Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/02/thursday-morning-news160217/
The discovery of new Mac malware has been attributed to a Russian hacking group attributed with meddling in last year’s US Presidential election. Mac malware Xagent can be customised to capture passwords, screenshots, and stealing iOS backups. The good news is, there’s very little chance your machine will ever be infected with this kind of malware, as it was used in specific, targeted attacks.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference, Apple CFO Luca Maestri talks about Apple’s latest financial results, along with the future of the company. The Loop points out that Maestri thinks the iPhone is still a growth market, that there’s a lot of room for growth, especially as technology advances and new markets are opened up.
Some Apple investors are unhappy with the pace of Apple’s diversity efforts, saying that what Apple is currently doing isn’t enough. Tony Maldonado, in particular, is pushing for a more aggressive diversity policy at Apple that would see the company prioritise diversity in senior management and on the board of directors, as reported by The Verge.
Apple has been said to have approached Chinese company BOE to supply OLED displays for a future iPhone. It would represent the first time Apple has looked outside of Japan and South Korea for a display supplier, but with yield issues being a big deal for OLED display production, any supplier that can meet Apple’s high production demands would be invaluable.
The first HomeKit-compatible IP camera is now available. D-Link’s Omna 180 Cam HD captures 180-degree video of any room at Full HD resolution, in the dark at up to 5 metres away, and has two-way audio capabilities, all accessible via the built-in Home app or via D-Link’s own Omna app which provides finer-grained control. I couldn’t find it on the Australian Apple online store, but the Omna 180 currently retails for US $199.95 on the US Online store.
Pioneer has announced a lineup of Lightning headphones that offer smart features that wouldn’t be possible if they used a regular 3.5mm headphone plug. Besides the Rayz Plus being able to charge the iPhone while the headphones are being used via a Lighting pass-through, there’s six microphones that enable noise-cancelling and allow a certain threshold of noise to be heard through your tunes.
An Apple patent application discusses the possibility of a new hardware keyboard with Siri, Share, and Emoji keys. It’s not hard to imagine such a keyboard being release alongside the next iPad Pro, although whether people actually want to replace Caps Lock with an Emoji button is another story entirely.
Read-it-later services have mostly dropped off these days, even though I still use Instapaper pretty much every day. But watch-it-later services are kind of new, and Zinc’s Apple TV app certainly helps you watch videos that you didn’t have time for during the day.
The numbers from Wristly say the killer feature of the Apple Watch is gestures. Relying on your watch for all notifications is, in most cases, more convenient than pulling out your phone.
AppleInsider tells us about the would-be Apple Store thieves in Madrid who attempted to steal iPhones by chewing on security cables until they was weak enough to be ripped apart.