Speaking of Apple News, Peter Kafka of Re/code reports that Apple has started an advertising campaign focused on the iOS 9 app.
Remember Apple News? Figured. Apple would like to change that, so it’s launching an ad campaign promoting the news aggregator it launched, without much fanfare, last fall.
If you’re in San Francisco, Chicago or New York, you might see the ads on billboards and in airports; the rest of you will have to look for it online.
You can see two examples of the billboards in Re/code’s article, one featuring ESPN and the other featuring VICE – but Kafka notes that Apple is also working with Vox Media.
Emily Jane Fox, writing for Vanity Fair, yesterday reported that Apple has now opened the Apple News Format to independent publishers:
Apple News’s 40 million users are about to have a lot more articles to read. The iPhone maker announced Tuesday the launch of a new Web-based editing tool that will open its native iOS news platform to independent publishers of all sizes.
Since Apple launched the app in September, it has attracted more than 100 major publishers as partners, including this magazine’s Web site. What the new launch means is that anyone—from individual bloggers to smaller, independent news organizations—will be able to edit and deliver their stories, videos, galleries, and audio in the Apple News format, with Apple News’s reach.
Content can be published in Apple’s News app either via RSS or the Apple News Format. Up until now, the Apple News Format has been invitation-only and limited to large publishers such as Vanity Fair, Vox, and CNN. The advantage for publishers in using the Apple News Format is that it gives them greater control over the look of their stories in the News app, they get detailed analytics information, and can earn revenue through iAd.
HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver tackled the Apple-FBI fight over encryption in this week’s episode and did a phenomenal job. As always, Oliver uses humour as a tool to help illuminate the absurdity of various propositions, whilst also keeping people engaged when the topic is dry or complicated. As a result, this 17 minute video is perfect for anyone, even if you haven’t been paying much attention to this encryption debate so far.
You can watch the video on YouTube, but be warned it is NSFW. For those of you in countries where the video is geo-blocked (ugh), you should also be able to view it on the Last Week Tonight Facebook page.
Be sure to stick around to the end as there’s a brilliant satirical Apple advert that you really have to see.
Question: I heard Federico spell this out in a recent episode of Canvas, but I’m still running into problems. When using trackpad mode to select text on the iPad, how does one switch between manipulating the “in” and “out” of the selection? I’ve found myself getting stuck only moving around the second selection point, unable...
Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, writing for The Washington Post:
That’s why it’s so disappointing that the FBI, Justice Department and others in law enforcement are pressing us to turn back the clock to a less-secure time and less-secure technologies. They have suggested that the safeguards of iOS 7 were good enough and that we should simply go back to the security standards of 2013. But the security of iOS 7, while cutting-edge at the time, has since been breached by hackers. What’s worse, some of their methods have been productized and are now available for sale to attackers who are less skilled but often more malicious.
A cogent argument from Federighi. It follows on from Tim Cook’s open letter and interview with ABC News, as well as Bruce Sewell’s testimony to a congressional committee.
It was discovered this weekend that popular BitTorrent client Transmission was infected with what is believed to be the first fully functional ransomware on OS X. Palo Alto Networks discovered the infection and report that attackers infected two installers of version 2.90 of Transmission’s Mac app with the ransomware, dubbed KeRanger, on March 4. The ransomware works by encrypting all files in the “/Users” and “/Volumes” directories and then demands payment of 1 Bitcoin (~US$400) from victims in order to decrypt and retrieve their files.
It is not yet known how the Transmission installers were infected. Palo Alto Networks promptly disclosed the ransomware to the Transmission Project and Apple, and both have taken swift action. Transmission has since been updated to 2.9.1 (removing the ransomware from the installer) and 2.9.2 (automatically removing KeRanger if it had been installed on a user’s system). Whilst Apple has revoked the certificate used to install KeRanger, updated Gatekeeper to block the malicious installer, and updated its XProtect (Apple’s built-in anti-malware software) signatures.
How to Protect Yourself
The following is excerpted from Palo Alto Networks’ report on KeRanger. We recommend you read their full report if you would like further, and more detailed, information.
Users who have directly downloaded Transmission installer from official website after 11:00am PST, March 4, 2016 and before 7:00pm PST, March 5, 2016, may be been infected by KeRanger. If the Transmission installer was downloaded earlier or downloaded from any third party websites, we also suggest users perform the following security checks. Users of older versions of Transmission do not appear to be affected as of now.
[via MacRumors, Palo Alto Networks]
Touch ID is easily one of the best features of modern iPhones and iPads and I hope Apple introduces it to the Mac soon. In the meantime, MacID is a really neat app that allows you to use the Touch ID sensor on your iPhone or iPad to log into your Mac. As soon as...
Question: I’m a web/app designer. Over the past year I’ve been doing more and more of my work on the iPad, and that trend has increased exponentially with the iPad Pro. The only thing that I still do entirely on my Mac is coding. But I would love to be able to also do this...
As first reported by MacRumors, Apple has today launched @AppleSupport, a support account on Twitter:
Apple today created an official Twitter support account to provide customers with tips, tricks, and tutorials about the company’s product and services. One of the account’s first tweets provides users with step-by-step instructions on how to turn lists into checklists in the stock Notes app on iPhone.
Apple’s presence on social media is slowly but surely expanding. This is now the second support account that Apple runs on Twitter, following last October’s launch of @AppleMusicHelp which provides help and tips relating to Apple Music.
