iPhone

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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In an interesting summary of the possible outcomes of the Apple vs FBI standoff, Quartz notes that some experts believe that CEO Tim Cook could be held personally liable for defying a court order and face jail time.

Attorney Peter Fu told Fast Company that the scenario would arise only if the case went all the way to the Supreme Court and Apple lost but continued to refuse to cooperate.

Under these circumstances, there is a universe of possibilities where Tim Cook could actually go to jail for refusing to comply with a lawful order of the court. This is because Apple has already publicly declared that it will not comply with a court order to unlock the iPhone and as such, necessarily forces the courts to favor punishment over coercion … 

Stephen Vladeck, an expert on national security law at American University, disagrees.

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I said last summer in my Apple Watch Diary series that Apple Pay arriving in the UK was the tipping point for me in transforming the Watch from a useful device into something I was reluctant to be without. That was confirmed last week when a fraud attempt left me without Apple Pay for a couple of days.

I received a text from my bank asking me to call them as they suspected my card had been compromised. I call them to find that they’d blocked an attempt to use my debit card for a £1200 ($1700) online transaction. As it was for a gadget purchase, I was impressed that they caught it – though perhaps it was the surprise at a large purchase from a non-fruity company …

Having confirmed that I didn’t make the transaction, they put a stop on my card and said they’d send a new one out within a few days. Interestingly, the UK seems to lack one Apple Pay feature the US has … 
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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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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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If you’re keeping score at home, add San Bernardino’s police chief as the latest to take sides in the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI. Jarrod Burguan, the local police chief, joined NPR to share his views on the current FBI and Apple privacy battle. In the interview, Burguan admits that there is “a good chance that there is nothing of any value on the phone”, but believes there is the possibility that “maybe there was some information on there that would lead to a larger plot or larger network.”

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FBI director James Comey – who had previously claimed that “the San Bernardino litigation isn’t about trying to set a precedent” – has now admitted that it would. The Guardian reports that Comey made the admission when testifying under oath yesterday to a Congress committee.

The ultimate outcome of the Apple-FBI showdown is likely to “guide how other courts handle similar requests”, James Comey told a congressional intelligence panel on Thursday, a softening of his flat insistence on Sunday that the FBI was not attempting to “set a precedent”.

Asked if it was true that police departments around the country also wanted to gain access to locked iPhones, he agreed that it was …

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It looks like Apple’s plans to strengthen iPhone security to make it impossible for the company to comply with future demands to hack into them will require new hardware. But you can already make it effectively impossible to gain access to your iPhone, even if Apple was forced to bypass passcode time-outs. All that is needed are two simple changes.

First, if you currently use a 6-digit passcode, change it to a longer one. If Apple removes the timeouts, and that compromised firmware gets into the wrong hands, it will take an average of just 11 hours to brute-force a 6-digit code. Simply doubling the number of digits to 12 means that the average time needed increases exponentially to 1,268 years.

If that isn’t enough for you, changing it to a complex alphanumeric one literally pushes the brute-force attack time into the millions of years. There is, however, one other weakness you need to address …

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In a conference call with reporters last week, an Apple exec said it was reasonable to expect the company to continue strengthening the security policies of its products in light of the Apple/FBI battle.

In complementary reports today, The New York Times and Financial Times are detailing that Apple engineers are now actively developing new encryption methods for iCloud backups and iPhone hardware, so that Apple couldn’t even hack itself … if it was asked to again like in San Bernardino iPhone backdoor/unlock case.

Not only would this counter the orders by the FBI in the current court case for future iPhone owners, it would also close a security hole in iCloud backups that various law enforcement institutions have exploited thousands of times before …

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Update: The WSJ reports that the deal is not yet certain. Sharp may come with some potential financial risks, which Foxconn is evaluating before it actually signs the deal.

Foxconn Technology Group said Thursday it is delaying the signing of a definitive takeover agreement with Sharp Corp. due to new details that the Japanese electronics maker disclosed a day earlier.

Foxconn didn’t elaborate in its statement, but people familiar with the matter said that the Taiwanese iPhone assembler is putting the Sharp deal on hold after reviewing the Japanese firm’s future financial risk. The people said Foxconn received a list of about ¥350 billion yen worth of “contingent liabilities” from Sharp on Wednesday.

Contingent liabilities are costs that a company might face in the future, based on the outcome of lawsuits, accounting changes, supply contracts or other uncertainties.

Last month it was reported that Apple manufacturer Foxconn had bid $5.3 billion to acquire Japanese display maker Sharp, who has faced numerous financial and manufacturing difficulties over recent years. Now, Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asian Review reports that Sharp has accepted an offer from Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, for $6.2 billion.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook has today sat down with ABC’s David Muir to talk about the company’s battle with the FBI. Last week, a California court requested that Apple unlock an iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen in December. Cook replied to the request with a letter on Apple’s homepage, saying that Apple did not want to create the tool that would be required to unlock the device. In his interview with Muir, Cook elaborated on the company’s decision…

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Popular productivity app Todoist is giving its six million users a huge update today with a completely rewritten app for iOS alongside a new Safari plug-in and notable updates for Apple Watch and Mac. 

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Apple said yesterday that its legal battle with the FBI has such far-reaching consequences that it should be settled by Congress rather than by the courts – but if that tack is unsuccessful, Bloomberg reports that the company will be putting forward a rather unusual argument in court. Apple will argue that the digital signature it uses to validate code is protected by the First Amendment as free speech, which cannot be compelled in law.

Before you download a new game or messaging app on your iPhone, the device checks for a digital signature tucked within the lines of code on the app. All applications sold through the App Store are approved by Apple and have this cryptographic autograph from the company telling your iPhone it’s safe. In the FBI case, some privacy advocates believe the company has a strong First Amendment case because it’s being asked to add that signature, against its will, to software that would aid the government.

In other words, even if the government could force Apple to write code that would remove the passcode protections, it shouldn’t be allowed to force Apple to sign the code – and if Apple doesn’t sign it, the iPhone won’t accept it …

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Apple has released the fourth iOS 9.3 public beta to non-developer testers today. iOS 9.3 public beta 4 follows this week’s fourth developer iOS 9.3 beta release as well. The latest beta cleans up issues introduced in the last version while adding some new features as well.

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Over the last year, Spigen has introduced two of the world’s best iPhone car accessories: the Magnetic Air Vent Mount and Style Ring, which you might not have heard of. While the Magnetic Air Vent Mount is solely a car mount, Style Ring does triple duty as a video stand, finger grip, and car mount.

Style Ring adds a sturdy metallic ring to the back of your iPhone, iPad mini, or favorite case, including reusable 3M gel pads and a low-profile hook mount to attach to your car’s dashboard. Each of the parts is beautiful, and the normally $19.99 kit is currently on sale for $5.99 with coupon code 3VUMW6RR. That’s not a typo: yes, it’s only $5.99!

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A competitor to Apple-acquired camera tech firm LinX has demonstrated the benefits that can be delivered by a twin-camera system like that rumored for the iPhone 7 Plus. A CNET video (below) shows how combining images from two separate cameras can deliver far sharper zoomed-in images compared to the camera in the iPhone 6s/Plus.

Corephotonics said that it had working dual camera systems back in 2014, but the supply chain was not yet able to deliver the volumes needed. That has now changed, it says …

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Following Tim Cook sending a letter to all Apple employees earlier today regarding the issue, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has today expressed his support for Apple in its ongoing battle with the FBI. Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Facebook CEO stated that he doesn’t believe that building back doors is the way to handle situations like the one being debated (via NY Times).

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