Category: Apple Insider

Like many large gatherings, including Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Unpacked is heading online in 2020 as the coronavirus crisis continues unabated in the U.S.

A next-generation foldable device is predicted to make an appearance at the event in August. What, exactly, Samsung plans to unveil remains unclear, though the company’s bi-fold style Galaxy Fold handset is ripe for an upgrade. Rumors for a supposed “Galaxy Fold 2” or “Galaxy Z Fold 2” include a transition from plastic to glass screen material, enlarged internal display and potential S Pen support, reports CNET.

An updated Fold would join the clamshell-style Galaxy Z Flip, which saw release in February.

In addition to a folding flagship, Samsung is widely expected to debut a new Galaxy Note model at this year’s event. Typical product enhancements like an upgraded camera and improvements to proprietary technology are anticipated for reveal. Previous leaks suggest a triple-camera array with “Space Zoom” feature, a new color option — also alluded to in an official promo video for the event — and updated S Pen functionality.

Samsung’s Global Newsroom website will host the Unpacked livestream starting on Aug. 5 at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Passed last week, the National Security Law builds a latticework of legal instruments through which China can assert pressure on Hong Kong dissidents and crush political opponents, The New York Times reports.

Apple is assessing the situation, reports Bloomberg.

“Apple has always required that all content requests from local law enforcement authorities be submitted through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in place between the United States and Hong Kong,” Apple said in a statement. As part of the process, “the U.S. Department of Justice reviews Hong Kong authorities’ requests for legal conformance.”

Google, Facebook, Twitter and other major tech companies put a temporary hold on user data requests from Hong Kong authorities as they review the law, the report said.

The National Security Law covers separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries, among other ill-defined crimes, each of which can carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. Facets of the new regulations are designed to suppress protests, a commonly used and effective tool for pro-democracy advocates to voice displeasure of the ruling Communist Party. No draft was circulated to the public prior to swift adoption by the Chinese legislature, and Hong Kong authorities had little input, if any, in the proceedings.

Constructed to prevent citizens from enlisting the help of outside entities, including foreign countries, in pushing forward pro-democracy efforts, the law is of particular interest to Apple and other tech companies. Activists in Hong Kong often turn to apps and non-Chinese services to communicate, facilitate demonstrations and foment unrest.

For example, Apple last year caught flak for removing HKmap Live, an app protestors used to monitor police movement. CEO Tim Cook at the time defended the move, saying malcontents were utilizing the app to accomplish nefarious deeds.

Apple last year also removed the Quartz app from the Chinese App Store after the outlet published extensive coverage of the Hong Kong protests.

The latest in an occasional AppleInsider series, looking at the world of Apple-related crime.

A 22-year-old member of the U.S. Army was charged in mid-June with joining up with the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), described by prosecutors as “an occult-based neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group,” in a plot to murder U.S. soldiers.

According to the indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, the government seized both an iPhone and iCloud accounts belonging to the soldier, Ethan Phelan Melzer, and discovered evidence related to the plot.

Melzer has been charged with six counts, including conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, attempted murder, and provision and attempted provision of material support to terrorists.

A woman arrested at a protest on June 1 in Worcester, Mass., shot footage that appeared to show a police officer stomping on her iPhone. Worcester Star-Telegram reports the woman was streaming video to Facebook Live at the moment she was rushed by officers, and the video appeared to show a boot stomping on her phone.

While the phone continued to record, the woman narrated, and her father even left a comment on the live video stating “a policeman just stepped on your phone.”

A Minnesota state trooper is being investigated on allegations that, after he arrested a woman for drunk driving, he texted himself the woman’s intimate photos from her iPhone. According to KSTP, the incident took place in March, and when the woman got her phone back, she noticed that photos had been texted to an unknown number.

The officer is being investigated by both the State Patrol and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), and the warrants say he admitted to texting himself the photos.

A Massachusetts man was arrested on June 25 and charged by the U.S. Attorney with using stolen identities to make purchases. In addition to spending on Rolexes and two different rental cars that were never returned, the man’s fraudulent expenditures included “large purchases at the Apple Store.”

The man, who faces federal wire fraud charges, also made buys of over $100,000 from an unnamed office supply retail chain, “via an employee of the office retailer who was complicit in the scheme.”

