On the face of it, the update seems like one of those take-it-or-leave-it updates. There are lots of mentions of the iPhone 12 in the release notes, and that might make owners of other iPhones give it a pass.
iOS 14.4 release notes
iOS 14.4 includes the following improvements for your iPhone:
Smaller QR codes can be recognized by Camera
Option to classify Bluetooth device type in Settings for correct identification of headphones for audio notifications
Notifications for when the camera on your iPhone is unable to be verified as a new, genuine Apple camera in iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max
This release also fixes the following issues:
Image artifacts could appear in HDR photos taken with iPhone 12 Pro
Fitness widget may not display updated Activity data
Typing may be delayed and word suggestions may not appear in the keyboard
The keyboard may not come up in the correct language in Messages
Audio stories from the News app in CarPlay may not resume after being paused for spoken directions or Siri
Enabling Switch Control in Accessibility may prevent phone calls from being answered from the Lock Screen
As to other fixes, I'm hearing from some users that notifications are still broken. It will also spot non-genuine cameras fitted as repairs, which may come as a shock to some.
Beyond that, I've not come across any show-stopping bugs related to battery life, connectivity, or stability.
The founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the 56th Munich Security Conference in Munich, southern Germany, on February 15, 2020.
Christof Stache | AFP | Getty Images
Facebook on Monday will begin urging some iPhone and iPad users to let the company track their activity so the social media giant can show them more personalized ads.
The move comes alongside Apple's planned privacy update to iOS 14, which will inform users about this kind of tracking and ask them if they want to allow it.
The two companies have been at odds for a decade, and have recently engaged in a heated war of words around these privacy changes. Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Apple one of its biggest competitors and said the privacy changes will hurt the growth of "millions of businesses around the world." The next day, Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to Facebook in a speech at a data privacy conference in Brussels, saying, "If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform."
The battle focuses on a unique device identifier on every iPhone and iPad called the IDFA. Companies that sell mobile advertisements, including Facebook, use this ID to help target ads and estimate their effectiveness.
With a forthcoming update to iOS 14, each app that wants to use these identifiers will ask users to opt in to tracking when the app is first launched. If users opt out, it will make these ads a lot less effective. Facebook has warned investors that these looming changes could hurt its advertising business as soon as this quarter.
Facebook is testing the effects of this update now, before Apple makes it mandatory for all apps early this spring.
As part of this test, Facebook will begin showing some users its own prompts starting on Monday, explaining why it wants to track this activity and asking users to opt in. These prompts will appear on Apple users' screens immediately before the Apple pop-up appears.
One test version of the Facebook prompt has a bold-faced header asking "Allow Facebook to use your app and website activity?" and claims that Facebook uses that information to "provide a better ads experience." It will then offer users a choice between "Don't Allow" and "Allow." (The precise language and appearance of the Facebook prompt may vary.)
No matter which selection users make on the Facebook prompt, if they choose not to allow tracking on the Apple pop-up, that choice will be final and Facebook will honor it.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misquoted a portion of Tim Cook's speech. The quote has been corrected.
Code discovered in iOS 14.5 by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser suggests that Apple is planning to introduce a new feature that will allow for multiple people to use the same Apple Card account.
Right now, Apple Card usage is tied to an individual and there is no option to share an account with another person, which is an oversight as some people prefer to share credit cards with spouses rather than having separate accounts.
Assets in iOS 14.5 suggest that Apple Cards will support more than one user, likely through Apple's Family Sharing feature. These assets were also highlighted by 9to5Mac. Some of the code snippets:
Share responsibility for all account activity, including payment of current and future balances.
You are now sharing Apple Card with [Person]
As Joint Owner, you can only invite members of your Family Sharing group.
Apple Card can now be shared with up to a maximum of [number] people.
You can only invite people over the age of 13, and on the latest version of iOS to share your Apple Card.
[Person] can now use your Apple Card for purchases.
[Person] can earn Daily Cash whenever they spend using your Apple Card.
[Person] can make any purchase with no limit up to your available credit.
[Person] can make any purchase up to a maximum transaction limit of [number].
