Apple’sMacBook Pro remains an iconic product, but over the last few years Cupertino has pushed it back into the shadows; handing all the spotlight, attention, and shiny launch events to the iPhone. But it did more than that. It neutered a powerful laptop and turned it into a supporting player. Today’s MacBook Pro is a pale imitation of the original masterpiece.
Once upon a time Steve Jobs took to the stage, standing on the shoulders of Apple’s previous laptops, and announced the MacBook Pro. It was 2006, and the MacBook Pro pretty much defined Apple’s approach to for the next five years. It launched with Intel’s Core Duo chipset, an aluminium design, backlit keyboard, and a magnetic power connector so any trips would leave your laptop on a desk (whatever happened to that innovative idea?).
Four times faster than the G4 PowerBook, this was a laptop for the ages. Job’s Apple iterated on the design, ramping up the power, adding new apps, and increasing the portfolio to accommodate 17-inch and 13-inch versions.
When the time came to take on the lighter laptops from Microsoft (and arguably the Mayfly like rise of the netbook), the MacBook Pro was not compromised – instead the MacBook Air picked up that challenge and the Pro continued to push the envelope with Retina Displays, more powerful apps, and remained the gold standard for a workhorse laptop that could do anything, anywhere, with no compromises.
The MacBook Pro was what you measured other laptops against, and frankly very little came close.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses a new version of the Mac Book during a “town hall” style event at Apple Headquarters October 14, 2008 (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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Then Tim Cook came along, taking over as Apple’s CEO in 2011. Given the lead time of products, Cook’s vision of Apple would arguably take a few years to become fully apparent, but when it did it was clear where his priorities lay.
The iPhone.
I’m not saying Apple should not have focused on the iPhone, after all this was a chance to dominate a new landscape (we’ll leave the discussion about how dominant Apple’s roughly twenty percent share actually is for another time. But Cook’s Apple decided that the company’s other products would be subservient to the needs of the iPhone.
That meant the Mac family, and especially the MacBook Pro, had to walk in the shadow and to reinforce the message of the iPhone. New technology came to the iPhone and iOS first, with the Macs and macOS picking up similar apps later in the product cycle (and invariably sold as ‘now you can sync your iPhone docs to your Mac, doesn’t that make your Mac useful?’).
You even saw the physical design trends of the smartphone world affect the reliability and trustworthiness of the MacBook Pro. Everything was about making the machine thinner, lighter, more fragile, and reducing it to a single sealed unit that turned your personal computer from something you could tinker and upgrade to a ‘Tim says this is the way forward’ monolith.
Add in the move towards cloud based services, applications syncing data through to the internet to mobile devices, and the subtle indicators that your Mac was no longer a standalone machine but one that was a second-class interface to Cook’s world of monthly subscriptions, and is it any wonder that many consider Apple’s deskbound computers to be an afterthought?
Apple CEO Tim Cook previews a MacBook Pro during a product launch event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California on October 27, 2016 (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
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The MacBook Pro is no longer the MacBook Pro.
The powerful standalone computer that did things differently was sacrificed. There never seemed to be a thought to keep the Mac family as something separate to the iOS product line. No, everything had to fall in line to support the annual retail temptation of the iPhone, every feature added to macOS was one that the iOS team had already provided to the smartphone, and the Mac lost its place as a premier product.
I am known for my strong views on mobile technology, online media, and the effect this has on the public conscious and existing businesses. I’ve been following this space for over ten years, working with a number of publishers, publications and media companies, some for long periods of time, others for commissions, one-off pieces or a series of articles or shows. As Scotland’s first podcaster, I continue to be a prominent voice in the rise of podcasting and new media online, and picked up a British Academy (BAFTA) nomination for my annual coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, alongside contributions to Radio 5 Live, the BBC World Service, presenting Edinburgh local radio’s coverage of the General Election. You’ll find me on Twitter (@Ewan), Facebook, and Google Plus.
Apple is expected to launch a new MacBook Pro later this month and hand a very small cup of lukewarm water to the parched throats of the macOS-powered geekerati. Tim Cook and his team are going to make sure the new laptop will go unnoticed by the general public when it is announced.
In Apple’s push to emphasis software and services, it’s tough to look at macOS and wonder what the deskbound platform would look like if Apple had decided to make it successful in its own right. As well as its role in being the developer platform for iOS and iPadOS apps, macOS has been slowly turned into a subsidiary OS which supports the features of iOS. New apps are rarely for new desktop purposes, but to support existing mobile purposes.
