iphone Archives - Iran News Daily

Analyst says 2019 Apple iPhone models will have USB-C port and in-display Touch ID

reporter 1222 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 11:00:39 +0000

We already know that the 2019 Apple iPhone models are expected to look very similar to the 2018 versions. Some believe that the only difference will be more AR capabilities. However, according to a column in Forbes written by Jean Baptiste Su, Vice-President and Principal Analyst at Atherton Research, the 2019 Apple iPhone units will feature a USB-C port and will come equipped with an in-screen Touch ID fingerprint scanner.

A smaller notch is also rumored to be onboard the 2019 iPhones, and that makes sense. As the technology found in the notch shrinks in size, Apple should be able to reduce the size of the notch as well. In addition, Apple could be adding a TrueDepth Camera to the back of the 2019 iPhones. Unlike the structured light method currently used on the front-facing version of the camera, Apple is said to be considering using the “Time of Flight” method for the back of the 2019 models. This is a less expensive system that is easier to manufacturer than the current method.

Apple dropped the proprietary Lightning port on the iPad Pro last year, and many are hoping that the same thing happens to the iPhone this year. The move to USB-C might make it easier for iPhone users to find accessories for their handset. It also could help them find cheaper alternatives when they need to replace their charger.

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Apple reportedly investigated the iPhone supply chain in China, but found no evidence of wrong doing

reporter 1222 — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 07:35:05 +0000

According to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal, earlier this year Apple investigated its supply chain, looking for misconduct among its suppliers. The U.S. based tech giant reportedly shook up its suppliers in China by looking for evidence of kickback schemes and bribes. The investigation also rattled Apple’s own employees in China since any indication of wrong doing could have involved the company’s own employees.

Suppliers that were in Apple’s crosshairs still provided the tech giant with parts, which was in Apple’s best interests. Finding a new supplier for iPhone components on such short notice would have been hard to do. As it turned out, no supplier had to be dropped; Apple told the Journal that it found no evidence of kickbacks or bribes. Still, an Apple executive involved in the procurement of parts and two junior-members of the supply-management team in China left the company in May. According to people familiar with Apple’s probe, this was around the same time that Apple started to sniff around one supplier, questioning it about possible kickbacks paid to Apple employees.

Back in 2010, an Apple global supply manager named Paul Shin Devine was accused of receiving over $1 million in kickbacks from six Apple suppliers in Asia. In the U.S., he was arrested, and after admitting to receiving the money from the suppliers, he was sentenced to a year in prison. He was also ordered to pay $4.5 million in restitution

Apple’s in-house rules prevent its employees from accepting gifts and meals from suppliers. Apple also has a code of conduct for suppliers, which is posted online. It states the company’s positions on a number of issues from how suppliers treat their work force (no discrimination and harassment is allowed) and notes that Apple will come down hard on suppliers who use underage labor and overwork and underpay employees. In addition, Apple writes that suppliers “shall not engage in corruption, extortion, embezzlement, or bribery to obtain an unfair or improper advantage.” Still, with the amount of money at stake, Apple must wonder if the temptation is too much for some suppliers and employees.

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Chrome’s Glass Ceiling on an iPhone

reporter 1222 — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 08:15:55 +0000

Apple may prevent you from swapping out some of its own apps for your preferred defaults, but you can at least get your choices within easy reach.

Q. My iPhone opens up web pages in Safari. Is there a way to change the default browser to Chrome?

A. The current version of the iOS software uses Apple’s Safari browserand does not allow you to select different browser apps to automatically open links. As Google’s own support pages for the iOS version of Chrome note, “You can’t make Chrome your default browser, but you can add it to your dock.” Adding the app to the dock — that strip of icons along the bottom of the screen — will not make Chrome jump up to open links you may get in a text or an email message, but it does keep the icon within thumb range when you’d like to start browsing.