You're invited to share a joint Apple Card with [Person].
Share Your Apple Card with eligible friends and family in your family group. Build credit together, track spending, and receive Daily Cash.
The main Apple Card account holder will be able to invite family members to use the Apple Card account, with family spending available for viewing in the Wallet app. Account holders will be able to set spending limits so all family members, including children, can use the card.
This feature does not appear to be live for Apple Card holders in the first iOS 14.5 beta as of yet, but it's likely something that we'll see introduced in a later beta or with the iOS 14.5 release coming this spring.
The release of iOS 15 is still a ways off, but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from churning. For now, we’ve collected what we know so far and what we'd like to see. Apple will talk more about iOS 15 later this year at WWDC 2021, but we’re bound to see leaks in the meantime.
Apple really changed things up with iOS 14 last year, bringing features that users have been asking for, such as widgets on the home screen. It also added the App Library for automatically organizing your apps and the ability to change your default browser and email client. And iOS 15 should bring a lot more improvements.
Based on the leaks and rumors thus far, here's everything we know about iOS 15 so far, which will debut on the upcoming iPhone 13 lineup.
iOS 15: Release date and betas
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Apple usually launches the new version of iOS alongside that year’s latest iPhone. This typically happens in September. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple delayed the launch of the iPhone 12 series until October, while iOS 14 still released in September 2020.
That in mind, we think iOS 15 will drop in September of this year. However, Apple is very likely to talk about it this summer at WWDC, its yearly developer conference. There, we’ll hear more about new features and tweaks. We also will probably learn about developer and public betas around that time, too.
With iOS 14, users could install the public beta version to test out the new features, granted they could handle the bugs. There’s no reason to believe that Apple won’t do the same thing with iOS 15.
iOS 15: What devices will it support?
Apple has not officially released a list of which devices will get iOS 15. However, rumors suggest that the new version will come only to the iPhone 7 and above. That would leave the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and original iPhone SE out in the cold.
If that holds true, then here’s what iPhones we believe will get iOS 15:
iPhone 7
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 8 Plus
iPhone X
iPhone XR
iPhone Xs
iPhone Xs Max
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone SE (2020)
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
And, obviously, the iPhone 13 series will come with iOS 15 out of the box.
iOS 15: What we want to see
We’re bound to see a lot of new stuff in iOS 15, but nothing is set in stone just yet. That’s why we have a little wishlist of things we want the new iOS to have. There are still some things Android does well. that iOS could benefit from.
Improved notifications: This has been a pain point for iOS for a long time. It’s something that Google continues to refine in Android and we’d really like to see Apple take some of those lessons learned and apply them to iOS 15. Notification triage is a nightmare on iOS. Inline replies are sorely needed for apps that support them. Grouping needs adjustment to not bury important information. Actionable notifications, like deleting an email, should be clearer and more intuitive.
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
A better Siri: Let’s admit it, Siri isn’t that great. Sure, it’s improved quite a bit with each new iteration, but it lags significantly behind Google Assistant. Apple has a lot of room to grow in this regard. We’d like to see better speech recognition and better native answers. Pulling up web searches is fine and all, but part of what makes Assistant so useful is its ability to answer a lot of your questions directly. Siri just can’t compare, and we want to see that change.
Allow more default apps: With iOS 14, Apple finally let users choose their own default browsers and email clients. This was a very good step in the right direction. However, we’d like to see Apple continue to let loose a little bit, starting with changing the default SMS. Using iMessage is fine, but being able to switch to something like Signal to have all chats in the same app. Other app defaults would be welcome, too, like music and video.
Named ‘BlastDoor’, the system is a sandbox mode that aims to prevent attacks carried out on the messages app.
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Apple started the roll out of its latest major software update in September with a number of features for its messaging app, iMessage.
While the Cupertino-based firm announced more options for group chats, inline replies, it did not mention the adoption of the new security system for iMessage.
Named ‘BlastDoor’, the system is a sandbox mode that aims to prevent attacks carried out on the messages app. It adds more security to the messages by protecting iMessage from other iOS apps.
