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Tag: iCloud

  • Apple TV Users Can Now Accept iCloud Terms Without iOS Device

    Apple TV Users Can Now Accept iCloud Terms Without iOS Device

    Apple has issued a support document clarifying that users can now accept iCloud terms via the web if they don’t have an iOS device.

    Christopher Koch, a senior engineer at Google, tweeted last month about new iCloud licensing terms that were showing up on his Apple TV. Unfortunately, without an iPhone or iPad running iOS or iPadOS 16, there was no way to accept the terms. As a result, a message would repeatedly display on the Apple TV prompting the user to accept the terms via an iOS device.

    It appears Apple has heard the complaints and has issued a support document to clarify:

    If you don’t have an iPhone with iOS 16.0 or later or an iPad with iPadOS 16.0 or later, you can sign in to iCloud.com to accept the new iCloud Terms and Conditions.

    1. Go to iCloud.com, then sign in with your Apple ID.
    2. If necessary, follow the prompts to review and update your account settings.
    3. Review and agree to iCloud Terms and Conditions.

    It’s nice to see Apple making sure non-iOS users can still use some of its products and services. As we wrote in our initial coverage of Koch’s tweet, Steve Jobs understood the importance of making Apple’s less expensive devices as accessible as possible in the hopes of winning over customers. It’s good to see Apple is sticking with that approach, despite how this situation initially appeared.

  • Apple Experiences Major Outage Across Services

    Apple Experiences Major Outage Across Services

    Apple is the latest company to experience major outages, with most of its online services impacted Monday.

    The issues were first noticed shortly before 1:00 p.m EST. Downdector.com shows numerous services being impacted.

    According to Apple’s own System Status page, the App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple TV+, AppleCare on Device, iTunes Store, Podcasts, and Radio are all experiencing an outage.

    The Mac Observer reports some users have also experienced issues with iCloud, impacting their ability to retrieve their email, while Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the problems extend to Apple’s corporate and retail systems as well.

    There’s no indication yet what the root cause of the outage may be, let alone when the issues may be resolved.

  • Apple’s iCloud Service Experiences Second Outage in Two Days

    Apple’s iCloud Service Experiences Second Outage in Two Days

    Apple’s iCloud service experienced its second outage in as many days Tuesday morning.

    iCloud is Apple’s cloud service that compliments its iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The service allows for backing up photos and data, and provided email access as well.

    Monday and Tuesday morning, the company experienced outages with iCloud that left some users unable to access certain features, or resulted in very slow service.

    It appears the issue is now fixed, with all services listed as “Available.”

  • T-Mobile Blocking iOS Private Relay

    T-Mobile Blocking iOS Private Relay

    T-Mobile may bill itself the “Un-carrier” that puts customers’ needs first, but its latest move is a little more “Big Brother” as it begins blocking iOS Private Relay.

    Apple included Private Relay (still in beta) in iOS 15 and macOS Monterey. The feature is similar to a VPN in that it “hides your IP address and browsing activity in Safari and protects your unencrypted internet traffic.”

    Given that it bills itself as putting customers first, and given it has suffered a number of high-profile hacks, one could be forgiven for thinking T-Mobile would welcome a feature that better protects its users’ privacy. Unfortunately, one would be mistaken.

    First noticed by Mac user Jon Guidry, it appears T-Mobile is taking a page from European carriers and is starting to block Private Relay in the US.

    ”@TMobileHelp What the hey? Why are you keeping us from using @Apple’s #icloud private relay?”

    — Jon Guidry (@guidryjd), January 10, 2022

    9to5Mac has confirmed that T-Mobile is indeed moving to block the feature, although it hasn’t completed its efforts, meaning Private Relay may still work for some US users.

    In March 2021, we wrote about T-Mobile opting customers into a targeted advertising program that would use their data to deliver personalized ads. The carrier also said it would sell that data to third-party companies as well.

    It seems clear, based on its attempt to block Private Relay, that T-Mobile doesn’t want anything interfering with its data mining operation. Evidently, it’s not enough to actually charge for a service, and deliver one record quarter after another. The company evidently believes it has the right to mine data from its paying customers, and will stop at nothing to block attempts to prevent it from doing just that.