While the world is moving towards mobile, there is still a strong place for desktop apps. But Apple’s focus is on iOS, on subscription services delivered to mobile, and how to support the cloud based services. It’s tough for any Mac to stand out when your seen only as a secondary supporting character.
Most Apple watchers are expecting Tim Cook and his team to organise a second consumer event at some point in October (my money is on October 29th) and this will be the last opportunity in 2019 for Apple to publicly introduce the 16-inch MacBook Pro… which is already in production ahead of the launch.
But the event is unlikely to be just about the new MacBook Pro… or the full MacBook or Mac range… Apple’s slate has a number of products that are going to be loved by Cook much more than the macOS machines. There’s the traditional ‘don’t you think the iPhone has been doing well’ reinforcement to the hand-picked audience which will take up some of the digital column inches.
And then there’s the ‘direct’ competition in the form of the iPad Pro, which is also expected to pick up an update for the holiday season.
Given the choice between eulogising the new iPhone, increasing its functionality, and promoting the walled-garden of the iPad Pro… or giving the MacBook Pro family room to breath and luxuriate in the limelight, I suspect Cook will choose the former. I would love to be proved wrong but nothing in the last year or two suggests that is going to happen.
Finally, there’s another truth about the MacBook range as a whole, and the MacBook Pro individually, that has to be noted. No matter what Apple says on the stage, the MacBook Pro is going to struggle in comparison to its Windows 10 counterparts. There are laptops with far better designs and styling (such as Microsoft’s Surface Book series), there are laptops far better suited to gaming and multimedia creation (such as the Razer Blade Pro), and there are far more portable and practical business laptops (HP’s Elitebook range).
Even restricting a comparison to the headline feature (increasing the screen size to 16 inches), the new MacBook Pro is falling short not just of Apple’s previous large screened MacBooks, but also of the top line large screened laptops where the going rate on the diagonal is seventeen inches. It might be ‘the biggest and best MacBook Pro from Apple’ but it’s nowhere close to being the biggest or the best laptop in the market.
An employee is illuminated by the screen of an Apple Inc. laptop computer as he works at Flock’s office in Mumbai, India. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
I want Apple to prove me wrong. I want Apple to do more than a minimum viable upgrade to the MacBook Pro. I want a machine that is seen as more than a ‘use this to support your iPhone’, ‘code for your mobile devices’ or ‘edit your miniseries so it can feature on Apple TV’.
I am known for my strong views on mobile technology, online media, and the effect this has on the public conscious and existing businesses. I’ve been following this space for over ten years, working with a number of publishers, publications and media companies, some for long periods of time, others for commissions, one-off pieces or a series of articles or shows. As Scotland’s first podcaster, I continue to be a prominent voice in the rise of podcasting and new media online, and picked up a British Academy (BAFTA) nomination for my annual coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, alongside contributions to Radio 5 Live, the BBC World Service, presenting Edinburgh local radio’s coverage of the General Election. You’ll find me on Twitter (@Ewan), Facebook, and Google Plus.
With the iPhone 11 launch out of the way, Apple’s attention will turn from the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro phones to the iPad Pro and a new wave of tablets to accompany the newly forked iPadOS. But what of the upcoming MacBook Pro updates and the larger 16-inch laptop?
Looking closely at the attitude of Tim Cook’s Apple to the macOS powered laptops, you’d be forgiven in thinking that the MacBook Pro has already been moved to legacy status. The intense and almost obsessive focus on thin and minimalist design, coupled with restricting choice and denying Mac owners long-term flexibility, has pushed the still-useful and beloved laptop family out of the public’s gaze.
First up is the obsessive drive to make its laptops thinner and lighter. Yes, the resulting devices look lighter and I’m sure that focus groups presented with alternate designs will choose the prettier one, but a laptop is not phone, nor is it a tablet. You need a certain amount of size to enjoy the experience, to have space for powerful chips, to handle the cooling requirements, to allow for new technology, and to guarantee reliability.
By all means use the MacBook Air for the ‘thin’ brigade, but for the workhorse laptop, the MacBook Pro, Apple’s decision to prioritise a thin design – notably the fragile butterfly keyboard – has allowed the competition to catch up with and overtake the MacBook Pro in terms of hardware options and software flexibility.
