but thanks to a recent fallout with Apple, it will not be the sole modem supplier for iPhone 8.
Pocket airplanes, Adobe graphic design courses, and more [Week’s Best Deals]
Summer’s here, and along with the warm sunshine come hot new deals in the Cult of Mac Store. This week, we’ve got an awesome smartphone-controlled plane, a set of comprehensive courses in graphic design for Adobe Creative Suite, a time-saving task manager, and a powerful VPN. Read on for more details:
Rock out while you conquer your inbox [Week’s Best Deals]
As the weather warms up, we’re still rounding up the hottest new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go-round, we’ve got a set of future-ready wireless earbuds, a swiss army knife for iOS data, a full terabyte of super secure cloud storage, and a tool that’ll help you finally reach the bottom of your inbox. Best of all, everything is discounted by more than 60 percent. Read on for more details:
Cloudbleed bug may have exposed your passwords
Get ready to change all your passwords again.
A huge new memory leak from web services company Cloudflare may have left data from thousands of domains exposed, including some very high-profile sites. Cloudflare says it fixed the problem, which was caused by a bug known as Cloudbleed, but not before users’ sensitive data got cached by search engines.
Flashing the peace sign is now a security risk
Next time someone poses for a selfie with their fingers held up in a peace sign, maybe tell them to leave it at a smile.
An ordinary photo of the universal sign of goodwill might be enough for a thief to copy a fingerprint, thanks to the high quality of digital photos these days. And since Touch ID and similar technologies turn fingerprints into keys that unlock our devices and the data we keep in them, that’s cause for concern.
Apple rolls out iOS 10.0.3 to fix iPhone 7 connectivity issues
Apple has rolled out iOS 10.0.3 to address cellular connectivity issues with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The update is not available to download on older handsets, which were not affected by the bug.
Facebook Messenger is getting a new Data Saver mode
Facebook Messenger can be a real data hog if you’re a frequent user — especially if you send and receive a lot of GIFs, images, and videos. But that’s going to change thanks to a new Data Saver feature that’s currently being tested on Android.
YouTube Go will finally let you take videos offline
Google is launching a new YouTube Go app that will finally allow users to download videos for offline playback. You’ll be able to choose the quality of the video you save, and the app will tell you exactly how much storage space is required for each clip.
AT&T finally drops overage charges with new data plans
AT&T customers soon won’t have to worry about going over their monthly data limit, thanks to a new set of plans the carrier is rolling out nationwide later this month.
Instead of cutting your data off once you go over, the new Mobile Share Advantage plans simply throttle your speeds down to a maximum of 128 kbps, making the carrier more competitive with the likes of T-Mobile.
T-Mobile lures Pokémon Go fans with free data
Pokémon Go players have been busy laying lures at Pokéstops across the globe for the past week, but T-Mobile CEO John Legere just baited his own trap to draw in new customers.
Starting on July 19th, T-Mobile will offer all Pokémon Go players free data when playing the game for the entire year, giving you no excuse to not catch ’em all.
Verizon is going to charge you more for mobile data
It’s about to get a lot more expensive to be a Verizon Wireless customer.
Verizon revealed today that it plans to raise prices for its wireless service plans, even as smaller competitors have discounted rates to attract new customers.
Keep your online activities 100% secure forever [Deals]
If identity thieves and data snooping have you feeling uneasy when you get online, you should consider logging on with a virtual private network. By distributing your traffic among a set of globally distributed, secure servers, Celo’s VPN service anonymizes and encrypts your online activity in a way that adds significant security to your browsing, even on public Wi-Fi networks. And right now you can get a lifetime subscription to Celo’s VPN service for only $29.
Google Translate for iOS now works when you’re offline
When you’re lost in a foreign country without a data connection, Google Translate can now help you get directions from a local. Its latest update for iPhone and iPad adds the ability to get offline translation in 52 different languages.