    John Legere used to famously refer to Verizon and AT&T as “dumb and dumber.” Perhaps T-Mobile should start lumping itself into that category too.

  • Companies Race to Fix Critical Zero-Day Vulnerability

    Companies Race to Fix Critical Zero-Day Vulnerability

    Companies around the world are racing to patch a critical zero-day vulnerability that is among the worst ever found.

    Cyber security experts and government officials began warning Friday of a critical bug in “Log4j,” a Java-based logging framework used in Apache. As news of the vulnerability became known, the list of impacted companies grew to include some of the biggest in the world.

    Palo Alto Networks reported that iCloud, Twitter, Amazon, Baidu and Minecraft were impacted, to name just a few. Even worse, the vulnerability is actively being exploited and attacked, putting many companies at risk.

    The director of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a statement outlining the seriousness of the vulnerability.

    “We are taking urgent action to drive mitigation of this vulnerability and detect any associated threat activity. We have added this vulnerability to our catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities, which compels federal civilian agencies — and signals to non-federal partners — to urgently patch or remediate this vulnerability. We are proactively reaching out to entities whose networks may be vulnerable and are leveraging our scanning and intrusion detection tools to help government and industry partners identify exposure to or exploitation of the vulnerability. 

    To be clear, this vulnerability poses a severe risk. We will only minimize potential impacts through collaborative efforts between government and the private sector. We urge all organizations to join us in this essential effort and take action.” 

    Cybersecurity experts are echoing CISA’s assessment of the danger, calling the vulnerability a major issue for the tech and cybersecurity community.

    Dr. Richard Ford, CTO of cybersecurity research firm Praetorian, told WebProNews the Log4j is even worse than other, widely reported vulnerabilities.

    “Praetorian researchers weaponized the vulnerability within hours and have a fully working exploit that we can use in the field,” said Dr. Richard Ford. “As background, Praetorian is an Austin-based cybersecurity solutions company that helps solve complex cybersecurity problems across critical enterprise assets and product portfolios. Their combination of software and security expertise puts them at the forefront of vulnerabilities such as this. Earlier this year, Praetorian was at the forefront of another critical vulnerability, proxylogon. The company says, as critical as proxylogon was to resolve, it had a much smaller potential impact than Log4j.

    “The company’s engineers and researchers have been working since last night in a war room to scan its customers and are finding vulnerabilities in the field. Worse yet, we’re also inadvertently discovering the vulnerability in 3rd parties who are on adjacent or integrated systems. Naturally, we are following responsible disclosure policies so cannot call out these systems by name, but it is one of the largest exposures we have seen at Internet scale. All vulnerabilities are typically scored by how dangerous they are: this vulnerability has practically the highest score possible, and it seems likely that even some professionals are unaware of its potential impact. The situation is rapidly evolving, and we are learning a great deal about the scope and impact of this vulnerability as we quickly work with customers to help mitigate the risk in the short term while they work on a long term solution, which will require patching all instances of the vulnerable code – a process which could take months.”

    Due to Log4J’s widespread use, experts believe companies will continue to come under attack in the coming days as mitigation efforts are being taken.

    “ This vulnerability feels similar to ShellShock, first identified in 2014, and still observed by GreyNoise,” Andrew Morris, Founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm GreyNoise told WebProNews. “Due to ease of exploitation and prevalence of Log4J, GreyNoise researchers believe that this activity will continue to increase over the next few days.”

  • WhatsApp Adds End-to-End Encryption for Chat Backups

    WhatsApp Adds End-to-End Encryption for Chat Backups

    WhatsApp has added a major new feature, making it possible to encrypt chat backups with end-to-end encryption.

    WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms. While the app has offered end-to-end encryption for years, if a user chose to backup their chats via iCloud or Google Drive, those backups did not have the same level of encryption.

    The company has now added that, with Mark Zuckerberg making the announcement on Facebook, and emphasizing the technical hurdles that were overcome.

    We’re adding another layer of privacy and security to WhatsApp: an end-to-end encryption option for the backups people choose to store in Google Drive or iCloud. WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a really hard technical challenge that required an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage across operating systems.