One obvious lucrative area where macOS has fallen behind is in gaming. MacOS
may have a significant share of the market, but where are the gaming options? They’re all using Windows 10, with access to a wide range of graphics cards, super processors, and fast refreshing densely packed 4K screens.
Apple has decided on the one true way to use your laptop, and has forced that through. If you want to do something outside of that definition, then the closed nature means you are out of luck.
Take the removal of the SD Card reader. Photographers are a notable demographic in MacBook Pro ownership and regularly tote a ridiculous number of cards around. It was an easy matter to pop these into their primary machine as required. Nope, that’s not the way forward that Apple sees it, so the SD card reader is removed.
And frankly, for a professional machine, the answer of using an external card reader in the USB ports or connecting through the camera is an embarrassment. And that’s before it leads to counting the number of available USB ports.
Apple CEO Tim Cook presents new products, including new Macbook laptops, during a special event at… [+]
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Finally, there’s Apple’s attitude towards the Mac machines in general, and the flagship MacBook Pro laptops specifically. While Tim Cook and his team are happy to sell them, and happy to remind developers about the machines, when it comes to the consumer events, the MacBook Pro is simply left in the wings.
Apple’s September event is the key consumer event for the year. It sets the tone for the year to come, it focuses the attention of the public on Apple’s core devices, and that was the iPhone and the Apple Watch. The side order of iPad was a kick in the teeth for those waiting for the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
The obsession of preserving September for just the iPhone and any supporting peripherals weakens the MacBook Pro. And yes, Apple has the option of an event in October where the MacBook Pro can be revealed, but I suspect that even if the 16-inch MacBook Pro is given a public reveal (rather than a humbling ‘launch by press release’) the priority at the october event will be the iPad Pro.
Apple CEO Tim Cook presents new products, including new Macbook laptops, during a special event at… [+]
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Tim Cook’s Apple is in the middle of a move towards software and services. At some point that means the focus on the iPhone and the iPad as standalone hardware will fade away and they will become little more than conduits for content. It means that there will come a point where Apple does not have to keep up with other platforms and manufacturers that are pushing the limits of technology – there are some would say that Apple is already following this model given the lack of change in the iPhone over the last few years.
What does that future look like? It looks a lot like the present day MacBook Pro. Unloved by management but continuing to perform vital tasks in the ecosystem; unnoticed by consumers who are lured into more profitable machines with software lock-ins and walled gardens that offer Apple’s accountants a thirty percent rake on everything; and unable to respond to competitors who are developing laptops and desk-bound machines for a new generation.
I am known for my strong views on mobile technology, online media, and the effect this has on the public conscious and existing businesses. I’ve been following this space for over ten years, working with a number of publishers, publications and media companies, some for long periods of time, others for commissions, one-off pieces or a series of articles or shows. As Scotland’s first podcaster, I continue to be a prominent voice in the rise of podcasting and new media online, and picked up a British Academy (BAFTA) nomination for my annual coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, alongside contributions to Radio 5 Live, the BBC World Service, presenting Edinburgh local radio’s coverage of the General Election. You’ll find me on Twitter (@Ewan), Facebook, and Google Plus.
After many years using MacBook variants I’ve made the switch to Windows. I’ve used every version of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air that have been released. My current laptop of choice is the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon / Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Extreme.Turns out switching from Mac to Windows isn’t as painful as I expected. FOLLOW ME IN THESE PLACES FOR UPDATES Twitter – http://twitter.com/unboxtherapy Facebook – http://facebook.com/lewis.hilsenteger Instagram – http://instagram.com/unboxtherapy
Newly unsealed court documents have revealed a secret legal battle between Microsoft and one of America’s leading prosecutors focused on chasing Chinese technology companies breaking U.S. law.
U.S. attorney Alexander Solomon—who also happens to be the lead prosecutor on two criminal cases involving Huawei—just scored a big victory in that tussle, forcing Microsoft to keep quiet about a demand to hand over customer emails.
That request was originally filed in August 2018 and was followed by a gag order. Both were kept secret until Wednesday, when it emerged Microsoft was told to hand over emails, text messages and voicemails belonging to two employees at one of its unnamed enterprise customers. Microsoft said that while it could provide the data, it should be allowed to inform executives at that unnamed company. It asked the government to lift a gag order that had prevented it from informing anyone. As revealed in a Microsoft blog post and court documents unsealed Wednesday, the software giant lost that fight, though it will appeal.
