Face ID brings a special challenge for law enforcement. Police need to be careful to not do anything that an iPhone might use as an attempt at facial recognition. They risk the phone locking itself in a way they can’t easily circumvent.
It all comes down to contradictory laws on passwords and biometric security systems.
For much too long, the best key finder had a significant flaw. A Tile Pro or Tile Mate helps you keep track of your keys, the remote, or other items, but each only lasts a year. Then you have to buy another one because the battery can’t be replaced. That finally changes in the new 2018 version. Plus they have a greater range.
We tested the latest versions of the regular and Pro versions of the Tile tracker to see if they live up to their promises.
Everyone loathes telemarketers, but phone scammers are much worse. Spoofers are people who trick the phone system into mis-identifying the number they are calling from. This causes people to believe they are talking to their bank or credit card company, not a criminal. Apple wants to help prevent phone spoofing.
The company filed a patent application for a system to automatically identify when an incoming call isn’t coming from where it says it is.
Bokeh images look sort of three dimensional, with their subjects in focus and their backgrounds blurry. Facebook took this idea and ran with it. The social networking service created tech to turn bokeh pictures into 3D images.
The tech world has been rocked by allegations that companies, including Apple and Amazon, were sold data servers compromised by Chinese spies. However, a senior cyber security advisor to the National Security Agency says that no one he knows of has found any sign of this.
Foxconn is best known for assembling iPhones, so it’s watched as a sign of demand for Apple’s most important product. The Chinese company just reported its revenue increased 30 percent last month, an indication that there’s plenty of demand for the iPhone XS models that debuted in September.
This is just the latest hint that Apple’s latest are performing well.
The third quarter of this year wasn’t a particularly good one for Apple, with Mac sales dropping a significant amount. That doesn’t say positive things about sales of the 2018 MacBook Pro models that debuted this summer.
Still, the company held onto its place as the world’s fourth-largest PC maker.
There were howls of protest when Apple left the 3.5mm headphone jack out of the iPhone 7, but it was really just another example of the company being ahead of the competition. Arch-rival Samsung is reportedly going to be the next to eliminate this single-use port from its flagship phones next year.
Anyone who feels their MacBook’s screen is too cramped can now use their iPad as as second display just by plugging in a dongle. Luna Display is now available to all after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Astro HQ promises that its hardware/software solution is better than purely software options for using an iPad as an external monitor.
A prominent critic of Saudi Arabia went into that country’s consulate in Istanbul last week and never came out again. Evidence of what happened to him might come from his Apple Watch.
The burning question the wearable potentially could answer: is Jamal Khashoggi still alive?
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 12.1 to developers this afternoon. In what’s possibly a new speed record, that version is already available to the general public.
The major change coming in the final version is support for Group FaceTime, but there’re other enhancements too.
Almost everyone who wants a smartphone already has one, so device makers depend on upgrades among current customers to make money. Fortunately for Apple, an analyst reports there’s a surge of interest in buying a newer model.
The rising desire to upgrade isn’t limited to iPhone users, but the analyst says Apple will benefit the most.
There’s bad news for Apple Watch Series 4 users: the third beta of watchOS 5.1 is out and it still lacks an ECG application. The hardware to take an electrocardiogram is built into Apple’s latest wearable but the software is still MIA.
There’s also a new beta of tvOS 12.1 today, along with iOS 12.1 beta 3. The latest macOS 10.14.1 pre-release version came out yesterday.
Fraudulent iPhone repair claims are big business in China. To the point where about 60 percent of the handsets being repaired under warranty in that country were part of scams.
Apple has had to make draconian efforts to even slow the rate at which Chinese criminal gangs are stealing from it.
Be warned: anyone who upgrades their iPhone or iPad to iOS 12 no longer has the option to downgrade. It’s not possible to go back to any version of iOS 11. Not that there’s much reason to want to.
This isn’t an unusual move. With today’s release of iOS 12.0.1, going to iOS 11 would be two jumps back, and it’s very rare for Apple to allow that.
Google took a one-two punch to the chin today by having to admit its once-ballyhooed Facebook competitor is a dud. There’s so little interest in Google+ that it’s being killed off.
That would normally be bad enough, but the shutdown isn’t just because of lack of interest. A bug in Google+ exposed the personal information of users, something Google didn’t mention for a half a year.
Back in the distant mists of 2012, everyone needed an adapter to plug their collection of 30-pin charging cables into Apple’s new Lightning port. Fast forward to today and this once crucial accessory is no longer necessary. To the point where it’s been dropped from the online Apple Store.
Anyone with iOS 12 — and we know that’s most of you — should download a small update that fixes bugs that have affected some users. A Wi-Fi slowdown problem was only bothering iPhone XS users, but a charging issue plagued a much wider swath of people.
iOS 12.0.1 deals with both, and makes a couple of other small tweaks too.
The days are over when Google Translate could only provide spoken translations with an American accent. The latest iOS version adds regional accents from the former British Empire.
And it goes beyond English. French translations can be said in a Canadian accent, for example.
The good news is that Apple just significantly cut the official price of BeatsX wireless headphones. The bad news is that half the color options also just went away.
These in-ear headphones compete with Apple’s own AirPods but, unlike their rivals, are permanently connected to each other.
The iPhone XS and XS Max debuted last month, and some versions sold out almost immediately. But that doesn’t automatically mean they’re a huge hit. Still there’s new evideance that sales are strong.
Drawing on data compiled from over 1 million mobile apps, an analyst says that, during the first week they were available, Apple’s XS series outsold last year’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus by 45 percent.
802.11ax will soon get a public release, but you won’t be left trying to remember if it’s better than 802.11ac or 802.11n. That’s because every version of Wi-Fi is getting renamed with a simple system that anyone can understand.
The next generation is going to be called Wi-Fi 6, which is obviously better than its predecessor, Wi-Fi 5.
Apple isn’t wasting time getting out the next versions of all its operating systems. Yesterday, it introduced fresh betas of iOS 12.1, macOS 10.14.1, and tvOS 12.1 just for developers, and today these are all available to the general public.
This is the second round of betas of all this pre-release software. It comes two weeks after the initial round.
Your iPhone could send out a pair of alerts this afternoon, but they aren’t ones you’ve set yourself. Instead, they’re from the U.S. government, and both are test messages.
The goal is to try out a pair of systems set up to notify the public of emergencies. Again, these are only tests.
Some, but not all, iOS 12 users complain their iPhone or iPad won’t begin charging if it’s in sleep mode when a Lightning cable is plugged in. Apple has introduced a beta of iOS 12.1 that appears to fix this problem.