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FBI Accessed San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone Without Apple, Drops Litigation→

Sheera Frenkel and Hamza Shaban, writing for BuzzFeed:

The Justice Department (DOJ) announced Monday that it had successfully accessed data on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters and that it was dropping its case against Apple to help unlock the phone.

Investigators are no longer seeking Apple’s help to penetrate the device, according to a court filing by the DOJ Monday.

A week ago the Department of Justice successfully postponed a court hearing after revealing that the FBI had been approached by a third party who had a possible method to unlock the iPhone (subsequently rumored to be Israeli firm Cellebrite). That method appears to have paid off, with the Department of Justice asking the court to vacate the order compelling Apple to assist the FBI and writing in its Status Report to the court that:

The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court’s Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016.

In response to the Department of Justice’s Status Report, Apple issued a response to The Verge and other media outlets:

From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.

We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.

Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.

This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.

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Apple Releases iOS 9.3 Update For Users With Older Devices→

MacRumors is reporting that Apple has released a new build of iOS 9.3 that fixes a setup problem that people with older iOS devices experienced with the initial release of iOS 9.3.

When iOS 9.3 launched, people with iOS devices older than the iPhone 5s or iPad Air experienced problems activating the update. Instead of the usual process where you are asked for your current Apple ID and password, owners of older models of iOS devices were required to input the Apple ID and password used when the device was originally set up. If someone had changed their credentials and couldn’t recall the ones used to set up the device, it could be rendered unusable. As a result, Apple pulled the iOS 9.3 update for older devices shortly after it was launched.

As reported by MacRumors, Apple released an update to iOS 9.3 (build 13E237) a short time ago that addresses the activation problem on older devices. With the new build of iOS 9.3, people with older devices who didn’t previously update to version 9.3 should be able to do so now via an over-the-air update.

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A Mysterious Bug is Causing Links to Fail on iOS

Over the weekend, 9to5Mac reported what appears to be a widespread iOS bug that causes links to fail to open. In some cases, long pressing links crashes the app containing the link. What’s worse, rebooting your iOS device or uninstalling third-party apps affected by the bug seems to only correct the problem temporarily.

Ben Collier has been doing some digging and it looks as though the culprit may be Shared Web Credentials, a means by which websites and apps can share login credentials. As Ben explains:

In iOS 9 Apple introduced Universal Links, these allow app developers to associate their website and app, so links to the website can open the app up automatically if installed. For example, following a link to a Guardian article opens up the Guardian app to that specific article instead of their website.

App developers put an app association file on their website which lists which types of URLs the app can open. When you install an app, iOS downloads this associated file and updates your own database of what URLs your installed apps can open. The website and app listing in iTunes are linked by the developer - so it prevents anyone from hijacking your website with their app.

When you tap a link in iOS, the system looks through the database of installed apps supported URLs to see if it matches a pattern an installed app can handle. If nothing matches it opens it up as a standard app.

9to5Mac has been able to replicate the bug by installing the Booking.com app, which until today, had an unusually large association file. The bug does not appear to be limited to the Booking.com app, but the unusual size of its association file lead to initial speculation that file size was the culprit. However, further investigation suggest that the problem may be with the Shared Web Credentials daemon itself and is either triggered by a large association file, or becomes corrupt regardless of the size of association files. Whatever the cause, let’s hope that a reliable workaround is found soon and that Apple releases an iOS update that fixes the problem.

We have reached out to Apple for comment regarding the bug and will update this post with whatever additional information we learn.

[Update: 2016-03-29] Based on follow up reports by 9to5Mac and Ben Collier, it appears that large association files are indeed the source of the bug that that causes links to fail to open for some iOS users. According to 9to5Mac:

Sources tell us that Apple is working with high-profile developers to help them understand and better use the universal links APIs.

9to5Mac also quotes a statement it received from Apple PR:

“We are aware of this issue, and we will release a fix in a software update soon.”

Whether the source of this quote is the same as the sources that reportedly told 9to5Mac that Apple is working with ‘high-profile developers’ is unclear.

9to5Mac also reports that the Wikipedia app and Eat24 apps may also trigger the link bug. Unfortunately, there is still no known workaround for the issue. Nor is there a way to tell which apps are affected before installing them.