Nothing was said about why the government wanted those emails. But there are numerous indications the data grab is related to America’s fight against Chinese businesses’ breaches of U.S. law.
To start, the prosecutors in the case are both leading high-profile cases into various offenses committed by Chinese nationals and businesses against the U.S. And one, Alexander Solomon, is the lead prosecutor in two cases in which Huawei is at the center.
The biggest is the one in which Huawei stands accused of illegally exporting equipment to Iran from the U.S. via a subsidiary called Skycom, and then repeatedly lying about the deals. Not only were Huawei, its U.S. business and Skycom charged, so was the daughter of the Huawei CEO and the current CFO, Wanzhou Meng, who is currently fighting extradition from Canada. Huawei has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The Huawei entities were, in January this year, charged with bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (lEEPA), a law that Trump recently used to enforce sanctions on Iran. As per court documents detailing the order on Microsoft, the two employees of the unnamed customer are suspected of similar crimes, namely wire fraud, money laundering and breaches of lEEPA.
Going deeper, those staff at the Microsoft customer are being investigated for working for one multinational corporation and conspiring with another to violate the lEEPA. They did so “by sending and attempting to send U.S. origin goods to [a company] in [a foreign country], in contravention of U.S. sanctions,” according to a court filing.
The name of the customer remains a mystery. It’s unlikely to be Huawei, though. That’s because Microsoft was asked to hand over the emails of two “low-level employees in one business unit of a multinational, publicly listed Microsoft customer.” Huawei is not publicly listed; its private ownership has, in fact, been the subject of much speculation. Though it claims to be owned by its employees, academics have suggested that’s misleading.
The prosecutor, Solomon, is also leading a case against Chinese professor Bo Mao, who has been accused of stealing technology from a California company for a Chinese company, reportedly Huawei. Mao has pleaded not guilty on a single charge of wire fraud.
Huawei hadn’t responded to a request for comment on the above cases. Microsoft also hadn’t provided comment. The prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
Microsoft’s fight with the U.S.
But Microsoft had a lot to say in court filings and a blog post about the government’s attempts to completely silence the maker of the Windows operating system.
It argued that 20 years ago, the government would go directly to the company that controlled the data, not its cloud-based tech supplier. Microsoft said it was “disturbing” that governments were now going to tech companies instead. And it therefore should be allowed to at least tell employees at an affected company about a government data grab, as long as it wouldn’t jeopardize an investigation. “The government cannot justify such a total ban on Microsoft’s speech,” the company’s lawyers said.
Dev Stahlkopf, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and general counsel, said the company would “continue to stand up for the principle that our customers are entitled to know when the government obtains their data.”
“Absent extraordinary circumstances, government agents should seek data directly from our enterprise customers, and if they seek our customers’ data from us, they should allow us to tell our customers when demands are made,” Stahlkopf added.
“We believe strongly that these fundamental protections should not disappear just because customers store their data in the cloud rather than in file cabinets or desk drawers.”
Microsoft has also been vocal about restrictions on American companies doing business with Huawei. Company president Brad Smith recently said the U.S. should revisit the ban preventing Microsoft and others from letting Huawei run American software.
I’m associate editor for Forbes, covering security, surveillance and privacy. I’ve been breaking news and writing features on these topics for major publications since 2010. As a freelancer, I worked for The Guardian, Vice Motherboard, Wired and BBC.com, amongst many others. I was named BT Security Journalist of the year in 2012 and 2013 for a range of exclusive articles, and in 2014 was handed Best News Story for a feature on US government harassment of security professionals. I like to hear from hackers who are breaking things for either fun or profit and researchers who’ve uncovered nasty things on the web. Tip me on Signal at 447837496820. I use WhatsApp and Treema too. Or you can email me at TBrewster@forbes.com, or tbthomasbrewster@gmail.com.
No one likes to admit when they’re wrong. That’s true for you and me, and it’s especially true for big companies like Apple. The thing is, when you’re willing to admit when you made a mistake, it goes a long way towards building trust. And trust is, by far, your brand’s most valuable asset.
Today, Apple apologized for how it had handled recorded snippets of users’ voice interactions with Siri, the company’s digital assistant. In a statement, the company said that “we realize we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize.”