Liberate your iPhone data with this compact flash drive [Deals]
Every day, our iPhones become home to more and more of our most important data — photos, music, documents, not to mention the countless apps we can’t do without. iPhone data is a precious resource and often inconvenient to manage, especially when space for it runs out. That’s what made the first iKlips so popular, an elegant solution for adding storage and creating more flexibility for transferring data between iOS devices. The iKlips DUO adds a bevy of improvements and refinements that make it an even better way to store and move your stuff on any iOS device, and right now you can get one for just $71.
Android creator will offer free dashcams in exchange for drive data
Andy Rubin, who co-founded Android before leaving Google in 2014, is building dashboard cameras that he wants to give away for free. But in exchange for an extra eye on the road, Rubin wants you to give up all the data your dashcam collects.
LG’s Watch Urbane 2 is the first Android Wear watch with 4G
LG today unveiled a second edition of its Watch Urbane smartwatch, which finally frees Android Wear from your smartphone.
Thanks to its built-in 4G and 3G connectivity, the new Watch Urbane makes calls and continues to receive notifications even when you leave your phone behind.
AT&T increases unlimited data cap to 22GB
AT&T is increasing its data cap to 22GB for customers who are still grandfathered into unlimited data plans. This is more than four times the 5GB cap previously offered to LTE subscribers, and more than seven times the 3GB cap offered to 3G subscribers.
Alphabet’s chairman talks Schmidt about Apple Music curation
Surprise, surprise! Former Google CEO and current Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt has a bone to pick with Apple Music.
In an article published over the weekend, Schmidt takes what appears to be a shot at Apple over its choice to embrace human curation for its streaming service.
Snapchat’s new update saves more data, lets you sticker everywhere
Disappearing photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, has just updated to include a couple of great new features, including a data-reducing Travel Mode, an emoji button called Sticker Picker, and a way to see who’s viewing your posts, called Stories, in the app itself.
iPhone 6 Plus owners use twice as much data as those who buy the iPhone 6
The bigger the screen, the more data you use. That’s the maxim that anyone looking to min-max their data plan every month should follow if they want to keep their bills low.
Your biggest online security mistakes (and how to avoid them)
We all make compromises daily when it comes to online security. Everybody wants to be safe and secure when making purchases online, but practically none of us do everything necessary to keep our data secure.
“People, myself included, are basically lazy,” web developer Joe Tortuga told Cult of Mac, “and ease of use is inversely related to security. If it’s too difficult, then people just won’t do it.”
With all the recent hacks into private as well as corporate data — like the credit card grab from Home Depot and the hack into Sony’s files, there’s no better time to learn some of the things we all can do to protect ourselves. We spoke to some online security experts to get their advice.
Keep OS X Yosemite from sending Spotlight data to Apple
OS X Yosemite has changed the way your Mac deals with your privacy. On the one hand, Apple has decided to enable hard drive encryption by default, despite the FBI requests not to.
On the other hand, every time you type in Spotlight, your location and local search terms are sent to Apple, and, according to developer Landon Fuller, other third parties like Microsoft.
Fuller’s created a website, Fix Mac OS X Yosemite, where he’s posted up a way to stop Yosemite from sending such private data out. He’s also been contributing to a developer project on GitHub to find out and fix other ways that OS X phones home.
Sprint’s new ‘Framily’ plans give you 20GB of data for only $100 a month
Sprint has seen better days. Now existing as the distant fourth wireless carrier in America, it needs a win to score customers back.
Sprint’s recently announced new “Framily” plans might just be that win. They not only let you feel like you have a speech impediment everytime you say the word ‘Framily’, but they offer twice as much data as the likes of AT&T and Verizon, for about the same price.
AT&T Will Now Let Advertisers Pay For Your Data Addiction
Guzzling up websites on your iPhone is now quicker than ever thanks to 4G LTE. It also means that your monthly data allotment can disappear in a poof if you go on a YouTube binge, but at CES this morning AT&T announced it has a plan to help customers consume even more data by allowing advertisers to foot the bill on their content.