    The feature is good news for all users and adds another significant layer of privacy and security.

  • Humane Scores Another Apple Executive

    Humane Scores Another Apple Executive

    Humane has announced that Patrick Gates, former Apple Internet Services executive, has joined the startup as Chief Technology Officer.

    According to the announcement, “Patrick led the development of iconic Apple services like iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime. During his 13 years at Apple, he oversaw technical design, built critical infrastructure, and led the teams for numerous industry-defining features across all platforms.

    “A Silicon Valley veteran, Patrick did research at Sun Microsystems and built developer frameworks at NeXT before his time at Apple. He is passionate about building and scaling teams and technologies with an unrelenting focus on customer privacy and security.”

    Gates joins a startup founded by two other former Apple employees, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno. Chaudhri is a designer who “spent over 20 years at Apple imagining and creating some of the world’s most beloved consumer products, like the Macintosh, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch and iPhone.” Bongiorno was a Director of Software Engineering and “responsible for all software project management for iOS and macOS and also played a key leadership role in the execution of critical projects such as the launch of the original iPad.”

    While Humane is still in stealth mode, the addition of Gates as CTO is a big win for the startup. Together, the three former Apple employees give the young company a significant creative pedigree.

  • Apple Is Trying To Be A Subscription Company

    Apple Is Trying To Be A Subscription Company

    “Just think about the long term value of Apple and where they’re going,”  says Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig. “They were a phone company, they were an ecommerce company, and now they’re trying to be a subscription company. You see that in their services and their service numbers. They have the largest distribution system on the planet probably other than Google. If they commit to it there is no reason they can’t be successful.”

    Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Chegg, discusses how Apple has pivoted and is trying to become a subscription company selling services, leveraging its huge distribution system, in an interview on CNBC:

    Apple Is Trying To Be A Subscription Company

    Where Apple wants to make (their products) is where it’s cheapest and where they can make the best quality. They’re playing the game now sort of whack-a-mole which is watching the tariffs and all these things. Just think about the long term value of Apple and where they’re going. They were a phone company, they were an ecommerce company, and now they’re trying to be a subscription company. You see that in their services and their service numbers. The supply chain is a thing to talk about over the quarter but in the long term that is all going to be resolved. They’ll be wherever they need to be.

    They have the largest distribution system on the planet probably other than Google. They have been selling other people things through the iTunes store and through the app store. They bought companies in order to be able to sell news and other things and they sell their iCloud. They really have not gotten into content that they own in any significant way. Unless they commit to it they’re not going to be successful. But if they commit to it there is no reason they can’t be successful. 

    Most Of Apple’s Subscription Profit Is Coming From the iCloud

    If you ask what is it that Apple owns proprietarily and offers to their consumer in terms of content other than the iCloud itself, you really can’t come up with anything. Whereas, Adobe has all these software and services and Microsoft has these things. They’re sort of in the content area. They’re in the music subscription area. But even in the music subscription area, they don’t own the content. So it’s hard to make those things as profitable. Although, you can sign up a lot of people. 

    I would estimate that most of their profit from that is coming from just the iCloud. It’s selling storage that everybody needs because your phone is your home base. 

    Apple Is Well-Positioned In Wearables

    I think the iPhone is cyclical. There hasn’t been a big breakthrough. Everything has gotten a little smaller, a little better, a little cleaner, a little faster, and a little bit more secure. I don’t know what the next breakthrough is. What I do know is the need for mobility is endless. The kinds of things that are going to attach to our bodies seem to be endless. I think Apple is well-positioned to be that player. 

    Just in default mode, if you are a user of Apple products you prefer to use Apple products because it’s just easier. The payments there. The clicks there. The operating system is there. It’s just too familiar for you. They chose the highest-priced model. The highest-priced model is generally the smallest group and it ends quicker. The question is can they come up with lower-priced models and then make a lot of their money on subscription services.

    Apple Is Trying To Be A Subscription Company, Says Chegg Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig
  • Gabrielle Union Pens Emotionally Raw Open Letter Fighting Against Nude Photo Leak

    Gabrielle Union is still reeling after nude photos of the Being Mary Jane actress were stolen from the iCloud and leaked through social media in September.

