By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld | August 24th, 2014 Plans to compete with Microsoft, Google and Apple on the OS front. China hopes to launch a home-grown operating system by October to wean the country from foreign-made OSes like Windows, the government-run Xinhua news agency said Sunday. The operating system, which Xinhua did not name, will…
By Marco Tabini, Macworld.com | August 22nd, 2014 Is Apple’s iMessage the new favorite tool of spammers worldwide? A widely-quoted recent article written by Wired’s Robert McMillan suggests it is, even going so far as to claim that iMessage “is being taken over by spammers.” Largely based on an interview with security analyst Tom Landesman,…
By Glenn Fleishman, Macworld.com | August 19th, 2014 In late July, Apple reportedly brought online its own content distribution network (CDN), a way of pushing data files closer to end-users. A CDN can reduce the number of hops and the amount of intermediate bandwidth required to speed files and data–like an iOS update, a streaming…
By Dan Moren and Dan Frakes, Macworld.com | July 23rd, 2014 Back in June, at WWDC, Apple announced the next major version of its OS for Macs, Yosemite (OS X 10.10). Though the official release of Yosemite is slated for “this fall,” the company is breaking from tradition by offering pre-release versions of Yosemite to…
By John Cox, Network World | July 22nd, 2014 Apple has “inadvertently admitted” to creating a “backdoor” in iOS, according to a post by a forensics scientist, iOS author and ex-hacker. Apple has “inadvertently admitted” to creating a “backdoor” in iOS, according to a new post by a forensics scientist, iOS author and former hacker,…
By Antone Gonsalves, CSO | July 21st, 2014 A number of undocumented features in iOS have been found to essentially create backdoors for siphoning large amounts of users’ personal data from Apple devices. Jonathan Zdziarski, a researcher who often trains federal and state law enforcement agencies in forensic techniques, revealed the existence of the mostly…
By Matt Kapko, CIO | July 17th, 2014 Apple’s most popular app will be getting its biggest overhaul to date when the company releases iOS 8 in the fall. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Apple has been flattering competitors for years. The company has famously copied, redesigned and reimagined many more products…
By Leo Kelion, BBC | July 15th, 2014 Apple and IBM have announced a business partnership that will see the two firms co-develop business-centric apps for iPhones and iPads. In addition, IBM will start selling business clients Apple's mobile devices pre-installed with the new software. The two firms were one-time rivals, with Apple's 1984 advert…
By Dan Moren, Macworld.com | July 14th, 2014 Apple’s certainly no stranger to accusations of location tracking, but the latest allegations come from what may be a surprising source: China’s state-sponsored media. As reported by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, China Central Television called the iPhone a “national security concern,” suggesting that it…
By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld | July 12th, 2014 Fast response shows how important the market is to the U.S. company. Apple on Saturday denied claims by China’s state-run television that its iPhones track owners’ locations. The 600-word message was linked from Apple China’s home page. iOS 7’s Frequent Locations stores all its data on the…
By Antone Gonsalves, CSO | July 11th, 2014 Google has denied a security vendor report that users of Gmail on Apple iOS could have data intercepted because of a missing security component in the popular app. Lacoon Mobile Security, which is based in the U.S. and Israel, reported that Gmail lacks certificate “pinning,” a process…
By Dan Moren, Macworld.com | June 30th, 2014 It never rains software update, but it pours. Apple on Monday released OS X Mavericks 10.9.4, incorporating a number of small fixes for the Mac OS, as well as patching some security holes. Apple also released iOS 7.1.2. OS X 10.9.4 fixes a problem where some Macs…