Articles about iOS

Research published by security firms Trend Micro and Kaspersky reveals details of a watering-hole campaign targeting iPhone users.

Dubbed Operation Poisoned News, the campaign used malicious links on local news websites to install the LightSpy malware. Hackers have been exploiting vulnerabilities in iOS to install the spyware which can gather huge amounts of information and can also be used to take remote control of a device.

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With so many people now working from home, video conferencing service Zoom has become a household name virtually overnight. But while millions of users appreciate the ability to connect with the office, colleagues, friends and family for free, a worrying privacy issue has been found.

The Zoom iOS app has been spotted sharing data with Facebook... even for users that don't have a Facebook account. So what's going on?

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Podcasts are wildly popular these days, and it is not hard to see why. If you can think of a topic, there is probably a podcast about it! For instance, the coronavirus is the hot subject of the moment, and there are countless shows dedicated to that pandemic. If you want a distraction from the virus, however, you can listen to podcasts that cover sports, news, cooking, and more.

Just as there are many podcasts, there are also many podcast apps too. If you are an iPhone user, for instance, you can use Apple’s stock podcast app or head to the App Store to download a third-party option. Now, iPhone users are getting yet another option. You see, Google has long had a podcast app for Android, and the company recently redesigned it. Now, the search-giant is bringing the newly refreshed app to iOS.

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MX Player is not only a nifty media player, for some time it has also offered free streaming services in India. Now this is expanding into seven new markets including the US, the UK and Australia.

While not linked to the coronavirus pandemic, the offer of free entertainment will please many people who find themselves stuck at home. MX Player is home to both licensed and original content, which is currently enjoyed by 175 million monthly users.

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If you've been having trouble using your iPhone or iPad as a hotspot for other devices, you are not alone. Many people have experienced problems using the Personal Hotspot feature, either failing to connect at all, or suffering frequent disconnections.

Although Apple is yet to publicly acknowledge that there are issues, leaked internal documents show that the company is aware of the problem and has warned Authorized Service Providers that there may be an influx of queries from customers.

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It is somewhat surprising that the Microsoft-owned GitHub has been around for so long without there being a mobile app, but now this is changing. After a period of beta testing, GitHub for mobile is now available.

The app makes it possible for development teams to keep in contact on the move, as well as merging code from the comfort of a smartphone or tablet.

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Push notifications could be about to become rather more irritating for iPhone and iPad users. Apple has updated its App Store Review Guidelines, giving developers permission to use push notifications for advertising purposes.

There is something of a silver lining to this dark cloud, however. App-makers are not being given carte blanche to bombard people with an endless stream of ads; Apple says ads are only permitted when "customers have explicitly opted in to receive them". Nonetheless, it marks a major policy change for Apple.

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Apple has agreed to settle legal action taken against it for deliberately slowing down older iPhones. Having already been fined €25 million by a French consumer watchdog the company has now agreed to settle in the US -- something which could cost it $500 million.

Apple previously admitted to the practice of slowing down phones, saying it was to increase the life of devices with aging batteries. The new agreement in the US could see Apple paying out $25 to those affected by updates to iOS that slowed down their iPhones.

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Microsoft has released a public preview of its Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) for various Linux distributions.

The company says that the tool will also be coming to iOS and Android later this year, and more details of these mobile editions are due to be revealed at next week's RSA Conference. The spread to additional platform comes after Microsoft rebranded Windows Defender as Microsoft Defender last year.

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One of the issues some people have with Twitter is the character limit imposed on individual tweets. While the restriction is very much the point of the site, there are times when 280 characters is just not enough... hence threading.

There's nothing to stop you from manually creating a tweet thread, but it's not something that everyone is familiar with. So to help out, Twitter has added a new button to make things easier. It's not the tweet editing option people are still begging for, but a way to link tweets together.

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The latest update to iOS will please anyone with privacy concerns. iOS 13.3.1 gives iPhone owners the chance to toggle the location-tracking U1 Ultra Wideband chip on and off -- something Apple promised a couple of months ago.

There was controversy when security experts discovered that the chip meant iPhones were periodically tracking people's location even when location services were disabled. Now it is possible to ensure that such tracking cannot be carried out.

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When app hackers discovered references to Disappearing Messages in beta versions of WhatsApp, it was -- understandably -- assumed that this was going to develop into a self-destructing messages feature. But when the same option was renamed to the less-exciting Delete Messages, the name didn't really tally.

Further details shared by WABetaInfo about the latest beta of the WhatsApp app for iOS shows that the feature is very much not what people were expecting... or hoping. Oh, and if you were hoping for a Dark Mode option, you're going to have to wait a bit longer.

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Microsoft has quietly confirmed the rumors that it is planning to discontinue its Cortana digital assistant for some users. Starting next year, the company will no longer support Cortana on either iOS or Android in certain markets.

While Microsoft is yet to confirm which countries will be affected, the UK, Canada and Australia are known to be on the list. The change means that there will be no Cortana mobile app, and integration will be removed from the Microsoft Launcher.

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Facebook is hardy a name that synonymous with privacy, and a newly discovered issue with the iOS version of the Facebook app does nothing to improve the situation.

Web designer Joshua Maddux was alarmed to find that the app was secretly using the camera on his iPhone as he scrolled through his Facebook feed. The problem has been confirmed by others, but it appears to only affects certain iPhones and certain versions of iOS.

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Like many users, we prefer to use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox over either Edge or Safari. Problem is, if you use a third-party browser to store your logins and passwords, move to your iOS device and they aren’t stored in your keychain.

Recent iOS changes have enabled third-party password managers to be granted access to any login on your device, so for this reason Mozilla has launched Lockwise which will separate your stored Firefox passwords from your browser.

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