Apple

Discussing the FBI case with a friend yesterday, one distinction that seems worth addressing is the difference between a backdoor into iPhones – which is what law enforcement agencies have so far been calling for – and what we might term a master key, which is what the FBI is calling for in this particular case.

Law enforcement agencies have so far been calling for Apple to abandon its use of strong encryption. Technically, they want Apple to build in a backdoor route into that encryption for use by law enforcement agencies, but that’s the same thing: strong encryption with a built-in flaw is not strong encryption. It’s only a matter of time before hackers find and exploit it.

What the FBI is asking in the San Bernardino case is quite different. Instead of asking Apple to weaken the encryption, they want it to weaken the lock guarding access to the phone by removing the auto-wipe and time-delay functions. That would leave the phone vulnerable to a brute-force attack.

And, the FBI assures us, it isn’t asking Apple to do this for all iPhones, just this one specific device. It’s a very different scenario, and one that sounds superficially harmless …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple is today rolling out another new way to buy an iPhone at an Apple Store, a combination of its existing iPhone Upgrade Program and trade-in offers. Right now, on the normal iPhone Upgrade Program, customers can pay about $32 a month for a brand new iPhone 6s on a two-year agreement with an annual trade-in option.

What the ‘Trade Up With Installments’ offers is a reduction of that monthly fee, in exchange for a trade-in of your existing smartphone. For example, you can trade in your current iPhone 6 to get a new iPhone 6s with a 2-year payment plan of $15/mo. What’s interesting is that you can trade in an Android device, not just iPhones — Apple will give up to $300 in trade-in value for Android handsets.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple today has debuted a pair of new ads for its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. The two ads, one simply titled “Live Photos” and the other titled “Less Time,” are fast-paced 30 second spots that quickly jump between using a pair of features that differentiate the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus from their predecessors…

Expand
Expanding
Close

This week Greg and Zac discuss more details about Apple’s upcoming March event, the future of Apple Music, and some software bugs & hardware fails. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247558081″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

Expand
Expanding
Close

News broke yesterday that a United States magistrate judge in California ordered Apple to comply with the FBI’s request for assistance in bypassing the passcode lock of the San Bernardino gunman’s iPhone. Hours later Apple published an open letter by Tim Cook explaining that creating a tool to bypass this specific iPhone would jeopardize the security of all iPhones.

The battle between personal privacy and information gathering as it relates to Apple and security has been building up for years now, and the government narrowing it down to one specific iPhone used by a terrorist in the U.S. has caused the debate to reach new levels. This may be Apple’s battle to lose, but it will be a very public one nonetheless.

Since Apple’s response to the FBI and court order, the White House has stood by the Department of Justice and argued that it’s not about a backdoor for all devices but just a single device, which Tim Cook’s argument already addressed.

Tim Cook’s open letter is on Apple’s homepage and headlines about the government’s demands are all over the news. From my view, Apple customers seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of Tim Cook’s position, while presidential candidates are unsurprisingly siding with the FBI. Where do you weigh in? Here’s what we know so far.

Expand
Expanding
Close

As Apple continues to look to India as a market for extraordinary growth, it has now stopped selling the iPhone 4s and iPhone 5c in the country in an effort to raise the average selling prices of its devices and increase profits. The Economic Times reports that Apple made the decision due to its profitability and average selling price being “under strain” in India.

Expand
Expanding
Close

A United States magistrate judge in California has today directed that Apple must help the FBI break into the cell phone of the one go the men behind the fatal attacks in San Bernardino last December, NBC News reports. Last week, FBI Director James Comey complained that the government couldn’t break the encryption on the iPhone used by one of the gunmen.

Expand
Expanding
Close

After earlier reports claiming that Apple was planning to open a new office of sorts in Hyderabad, India, today the company has confirmed to local publications that it will indeed expand in the area with a new development office planned for later this year. Apple’s statement via a report from The Economic Times is below:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple looks to be set to open a new flagship retail store in Stockholm, Sweden, according to a report from local news outlet Expressen. The report claims that Apple plans for the store to be similar to the iconic Fifth Avenue location in New York and that it hopes to open it within the next two years.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s history when it comes to social networks is not the brightest. The company launched the infamous Ping social networking tool back in 2010, only to shut it down two years later. This year, alongside the announcement of the highly anticipated Apple Music streaming service, the company launched Connect, a different take on a social network based entirely around music. Connect is much different from traditional social networks like Twitter and Facebook, though.