To put Chrome in the iPhone’s dock, you may need to make room for it by moving another app’s icon first. In the dock, just press and hold your finger on the app you want to move until it begins to wiggle, then drag it up to a different part of the home screen. While the apps are still wiggling, drag the Chrome icon into the dock. Press the Home button to calm the icons.

Image

It may not be a default app, but you can at least put the Chrome browser icon in the iPhone’s dock so you can find it quickly.CreditThe New York Times

It is not impossible to change your iPhone’s default apps or tinker around with other settings, even though Apple’s official version of iOS prohibits such actions. However, to do that, you need to “jailbreak” your device and install unauthorized software on it. Apple deeply frowns on this activity and will not generally provide technical support for a jailbroken phone running someone else’s software.

Android users do have the option to choose a new default browser. To do so, open the Settings app, select Apps & Notifications and tap Advanced at the bottom of the screen. Select Default Apps, tap Browser app and pick the installed browser program you wish to use.

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New iOS Security Feature Ripe for Defeat

reporter 1222 — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 08:30:36 +0000

A new feature in iOS 11.4.1, which Apple released earlier this week, is designed to protect against unwanted intrusions through the iPhone’s Lightning Port. However, the protection may be weak at best.

The feature, called “USB Restricted Mode,” disables data transfer through the Lightning Port after an hour of inactivity.

A password-protected iOS device that has not been unlocked and connected to a USB accessory within the past hour will not communicate with an accessory or computer, and in some cases might not charge, according to Apple. Users might see a message directing them to unlock the device to use accessories.

One possible use for USB Restricted Mode could be to foil passcode-cracking solutions made by companies like Cellebrite and Grayshift, which reportedly have been used by law enforcement authorities to crack iPhones.

Users can turn off the USB Restricted Mode capability if they desire to do so.

Thwarting Data Port Intruders

Although the Lightning port may be a sweet spot for law enforcement, USB Restricted Mode has a broader purpose than protecting users from police probes, maintained Will Strafach, president of Sudo Security Group, an iOS security company in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“Exploits and vulnerabilities can be seized on by anyone,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Criminals may want to steal data from the device or wipe it, so this mode is for mitigation of any kind of USB-based vulnerability.”

USB Restricted Mode is “first and foremost” designed to protect its users’ phones and data, maintained Andrew Blaich, head of device intelligence at Lookout, a maker of mobile security products in San Francisco.

“Law enforcement has recently been using new tools, such as GrayKey, to guess the passcode of a device to access it,” he told TechNewsWorld.

However, the vulnerabilities and technical bypasses used by GrayKey — and by solutions from Cellebrite and others — are still unknown, he pointed out.

Smart Approach

The code GrayKey uses to break the passcode on an iPhone is a closely held secret, but it appears to load through the Lightning Port.

“So Apple’s idea is to make a user enter a passcode after an hour. Otherwise the Lightning Port can only be used for power,” said Sudo’s Strafach.

“Without a data connection, there’s no way to communicate with the data services running on the phone, so there’s no way to access any vulnerabilities on the phone,” he explained.

“Instead of trying to address individual vulnerabilities, Apple is addressing a whole class of vulnerabilities that need the data link to be exploited,” Strafach pointed out.

“That’s smart,” he said. “It’s taking a long-term outlook on vulnerabilities. Rather than squashing vulnerabilities as they come up, they’re taking a proactive approach and mitigating the method by which these vulnerabilities are exploited.”

Breaking Restricted Mode

Once USB Restricted Mode is engaged, it appears to be impossible to break, so the key to foiling the security measure is to prevent it from engaging.

Oleg Afonin, a security researcher at ElcomSoft, has described exactly how to do that in an online post.

“What we discovered is that iOS will reset the USB Restrictive Mode countdown timer even if one connects the iPhone to an untrusted USB accessory, one that has never been [connected] to the iPhone before,” he wrote.

