I reported earlier this week on new rules relating to confidential and privileged data on an iPhone when you pass through customs to re-enter the U.S. Maureen Blando of Mobile Helix discusses one alternative to dealing with Customs: keep your data on a cloud-based service (like Mobile Helix) so that you can just remove the app before you enter customs — at which point the privileged documents won’t even be there anymore — and then re-install the app after you pass through. 1Password offers something similar called Travel Mode whereby all but a few passwords you select are removed from the device, and then you restore them after you enter customs. If you use Microsoft Exchange with the Mail app on your iPhone, you could just turn off your email in the Settings app (Accounts & Passwords -> [select account] -> turn off Mail) until you get to a location where you feel secure again, and then turn it back on to re-download your messages. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Samantha Cole of Motherboard reports on a murder trial in Germany in which some of the evidence of the defendant disposing of a body in the river consists of data from the defendant’s iPhone. After hiring a forensics company to bypass the passcode on his iPhone 6s, the investigators found data in the Health app showing that the defendant climbed stairs during the period of time that the prosecution alleges that the defendant climbed up the river embankment.
- According to Katherine Faulders of ABC News, this week White House Chief of Staff John Kelly instituted a new ban on personal cellphones in the White House. The ban extends to smartwatches, like the Apple Watch. I suspect that there will still be one particular iPhone in the White House not subject to the ban.
- Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports on a recent interview by Rebecca Jarvis of ABC Radio with Angela Ahrendts, Apple VP of Retail. The video discusses how Ahrendts got the job even though she doesn’t consider herself a “techie.”
- Paula Parisi of Variety reports that Jimmy Iovine, one of the Apple executives behind Apple Music, has denied rumors that he is planning to leave Apple this year, and says that he looks forward to further developments in online streaming.
- Apple released iOS 11.2.2 this week. As Juli Clover of MacRumors explains, this update addresses the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that have been in the news as of late. I always recommend that you update your iPhone (and iPad) when there is a new iOS version to make sure that you have the latest security patches, although it does make sense to wait 24 hours before applying the update just in case Apple discovers some problem with the update, which happens occasionally.
- If you want an alternative to using your iPhone, Apple Watch or Siri to turn off your HomeKit lights, you can soon buy a big red button — or one of another color. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that Fibaro’s The Button will soon be HomeKit compatible.
- Jesse Hollington of iLounge explains how you can handoff a call from your iPhone to your Apple Watch. I didn’t realize you could do that.
- Bradley Chambers of The Sweet Setup reviews Workouts++ and says that it is the best stand-alone workout app on the Apple Watch.
- Thuy Ong of The Verge reports that the Qi wireless standard used by Apple in the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 is becoming even more of a standard now that Powermat is giving up on the rival PMA standard.
- Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge discusses some of Belkin’s upcoming Qi chargers for the iPhone.
- Glenn Fleishman of Macworld discusses how the iPhone uses a captive page on the Apple website to determine whether a Wi-Fi hotspot has a sign-in page.
- And finally, the always funny xkcd comic predicts what future iPhone security settings might look like (original link):