To unveil Connect, Apple brought out popular hip-hop artists Drake, who gave the service a ringing endorsement, as well as Trent Reznor. Drake touted that the service would provide a revolutionary way for artists to interact with their fans, but 8 months after the launch of Connect, it has yet to catch on with artists and listeners alike. Likewise, the feature hasn’t really received any updates or improvements from Apple in that time period either and there are certainly things that could be improved. Read on to find out some ways in which Apple Music could be enhanced…

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to a report from South Korean news outlet The Electronic Times, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, better known as TSMC, has reached a deal with Apple to be the sole provider of the processor used in the next-generation iPhone. TSMC and Samsung shared the task of building the processors for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to the latest U.S. smartphone market share numbers from Parks Associates, Apple is still well in the lead compared to competing manufacturers, holding a beefy 40% of the smartphone market. But the latest figures also show that Android OEMs are gaining ground on the dominant Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker. Now, Samsung holds around 31% of the market and LG is next in line with 10%…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Earlier this year it was revealed that Apple is slowly making its way towards opening its own branded retail stores in India. Apple Stores in India have been a long time coming, but now it looks like they are finally getting close. Bloomberg reports that, after filing the initial paperwork last month, Apple is on track to have its request to be permitted to operate retail stores in India approved.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple today announced in a post on its Swift blog that it is open sourcing the Swift benchmark suite. This announcement comes two months after the company made the Swift programming language open source, allowing the developer community to have direct access to the platform. Much like the rest of Swift, the benchmarking suite is available now on GitHub with an open source Apache license.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple is launching a new Mac Pro Repair Extension Program to address complaints of video related issues with select models of its latest high-end desktop offering, 9to5Mac has learned. We obtained the notice (pictured below) that Apple this week sent out to its authorized service providers detailing the new program and those eligible for repairs or replacements. 

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has quietly added a server-side API to CloudKit, following an announcement on the developer news blog. This will enable developers to add a lot of functionality to apps powered by CloudKit, enabling developers to interact with the iCloud CloudKit database outside of user interaction with iOS, Mac or web apps. The web service API enables developers to run independent code on servers that can add, delete and modify records in the CloudKit stack.

Until now, interaction with CloudKit has been limited to the APIs Apple provided in apps. Although this was useful, it lacked the options for more advanced use — most modern apps rely on servers to perform tasks whilst users are away. With the addition of the web API, developers can create many more types of applications using CloudKit as the backend. For instance, an RSS reader app can now add new feed items to the CloudKit stack from the server. Before, this action could only occur when a user opened a CloudKit-powered app, which was essentially impractical and meant developers had to use other tools.

Expand
Expanding
Close

There’s been a lot of conversation this week around the quality of Apple’s software and services, and yesterday’s brief App Store outage certainly didn’t help. It’s true that new services like Apple Music and iCloud Photo Library are improving but aren’t rock solid yet, but there are two things that currently sour the app experience for me.

First, Apple only does a so-so job of implementing new software features from operating system updates into their own apps. It’s too easy to rattle off a dozen examples. Second, major players like Facebook and YouTube don’t have first class apps that showcase new software features either, and this is where customers spend the most amount of time.

Expand
Expanding
Close

With the advancement of compact camera technology, products like the GoPro have really taken off in terms of use in sports and other action-based activities. While the iPhone has almost always had one of the best mobile cameras, its adoption in those fields has been somewhat behind. Today, however, 25-year-old Nicolas Vuignier has shared an incredible video on YouTube showcasing himself skiing down a mountain in Sweden, with all of the footage being shot on an iPhone.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Earlier today we reported that Apple was partnering with one screen protector company, likely Belkin, to offer professional installations of screen protectors done by machines. Now, a report from MacOtakara says that Apple has started rolling out its screen protector installation service in Japan and that it has in fact partnered with Belkin to do so, just as we reported this morning.

Expand
Expanding
Close