iOS Devices

Shortly after yesterday’s Congressional hearing, Apple filed a formal objection to the court order instructing it to assist the FBI in breaking into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Apple had previously filed its mandatory response, in which it called for the court to vacate the order. This was a 65-page detailed document setting out the reasons the company believed the order should not have been granted. The document filed yesterday was rather shorter …

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It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a new jailbreak release hit the scene publicly. Sure, we’ve seen teased images of jailbreaks from some well-known hackers within the community, but the last publicly available jailbreak tool was shared back in October 2015. Since then, iOS has been updated several times, and Apple has closed the signing window for iOS 9.0.2, the last firmware susceptible to a publicly released jailbreak tool.

Even though it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a jailbreak, that doesn’t necessarily mean things have slowed down on the community side of fence. In fact, many new jailbreak tweaks continue to land on Cydia every single month. We also now have tools like Extensify that allow us to tweak some of our favorite App Store apps on non-jailbroken iPhones. Yes, jailbreaking has hit a bit of a lull, but developers and community enthusiasts continue to contribute on a regular basis.
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Apple has been in Washington D.C. today testifying before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the San Bernardino case. General Counsel Bruce Sewell is representing Apple during the hearing and has fielded a wide range of questions so far. One notable question, however, came from Louisiana representative Cedric Richmond, who pressed Sewell to explain just how quickly Apple would be able to comply with a governmental request for assistance.

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In addition to seeding OS X 10.11.4 beta 5 to developers and public beta users, Apple today has also pushed beta 5 of watchOS 2.2, as well as tvOS 9.2 to developers. The builds come just a week after the fourth betas were released.

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The WSJ, which has seen an advance copy of a speech being made by Attorney General Loretta Lynch later today, says that while she strongly hints at being on the FBI’s side of the dispute, she will not directly say so. This somewhat surprising fact may reflect her audience – a cybersecurity conference whose delegates are likely to be on Apple’s side.

In her speech, Ms. Lynch won’t explicitly take on the encryption issue or Apple, but instead will promise continuing “frank dialogue and fruitful partnership” between the government and the industry on issues of cybersecurity.

Lynch’s remarks, though, do make it clear on which side her sympathies fall …

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Reuters reports that both Republican and Democratic party members of the House Judiciary Committee support Apple’s view that Congress, not the courts, should decide the FBI case – and plan to file a legal brief to say so. The committee is responsible for overseeing the administration of justice within federal courts, and most of its members have a legal background.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee are considering filing a “friend of the court” brief in Apple’s encryption dispute with the U.S. government to argue that the case should be decided by Congress and not the courts, five sources familiar with the matter said […]

They said the brief would come from individual committee members of both Republican and Democratic parties but not the judiciary committee itself. Reuters could not determine which members were likely to be included … 

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Corroborating a report from KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from last September, Macotakara reports this evening that the iPhone 7 is expected to be 1mm thinner than the iPhone 6s. Furthermore, the report adds that the device will visually be similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s, retaining the same metal design with the same height and width, and will not be waterproof.

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Throughout Apple’s fight with the FBI over unlocking an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen, many have doubted the likelihood that there’s anything valuable on the device to begin with. The iPhone 5c used by the gunman was issued by the County of San Bernardino, which gives iPhones to all of its employees. Now, the husband to a survivor of the fatal attacks has spoken out and written a letter, obtained by BuzzFeed, to the court explaining that there is likely nothing of note on the iPhone in question.

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As Apple’s battle with the FBI drags on this week, a judge in New York has added a new wrinkle to the case. A magistrate judge in New York today has ruled that the government, using the All Writs Act, cannot force Apple to unlock an iPhone. This specific case this judge presides over is a drug trafficking investigation, which was mentioned last week as one of the more than a dozen other cases in which the government is asking Apple to help it obtain data from a locked iPhone.

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While Apple’s upcoming 9.7-inch iPad Pro will mostly match the 12.9-inch version in terms of functionality, there likely will be one key difference. Internal prototypes of the smaller model include a 12 megapixel rear camera comparable to the sensor in the iPhone 6s, according to sources. The 12.9-inch model that shipped this past November has an eight megapixel rear camera.

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Microsoft is currently running a new series of ads featuring ‘The Bug Chicks’, with each ad directly targeting a weakness in Apple’s Mac operating system. Kristie and Jess, curiously labelled as ‘real people paid for real opinions’, walk through several ways that Windows 10 helps them teach kids about bugs and the microscopic world.

The ad series focuses on several different competitive advantages Windows currently holds over OS X, such as touchscreen-equipped laptops for sketching and drawing, Cortana as a personal voice search assistant and face recognition for hands-free account login. Some of the things Microsoft highlights, like the absence of Siri on OS X are expected to be addressed by Apple later in the year, of course. Watch all four videos after the jump:

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While the Apple vs FBI controversy was the top Apple story from last week, the case takes back seat this week to news surrounding Apple’s upcoming March 21st iPhone and iPad event. But Apple and the FBI stories still come in right behind in this week’s top stories, followed by news of Apple’s latest iOS 9.3 beta release, plans for Siri on the Mac this fall, and the more on the upgraded camera system rumored for iPhone 7.