You might remember that Apple, like pretty much every other tech company, recently admitted that it used contractors to listen to, and transcribe these recordings in an effort to improve the artificial intellience-powered service. Making matters worse is that fact that the company hadn’t disclosed this practice, and contractors often heard false-activations that revealed personal information and other private conversations.
Earlier this month, Apple paused its review program and ended its relationship with the contractors involved. Now, it appears to be taking the next step, which started with an apology.
That’s actually pretty remarkable. It’s not often that companies say, “I’m sorry. We messed up.” Sure, they sometimes say a lot of words that vaguely sound like “I’m sorry,” but rarely are they this direct. Apple basically called itself out, saying that it wasn’t living up to its own standards, and that it owed customers an apology for a problem it caused.
Along with the apology, maybe the even bigger news here is that Apple announced a series of steps it plans to take moving forward, including:
The company will no longer retain recorded Siri interactions, but will use computer-generated transcripts instead.
Apple will allow users to opt in to having their audio samples included in the company’s efforts to improve the product. Users will also be able to opt out at any time after that.
Apple will only allow its employees (not contractors) to listen to audio samples, and will delete any “inadvertent trigger,” of Siri.
This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, but mostly because Apple will now allow users to ‘opt in.’ This is exactly how it should work.
There are perfectly legitimate reasons why Apple would want to listen to recorded snippets of Siri interactions. That’s one of the only ways it can really know how accurate the AI is at understanding user requests and providing the right information for a human to review and correction. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t agree that that’s reasonable.
But Apple is changing the default assumption of an unspoken ‘opt in’ to one where people are given the choice to participate, instead of simply offering some opaque way of opting out. Companies offer opt out because they know most people won’t go through the trouble of changing whatever the default setting is, meaning people stay in whether they really want to or not.
Every tech company handling sensitive data should do exactly this. Don’t just let people opt out, or delete their history, or make a request to no longer be recorded. Make the default position the thing that’s best for the user, even if it makes your job a little harder.
Then, make your case for why your practice is worth it to the customer, and let them decide to participate or not.
We already knew Apple is joining the crowded TV streaming business, but thanks to a report from Bloomberg we now know the company is preparing to launch it’s Apple TV+ service in November. That coincides with Disney’s upcoming streaming service
launch announced to appear on November 12.
Certainly, Apple can afford to spend the money. With more than $100 billion in cash on hand, the company has plenty of resources to pour into building out a content library. The bigger question is, however, is it worth it?
The Financial Times reported on Monday that Apple is spending $6 billion on original content, including The Morning Show, a drama produced by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Whitherspoon, which reportedly costs more to produce per episode than Game of Thrones.
Apple is entering tricky waters. Netflix became the dominant leader in video streaming mostly because it had a robust library of familiar shows and films that viewers cared enough about to pay $10 a month for. That lead has eroded as content creators like HBO, Disney, and NBC Universal enter the game with their own services in order to monetize their content by cutting out the proverbial middle man.
For example, Netflix is losing its top two shows — The Office and Friends — in the next year, which has forced it to double-down on creating original content. Despite those efforts, and the fact that it still has a huge collection of popular shows and movies, the company saw it’s U.S. subscribers decrease for the first time last quarter.
Which brings us back to Apple. The company has remained tight-lipped about what specific content users can expect but has indicated that The Morning Show will be a launch feature.
Of course, if the primary library will be original content, that could be a hard sell for users, especially as they become tapped out by the number of subscriptions available to different video services.
Apple has bet big on its services division to drive a large part of its future growth. In addition to Apple TV+, the company is counting on its paid News+, App Store, Music, and Arcade game subscription services. Those drive recurring revenue each month, and it’s conceivable that it won’t be long before the company offers a subscription bundle that includes all of these services.
Still, in order for any of them to succeed, users have to care enough about the content to plunk down money every month. Apple Music benefits from the largest library of music, as well as many exclusive releases. iOS is one of the largest gaming platforms in the world, so it’s not hard to see why it will attract subscribers.
But, with the TV+ service, the bottom-line question is this: will customers pay $9.99 a month for largely unknown shows? If so, Apple could easily become a leader in both content creation and delivery. If not, the company could be looking at a very expensive lesson in the economics of media production.