Apple did not share information on the security feature, but Samuel Groß, a security researcher with Google’s Project Zero described BlastDoor in a blog post.
After one week of reverse engineering project, Groß found that iOS 14 has introduced a new, tightly sandboxed “BlastDoor” service which is now responsible for almost all parsing of untrusted data in iMessage.
Sandbox is a security mechanism that runs code separately from the OS, to mitigate system failures or software vulnerabilities. BlastDoor operates within the Messages app and inspects the incoming message in an isolated environment to check whether there is any malicious code inside any message that can interact with iOS system and access any useful data.
Groß noted that majority of the processing of complex and untrusted data has been moved into the new BlastDoor service.
“This design with its 7+ involved services allows fine-grained sandboxing rules to be applied, for example, only the IMTransferAgent and apsd processes are required to perform network operations,” Groß said.
“As such, all services in this pipeline are now properly sandboxed (with the BlastDoor service arguably being sandboxed the strongest).”
The security researcher started the investigation into iOS 14 iMessage security feature after a hacking campaign targeted Al Jazeera journalists. Groß found that the attack failed in the latest Apple security update and came across BlastDoor security system.
In 2019, Groß and his fellow security researcher found that iMessage gave hackers access to the files in an iPhone and this did not even require a user to open the notification or message.
Flickr has rolled out a new update to iOS app this week, bringing support for home screen widgets on the iPhone. The Flickr widgets bring in images from the Flickr Explore feed, so you can see the images directly on your home screen.
Flickr explains:
Introducing Widgets! Now you can see the best of Flickr Explore throughout the day right from your Home Screen.
To add a Flickr widget to your iPhone’s home screen, long press on your home screen and tap the “+” button in the upper-right corner. Then, look for Flickr in the list of widgets and pick which size widget you’d like to add to your home screen.
Flickr doesn’t give you any customization options for the widgets other than size. Once you add a widget to your home screen, it will automatically pull in images from Flickr Explore, which “displays a rotating array of images from Flickr members.” The Explore feed is based on two factors:
Interestingness – An internal Flickr algorithm that determines which photos are interesting to our community.
Activity – Involvement in the Flickr community, like groups joined and photos with trending tags.
Flickr is available on the App Store as a free download. For more apps with support for iOS 14 home screen widgets, be sure to check out our full roundup right here. What are some of your favorite home screen widgets? Let us know down in the comments!
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In this week’s topstories: iOS 14.4 released, Apple Watch Series 7 rumors, ‘Time to Walk’ feature now available, AAPL’s record-breaking Q1 earnings, and much more. Read on for all of this week’s top Apple Stories.
Time to Walk
Apple this week officially launched its new Time to Walk feature for Apple Watch and Fitness+ subscribers. . Time to Walk offers “an inspiring new audio walking experience on Apple Watch for Fitness+ subscribers,” Apple announced.
Time to Walk is launching with four episodes with guests including Country music star Dolly Parton, NBA player Draymond Green, Musician Shawn Mendes, and Emmy Award winner Uzo Aduba. New episodes will be released with a different guest each Monday through the end of April.
iOS 14.4
After beta testing with developers and public beta users, Apple this week officially released iOS 14.4 to the public.
Apple says that iOS 14.4 includes support for recognizing smaller QR codes in the Camera app, as well as the option to classify Bluetooth device types in Settings. Notably, the update also adds new notifications for when your iPhone can’t verify if you’re using a “genuine Apple camera.”
iOS 14.4 also includes a handful of bug fixes related to HDR photography, the Messages app, and more. There is a fix for keyboard lag, which is an issue that has been plaguing many iPhone users since iOS 14 was first released.
In addition to the new features, iOS 14.4 also brings a trio of notable security improvements. In a new Support document, Apple said that iOS 14.4 fixes a kernel vulnerability and two WebKit vulnerabilities, all three of which “may have been actively exploited.”
iOS 14.4 is available to users via an over-the-air update in the Settings app. Simply open the Settings app, choose General, then choose Software Update. With these major security improvements included, we highly recommend updating as soon as possible.
