Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/02/monday-morning-news270217/
The good news is, the release of iOS 10.2.1 has reduced random shutdown issues by as much as 80%. According to Apple, their efforts investigating an issue have paid off, with the fix working on a majority of iPhone 6 and 6s devices. TechCrunch notes that there are actually two different random shutdown issues, and while one has resulted in a battery recall, this one isn’t that.
A security issue led to Apple purging Supermicro hardware from its data centres, after malware-infected firmware was found in internal development environments for a number of Apple services, including the App Store. The infected firmware was apparently downloaded directly from Supermicro, and is reported to be still hosted there.
Users running the developer or public beta builds of iOS 10.3 have been prompted to enable two-factor authentication. If you don’t have two-factor authentication turned on for the signed-in Apple ID, opening Settings will also give you a banner at the top that provides more information about the benefits when tapped on.
Apple has distributed an internal memo which now allows warranty to cover devices that have had third-party screen replacements, provided that the warranty issue isn’t related to the screen. If your iPhone exhibits a screen issue after being repaired by a third party, Apple will still offer you the out-of-warranty replacement pricing, but if you don’t want to do that, then Apple is likely to refuse you service altogether.
Apple has also quietly extended the MacBook Pro anti-reflective coating repair program, which is itself hasn’t been officially announced. If you have a MacBook Pro which exhibits the kind of anti-reflective coating wear pattern as shown in photos, then Apple will replace your display free of charge.
Video posted to Twitter shows smoke emanating from a rose gold iPhone 7 Plus, followed by the display assembly separating from the rear case. It’s undoubtedly a major device malfunction, but Apple has confirmed that they have contacted the customer and are currently investigating the issue, with some kind of battery failure the most likely culprit.
Supply chain sources claim March iPads may not ship until May or June, which is a little longer than Apple’s usual two-week lead time after announcing a new product. But until I wake up at 3am one morning to watch Apple CEO Tim Cook get on stage and announce new iPads, this is all just speculation.
One of the cool things about using iCloud to sync your calendar or contacts information is that you can restore data selectively. Tidbits tells us that by using the iCloud web interface, you can revert to stored backups of your contacts, calendars, reminders, shared bookmarks, and even files in your iCloud Drive.
Rob Griffiths tells us about the curious case of macOS Sierra and Library shortcut keys. Normally you can hold down Option to see the Library shortcut in Finder’s Go menu, but on some Macs, for some reason, the Option shortcut becomes Shift. As it turns out, it’s a bit of a weird bug.
An iPod prototype has surfaced on eBay with an asking price of $99,995. At those kinds of prices, you’d be better off buying the Apple photo book, if you really want to relive memories of past Apple products.