iMessage

The Apple CSAM controversy doesn’t appear to be going away, as a British children’s charity accused the company of under-reporting incidents on its platforms.

However, the report appears to be based at least in part on a failure to understand how end-to-end encryption works …

If you’re an iCloud Photos user, you’re probably already familiar with the “Optimize Storage” option that keeps only the most recently downloaded photos and videos on your device, while the rest are only downloaded when you need them. On the other side, there’s iMessage with a terrible caching system – and Apple should do something about it.

Apple users are being warned to be alert to smishing texts – the name given to phishing attacks carried out by sending SMS messages – trying to capture login credentials for Apple IDs.

The links direct to a fake iCloud page, and for 9to5Mac readers this is really one to warn your friends about …

Both the EU and Australia have backed down on separate proposals to force tech companies to carry out CSAM scanning within messaging apps, which would have meant breaking end-to-end encryption.

It’s the latest development in the ongoing battle between tech companies and politicians who don’t understand how encryption works …

Audio messages can be very useful sometimes when you want to better express your feelings or simply don’t want to type a long text. However, not everyone likes listening to long audio messages. As an iMessage user, I’ve always missed an option to adjust the playback speed for audio messages – but it turns out that there is a way to do this.

iPhone voice transcription is already included in iMessage, and is available in some other chat apps – but not always for free. In Telegram, for example, you have to pay for a premium membership to get the feature.

The latest Bloomberg piece says that Apple is finally bringing audio transcription to the Voice Memo app, and this seems a perfect opportunity to make it a system-wide feature …

iOS includes an iMessage security feature called Contact Key Verification (CKV) that gives users more certainty they’re messaging with the people they think they are. Follow along for what this feature is, how it works, and how to turn on Contact Key Verification on for iMessage.

If you’re having problems trying to use iMessage this Thursday night, it’s not just you. Many users are reporting that iMessage is currently down around the world. However, Apple is yet to acknowledge any issues.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has tweeted a somewhat bizarre one-minute video in which she says that green texts are “ruining relationships” and that this is “just one of the dirty tactics that Apple uses to keep a stranglehold on the smartphone market.”

Warren uses the to-camera piece to voice her support for the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple, but has chosen a rather peculiar argument to do so …

One element of the DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Apple addresses iMessage, and Apple’s decision to keep the app exclusive to iPhone. But it goes further than arguing that this is anti-competitive, and attacks the use of green chat bubbles for Android users as creating “social stigma.”

A lawyer commenting on this claim says that it effectively amounts to the Department of Justice complaining that people think the iPhone is cooler than Android phones …

Apple has launched a major security upgrade for iMessage – protection against quantum computers. Read along for how to get iMessage quantum security on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, why it’s valuable, and more.

Security is a never-ending mission and today Apple has announced its latest innovation for protecting iMessage. Already live in the iOS 17.4 beta is an innovative post-quantum cryptographic protocol called PQ3. The novel upgrade gives iMessage “the strongest security properties of any at-scale messaging protocol in the world.” Here’s why iMessage quantum security is important now and into the future, how PQ3 works, and more.

The iMessage antitrust threat hanging over Apple has now been removed, as the EU decides that the messaging service does not have enough European users to qualify as a dominant service.

That means that Apple will not be required to support messaging interoperability, which would have allowed messages to be sent between competing chat apps …

As part of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust legislation, big tech companies will be forced to change many of their services to comply with the new legislation. You’re probably already familiar with the upcoming changes to the App Store, but DMA will also affect messaging apps – and it looks like Meta has already been working on making WhatsApp compatible with third-party chats.

iMessage is certainly one of the most popular messaging platforms in the US, which has resulted in long-standing discussion about its interoperability with non-Apple devices. While some users are waiting for the iPhone to get RCS support later this year, it seems that Meta has been taking advantage of this situation as WhatsApp’s daily active user base has grown in the U.S. But will it ever overtake iMessage?

Yes, the iMessage App Store is still a thing, although many iOS users have no idea that they can download iMessage mini-apps. YouTube was one of the apps that integrated with Apple’s messaging app, but now it seems that the company has decided to discontinue its iMessage mini-app.

While Apple is making behind-the-scenes preparations for allowing third-party app stores to comply with Europe’s antitrust requirements, the company is continuing to make arguments about why it shouldn’t have to.

Latest among these is the suggestion that the App Store shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘platform’ as the company actually operates five different app stores …

Between 2019 and December 2022, an extremely advanced iMessage vulnerability was in the wild that was eventually named “Operation Triangulation” by security researchers at Kasperksy who discovered it. Now, they’ve shared everything they know about the “most sophisticated attack chain” they’ve “ever seen.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is carrying out at least a preliminary antitrust investigation into Apple blocking Beeper, the unofficial app which gave Android users access to iMessage. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also appears to be “evaluating” Apple’s actions.

Today’s report follows a call for a DOJ investigation by a bipartisan group of senators, and Bleeper’s announcement that it has now given up any hope of keeping the app working …