I suspect that because it’s Apple, the content will be top-notch enough for people to sign up. I also suspect that because it’s Apple, people will sign up. But the challenge Apple faces isn’t that different from those you do — though it’s probably on a slightly larger scale.
That challenge is that every time you leverage your brand to launch something new, there’s not only a risk, but a cost. For Apple that cost is $6 billion. The company can’t afford to get this wrong at that — or any price.
Apple Watch Series 5 is almost certainly going to be unveiled next month alongside the new range of iPhones. It looks highly likely that Tuesday, September 10 will be the big day.
An Apple Watch in titanium or ceramic finish? Oh, yes please. And a new leak has just confirmed that the smartwatch will be available in different finishes from the current range.
I say confirmed because the leak comes from an unimpeachably good source: Apple.
In an exclusive report by iHelp BR, Filipe Esposito has spotted something very interesting in the watchOS 6 operating system developers’ beta.
It was Esposito, by the way, who spotted the date of September 10 in Apple beta software, too, effectively confirming when the keynote will be.
Here, though, the information comes from an animation which appears when you set up an Apple Watch. If you’ve ever done this, you’ll know that it’s a pretty cool procedure. As you start the pairing, a circular pattern starts fizzing on the Watch screen, like a planet coming into existence or something like that, or am I being too poetic?
When your iPhone recognizes it’s looking at a Watch, the screen resolves into an elegant fret worked pattern with an Apple logo and descriptive writing specifying the size of the Watch and the metal in the case.
Now, it seems that hidden in the watch OS 6 software are animations which resolve themselves with details never seen before.
First of all, there’s a return of a ceramic case for the Apple Watch. How do we know this isn’t just left over from an earlier version of the Watch, you may ask?
After all, although there was no Series 4 ceramic watch, there was an Apple Watch Series 2 model in white ceramic, and Series 3 had white and grey ceramic options, all of which looked spectacular, by the way.
Well, we know this is all-new because it gives the size of the case as 44mm and 40mm, neither of which were the sizes of the previous ceramic models (which were 42mm and 38mm).
This is pretty intriguing news, and there’s more.
As well as an animation announcing the return of ceramic is another which presages a whole new metal finish: titanium.
Well, the new Apple Card is made of titanium so maybe Apple feels it should make a Watch to match.
What’s not clear is whether titanium will replace the stainless steel Watch or sit alongside it in the range.
Esposito advises caution, however, in assuming that these new Watches will be for Apple Watch Series 5. After all, the assets are found in the operating system which will run on Series 4 Apple Watch, so could these new versions be for a new look that will appear on current Series 4 timepieces?
I see the logic of this, but it just doesn’t feel quite right to me. Apple has never refreshed an existing Apple Watch in a new metallic livery, but has always saved its new designs exclusively for its latest models.
And I find it unlikely that Apple would want to create a Watch with a new outside and not refresh the insides as well. It’s true that the company has in the past added an extra color to the iPhone, specifically PRODUCT(RED), but never this late in the annual cycle, so I find it doubtful that that’s what’s happening here.
My guess is that we’ve just had a glimpse of what the next Apple Watch is going to be made of. Of course, exactly what it will look like is still to be revealed, but this is a juicy piece of information which promises something exciting is about to be unveiled.
I’ve been writing about technology for two decades and am always struck by how the sector swings from startling innovation to regular repetitiveness. My areas of specialty are wearable tech, cameras, home entertainment and mobile technology. Over the years I’ve written about gadgets for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Sun, Metro, Stuff, T3, Pocket-lint, Wareable.com and Wired. Right now most of my work away from Forbes appears in the Independent, the Evening Standard and Monocle Magazine. Parenthetically, I also work as an actor, enjoying equally the first Mission Impossible movie, a season at Shakespeare’s Globe and a stint on Hollyoaks. Follow me on Instagram: davidphelantech, or Twitter: @davidphelan2009.
IPhone maker Apple has just announced a new feature in its upcoming iOS 13 that could pose major issues for messaging and calling apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp. In the interest of privacy, Apple’s updated version of its operating system will not let apps run voice over internet protocol (VoIP) in the background when programs are not actively in use, according to news site The Information.
And many apps offering these sorts of services do run in the background so, they claim, they can connect calls quickly. But this also means the apps can collect information on what people are doing on their devices.