    Union is so upset over the incident that she penned an open letter to Cosmopolitan magazine, in which she compares the experience to being raped.

    Union was very frank in her letter and described her disgust over the theft of her private photos and how it nearly ruined the her wedding and honeymoon with NBA great Dwyane Wade.

    “My honeymoon was plagued by thoughts of when I would get hit. It was always in the back of my mind: Will today be the day my life gets ruined? I thought about my family and everyone the scandal would affect — my mom, who teaches classes about Catholicism to kids, and the three boys I had become a stepmother to when I married Dwyane. My husband, meanwhile, would always have to wonder who had seen intimate photos of me that only he was supposed to see,” wrote Union.

    Union lamented the fact that, even though she and her new husband had deleted some of the photos, they were still recovered from the iCloud.

    “I wondered how a photo that was shot and deleted three years ago could be found. Sure enough, later that night, more pictures started popping up, one after another. All of them had been shot and deleted years ago. Yet there they were, online for the world to see. I felt extreme anxiety, a complete loss of control. I suddenly understood that deleting things means nothing. You think it’s gone? It’s not. What is the point of even including a delete function on a phone if it doesn’t really delete? I had deleted the photos from my phone, but apparently they had remained on some server somewhere, unbeknownst to me, where hackers could find them,” she wrote.

    “I called my reps and attorneys, pleading, ‘Get the photos taken down.’ They said it takes time — the shots were spreading fast, to some 50 sites within the first few hours. Nude pictures of other celebrities were appearing in this second wave too, including Rihanna and a new round of Jennifer Lawrence shots. I thought, this is a targeted attack, a hate crime against women. Photos of my friend Meagan Good showed up as well, and that really hurt — she’s like my little sister. We had become close while filming Deliver Us From Eva. She’s married to a pastor. I wanted to protect her from the inevitable character assassination. She was the target of a crime and did not deserve to be attacked,” wrote Union.

    Union wrote that something like this is a life-changing event, much like her experience of being raped in college.

    “I am adjusting to my new reality. Everything feels tainted. On Instagram, people tell me they’ve seen me naked. Walking into my favorite pizza place, I wonder who has seen the photos and what they are thinking. It’s part of daily life now. Some people have told me, ‘On the bright side, you look amazing in the photos.’ I know they mean well, but this is a criminal act, a gross violation. It reminds me of the time someone asked me if my rapist was ‘cute.’ That kind of misguided thinking lessens the severity of the crime and the horror of the experience.”

    Union offered hope and encouragement to others who feel betrayed and hurt, no matter the circumstances.

    “Here’s the way I choose to look at it: Bad things happen to people every day. It’s what we do with them that counts. If someone betrays your trust, such as a former boyfriend who posts photos of you online, you might feel like you’re alone on an island. You’re not. Talk to people who care for you. Just keep going. Whatever your dreams were before, they still remain. You might feel like nothing will ever be the same. And that’s true — nothing will be the same. Take that and change things,” encouraged Union.

    You can read Union’s entire letter here.

  • Find My iPhone Saves Crash Victim’s Life

    The “Find My iPhone” feature built into Apple devices is very handy for locating misplaced phones and iPads. It can be used to find the device by GPS, to send an audible tone to the device even if it is on silent, and even to erase the device remotely if it has been stolen. All you need to do is log in to iCloud with your Apple ID and you can do that and many other things.

    But for Melissa Vasquez, the feature was a literal lifesaver.

    Vasquez’ car flipped down a 500-foot ravine in the mountains near San Jose. Her car had an OnStar system in it, and police were notified of the crash. But OnStar’s system was having trouble pinpointing the location of the crash with enough accuracy to help police locate it.

    OnStar representatives were even able to sound the car horn repeatedly in an attempt to help police zero in on Vasquez’ location, but to no avail.

    Then one of the California Highway Patrol officers had an idea. Officer David Cameron tried to log in to iCloud using Vasquez’ known email address. The issue was guessing the password. Cameron used some common password combinations and managed to guess his way in. The service showed that Vasquez did, indeed, have her iPhone with her. He located the map coordinates where she was.