The leading change with HomePod Software Version 14.4 is an all-new Handoff experience powered by the Ultra Wideband, or U1 chip, in the iPhone. Now, when you bring an iPhone near the HomePod mini to use Handoff, you’ll feel physical feedback from the iPhone’s Taptic Engine, as well as a card on the iPhone’s display and a visual indicator on the top of the HomePod mini.
Apple published a new press release this week detailing the multiple ways it will be celebrating Black History Month in February. The company is launching new editorial collections, Apple Maps Guides, limited-edition Apple Watch hardware, and more.
Apple is introducing the Black Unity Collection for the Apple Watch. This collection includes a limited-edition Apple Watch Series 6 as well as a Black Unity Sport Band. Through this collection, Apple is supporting global organizations to help advance their missions in promoting and achieving equality and civil rights.
The Black Unity Sport Band uses colors inspired by the Pan-African flag with the words “Truth. Power. Solidarity.” laser-engraved onto the closure. Meanwhile, the limited-edition Apple Watch Series 6 features “Black Unity” laser-etched onto the back crystal.
Apple Watch Series 6 Black Unity and the Black Unity Sport Band will be available starting February 1. The Watch starts at $399 for the GPS and the cellular model starts at $499. The Black Unity Sport Band is $49.
AAPL Earnings
Apple (AAPL) has officially reported its earnings for Q1 2021, covering the lucrative holiday shopping season. For the first fiscal quarter of 2021, Apple reported a record-breaking $111.44 billion in revenue and profit of $28.76 billion.
For comparison’s sake, Apple reported revenue of $91.8 billion and profit of $22.2 billion during Q1 2020 last year. This time around, there are a handful of different factors. For instance, the Mac and iPad businesses have seen major growth because of the work-from-home trend driven by the pandemic.
Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Enjoy the podcast?: Shop Apple at Amazon to support 9to5Mac Daily!
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Apple (AAPL) reports record-breaking Q1 2021 earnings with $111.4 billion in revenue Apple crosses 1 billion active iPhone users for the first time as install base reaches new milestone Apple says App Tracking Transparency feature will launch in ‘early spring’ with iOS 14 update
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9to5Mac’s Benjamin Mayo and Zac Hall unpack the newest MacBook Air rumors about a thinner and lighter model with higher performance, iOS 14.4 and Apple’s latest software updates and new features, Dan Riccio’s mysterious new role at Apple, and the company’s big earnings results. Sponsored by Amazon Pharmacy: Amazon Prime Members can save on prescription medication when not using insurance and get FREE 2-Day delivery! Learn more at amazon.com/happyhourrx. Sponsored by Headspace: You deserve to feel happier, and Headspace is meditation made simple. Go to headspace.com/mac to start your free one-month trial. Sponsored by TextExpander: Visit textexpander.com/podcast and select 9to5Mac Happy Hour to save 20% off your first year!
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Read More Bloomberg: Apple to launch ‘higher end’ MacBook Air with thinner bezels as soon as later this year, brings back MagSafe charging Face ID for Mac ‘developed’ by Apple but not coming soon; 5G same iOS 14.4 now available with Apple Watch Unity face support, bug fixes, and more iOS 14.4: How to label Bluetooth devices as a speaker, headphones, hearing aids, more Apple says iOS 14.4 patches 3 security flaws that ‘may have been actively exploited’ watchOS 7.3 now available with new Unity watch faces, ECG in more countries, more Apple officially launches new ‘Time to Walk’ feature for Apple Watch and Fitness+ Apple unveils limited-edition Apple Watch Series 6 and more for Black History Month Apple releases HomePod Software Version 14.4 with new Handoff experience, more macOS Big Sur 11.2 RC now available with Bluetooth improvements, M1 Mac fixes, more macOS Big Sur 11.2 RC 2 now available as a public release nears Apple engineering SVP Dan Riccio transitioning to oversee ‘new project,’ John Ternus takes lead of hardware team
The joy of writing apps using SwiftUI and modern UIKit, a review of the AirPods Max, will FaceID come to the iMac anytime soon, and what sort of things are good to consider when working with third party SDKs and frameworks?
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