Ben Collier, whose post yesterday pinpointed the source of the bug, has posted a fix that requires users to complete a dozen steps. The fix appears to be dependent on the timing of the steps, which means that it may require multiple attempts to get it to work.

Apple Airs New Apple TV Commercial Highlighting Siri, Apple Music Integration

Apple aired a new Apple TV commercial today starring Alison Brie and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to highlight the Siri capabilities and Apple Music integration of the device.

In the ad, Brie and Coster-Waldau are practicing a kiss scene behind the scenes of a movie set by watching some sample footage on the new Apple TV. Both actors control video playback through the Siri remote, which can be used to scrub through video just by talking to it. After asking Siri to “find Game of Thrones”, the Siri remote is then used to play Jeremih from Apple Music.

The ad follows a string of short Apple TV commercials focused on quick app and game highlights. Earlier this week, Apple released tvOS 9.2 with improved Siri features, the ability to organize apps in folders, and more.

You can watch the ad below.

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YouTube Adds Support for Split View, Slide Over

After causing many fans to lose hope, YouTube today released Version 11.10 with support for Slide Over and Split View.

By selecting YouTube from the slide over menu, YouTube will now play videos in a small window in Slide Over, while increasing in size when used in Split View.

All in all, it works about as expected – you can browse, visit channels, and watch videos from either option. Although it may have taken too long to get here, YouTube’s latest update is finally updated to support iOS 9’s features.

Court Grants the Justice Department’s Request for iPhone Hearing to Be Postponed

A hearing scheduled for Tuesday, 22 March 2016, between Apple and the Justice Department was unexpectedly cancelled on Monday after a request from the Justice Department. In its application requesting Tuesday’s hearing to be postponed, the Justice Department stated that a third party approached the FBI on Sunday with a possible method that could unlock the iPhone, without requiring assistance from Apple.

On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking Farook’s iPhone. Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. (“Apple”) set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case.

Judge Sheri Pym granted the request after Apple did not object, and the Justice Department will now have to file a status report by 5 April 2016. The court order compelling Apple to assist the FBI has also been stayed by Judge Pym “pending further submissions” because Monday’s submissions from the Justice Department have resulted in “uncertainty surrounding the government’s need for Apple’s assistance”.

It is not clear who contacted the FBI with the possible method, and on a call with BuzzFeed and other reporters, a law enforcement official refused to name them, other than saying that it came “from outside the U.S. government”. Apple’s attorney told reporters that it did not know what the supposed vulnerability is, but that fixing it will be “an urgent priority for the company” and that they will insist that the government share details of the exploit if the case moves forward.

As The New York Times points out, it is unlikely that this is the last we will hear about this case, particularly if the FBI concludes that the new method will not work. In any case, we will learn more when the Justice Department files their status report in the coming weeks before the court imposed deadline of 5 April 2016.

“This will only delay an inevitable fight over whether the government can force Apple to break the security of its devices,” said Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, an advocacy group.

For the Justice Department, cracking the iPhone would be a mixed blessing. While it would give investigators access to data that they see as crucial to a terrorism investigation, it would cut short the encryption debate that the F.B.I. had been trying to start for years before the Apple case came along.

Courtesy of BuzzFeed, you can read the Justice Department’s motion to vacate here, and the Court’s order here.

[via BuzzFeed and The New York Times]

Some Post-Event iPhone Extras

After today’s Apple Event, we’ve compiled some interesting hands-on coverage and links that you may find interesting:

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Apple Announces CareKit and Advancements to ResearchKit

During Apple’s spring event last year, the Cupertino company announced a new health initiative with ReasearchKit. The feature was to connect medical researchers with iPhone users to gather data at unprecedented scale and speed. The goal: accelerate research on treatment and cures for illnesses.

ResearchKit Update and Advancements

One year later, and Apple reports that ResearchKit has been a great success. ResearchKit studies are among the largest in history, and researchers have already been making new discoveries and gaining new insights into illnesses. Apple exemplified this with an Autism ResearchKit study which is working to identify Autism mere months after children are born, rather than years after. Another ResearchKit study has reportedly all but confirmed the existence of subclasses of Type 2 Diabetes.

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