A photograph, taken from an iPhone, of a massive amount of Australian money has emerged as a piece of evidence in a widespread corruption probe that stretches from Australia to the Los Angeles City council. The Los Angeles Magazinewrites U.S. prosecutors released the photo in relation to the indictment of Councilman Jose Huizar, who has been brought up on racketeering charges.

The magazine reports Huizar “allegedly presided over a criminal enterprise that received more than $1.5 million in exchange for pushing forward certain real estate development projects,” and that the cash was brought back from Australia, with the intention of converting it to dollars to avoid U.S. banking requirements. The iPhone photo, per the Sydney Morning Herald, was taken by a former aide who has pled guilty.

A video clip has emerged from the early June looting in New York City in which a man, who had possibly looted an iMac from an unspecified local store had the computer taken from him, in turn, by another group of looters.

Footage posted by The Daily Mail shows two men attacking the man holding the iMac, punching him, and then taking the computer. The newspaper describes the computer as “allegedly stolen,” but it’s not established that the first man actually looted it.

Three men in Tennessee were arrested in late June on charges that they stole cars, and police say they were charged in part thanks to Find My iPhone. According to The Cleveland Banner, the accused thieves also entered unlocked vehicles, and took several items, including a set of AirPods, from one of them.

The AirPods didn’t lead to the arrest but did provide evidence. The owners of the AirPods “were able to send an audible alert from their Apple Find My iPhone App to their stolen AirPods, pinging the same set recovered from the scene by detectives,” which was located in an evidence bag.

In another Find My iPhone case, the tool helped a woman use her iPad to find her stolen car, as well as an attached U-Haul trailer that she had used to move most of her possessions. CBS 12 reports the woman was moving from Minneapolis to Las Vegas when, after stopping at a hotel, she noticed the car and trailer were gone.

However, she soon activated Find My iPhone to search for her iPad, which was packed in the U-Haul, and the car and trailer were found about a mile away, although many of the items have still not been recovered.

George Nader, a minor figure in the Russiagate scandal who served as a witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation, was sentenced on June 27 to 10 years in prison. Per CNN, Nader pled guilty earlier in the spring to two counts of sex crimes involving children, after the government had seized his iPhones.

In 2018, FBI agents had taken Nader’s iPhones upon his return to the U.S. to search for Russia-related evidence, but when they searched them, they discovered child pornography.

The South African musical performer known as Mampintsha has offered a reward of R800 (about $46 in U.S. dollars) for the safe return of his lost iPhone charger. According to Briefly, the entertainer said on social media that he “would not buy a new charger because they are expensive but would rather get his original on back,” and also “stirred the pot by saying that the theft of the charger could make people into enemies.”

A man broke into a woman’s apartment intending to rape her, but the woman used her Apple Watch to text her boyfriend to summon help, which led to the man’s arrest.

The Calgary Sunwrites prosecutors argued in court in late June for the defendant to receive a sentence of eight to 10 years.

Two men in Virginia were arrested for entering a broken-down vehicle on the side of a highway and taking several items, including an iPhone, an automotive diagnostic scanner, a camping axe and nearly $40 in loose change.

According to Fredericksburg.com, when the owner of the vehicle returned to repair it, he noticed a van parked behind it, and someone in his car. The van fled, but the car owner took down the license plate, leading the men to be arrested at a nearby 7-Eleven.

A couple is accused of a scheme in which they allegedly used the information from a man’s stolen wallet to set up a line of credit and buy 14 iPhones. The fraudulent purchases were made at the Booragoon mobile phone shop on March 4, reports Perth Now.

Apple’s clipboard snooping feature included in iOS 14 alerts users to instances when third-party apps attempt to access the clipboard on an iPhone or iPad. The triggering of alerts by apps used in the current developer betas has led to companies scrambling to make changes to stop the alert from popping up at times when users aren’t consciously expecting the clipboard to be accessed.

On Saturday, Reddit confirmed it was releasing a fix for code that copied text from a clipboard to its iOS app. Users had discovered the app attempted to copy clipboard data with every keystroke a user made.

