Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/03/wednesday-morning-news080317/
Wikileaks has released information regarding the CIA’s specialised unit dedicated to creating iOS exploits. The latest round of leaks comes courtesy of over 8,700 documents which detail several hundred million lines of code amounting to a veritable “hacking arsenal” of malware, viruses, trojans, and zero day exploits specifically targeted at iOS devices.
It’s not much to go off, but a developer URL has revealed that Apple will likely continue with 10.x releases for macOS. MacOS 10.13 has been revealed via a developer seed URL as the next version of macOS, with Apple deciding to hold off on moving to the 11.x version number range until such time as they decide on the future of the Mac.
No such hesitation on Apple’s part, with iOS 11 widely expected to be the next version of Apple’s iPhone and iPad OS. A concept video of possible features includes a universal dark mode, group FaceTime calls, and an example of split-screen apps on the iPhone. There’s a good chance some of those features have the possibility of making it into iOS 11, but I guess we’ll find out at WWDC in June.
A US Senator has likened the iPhone to some sort of luxury good, suggesting that perhaps instead of choosing between the latest and greatest iPhone, Americans should be choosing to spend that money on their healthcare instead. It’s not exactly a fair comparison, as US healthcare spending is usually in the thousands annually, but perhaps the real issue here is that Americans should even have to make a decision between an iPhone or healthcare.
The fifth beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 has been released to developers. The release comes a week after the previous beta release, but curiously, there doesn’t seem to be a similar iOS beta release like there normally is. Or at least, not at time of writing.
AppleInsider points out it’s the ninth birthday of the iOS SDK, and nine years later, the iOS SDK has generated $60 billion in revenue for iOS developers and 1.4 million app development jobs. It seems as though there are less and less good apps released with every passing week, but if our favourites are still being updated years later, does that really matter?
The 2016 Jamf survey of managing Apple devices in the enterprise finds that Macs and iPhones are easier to deploy and support than their Windows counterparts. In addition to rising enterprise adoption of Macs and iOS devices, the survey says that both categories of devices are perceived as more secure and easier to support.
Jeff Geerling discovered one of his AirPods was bad after experiencing no end of connection issues from Apple’s special W1 wireless chip. The Bluetooth Explorer provided a graph of Bluetooth signal strength, which is how he isolated the issue to one AirPod in particular — the left one.
While people are still enjoying the wireless keyboard Apple should be making, Six Colors tells us about the Lofree Bluetooth mechanical keyboard. I’m not sure I like the rounded keycaps, but I’m sure I’d get used to it eventually, and it nothing else, does make the keyboard stand out from the alternatives.
AI-filter based photo app Prisma has launched an in-app store so you can download new filters. And since you can now delete filters as fast as you get them, there’s also the option to create your own.
(I wonder what the market is like for aMac SOE solutions engineer)