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[Ed. Note: This is a guest post by developer Steven Troughton-Smith. You can follow him on Twitter @stroughtonsmith.]

I don’t often do this, but this year I think it’s important; Apple is more open & receptive to feedback today than it ever has been. With iOS 9 and iPad Pro, iOS has made a tremendous leap in the past year on iPad. With that in mind, I wanted to note down all the things in my head that I really want to see the iOS computing platform grow to cover.

What follows is an unordered list of things I’d like to see from Apple over the next few years, starting with the easy & obvious things upfront. Most of these have Radars filed against them, but since they’re more often than not dupes of existing Radars I won’t post the numbers here. Most of this is about iOS, but not all – I’ll say upfront that I don’t think OS X has a future with the way it’s going currently, and has been running on fumes for most of iOS’ lifetime. Even if you disagree with where I’m coming from, perhaps there’s still something for you here.

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If Apple hasn’t yet made the Ethernet network port on your Mac obsolete by not including it, as is the case with most Macs sold today, then it may have accidentally broke the port last week in an OS X kernel extension update. Many users complained about the issue online: they had randomly found their Macs no longer connecting to the Internet and their Ethernet port simply not working. Apple has now officially acknowledged the problem on its support pages. Luckily, the software problem isn’t permanent and the bug can, usually, be easily resolved.

Apple has already fixed the Ethernet software problem for users going forward. Here’s the fix if you were affected …

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Well-sourced Re/code is indicating that Apple’s media event and keynote announcement for spring will be held in the week of March 21st. In an independent report by Buzzfeed, John Paczkowski reports that the event will take place on March 21st itself and will be a ‘smaller scale event’, suggesting it will take place in Cupertino on Apple’s campus. The reason for the event’s delay, given Apple initially planned for a March 15th event, is also unclear. Too much executive time spent with the FBI? Maybe!

Korean media site underkg.co.kr suggested the delayed date earlier in the week, although the report was generally ignored given the unknown provenance. In contrast, Re/code has a far better track record with Apple reporting.

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Earlier this week we shared drawings of Apple’s upcoming 4-inch device and reported that Apple plans to call the device the iPhone SE. Now, French site NowhereElse has shared images that claim to show the front display portion of the upcoming device. We’ve long reported that the iPhone SE won’t feature support for 3D Touch, and these images corroborate that.

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Following the revelation that Apple’s top lawyer Bruce Sewell will testify before Congress this coming week over encryption, another attorney for the company has sat down with CNN to discuss the ongoing case. In the interview, current Apple representative and former United States solicitor general Ted Olson discussed how what the government is asking Apple to do is “limitless.”

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In a research note for investors, KGI Securities has posted some interesting claims about the new 4 inch ‘iPhone SE’ coming from Apple in March, as reported by 9to5Mac. The iPhone SE is expected to be very similar to the iPhone 5s in appearance with slightly curved edges, but feature the latest processor internals, an A9 chip just like the iPhone 6s as well as Apple Pay and Live Photos.

KGI claims the phone will also feature a 12 megapixel camera, matching the latest iPhones in megapixels. KGI also believes the new 4 inch iPhone to sell between $400-$500 range. This would be a significantly cheaper phone than the current lineup: the year-old iPhone 6 starts at $549 …

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In January, we reported that Apple is preparing a new 4-inch iPhone that is essentially 2013’s iPhone 5s with upgraded internals. At the time, we heard that Apple would call the device the “iPhone 5se” based on it being both an enhanced and “special edition” version of the iPhone 5s. Now, we are hearing that Apple appears to be going all in on the special edition factor: sources say that Apple has decided to drop the “5” from the device’s name and simply call it the “iPhone SE.” This will mark the first iPhone upgrade without a number in its name and would logically remove it from a yearly update cycle.

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I’ve never been a fan of the stock Mail app in OS X, so I generally find myself relying on Gmail inside of Chrome for all of my email needs. In fact, I don’t have any email accounts configured inside of the stock Mail app at all. With this in mind, I always get frustrated when I inadvertently click a mailto link inside of a browser window. Doing so forces the Mail app, which is set as the default mail client in OS X, to open without purpose.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could configure Gmail to play the role of the default mail client inside your browser of choice? In this video tutorial, I’ll show you how easy it is to configure Chrome, Safari, and even Firefox to use Gmail as the default mail client.
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French site LesEchos (via iPhon.fr) is reporting that Apple Pay will be launching in France by the end of the year, but with a gradual rollout starting with a handful of major banks. It is expected to take 3-5 months between initial launch and the service being widely available in the country, with a pilot launch possibly in place by September.

Negotiations with banks are said to be proceeding slowly, with Apple’s cut of the transaction fee the main stumbling block. On a typical transaction, the banks would receive only 9 cents, and the standard Apple Pay deal applied in the U.S. would see Apple receiving 5 cents of this.

There is, however, hope that the issue can be resolved …

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