In a statement to The Verge, Reddit explained “We tracked this down to a codepath in the post composer that checks for URLs in the pasteboard and then suggests a post title based on the text contents of the URL.”

The spokesperson went on to assure there was no breach of privacy as Reddit does not “store or send the pasteboard contents.” The code relating to the feature has reportedly been removed, with a proper fix anticipated to be made available on July 14.

Reddit is only the latest iOS app provider to be affected by the iOS 14 notification. On Friday, LinkedIn blamed a software bug for its app triggering the notification, while long-time culprit TikTok has assured it will be updating its app to cease the activity, one that it was caught doing in March.

It remains to be seen if other major apps found to be doing the same thing will be making similar changes.

In a complaint filed Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple argues that it does not infringe on Zipit’s intellectual property. Zipit Wireless is the creator of a secure messaging platform.

Zipit previously filed a lawsuit against Apple in June 2020, alleging that iMessage and Apple’s mobile devices infringe on two pieces of IP, specifically patents that cover instant messaging terminals through a wireless access point. In its complaint Friday, Apple argues that it did not infringe on the patents because they concern products with a separate “display” and “data entry device,” or a physical hardware keyboard. Apple’s iPhones, of course, only have a display and a software keyboard.

Suddenly, and reportedly without any notice to Apple, Zipit voluntarily dismissed its litigation on June 24, 2020, the complaint reads.

Apple says that correspondence between itself and Zipit dates back to at least 2014. Throughout those conversations, Zipit claimed that Apple infringed on its patents, allegations Apple denies. An agreement was never reached and Apple believes that, despite the recent withdrawal, Zipit is likely to file suit again.

Zipit’s dismissal of former litigation without prejudice “demonstrates that it is highly likely that … Zipit will again assert infringement” of its patents, Apple argues.

“A judicial declaration is necessary to determine the respective rights of the parties regarding the asserted patents,” the complaint reads.

Apple is seeking a judgement declaring that it did not and does not infringeme on Zipit’s patents, as well as legal expenses and attorneys’ fees.

Apple in mid-April unveiled a new Mobility Trends Report tool that visualized anonymized Apple Maps data requests. At the time, traders thought they had found a clue to guess at the speed of fuel demand recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

But the data didn’t translate into activity in gasoline demand, Reuters reported. That’s because the data was based on search information and not miles traveled.

At the time of release, and even as Apple added new regions to the tool, the Cupertino tech giant stressed the data privacy of the feature. That’s despite the fact that the tool captures data for about 100 million iPhones in the U.S.

In lieu of using Apple’s data, the traders have moved onto other sources of information — such as TomTom or U.S. Energy Information Administration reports.

The Android iteration of Dark Sky was originally scheduled to reach end of life on Wednesday, but that expiration date has been delayed by one month, the company said in a blog post. Dark Sky on Android will officially shut down on Aug. 1, the post reads.

Dark Sky initially announced plans to shutter its Android app after Apple acquired the firm in March. While the app is still available for purchase on the App Store, its Android counterpart has since been removed from the Google Play Store.

Android device users who downloaded the app prior to its removal will see uninterrupted access for the next month. Subscribers who are active when the app officially shuts down will receive a full refund of a $2.99 annual charge, the company said.

In addition to a withdrawal from Google’s platform, Apple is ending weather forecasts, maps, and embeds that were previously available on the Dark Sky website. Like the Android app, those features are slated to sunset on Aug. 1. The Dark Sky API will remain functional through the end of 2020, but the company is no longer accepting new signups.

Apple’s interest in Dark Sky is likely the app’s API, which includes hyperlocal weather forecasts informed in part by user data.

Since mid-June, however, cases of COVID-19 have been on the rise across in more than 20 states. That prompted some local governments to reverse their original reopening plans and Apple to re-shutter some of the locations that it had reopened since the global health crisis.

Although many Apple Stores remain open, the situation is fluid and likely to change as time goes on.

As of June 30, 2020, here are the stores across the U.S. that will be closed until further notice.