Because it will no longer allow apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp to do this on devices such as iPhones and iPads, the move will mark a major change in how they are run. In fact, they will need to be rewritten in order to comply with Apple’s new rules by the time iOS 13 comes out this September.
App developers have until April 2020 to comply with the new rules. Facebook told The Information that it was in talks on how it would proceed following the change.
IOS 13 reflects Apple’s increasing focus on user privacy. It features one-time location sharing, while the “Sign in with Apple” feature has been praised by many–although it was also criticized by one organization.
Ethical hacker John Opdenakker says because users will be able to see when an app is running, it will be “a serious privacy improvement.”
Independent security researcher Sean Wright agrees. “It’s encouraging to see some companies at least focus on their users’ privacy.
“Hopefully this change will also apply pressure on companies who have previously not paid much attention to user privacy, getting them to now start doing so. I’m hoping that Google takes heed and does something similar on Android.”
Given that Apple is a pioneer in the industry, cybersecurity expert at ESET Jake Moore says the move “makes it far easier to roll out these security and privacy changes in other companies.”
It’s true that Apple is often a first mover in the technology space. Let’s hope other companies will follow suit to help users take greater control of their security and privacy.
I’m a freelance cybersecurity journalist with over a decade’s experience reporting on the issues impacting users, businesses and the public sector. My interests within cybersecurity include critical national infrastructure, cyber warfare, application security and data misuse. I’m a keen advocate for women in security and strive to raise awareness of the gender imbalance through my writing.
Apple has massively increased the amount it’s offering hackers for finding vulnerabilities in iPhones and Macs, up to $1 million. It’s by far the highest bug bounty on offer from any major tech company.
That’s up from $200,000, and in the fall the program will be open to all researchers. Previously only those on the company’s invite-only bug bounty program were eligible to receive rewards.
As Forbes reported on Monday, Apple is also launching a Mac bug bounty, which was confirmed Thursday, but it’s also extending it to watchOS and its Apple TV operating system. The announcements came in Las Vegas at the Black Hat conference, where Apple’s head of security engineering Ivan Krstić gave a talk on iOS and macOS security.
Forbes also revealed on Monday that Apple was to give bug bounty participants “developer devices”—iPhones that let hackers dive further into iOS. They can, for instance, pause the processor to look at what’s happening with data in memory. Krstić confirmed the iOS Security Research Device program would be by application only. It will arrive next year.
$1 million for an iPhone hack
The full $1 million will go to researchers who can find a hack of the kernel—the core of iOS—with zero clicks required by the iPhone owner. Another $500,000 will be given to those who can find a “network attack requiring no user interaction.” There’s also a 50% bonus for hackers who can find weaknesses in software before it’s released.
Apple is increasing those rewards in the face of an increasingly profitable private market where hackers sell the same information to governments for vast sums.
As Maor Shwartz told Forbes, the cost of a single exploit (a program that uses vulnerabilities typically to take control of a computer or phone) can fetch as much as $1.5 millon. An exploit targeting WhatsApp where no clicks are required from the user, for instance, can be sold to a government agency for that much, though such tools are rare. Only one or two a year will be sold, from a pool of around 400 researchers who focus on such high-end hacking. “It’s really hard to research them and produce a working exploit,” he said.
Previously, a company called Zerodium was vocal about how much it will pay researchers before handing them to its unknown government customers. In January, the secretive company announced it was offering $2 million for a remote hack of an iPhone.
Krstić said the bug bounty had been a success to date, with 50 serious bugs reported since the 2016 launch.
I cover security and privacy for Forbes. I’ve been breaking news and writing features on these topics for major publications since 2010. As a freelancer, I worked for The Guardian, Vice Motherboard, Wired and BBC.com, amongst many others. I was named BT Security Journalist of the year in 2012 and 2013 for a range of exclusive articles, and in 2014 was handed Best News Story for a feature on US government harassment of security professionals. I like to hear from hackers who are breaking things for either fun or profit and researchers who’ve uncovered nasty things on the web. Tip me on Signal at 447837496820. I use WhatsApp and Treema too. Or you can email me at TBrewster@forbes.com, or tbthomasbrewster@gmail.com
Apple’s next iPads are coming and the company may be about to break with its current pattern of releasing an updated entry-level iPad in the spring (though not every year) and a Pro or two in the fall. New evidence spotted by MySmartPrice suggests that there may be as many as seven different variants later this year, including a new entry-level tablet with a whole new design.
