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Australian Apple users held to ransom by Find My iPhone hacker (updated)
Some Australian Apple device owners today woke up not to the sound of their alarm, but the jingle of a "ransom" notification instead. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a hacker (or a group of hackers) going by the name "Oleg Pliss" systematically froze iPhone, iPad and Mac users out of their own devices, holding them hostage until payments of between $50 and $100 were received. Threads on Apple's official support forums detail how the attacker (or attackers) used Apple's own Find My iPhone feature to remotely lock devices and send messages requiring payment via PayPal. Fortunately, those who had set passcodes were able to regain access, because you can't add or change a lock on a device that already has one in place, but those without the security measure weren't so lucky.
Free shipping from Apple's online store and more news for May 23, 2014
Friday is typically a "slow news day," but we've got four stories this week. Apple's online store offers free shipping for a time, iAd Producer has gotten an update, Apple agrees to a large settlement in court and hackers claim to have around a pretty nasty iCloud exploit. Onward! Apple's online store is offering free shipping through May 29. Perhaps they're prepping for the Father's Day shopping season or just looking for a pre-summer boost. If it's the former, here's a note to my family: a Mac Pro will look great on dad's desk. Apple has released iAd Producer 4.2. The updated software allows for the creation of full-screen banner ads for the iPhone and an option to upload Producer projects to iAd workbench. Minor changes include folder reorganization in the Assets sidebar and iAd Workbench support for existing iAd Producer projects. Apple, others agree to US$325M settlement in Silicon Valley wage fixing case. The group reached a preliminary agreement about a month ago, and now everyone has agreed upon a settlement of $325 million. Judge Lucy Koh -- a name probably familiar to many of you -- must still approve the settlement. Hackers claim to have exploit for iCloud, specifically affecting Activation Lock (Google translate). A group going by the name "Team DoulCi" has demonstrated the problem. It seems that iTunes on Windows does not verify security certificates properly, allowing hackers to execute a "man-in-the-middle" attack and intercept a user's Apple ID creds. The vulnerability can also let attackers into iDevices that have been rendered unusable by Activation Lock.
iWork for iCloud suite gets updated with new features
Apple's suite of iWork for iCloud apps has received a new update that improves collaboration, adds new document options, and increases file storage capacity across the online versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. With the new collaboration features, over 100 people can work on a single file in Pages, Numbers, or Keynote. Apple introduced iWork for iCloud collaboration last year, but the number of collaborators was previously limited to 50 simultaneous workers. File storage sizes have also been increased; users can now upload individual documents up to 1 GB in size while individual images now top out at 10 MB. Previously iWork for iCloud files were limited to 200 MB for files and 5 MB for image files. Each of the applications also now has the ability to create 2D and interactive charts, complete with new chart formatting and color options. While most of these changes are across the board, each of the apps has gained a few specific new features of its own. Microsoft Excel users will appreciate Numbers' newfound ability to export to CSV. Pages now has support for exporting a file to the EPUB ebook format, improved tables, and object layering. Finally, Keynote for iCloud can now show and hide slide numbers in presentations. You don't need to download or update anything to take advantage of these new features. Simply head over to iCloud.com to give the latest version of iWork a spin.
Apple's iWork for iCloud now lets you collaborate on projects with 100 friends
If you're using Apple's iWork for iCloud to get stuff done, now you can collaborate on projects with even more people. Before if you wanted to get your co-workers input on your big plans for the company retreat (Laser Tag definitely promotes synergy) you could only have 50 contributors. Now 100 people can work on the same Keynote, Numbers or Pages file at once, and those projects can also be a lot larger. Previously you were limited to 200MB per file, with a 5MB cap for included images. Now there's 1GB of space to fill with details about your group-cooking class plans, complete with images of up to 10MB each -- that's a lot more fancy dessert photos
Apple's HIG in the iBookstore and other news for May 14, 2014
We've got some Wednesday afternoon news for you. Apple's HIG becomes a more convenient to read, iCloud angers a Norwegian watchdog group, Logic Pro X gets an update and some users are stuck in iMessage purgatory. Finally, iOS apps run on Android, but very, very slowly. Apple has published its Human Interface Guidelines to the iBookstore. The guide has been available via the company's developer portal for some time, but now it's much more convenient for those with an iPad, an iPhone or the iBooks app on OS X Mavericks. This edition has the added benefit of inline video playback and annotations. Go get it, developers. A watchdog group says iCloud agreements are at odds with Norwegian law. The Norwegian Consumer Council recently conducted a study of seven cloud companies operating in its market. The results found that iCloud's customer agreement is difficult to understand and, at 8,600 words, is "convoluted and unclear." The group has filed a formal complaint. Logic Pro X update brings some nice improvements. Version 10.0.7 offers 24 processing threads for those 12-core Mac Pro models, plus smaller changes like fixes to the snap and alignment guides. "iMessage purgatory" is a problem for some. A Lifehacker editor switched from an iPhone to an Android device, and brought his number along with him. Unfortunately, his text messages aren't making the journey. It seems they're being re-routed to iMessage, where they reside in a state of limbo. An Apple rep told him that it's an issue they're aware of and working on. Some students have gotten iOS running on an Android device. By "running" I mean "operating so slowly you'll think the video has frozen." They're using the Cider compatibility layer, which tricks apps into believing they're in their natural setting by adjusting code on the fly. It's fun to watch, but cross-compatibility is still a dweam within a dweam. The charity auction for lunch with Apple CEO Tim Cook has ended, generating US$300,001. The revenue will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, not to mention the lucky devil (and friend) who gets to have lunch with Tim. While the auction beat its goal of $100K, it fell short of last year's winning bid of $610K.
