This week, Apple announced that as a part of its ongoing efforts to make iPhones (and iPads) safer, the upcoming iOS 12 will include something called USB Restricted Mode. This means that if you plug your iPhone in to a computer or other hardware using a USB to Lightning cable, you will not be able to transfer data to and from the iPhone unless your iPhone has been unlocked within the past hour. This way, if a criminal steals your iPhone, even if he has a hardware hacking device that can try to crack your iPhone’s password, he won’t be able to do so unless he gets your iPhone to that hacking device within 60 minutes. Many outlets reported this as Apple battling law enforcement because many law enforcement agencies use a device called the GrayKey sold by Grayshift to try to hack the password on an iPhone taken from someone accused of a crime. For example, the New York Times headline is “Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Law Enforcement Uses to Crack Devices.” But the idea that only the good guys have access to these hacking devices seems incredibly optimistic, if not downright ridiculous. As an attorney who keeps confidential attorney-client and work product information on my iPhone and iPad, I’m glad that Apple is always working to close any security loopholes, regardless of who is known to be using them today. In the cat-and-mouse game of security, hackers will always be looking for new exploits, so Apple and others should always be working to improve security. (Indeed, just yesterday, Joseph Cox and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Motherboard reported that Grayshift already has found a way to defeat Apple’s latest security improvements, although the reporters note that “it is unclear … how much of this may be marketing bluff.”) And now, the news of note from the past week:
- On a recent episode of the Lawyerist podcast, Minnesota attorney Sam Glover interviews California attorney David Sparks to discuss ten ways that lawyers can get more out of their iPhones. That interview starts just after the 10-minute mark if you want to jump directly there in the podcast.
- In a post on his MacSparky website, David Sparks explains why he is excited about the new Shortcuts feature in the upcoming iOS 12.
- If you want a full explanation of Shortcuts, the absolute best resource for learning about it is this article by Federico Viticci of MacStories.
- In an article for Tom’s Guide, Jason Snell explains why iOS 12 will be the biggest iPhone upgrade in years. And as you might guess, the Shortcuts feature is one of the reasons.
- David Rubenstein of Bloomberg interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook. The video is 24 minutes long, but it is sharply edited so that the pace of the interview is very fast, and this is one of the best interviews of Cook that I’ve seen in a while.
- Stewart Rogers of VentureBeat discusses the ABBYY TextGrabber app, which you can use to capture text using the camera and then translate it into another language, even when you are offline.
- If you don’t have CarPlay in your car, you can instead mount an iPhone so that it can provide you with driving directions. There are many ways to do so, and CarPlay Life discusses good options for mounting to the air vent in your car.
- I posted a review of Anker’s USB-to-Lightning cables earlier this year, and I still really like them. They are very durable, and they are much less expensive than the cables sold by Apple. As pointed out by Alexandria Haslam of PCWorld, you can now get a two-pack of red three-foot cables for only $15.99 on Amazon, which is a $4 discount and a very good deal. As you can see from my review, the red color is very striking and makes your cables really stand out. It is always nice to have some extra Lightning cables, so consider grabbing these before the sale ends.
- Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac notes that Verizon now has three different plans called “Unlimited,” all of which have limits. But he also notes that other carriers do something similar.
- The iPhone 3GS, which I reviewed in 2009 and which Apple stopped selling in 2012, is on sale again. Sort of. Roger Fingas of AppleInsider reports that a South Korean company obtained a whole bunch of them from a warehouse, still shrink wrapped, and will soon be selling them for ₩44,000 — about $40.
- In an article and associated video, David Pogue of Yahoo shows off the new stereo feature of the Apple HomePod.
- If you are interested in meditation, Alex Arpaia of Wirecutter discusses the best meditation apps.
- Do you hate losing your glasses? Janet Cloninger of The Gadgeteer reviews the Orbit, a tiny tracker that attaches to the arms of your glasses, so that you can use an iPhone app to locate your glasses.
- In its continuing series on essential iOS apps, Ian Fuchs of Cult of Mac discusses GoodNotes, a great app for taking handwritten notes. I myself use that app almost every day at work.
- And finally, if you have ever had the urge to throw your iPhone X off of a 1,000-foot high bridge, I implore you not to do so. But if you cannot resist seeing what this would look like, I encourage you to watch this video instead. If you want to skip to the “good” stuff, the iPhone is dropped at around the 45-second mark, and the video taken from the iPhone X while it is falling is shown at around the 2:35 mark.