Apple and the FBI are locked in a bitter legal battle over San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c that was recovered at the terrorist event, but according to San Bernardino’s chief of police we’re all overlooking one very important issue: there might not be any useable intelligence on it.
After Samsung and LG announced exciting new iPhone rivals at Mobile World Congress this week, we’ve had heated debates behind the scenes here over whether Apple’s smartphone can still compete against the big guns in an increasingly competitive smartphone market.
Without features like wireless charging, water-resistance, and expandable storage, will it be harder for Apple to reverse slowing iPhone growth? Or are these things just gimmicks that the iPhone doesn’t need, and will have been forgotten just a few years down the line?
Join in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we take our spat public and ask you to wade in!
This is the first installment in a series of memoirs on the intersection of technology and daily life.
When my fraternity brother Grant and I began a drive from Arkansas to Los Angeles to visit friends on the West Coast, I believed it would be the greatest road trip of my life.
I was wrong.
Apple Pay is likely to launch in France by the end of 2016, according to a new report — claiming that it will be a gradual rollout over the course of several months.
There’s no exact date cited, but it is quite possible that it will take place by September, before Apple ships the iPhone 7.
Color us somewhat unsurprised, but all five remaining GOP presidential candidates are siding with the FBI over Apple in the ongoing disagreement over whether Apple should help hack the iPhone of one of the dead San Bernardino shooters — thereby setting a potential precedent regarding future user security.
The FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into a terrorist’s iPhone has done the seemingly impossible by getting Microsoft, Google and Apple all on the same team.
Many of the country’s top tech firms have revealed that they will file friend-of-the court briefs in defense of Apple’s position that no company should be compelled by the government to break its own security and thus put the public safety of millions of users at risk.
Want to get your hands on the latest, greatest iOS and OS X features for your iPhone, iPad, and Mac before anyone else does? Do you love checking out all the new stuff in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan so you can be the first to comment on them?
All you need to do is sign up for the Apple Beta Software Program, and you’ll be able to access the public betas of these flagship operating systems before they’re available to the rank and file.
Here’s how to sign up for (and install) Apple’s latest public betas.
Caution: Weasel-words ahead! FBI director James Comey today defended iPhone hacking again, this time in front of a congressional panel — saying that it was absolutely a one-off case which wouldn’t set a precedent, only to acknowledge that the verdict “will be instructive for other courts” in future.
Comey also said that he thinks this question needs to be resolved by Congress — backing up an argument that Apple has made this week.
Apple has reportedly started work on creating new security measures for the iPhone that would make it even harder for governments to break into a locked iPhone using the methods being discussed as part of the current San Bernardino court case in California.
There is no word on exactly how Apple plans to approach the problem, but it said to have been working on a solution prior to the recent court case. One possible solution may relate to a new backup strategy for iCloud authentication, which Apple itself would not be able to decrypt.
Trying to express your empathy for a friend’s grief, or your outrage at a recent political post, has been a Facebook conundrum since day one. No one wants to Like things they don’t actually, well, like. It’s just too limiting.
That’s why Mark Zuckerberg and Co. just rolled out Facebook’s new Reactions, five new emotional icons that we all get to use in place of the familiar thumbs-up Like button (which is still there, thank goodness).
The new Facebook Reactions system has rolled out to the web and your iOS devices today (via the Facebook app). Here’s how to respond to Facebook posts with a bit more color.
Apple fans rallied behind their privacy savior in more than 50 cities across the United States today to protest the FBI’s demands that Apple unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone and compromise the security of millions of users’ data in the process.
Grassroots protests broke out from Albuquerque to Washington, D.C., aiming to raise public awareness about the privacy battle Apple is fighting. The protesters had some harsh words for the FBI.
Samsung is under fire again from iPhone fans for its apparent lack of attention to detail when designing the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Apparently, the fact that the ports don’t line up on the bottom of these devices automatically means they’re not as good as Apple’s.
But it’s total rubbish.
Grassroots protests against the government’s attempts to hack the iPhone are set to take place today in nearly 50 cities around the United States, beginning at 5.30pm local time.
“FBI Director [James] Comey has been repeatedly asking the White House and Congress for a backdoor to encrypted phones for the past year,” privacy advocates Fight for the Future representative Holmes Wilson tells Cult of Mac. “If he says he doesn’t want this kind of access going forward, he’s just lying, and you can see it in the public record.”
