iOS

Ahead of GDPR in Europe, Apple has released iOS 11.3, complete with a selection of privacy-focused tools. But while privacy is at the heart of the release, it is far from being the end of the story.

The recent Facebook scandal has focused attention on privacy, and this is something Apple will be more than happy to capitalize upon, bringing GDPR-prompted tools to the world -- not just Europe. But iOS 11.3 also includes an extensive changelog with a range of fixes and updates.

By its very nature, searches on Google Images are very visual things -- but that's not to say they couldn't be enhanced with some non-pictorial content. And that's exactly what Google has done, adding captions to image search results to make them more useful.

The aim is to provide greater context about results, giving users the chance to judge the quality of the image, and to perhaps determine whether the host site will have other useful images.

Apple has unveiled new logos for its MFi Program. The Made For iPhone/iPad/iPod Program is a certification program used to indicate that third-party accessories meet Apple's standards for quality.

Having launched a new set of simplified logos, Apple is giving manufacturers 90 days to switch to the new designs. The change may seem minor, but there are three tweaks worth noting.

It's not all that long since it came to light that Apple was purposefully reducing the speed of older iPhones in order to compensate for aging batteries. In the wake of the backlash that followed, the company announced a cheap battery replacement program, and also plans to introduce an update to iOS that allowed users to opt out of this performance reduction.

But just how significant was the slowdown? One iPhone user has released a video showing the performance difference between an old iPhone 6s, and the same phone with a new battery. The results are noteworthy to say the least.

Google has released an update for its iOS app that adds an extension to iMessage. This allows for easy searching -- be it for GIFs or restaurant opening times -- while you chat, so there's no need to leave the app. More than this, it is also possible to share the information you find as a card.

The update also brings an expansion of sharing to all web browsers, including Safari. Share a page to the Google app, and you'll see a list of related suggestions. But it doesn't end there. Google has also introduced new options for iPad users.

It's easy to get excited about new technologies when you're privileged to live in one of the handful of markets and speak one of the few languages that tech companies support. Case in point: voice assistants. You can read about Cortana, Alexa or Google Assistant, but, chances are, for many people that's where the fun ends.

The problems are dead obvious, but, at least when it comes to Google Assistant, things will drastically improve this year, as Google today announces that it's expanding the availability of the service to include over 30 languages -- a huge increase over the eight it supports now.

Android and iOS users who are not happy with the stock keyboard on their device have lots of third-party options to choose from. Among the established alternatives is Swype, which has been available for nearly five years on Android and over three on iOS. It's actually one of the first third-party keyboards I tried on both platforms.

Swype, however, hasn't really caught on in quite the same way that, say, SwiftKey has, which is likely the reason why the company behind the app, Nuance, has announced that it's reached "end of development." In other words, Swype users, your favorite keyboard is now discontinued.

Facebook and privacy are not words that really belong in the same sentence, so the idea that the social network is offering a VPN tool might well raise your suspicions. Back in 2013, Facebook acquired Onavo, the company behind the VPN tool Protect.

Recently, users of the Facebook iOS app noticed a link to something labelled Protect within settings. While this appears to be a built-in setting, it is in fact just a link to the Onavo Protect VPN app -- and the idea of a Facebook-owned VPN tool being promoted from within the Facebook app has people concerned. Take a look at the app description, and you may well understand why.

The number of people running Oreo may well be very small, but there's already talk about the next version of Android -- Android P. Reports about what has been named internally as Pistachio Ice Cream promise not only a design overhaul, but also iPhone X-style notch support.

The Oreo successor is due for release later this year, and a Bloomberg report shed some light on what we can expect, including tighter Google Assistant integration, support for different phone formats, and improved battery life.

Apple may have just released iOS 11.3 beta 2, but the attention of world turned to the iOS source code that leaked to GitHub. The iPhone maker has confirmed that code for iOS 9's iBoot had leaked, but stressed its age.

The company said that the leak does not pose a security threat to users, insisting that "the security of our products doesn't depend on the secrecy of our source code." But while Apple tries to play down the leak, there's no denying that it is highly significant and an unprecedented embarrassment.

The source code for the iOS bootloader iBoot has been leaked to GitHub, prompting Apple to issue a DMCA takedown notice.

Although the source code is for iOS 9.3 and a couple of years old, it appears to be the real deal and would still cause something of a headache for Apple. Copies of the code have been circulating online despite the takedown notice, and the concern is that it could be used to exploit iOS with malware.

Going under the banner of Emoji 11.0, a raft of new emojis are due to hit the screen of iOS and Android devices later this year.

After being previewed late last year, the full list of emojis has now been published by the Unicode Consortium, and they're due to be launched in the second half of 2018 -- August or September. What can you look forward to? New red-haired and bald men and women feature, as do a female superhero, a pirate flag and a microbe.

The iPhone X was among the best-selling smartphones in major markets like Europe, Japan and US in December, according to a new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Apple's flagship helped iOS gain market share in five major European markets.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech's report comes just after Nikkei claimed that iPhone X was selling bellow expectations. Nikkei based its analysis on supply figures from Apple's partners, which may not accurately reflect consumers' interest in the flagship.

Most CI and DevOps vendors are focused on Linux-based applications, which means supporting Windows or iOS requires multiple platforms, or managing their own instances of Jenkins. This can lead to an inefficient, expensive and inconsistent experience.

Automation platform Shippable is addressing this issue with the launch of support for applications built on Mac OS X, iOS, and Windows, plus new analytics tools.

Many iPhone owners were disappointed to learn that Apple had been purposefully slowing their handsets, with many people believing it confirmed rumors that Apple slowed older iPhones to encourage upgrades.

Facing a backlash, the company explained that the forced performance degradation was an attempt to maximize battery life, and it then announced a cheaper battery replacement program. Now Tim Cook has said that a future iOS update will make iPhone throttling optional.