If USB Restricted Mode hasn’t been engaged, a police officer can seize an iPhone and immediately connect a compatible USB accessory to prevent the USB Restricted Mode lock from engaging after one hour, he explained. Then the device can be taken to a location where a passcode cracker can be used.

What’s the likelihood that a phone hasn’t been unlocked within an hour of it being seized by a law enforcement agent? Quite high, according to Afonin, who noted the average user unlocks a phone around 80 times a day.

Apple did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

“Nothing is a silver bullet,” warned Lookout’s Blaich.

“There is no perfect solution, but it’s best to assume that if someone has physical access to your phone, they will eventually be able to find a way to get in,” he said. “So users need to remember to use a strong passcode to minimize unintended access when they lose possession of their device.”

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Jury tells Samsung to pay big for copying iPhone design

reporter 1222 — Fri, 25 May 2018 08:00:27 +0000

A federal court jury on Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $533 million for copying iPhone design features in a patent case dating back seven years.

Jurors tacked on an additional $5 million in damages for a pair of patented functions. The award appeared to be a bit of a victory for Apple, which had argued in court that design was essential to the iPhone.

The case was keenly watched as a precedent for whether design is so important that it could actually be considered the “article of design” even in a product as complex as a smartphone.

“We don’t think it is supported by the evidence,” Samsung attorney John Quinn told US District Court Judge Lucy Koh after the verdict was read in her courtroom in Silicon Valley.

“We have every concern about the determinations about the article of manufacture.”

Quinn declined an offer by the judge to send jurors back for further deliberation, saying Samsung would pursue post-trial motions to address its concerns about the verdict.

Juror Christine Calderon said the panel agreed that one of the design patents — the grid of colored icons — did represent the whole phone, while the other two at issue in the trial were seen as the display assembly that gave the iPhone its look.

She compared it to the Mona Lisa: “you use the paint, but it is not the article of manufacture.”

“I had to really think about it,” the 26-year-old Calderon, a technical writer, said after Koh dismissed the jury.

“We kind of felt like we ended up at a happy medium.”

– Long legal road –

The case had been sent back to the district court following a Supreme Court decision to revisit an earlier $400 million damage award.

Apple reasoned in court that design was so integral to the iPhone that it was the “article of manufacture” and worth all the money Samsung made by copying the features.

The lower figure sought by the South Korean consumer electronics titan would have involved treating the design features as components.

The jury had been asked to determine whether design features at issue in the case are worth all profit made from Samsung smartphones that copied them — or whether those features are worth just a fraction because they are components.

Apple argued in court that the iPhone was a “bet-the-company” project at Apple and that design is as much the “article of manufacture” as the device itself.

The three design patents in the case apply to the shape of the iPhone’s black screen with rounded edges and a bezel, and the rows of colorful icons displayed.

Samsung no longer sells the smartphone models at issue in the case.

Two utility patents also involved apply to “bounce-back” and “tap-to-zoom” functions.

An original trial finding that Samsung violated Apple patents preceded a lengthy appellate dueling over whether design features such as rounded edges are worth all the money made from a phone.

– Technology vs Style –

Samsung challenged the legal precedent that requires the forfeiture of all profits from a product, even if only a single design patent has been infringed.

The US Supreme Court in 2016 overturned the penalty imposed on the South Korean consumer electronics giant.

Justices ruled that Samsung should not be required to forfeit the entire profits from its smartphones for infringement on design components, sending the case back to a lower court.

“Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages,” the South Korean company said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.”

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The key question of the value of design patents rallied Samsung supporters in the tech sector, and Apple backers in the creative and design communities.

Samsung won the backing of major Silicon Valley and other IT sector giants, including Google, Facebook, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, claiming a strict ruling on design infringement could lead to a surge in litigation.

Apple was supported by big names in fashion and manufacturing. Design professionals, researchers and academics, citing precedents like Coca-Cola’s iconic soda bottle.

The case is one element of a $548 million penalty — knocked down from an original $1 billion jury award — Samsung was ordered to pay for copying iPhone patents.

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