    Police found Vasquez face-down in the ravine, where she had been ejected from her car. She was rescued and treated in the hospital.

    David Cameron still feels like luck played a role in what he was able to do.

    “I made an educated guess based on a series of common numbers people use for passwords and on the third attempt I was able to get in,” Cameron said. “I think somebody was looking out for her. Things fell in place and had those things not fallen in place, it could have been a totally different story.”

    OnStar worked tirelessly to help police, but still caught some criticism over why their own service could not locate the vehicle. Perhaps their equipment was damaged in the crash. They did issue a statement:

    “We are saddened by this incident involving one of our subscribers. Our subscribers’ safety and security is OnStar’s utmost concern. We are currently conducting a complete investigation, including information we have received from our call centers, our cellular network provider, our engineering team and the local authorities to better understand what occurred.”

  • Eva Longoria Apple Breach: Will Apple Fix Issues?

    Eva Longoria didn’t have any nude photos of her leaked onto the internet from last weekend’s iCloud breach, but she did have an incident of her own.

    She claims that an Apple employee from San Antonio emailed her personally, retrieving her information from private records.

    “I’ve had a lot of problems of people breaking into my email,” Eva Longoria said during an interview with Billy Bush and Kit Hoover for Access Hollywood Live.

    “Wait, what were they sending you? Like, ‘Hi Eva, my name is John?’” Hoover asked.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVmuyQBvDBs

    “Yeah. ‘I made a dress I want to send it to you, I work at the Apple Store here in San Antonio’ and I’m like… what? Did someone give out my email? Or my phone! ‘I saw your phone number from your profile, I just wanted to call and say hi I’m a fan.’ …There are a lot of privacy issues,” Eva Longoria said.

    As scary as this is, privacy seems to be a huge problem for Apple right now. One that could get bigger if not attended to. So, has the nude celebrity photo scandal and Eva Longoria’s incident spurred Apple to do more to prevent this from happening again?

    So far, it seems so.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pws4ILHz9y4

    Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, admitted that they could have done more to inform clients of the risk of security breach. He now says they are doing more.

    Cook announced a series of new features that will be implemented to strengthen user security. He said Apple will alert users via email and push notifications when someone tries to change an account password, restore iCloud data to a new device, or when a device logs into an account for the first time.

    Hopefully, the nude celebrity photo scandal and Eva Longoria’s security breach have had enough impact to spur more improvements so that no one else’s naked pics on iCloud will end up all over the web.

  • ICloud Hack Photos: FBI Joins the Investigation Into Nude Photos Posted of Celebrities

    The FBI has joined the investigation into personal photos of A-list celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton that were reportedly hacked from the iCloud last week and posted online.

    ABC news is reporting that the FBI said it is “aware” of the hacking and is “addressing the matter.”

    The nude photos were posted on an image sharing site called 4chan and have since been reposted on numbers other social media sites, including Twitter, which has removed photos as they appear.

    The anonymous hackers claim they have personal photos of more than 100 celebrities.

    Lawrence’s camp is threatening legal action to any and all sites that post the photos of the Hunger Games actress.

    “This is a flagrant violation of privacy,” a spokesperson for Lawrence said. “The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”

    Lawrence Shire, Upton’s attorney, has issued a similar statement.

    “This is obviously an outrageous violation of our client, Kate Upton‘s, privacy,” he said. “We intend to pursue anyone disseminating or duplicating these illegally obtained images to the fullest extent possible.”

    The FBI issued a statement about its investigation into the breach.

    “The FBI is aware of the allegations concerning computer intrusions and the unlawful release of material involving high profile individuals, and is addressing the matter. Any further comment would be inappropriate at this time.”

    Although hackers claimed to have retrieved the photos from storage on the iCloud, those accusations have not been confirmed.

    Apple released a statement saying it is looking into the allegations and seeking to reassure its users that systems will not be compromised in the future.

    “We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report,” the statement said.