• Altamonte in Altamonte Springs, Florida
• Apple St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville, Florida
• Aventura in Aventura, Florida
• Boca Raton in Boca Raton, Florida
• Brandon in Brandon, Florida
• Coconut Point in Estero, Florida
• The Galleria in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida
• Brickell city Centre in Miami, Florida
• Dadeland in Miami, Florida
• The Falls in Miami, Florida
• Florida Mall in Orlando, Florida
• Millenia in Orlando, Florida
• The Gardens Mall in in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
• International Plaza in Tampa, Florida
• University Town Center in Sarasota, Florida
• Waterside Shops in Naples, Florida
• Wellington Green in Wellington, Florida

• Baybrook in Friendswood, Texas
• First Colony Mall in Sugar Land, Texas
• Highland Village in Houston, Texas
• Houston Galleria in Houston, Texas
• Memorial City in Houston, Texas
• Willowbrook Mall in Houston, Texas
• The Woodlands in Woodlands, Texas

• Arrowhead in Glendale, Arizona
• Chandler Fashion Center in Chandler, Arizona
• La Encantada in Tucson, Arizona
• SanTan Village in Gilbert, Arizona
• Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona
• Scottsdale Quarter in Scottsdale, Arizona

• Northlake Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina
• SouthPark in Charlotte, North Carolina

• Haywood Mall in Greenville, South Carolina

• Renaissance at Colony Park in Ridgeland, Mississippi

• Station Park in Farmington, Utah
• Fashion Place in Murray, Utah
• city Creek Center in Salt Lake City, Utah

Touted as the “world’s first” Thunderbolt-certified dual-powered dock, Belkin’s Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core features 40 Gbps transfer rates, 60W upstream charging — good enough for a MacBook Pro — and support for two 4K 60Hz monitors or one 8K monitor.

The small box is bristling with ports including one each of the following: USB-C, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, 1Gb Ethernet, USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, USB-A 2.0 and 3.5mm audio in/out. A tethered Thunderbolt 3 cable connects directly to a host Mac or Windows laptop.

“Belkin’s Thunderbolt 3 docks and adapters are perfect for remote workers, be it from the home, an RV beach vacation or a hotel room,” said Jon Roepke, director of product management at Belkin. “They easily connect a USB-C laptop to virtually all common peripherals like displays, projectors, external hard drives, ethernet and speakers, so they can get to work quickly and easily without needing to be their own IT department.”

Dual-power is a major selling point for the Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core. The feature enables connected devices to draw power from a connected laptop instead of wall outlet, eschewing the need for extra equipment.

The Thunderbolt 3 Dock Core will sell for $169.99 when it launches in July. Those interested can preorder now from Amazon and Belkin.

In May, Ming-Chi Kuo offered a prediction that two new iPad models will be shipping in the next year, starting with a 10.8-inch iPad arriving in the second half of 2020. It will apparently be followed by a new iPad mini in the first half of 2021, with the May report suggesting a screen size upgrade to between 8.5 inches and 9 inches.

A new note to investors seen by AppleInsider reiterates those claims, further cementing Kuo’s belief on the scheduling and sizes of the models. Furthermore, Kuo has narrowed down the size of the smaller, later model to an 8.5-inch display.

Kuo’s comments are made amid other supply chain rumblings in June about iPads, including one report that latches on to the late-2020 scheduling for the 10.8-inch iPad and a new iPad mini. Another at the start of the month pointed to a change in the 10.8-inch replacement for the iPad Air that switches from Lightning to a USB-C connector, similar to the iPad Pro range.

The claims are made as part of a general conversation about what Apple could remove from the boxes of its most important products. According to Kuo, Apple will include a new 20-watt power adapter in the new iPad models, with the adapter said to be entering mass production in Q3 2020.

Existing 5-watt and 18-watt adapters will supposedly cease production in 2020, while the current 12-watt variant will end production “in 9-12 months.”

As for what products will have chargers, Kuo expects the existing iPad lineup will continue to include in-box 12-watt power adapters until their end-of-life.

For the iPhone 12, Kuo reiterates a claim made in May that it will ship without EarPods, which will help boost sales of AirPods. At the same time, Apple is tipped to eliminate the in-box power adapter for the iPhone 12, as a cost-saving measure.

It is also unlikely Apple will replace the charger with a form of wireless charging system in the box, but Kuo reckons it will still help benefit wireless charger shipments in general, despite the power-transfer system still not being a “must-have” feature for consumers.