According to Wilson, this is why this story is such a big deal — and what Cult of Mac readers can do to get involved:
FBI director James Comey and his supporters suggest that making Apple break its iPhone encryption for the San Bernardino shooter case would be a one-off event, and not the start of a slippery slope into unwanted surveillance.
Well, it seems that someone needs to tell the Department of Justice that, because the D.O.J. is reportedly salivating at the thought of being able to hack iPhones for criminal investigations — with court orders being filed for Apple to help extract iPhone data in a further dozen cases around the U.S.
We’re decades removed from Bill Gates’ vicious battle against Steve Jobs, but Gates isn’t quite as ready as some of his contemporaries to side with Apple concerning one of tech’s biggest stories of 2016.
In a new interview, Gates defies Silicon Valley consensus, arguing that Apple should create an FBI backdoor for the iPhone — and siding with FBI director James Comey by suggesting that this wouldn’t, in fact, set a dangerous precedent for the possibility of future snooping.
The FBI claims Apple’s resistance to its demands to hack the San Bernardino terrorist’s are part of a marketing brand strategy, but if it is, it’s not one that the American people support.
A new poll from the Pew Public Research Center has revealed that over half of the country opposes Apple’s position in its privacy battle against the FBI, while only 38% of Americans think Apple should not unlock the iPhone to ensure the security of its customer’s private data.
We’re not saying that you search for inappropriate stuff on Instagram or anything, but if for some reason you’d like to clear your search history in the photo sharing app, you can.
You can’t view your search history directly, but it does inform your new searches, making it “easier for you to find your favorite people and hashtags again quickly,” according to Instagram.
So, if you don’t want certain (ahem) searches to show up when you’re looking for new things, here’s how to clear your Instagram searches.
The time I spend hacking away on my laptop at coffee shops, hotel lobbies and conference room floors I inevitably spot another MacBook user with a cooler-looking laptop than mine, filling me with envy.
Well, dbrand has the goods to make the other coffee shop patrons jealous.
The FBI claims there’s absolutely no other way for it to access San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c expect other having Apple create a backdoor. But according to Edward Snowden there’s at least one other option: acid and lasers.
The former NSA contractor and privacy activist appeared in a virtual talk at Johns Hopkins University and pointed out that even though FBI insists forcing Apple to hack the iPhone is the only way forward, that’s simply not true.
The director of the FBI has written an impassioned open letter to Apple, asking it to go along with the recent court order to unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting investigation.
James Comey writes that the FBI, “isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice.”
Check out the rest of his open letter below:
Samsung has launched its own Upgrade Program alongside the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge to make it easier for fans to get their hands on its latest devices.
It comes in response to Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, but it’s nowhere near as good.
Tim Cook sparked an internet controversy when he penned his open letter to Apple customers about why the tech giant was pushing back against a court order to create an FBI-friendly version of its iOS software.
Find out more about Apple’s epic battle over iPhone encryption, along with how to unlock your iPhones secret emoticons, 10 hard drive space-saving tips, the best news and RSS apps for your iOS devices, and a bit about John McAfee’s bid to hack the iPhone for the FBI.
All that and much more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Here are the top stories this week.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened to boycott Apple products if the company doesn’t give in to the federal government’s demands to unlock an Islamic terrorist’s iPhone. Trump said he would permanently switch to Samsung — and called on his followers to do the same.
At a rally in South Carolina this morning, the Trump said U.S. citizens should boycott Apple products until the company hands over the PIN to one of the San Bernardino terrorist‘s iPhone 5c. Trump neglected to mention that nearly all his tweets come from an iPhone.
Apple’s fight against the FBI continues to dominate headlines, with the company standing firm to protect its beliefs and the privacy of its users. But should it really be doing more to help law enforcement agencies?
No one who uses Apple products wants it to compromise the security of iOS by creating dangerous backdoors, but should it be working to find a safer solution that would provide the FBI with information when it’s needed?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this hot topic — and be sure to weigh in at the end with your opinion!
Apple is planning to fight the FBI’s terror probe by invoking the right of free-speech and they’ve hired the most legendary free-speech lawyer in the country to help them win.
Theodore Olson, famous for successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that money is a form of free speech in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is joining Apple’s fight against the FBI’s order to build a backdoor into San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c.