  • Jennifer Lawrence Nude Photos Leaked by Hackers

    It is the hottest leak since Bradley Manning got busted. An anonymous hacker claims to have hacked iCloud accounts for a number of celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Victoria Justice, Ariana Grande, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and several other stars. The hacker clims he has nude photos from these iCloud accounts, and is starting to leak them online.

    While some of the celebs he claims to have nudes of have come forward to say that the pics are fakes, not everyone is so lucky, including Jennifer Lawrence.

    A spokesperson for Jennifer Lawrence gave a statement to Huffington Post, saying, “This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”

    However, something seems to be amiss since the L.A. Police Department claims to have no knowledge of the whole situation. It might all sound like a case of a hoax, with Lawrence’s reps playing along for the publicity, but we can confirm that the pics have indeed been posted on Imgur.

    Another celeb is also confirming her own pics’ authenticity, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

    “To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves,” she said. “Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked.”

    And that is how this sort of thing happens. People take nude pictures, then delete them from their devices, not realizing that their devices are uploading them to iCloud accounts or syncing them across other devices. This is not a flaw, it is how iCloud and other such sync services are designed to work.

    The moral of the story here is simple: never take a nude photo with any device that can be connected to the Internet in any way. In fact, the better course is to do what The Boss suggests.

    Bruce Springsteen tells the story of a photographer girlfriend who was shooting a private photo session with him. Jokingly, Bruce started peeling off his clothes. His girlfriend stopped him with a warning: Never strip for photos, no matter how much you trust the photographer. As the years go by, you never know where those shots may end up, and how.

  • Apple Updates Its iLife Apps On Mac OS X And iOS

    Apple showed off MacBook Pro, Mac Pro and Mavericks today, but hardware is only as good as its software. To help along with that, Apple also updated its iLife apps for Mac OS X Mavericks and iOS.

    The big change to apps this year is that they all support the 64-bit architecture seen in the iPhone 5S. This allows Apple’s iOS apps to offer more of the features that have only since been seen in these apps for Mac OS X.

    To start off, iPhoto has been updated on both Mac OS X and iOS to be faster. The iPad version of the app also supports the Photo Books feature that was previously only available on Mac OS X. That means iPad users can now create a digital photo book to then have Apple print a physical copy for your coffee table.

    The next app shown was iMovie – Apple’s simple film editing software. With 64-bit iOS devices, users can now use “desktop class effects” on their mobile devices. You can also use picture-in-picture editing on mobile devices.

    Speaking of mobile devices, any footage captured in iMovie on an iPhone or iPad will now be automatically uploaded to iCloud. In short, you can access any video taken on your iOS devices on any other Apple device.

    Finally, Garage Band was updated with a new design for both iOS and Mac OS X Pro. It now supports up to 16 tracks on all devices, and 64-bit devices will support up to 32 tracks.

    All of these apps will be available today for free as part of the Mac OS X Mavericks update.

    [Image: Apple]

  • Apple Announces iWork For iCloud, Its Answer To Google Docs

    At its Worldwide Developers Conference today, Apple announced its answer to Google Docs, iWork for iCloud. This is a browser-based version of Apple’s productivity suite, iWork, which works on a Mac or a PC.

    Pretty straight forward. It’s iWork, but cloud-based. It works for Pages, Numbers and Keynote. It also works on non-Apple browsers, and on Windows. Public beta will be available this year.

    Ahead of the unveiling, CEO Tim Cook said that iCloud is the fastest-growing cloud service ever. It’s up to 300 million accounts since launch.

    “It took Facebook five years to reach this many accounts,” he noted.

    iTunes for iCloud users have re-downloaded their content 35 billion times. Game Center, has 240 million users, he said. There have been 800 billion iMessages sent, and 7.4 trillion push notifications delivered.

  • iCloud Helps Kentucky Woman Get Her Stolen iPhone Back

    Chalk up another success for Apple’s iCloud. A Louisville woman was able to help police track down a man who allegedly stole her iPhone thanks to Apple’s service.

    A 56-year-old man named Granville A. Cobble was reportedly arrested, and charged with theft by unlawful taking. According to Louisville’s Courier Journal, the woman tracked the phone to a repair store in the city. The newspaper reports:

    Police said Cobble tried to sell the phone there, but the store refused to buy the phone because Cobble didn’t know the password to unlock the phone. The store owner told police Cobble was a “regular customer of the store,” according to the report.

