Wednesday Morning News

Articles
#1

Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2017/11/wednesday-morning-news291117/

The same Vietnamese security company that originally fooled Face ID with a mask has posted a second video demonstrating unlocking the iPhone X with a mask made from $200 of materials. This time around, the option to “require attention to unlock” is kept on, Face ID is setup from scratch on the device, and then the device is unlocked first with the researcher’s face, and then with the mask 3D printed from stone powder.

Making headlines this morning is a serious security vulnerability in macOS High Sierra which gives anyone root access when they have physical access to a logged-in machine. The workaround is to set a root password, something which very few people do on their Macs. 9to5Mac has also confirmed that the issue still exists in the current developer and open beta versions.

Bendigo Bank was one of the banks which went to the ACCC to ask for permission to enter joint negotiations with third-party mobile payment providers. Now that we know how that turned out (i.e. badly), yesterday, they added support for Apple Pay. It’s good news for current Bendigo Bank customers and the upcoming Alt bank, which is a partnership between Melbourne-based Ferocia and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

Apple’s unofficial workaround for the current autocorrect bug is to reset your keyboard dictionary, although that may not work for everyone. Commentary from Nick Heer says input bugs are the worst bugs because they increase user distrust of the system. Speculation says this second bug has happened because of some over-zealous machine learning, but if that’s the case, why is my iOS keyboard learning from people who have terrible spelling and grammar, instead of teaching me better spelling and grammar?

Apple has released the fifth developer betas of iOS 11.2, tvOS 11.2, and macOS High Sierra 10.13.2. The big expected feature of these releases will be Apple Pay Cash, a feature that will not be available to everyone outside of the US.

The benefits of 1Password over iCloud Keychain are exactly what you’d expect for a mature third-party product. While it’ll never have the system-wide integration of iCloud Keychain, 1Password works on multiple platforms, in multiple browsers, saves more than just passwords, and has a great, customisable password generator that make it a compelling choice.

An older post from Ben Brooks talks about the Apple Watch being incessantly annoying with constant notifications. But at the same time, that’s one of its most valuable properties - turns out, being bugged about stuff you want to be bugged about is both a blessing and a curse.

MacStories talks us through MindNode, a digital mind-mapping tool that was recently updated to version 5. It works brilliantly on both iPhone and iPad, allowing you to sort and organise your ideas into a visual format that you can then come back to at any time. Combined with iOS 11 features such as drag and drop, it’s a really great option for people who need to visualise their ideas.

The Mac Observer points out research that says Pokémon Go has caused an estimated 145,000 traffic accidents.

Apple has launched a new Apple Support YouTube channel, and at the moment, it has a bunch of videos showing you how to do specific things on iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch. It’s great that Apple are giving us these bite-sized education pieces for some slightly lesser-known iOS features.

#2

Mindnode is a great app. I’ve been using it for a few years to facilitate planning meetings and capturing ideas for architecture documents. Highly recommend it!

#3

That’s interesting. I didn’t realise they were part of the ACCC group. I wonder if the big guys will now come to the party instead of releasing gimmicky watch bands and the like. Too little too late for me personally. I moved to ANZ, which wasn’t a great experience at first, but they’ve really listened to customer feedback over the last 12 months and their Netbank portal is really good now.

#4

While it’s a pretty serious issue, the whole “with physical access to your machine” significantly limits the likelihood of this vulnerability being exploited for most users… still not good by any stretch and something to fix ASAP.

I’m a long time convert to 1Password and I highly recommend it to everyone. Once you have it working you won’t know how you lived without it. Just about every password I’ve created since I started using it (in about 2011) is needlessly complex and totally unique. Given my total password count is over 700 it’s a very nice tool to have.

That was my very first observation in getting the watch, and that’s after I had already been on a binge to reduce the number of notifications turned on on the iPhone itself. I went through an evolution of really culling it down to a point where these days the only notifications that get through the watch are direct messages (like iMessage), event notifications (for my meetings), anything bank/paypal related and phone calls. Email still pops up on the phone along with a few choice other things, but none of that needs to be on my wrist.

Notifications are the scourge of modern technology and as it’s become more embedded in our daily lives we come to realise just how bombarded we are. Turning all that shit off is very good for your health and wellbeing, I highly recommend it. If you really need/want to read something, open up the service itself and check the notifications there… at a time convenient to you, not constantly as they come in which totally kills your concentration and limits your ability to focus on anything.

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#5

I’m still a Wallet fan, for all the same reasons people like 1Password. Acrylic Software has been updating for MacOS and iOS so I am content to remain with it. For any time I find they arent updating anymore… theres Enpass.