Articles about Mobile App

Most companies not putting adequate investment into application security

open digital lock

According to a new survey from Arxan, only 25 percent of respondents say their organization is making a significant investment in solutions to prevent application attacks.

This is despite awareness of the negative impact of malicious activity. A worrying 65 percent of companies say they would be spurred to increase application protection measures only after an end user or customer was negatively affected.

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Google launches Android Jetpack to speed up app development

Android Jetpack

Google has a new tool designed to help developers produce Android apps faster than ever. Called Android Jetpack, it builds on the Support Library and has a strong focus on backwards compatibility.

Android Jetpack also builds on Architecture Components, giving developers access to components, tools and architectural guidance split into four categories -- architecture, foundation, UI and behavior. Each component is provided as an "unbundled" library which Google says means you can "adopt each component at your own speed, at your own time".

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Apple tells developers that apps must support iPhone X notch from July

Apple has issued new guidelines for iOS apps submitted to the App Store, with the biggest change being that developers must use the iOS 11 SDK.

Devs are advised that they should "update your version of Xcode to the latest release of Xcode 9 available on the Mac App Store" as this includes the relevant SDK. Apple also says that apps should be "ready to take advantage of the Super Retina display by respecting safe areas, supporting adaptive layouts, and more".

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The best Android apps and games revealed in 2018 Google Play Awards

2018 Google Play Awards

It's not long since Google's Android Excellence program bestowed praise on apps and games on what were considered to offer a high quality experience. Now the company has used Google I/O to reveal the winners of the 2018 Google Play Awards.

Google says that the aim of the ceremony is to "recognize the best apps and games on Google Play over the past year", and it's a great way to discover something new to try.

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Microsoft announces Your Phone, an app to view your iPhone or Android device in Windows 10

Microsoft Your Phone

Having given up on its own mobile operating system, Microsoft has a greater interest in Android and iOS than ever before. Today at its Build 2018 developer conference, the company announces a new app called Your Phone.

The purpose of the app is to enable you to connect your computer to an iPhone or Android device and access the handset's contents without having to pick it up. As well as being able to view and respond to text messages from the comfort of your PC, you'll also be able to move files to and from your phone.

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Opera launches (another) mobile app -- Opera Touch 1.0 links in with Opera desktop browser

Opera Software has launched Opera Touch 1.0 a mobile app for Android (with iOS due to follow shortly). It joins existing mobile apps Opera and Opera Mini.

The new app is designed to work in tandem with Opera’s desktop browser using Flow, a means of instantly sharing tabs between desktop and mobile. It’s also been optimized to facilitate fast web searches and for one-handed use.

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Online banking security improves but only a third are free of critical vulnerabilities

Bank card security

The percentage of critical vulnerabilities in online banking systems is falling, but two thirds still contain at least one critical vulnerability according to a new report.

Enterprise security specialist Positive Technologies has released its Financial Application Vulnerabilities Report, drawn from audits performed by the company.

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AI-powered offline translation comes to Microsoft Translator apps

Translation button

Having a translation app on your phone is great when you're abroad and want to be able to speak in the local lingo. But if you find yourself without an internet connection, you might struggle to find the words you need.

If you're a Microsoft Translator user, however, this now changes. Microsoft has introduced free, downloadable AI-powered translation packs which the company says brings "the benefit of neural translation technology regardless of whether the device is connected to the cloud or offline".

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Opera VPN app to be permanently discontinued

Opera launched its VPN app for Android and iOS two years ago. The free app provided users with secure VPN encryption to the web (with support for spoofing one of five countries), plus the blocking of both ads and tracking cookies.

At a time when privacy is at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds, and VPNs are growing in popularity, it will perhaps come as a surprise to hear that Opera has made the decision to discontinue its app as of April 30. Yes, that’s the end of this month.

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International Shopping experience comes to the Amazon Shopping app

Amazon parcels

Amazon is making it easier to browse for goods from international sellers and have them shipped to your home country. The company is bringing the "International Shopping" experience to the Amazon Shopping app, and this simplifies the process of accessing Amazon with local language support and to track down items that ship to your country.

The new experience is available to iOS and Android users, and there is support for Spanish, English, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and German. To start with 25 currencies are supported, but more are due to be added later in the year.

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Thousands of Android apps have built-in crypto keys and passwords

Red and blue security padlock

A large number of free Android apps suffer with flaky security because software developers are leaving cryptographic keys embedded and passwords hard-coded.

Speaking at the BSides security conference in San Francisco, software vulnerability analyst Will Dormann revealed how he had found serious security problems in thousands upon thousands of apps. After testing 1.8 million apps, he found almost 20,000 featured built-in passwords and keys, and even when a separate password store was used, user data was still open to attack from simple password crackers.

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Discover the best apps and games with Google's Android Excellence April 2018 update

Android Excellence April 2018

It's less than a year since Google launched the Android Excellence program through which the company highlights the very best Android apps and games. The list is refreshed every three months, and Google has now published details of the winners of the accolade for April 2018.

The latest installment includes titles such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC, SoloLearn: Learn to Code for Free, and MARVEL Contest of Champions.

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Intel Remote Keyboard app nixed after discovery of critical remote control vulnerability

Intel logo building

Intel has issued a security advisory about its remote keyboard app after discovering a bug that made it possible for a remote user to mimic keyboard and mouse input with elevated privileges.

Intel Remote Keyboard was available for both iOS and Android, but the critical vulnerability -- and two other bugs with a High rating -- means that it has now been pulled from Google Play and the App Store. Intel is also recommending that anyone using the app uninstalls it as soon as possible.

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Grindr was sharing users' location and HIV status with third parties

Grindr on smartphone

Last week there was an outcry after it was revealed that it was relatively simple to determine the location of Grindr users because of a security flaw. The company has now also admitted that it shared information from users' profiles with third parties -- specifically the analytics companies Apptimize and Localytics -- including their HIV status.

Grindr was quick to point out that, firstly, the information was sent via HTTPS, secondly, that the data was not sold to the analytics companies (it was provided free of charge) and, thirdly, that the data was public anyway. All three of these points will come as little comfort to Grindr users, but the company has said that it will now stop the practice of sharing HIV-related information.

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Less than half of Android security apps offer effective protection

A new study from independent testing lab AV-Comparatives reveals that of over 200 Android security apps tested the majority are dubious, unsafe or ineffective.

The company downloaded 204 apps from the Google Play store in January this year and found 84 of the apps detected over 30 percent of malicious samples, and had zero false alarms. 79 detected under 30 percent of malware samples and/or had a high false alarm rate.

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