    The store was able to provide police with a photo of Cobble, leading to his identification, according to the report.

    WDRB reports that, according to an arrest warrant, the phone was stolen when someone broke into the woman’s car while it was parked at the E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park.

    Apple’s operating system, iOS, is getting its much anticipated iOS 6 update today, and along with that comes some new iCloud features.

  • iCloud Web Portal Getting Notes, Reminders, Find My iPhone Upgrades

    You may recall that back in May Apple briefly put up a new beta version of the iCloud website. This beta version hinted at some of the features that would be coming to iCloud with the launch of iOS 6 later this year, including web apps for Notes and Reminders. The iCloud beta page appeared to have been made live by mistake, though, as it disappeared rather quickly.

    Now, though, the new iCloud beta site is back, complete with clues about what Apple’s planning to do next with iCloud. If you navigate to the website, beta.icloud.com, you’ll see a page very similar to the one that was up back in May, just with some shuffled icons (see the lead image above).

    Unfortunately, you have to have a developer account to sign into the beta version of the iCloud web portal. I, alas, do not have a developer account. Fortunately, though, the good folks over at iJailbreak do, and they were able to get in and play with some of the new features. This is what the control panel for iCloud Beta looks like when you sign in:

    iCloud Beta Control Panel

    As you can see, there are quite a few features that aren’t there in the public version, most notably Notes and Reminders. For comparison, here’s the control panel for the public version of iCloud:

    iCloud Control Panel

    You may also have noticed in the beta version that the Calendar and Find My iPhone icons have beta tags on them as well. Apparently Apple is working on some updates for those, including a battery percentage indicator in Find My iPhone.

    There’s no hint as to when these new iCloud features will be rolling out to the rest of us. Mountain Lion is right around the corner, so the likeliest answer is that these updates will go public when it releases, though it’s possible they’ll be out sooner (or later).

  • iWork.com Shuts Down on July 31, Time To Clear Out

    It seems that now is not a good time to be using one of Apple’s older cloud services. This morning we brought you news that Apple had, as promised, pulled the plug on MobileMe over the weekend, giving users one last chance to clear their data out or lose it forever. Now Apple’s other cloud service – the iWork.com beta – is on its last legs as well. Just like with MobileMe, iWork.com’s features are getting rolled into iCloud.

    Apple opened up the iWork.com beta in 2009 to provide iWork users a way to store and edit their documents in the cloud. A year later, though, they announced iCloud. In March of this year, they announced that the iWork.com beta would be closing down on July 31st. With MobileMe officially done, iWork.com is the last of Apple’s non-iCloud cloud services.

    Today, Apple started sending out emails to iWork.com beta users reminding them that the service would be shutting down at the end of the month and encouraging them to migrate their data to iCloud. They’ve also put a rather prominent notice up on iWork.com, to the same effect:

    iWork.com Closing July 31

    So, the moral of the story is, if you’re still using a cloud service from Apple that isn’t iCloud, you’d be best advised to go ahead and move your stuff.

  • MobileMe Is Dead; Long Live iCloud

    MobileMe Is Dead; Long Live iCloud

    We’ve been telling you for awhile now that Apple was making preparations for the final shutdown of MobileMe, the cloud service that preceded iCloud. When Apple first announced iCloud at last year’s WWDC keynote, they said that the older (and formerly paid) MobileMe service would be going offline on June 30th. On Saturday, right on schedule, Apple officially pulled the plug on MobileMe.

    If you’re one of the remaining MobileMe users who hadn’t yet made the switch, you can no longer log into MobileMe to access any of your stuff as of Saturday. For a limited time, however, Apple is still offering you the chance to go ahead and make the switch to iCloud.

    Apple has taken several steps in recent weeks to prepare users for this and to encourage them to make the jump to iCloud. For starters, they offered remaining MobileMe users a free upgrade to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Since iCloud requires OS X 10.7 Lion and Lion can only be installed on a system running Snow Leopard, many users of OS X 10.5 Leopard have not upgraded – after all, for all that Lion is only $30, Snow Leopard is $120. Making Snow Leopard free removed a major monetary obstacle to upgrade.

