Tuesday Morning News

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2018/02/tuesday-morning-news270218/

A new round of rumours about this year’s iPhone lineup tells us what we’ve already heard before. According to Bloomberg, we’ll see a trio of new iPhones this year that consists of a larger model based on the iPhone X design, an upgraded iPhone X model, and a slightly cheaper model that has some of the features from Apple’s highest-end model. It looks as though larger screens are here to stay, while Apple also wants consumers to have access to a more affordable version of the iPhone X.

Forbes reports on a claim from Israeli security company Cellebrite, who now says they can unlock every model of iPhone released by Apple, including those running the latest versions of iOS 11. Forbes also has a source that claims Cellebrite told them it could also unlock the iPhone 8 and most likely the iPhone X, given that similar security measures were used on both devices. For a while there it looked as though Apple was winning the game of iOS security cat-and-mouse, but the game continues.

Human rights activists are concerned about the potential privacy implications following Apple’s decision to store Chinese users’ iCloud data on servers located within China, as well as having the encryption keys stored within China itself. It’s all completely above-board, with Apple merely complying with Chinese laws that requires cloud services to be stored and operated within China, but citizens are right to be concerned about the privacy of their own data.

Meanwhile, an updated version of Apple’s iOS Security Guide now confirms the company is using Google’s Cloud Platform for some storage of iCloud account data. Apple is careful to mention that any third-party services used are only used to store encrypted anonymised information. Notably, Amazon S3 continues to be used by Apple, with any mention of Microsoft Azure seemingly removed from the iOS security guide.

While we’re all waiting for the international rollout of Apple Pay Cash, users in Spain are seeing the feature become available on their devices. Unconfirmed reports also say that Apple Pay Cash also works on some devices in the UK and Ireland, although nothing official. Brazil remains the first country outside of the US to get an official Apple Pay Cash launch, which Apple CEO Tim Cook says is happening sometime this year.

Apple has increased the screenshot limit for App Store apps to up to 10 images per device. That’s a possible 40 images that developers can use to promote their app across the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV platforms, which should be more than enough to show off most of your major features and any interface layout differences.

Marco Arment says Apple’s WatchKit will only ever let developers create baby apps. This is partly because Apple themselves don’t use WatchKit, so they’re oblivious to the limitations and challenges of WatchKit. There are two solutions: Apple reimplements its own watchOS apps with WatchKit to see how bad it is, or Apple exposes its real watchOS SDK to third-party developers.

Tidbits laments the iOS Settings smorgasbord, which is now better described as a jumble of settings with various options and toggles laid out across umpteen different screens. Search was added a few versions of iOS ago, but even that fails sometimes.

If you’re going to be in Spain sometime before May 20th, you may want to check out the art that inspired the iPhone X default wallpaper. Ana Montiel’s “Fields” exhibit is a colourful collection of paintings that’s now showing at a museum in Spain.

A new set of iPhone ads target switchers, with the four short clips being a humorous take on various aspects of the iPhone experience. There’s also a new iPhone photography tutorial, with Apple telling us how to experiment with colour.