How do we know this?
The Eurasian Economic Commission is the place that Apple leaked the information. Of course, Apple really doesn’t care to leak anything but for regulatory reasons it has to place details with the commission some months before a product can go on sale in the five countries it works across: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
No surprise that the company reveals not one scintilla more information than it absolutely has to. Earlier this month, Apple filed certification documents for five model numbers. These, if you like this kind of statistical completeness, were: A2068, A2197, A2198, A2228 and A2230.
In the last few hours, there have been two more certifications, A2200 and A2232.
Apple iPad as released in Spring 2018. Is it about to get a radical makeover?
Apple
How do we know they’re iPads?
Well, there’s a little more information in the filing. The latest ones have a line which states:
Product Name Full Tablet computers of the trademark ‘Apple’ models A2200, A2232 (iPad OS software version 13)
That’s pretty clear, right?
So what are these seven iPads?
It’s likely that there will be refreshes of the two iPad Pro models released last October, in the same screen sizes of 11in and 12.9in. These may be the five numbers discovered earlier in the month.
Apple iPad Pro, as released last October.
Apple
What, five new iPad Pros?
Unlikely. There will probably be two codes for 11in models, one for wi-fi, one for wi-fi plus cellular. Another two for the 12.9in model. Since the commission works across multiple territories it may be that different code numbers are needed for different regions, though exactly what the fifth code is for isn’t clear.
The current Apple iPad Air with Smart Keyboard.
Apple
So what’s the radically different iPad?
Glad you asked. In Spring 2018, Apple refreshed its entry-level iPad, bringing Pencil compatibility to the most affordable tablet in the range. But there was no design change and no compatibility with the Apple smart keyboard.
That iPad remains phenomenal value but it’s true that the design is beginning to look a little dated.
This year was the turn for the next level up of iPad to appear, the new iPad Air, based on the design of the earlier iPad Pro 10.5, complete with keyboard compatibility as well as Pencil functionality. An updated iPad mini also appeared.
Since it’s been well over a year since the basic iPad has been updated, and since the design is ageing, this would be the perfect time to completely redesign the lowest-priced iPad.
The latest iPad mini, released in Spring 2019.
Apple
A new design, then?
In fact, it would arguably be the first major design shift since the original iPad Air, released back in late 2013, on which the current chassis is based.
The rumors that have been doing the rounds for some months now are that the next iPad will be the very first time an entry-level tablet will have a display size that’s anything other than 9.7in.
Apparently, the next iPad will come with a 10.2in display. In other words, not quite as big as the current iPad Air, but noticeably bigger than any entry-level tablet the company has made before.
What does it look like?
There are no leaked images for us to look at but I believe the next iPad will be very similar in size to the last model but with narrower bezels, especially at the top and bottom.
I believe it will still use Touch ID, rather than the Face ID on the current iPad Pro models.
Still, a bigger screen on a tablet likely to be the same weight or lighter, and the same size or smaller when compared to the iPad now, is intriguing.
The current Apple iPad Air with its 10.5in screen, plus Smart Keyboard.
Apple
How do you know it won’t be a 10.5in screen?
Well, I don’t except that’s the size of the screen for the current iPad Air and it the new entry-level device has the same size display as the significantly pricier Air, then that’s the end of one big reason to choose the iPad Air. It’s possible, of course, but I don’t think so.
When will it go on sale and how much?
The usual order for things is that a new iPhone or three will be revealed in September and any tablet will pop up at a separate launch event either later in September or, more likely, October.
Apple has traditionally priced its entry-level tablet very keenly – it’s currently $329 (£319 in the U.K.) and I don’t expect this will change.
As more details emerge I’ll be updating this feature, so please check back, here at Forbes.
I’ve been writing about technology for two decades and am always struck by how the sector swings from startling innovation to regular repetitiveness. My areas of specialty are wearable tech, cameras, home entertainment and mobile technology. Over the years I’ve written about gadgets for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Sun, Metro, Stuff, T3, Pocket-lint, Wareable.com and Wired. Right now most of my work away from Forbes appears in the Independent, the Evening Standard and Monocle Magazine. Parenthetically, I also work as an actor, enjoying equally the first Mission Impossible movie, a season at Shakespeare’s Globe and a stint on Hollyoaks. Follow me on Instagram: davidphelantech, or Twitter: @davidphelan2009.
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