    Apple also extended the period during which those who made the switch would get their additional storage for free. Many who had paid for extra MobileMe storage were reluctant to switch. To encourage them to go ahead and do it, Apple originally offered to let them have the corresponding iCloud service package for free for a brief period after the switch. In [MONTH; May?] they extended that period until September.

    Finally, they sent out emails to the remaining MobileMe users last month reminding them that the MobileMe shutdown was imminent and encouraging them to make the switch.

    As noted above, you can still clear out your MobileMe account and move your data to iCloud for a limited time. It is not clear just how long Apple will keep that last window of opportunity open, though. Eventually the service will be shut down completely, whereupon any user data still in the system will presumably be lost. So if you’re one of the last MobileMe holdouts, now’s the time to get your stuff out of the system before it’s gone for good.

  • iOS 6: What’s New In The New Beta

    Yesterday we told you that Apple had released the second beta version of iOS 6 to developers. At the time little was known about the update, since Apple didn’t include a changelog with the new release. In the 20 hours since then, though, iOS developers have gotten the chance to explore the update and see what’s new.

    According to 9to5Mac, who have done a pretty thorough examination of the new beta, Apple has made quite a few small changes (in addition to the expected bug fixes). The first thing the new beta did is reveal a change that was actually made with iOS 6 beta 1. It seems that now when you tap the “Download and Install” button, the gears on the Settings icon are animated so that they turn. Unfortunately, though, this only applies to the gear icon on the software update page, not the actual Settings App homescreen icon.

    One small change introduced with iOS 6 beta 2 is the Twitter icon. A few weeks ago Twitter made a minor change to their famous bird icon. With yesterday’s update the iOS’s Twitter-related features now take that into account. The new icon is visible on both the Tap to Tweet button in Notification Center, and in the sharing menu:

    iOS 6 Beta 2

    The second small change is much more useful. Calendar events displayed in Notification Center now show their end time as well as their start time:

    iOS 6 Beta 2

    The update also has introduces some changes that allow the user to have a little more control over what is shared and how. First, there are now more options for deciding which items get synced via iCloud. Previously you could decide whether to use your cellular data network to sync iCloud documents and iTunes, but not your Safari Reading List. With iOS 6 beta 2, Reading List has been added to the menu.

    iOS 6 Beta 2

    Finally, you can also fine tune your use of Photo Stream. Photo Stream, introduced with iOS 5, lets you upload every picture you take with your iOS device to iCloud. When Apple introduced iOS 6 at WWDC 2012 two weeks ago, they unveiled a new feature: Shared Photo Streams. With Shared Photo Streams, you can let your friends see the pictures you’re taking. In iOS 6 beta 2, you can now turn Shared Photo Streams on and off from the same screen where you turn Photo Stream on and off.

    iOS 6 Beta 2

    Of course, the fact that the new beta has these features doesn’t necessarily mean that the final version of iOS will have them. After all, we’re still a few months away from the public release of iOS 6 and the new iPhone. As Apple has proven with past betas, a lot can change in that time.

  • iCloud And iMessage Users Experiencing Outages

    Some users of Apple’s iCloud and iMessage services are reporting outages this afternoon. It appears that Apple is having server problems that are preventing users from connecting. The problems also appear to be affecting developer portals for iOS and OS X. Users were unable to log into the developer portals or iCloud’s web portal, while iMessage users’ messages were not being sent.

    iCloud Connection Error

    It’s not clear exactly when the outage began, though MacRumors first noted it about three hours ago. Apple took notice as well and posted to their iCloud System Status page about the outage. They did not give a timeline as to when it would be fixed other than “ASAP.”

    Apparently, though “ASAP” really means “PDQ,” because the system appears to be back up and running for everyone. According to the system status page, everything is online as of about 20 minutes ago.

    iCloud System Status

    There’s no information on just how many users experienced this problem (I know I didn’t). As you can tell, the entry on the status page for the outage only says that “some” users were affected. There is also no word on what caused the outage.