iWork upgrade lets you share read-only documents
Apple isn't letting the launch of Office for iPad go completely unanswered. It's pushing out a slew of iWork updates that might not keep Microsoft awake at night, but should fill in a few conspicuous feature gaps. You can now share read-only documents, for one thing -- you no longer have to worry that others will mess with a Pages report. You can also open iWork documents from iCloud webmail, and there's a host of cross-app improvements that include a new editor tab and the option of modifying imported charts. All the upgrades are available on iCloud, iOS and the Mac, so you can check out the many, many tweaks for yourself.
Google Drive goes to war with iCloud and Dropbox with insane price drop
Google has made it clear for years that they're determined to be the number one name in the cloud storage game, but with their latest price drop they're declaring war on their competitors. While iCloud gives 5 GB of storage for free to all Apple device owners, Google Drive's basic service has provided 15 GB for free since May of 2013. To meet that same 15 GB of storage an iCloud user would have to pay $20 a year. Meanwhile under the new pricing Google announced this weekend for $1.99 a month ($24 dollars a year), just $4 more than 20GB of iCloud, Google Drive users get 100GB of storage. For $9.99 a month, or $120 a year, Drive users get 1 TB of cloud storage. A $100 a year of paid iCloud service meanwhile only nets iCloud users a total of 55 GB of total storage, and Dropbox users 100 GB. Currently Drive storage maxes out at 30 TB for $300 a month. Paying users of Google Drive have already had their storage updated to reflect the new pricing structure, meaning there's extra space for your Drive, Mail, and Google+ photos. We get that Apple isn't as invested in the cloud storage game as Google -- the companies have different aims and goals -- but we hope this move motivates an expansion of iCloud's basic services. Apple is known for its innovations, but with basic free storage amounts that are a third of what the competition offers, Google is eating iCloud's lunch and giving it a swirly to top it all off. Come on Cupertino -- It's time to update iCloud. Google shouldn't be kicking your butt like this.
Apple brings two-step verification for Apple ID to more countries
After discovering a huge security hole last year, Apple added an extra layer of protection for Apple ID and iCloud users in the form of two-step verification. Today it's making the important security feature available in more countries: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Spain. With two-step verification, Apple sends a special code to a trusted device like your iPhone whenever someone attempts to make changes to your account or log in for the first time on a new device. Similar to what Google does with Gmail, the extra step prevents malicious changes happening without your knowledge. It's a simple thing to set up, and something that can save you from a whirlwind of pain should your Apple ID ever fall into the wrong hands. Those in the mentioned countries can register now on Apple's website.
StreamNation copies all your cloud media into a central hub
Joining multiple cloud services is great for maxing out your storage, but keeping on top of all them can be a chore. StreamNation's latest update may help you untangle all that by allowing you to copy your media from Dropbox, Flickr, Instagram, Google Drive and others into its own app. Content can be directly uploaded from those programs straight through their respective APIs without tying up your connection. Once copied over, you can then stream or share them with anyone who's also signed up to the service and even lend them out. To fit all of those files in, StreamNation will give you 5GB of storage for free, or more if you're willing to invite your friends or flood your social feeds with endorsements. Otherwise, plans start at $4 a month for 100GB, and go up to $19 month for unlimited storage. We tried the iOS and web versions of StreamNation ourselves, and found it a breeze to add local files or media from services like Google+ or Dropbox. However, since it creates a second copy of your cloud files, you may need as much space on StreamNation as all your other services combined. Still, if the convenience of being able to share any file from a central location outweighs those drawbacks, you can now sign up at the source.
iOS 7 bug lets you turn off Find My iPhone without authorization
Find My iPhone is often the best tool for finding a stolen device, especially since the phone prompts a user for their password before allowing the feature to be turned off. But now, a bug found in iOS 7.0.4 by Bradley Williams seems to allow anyone with the phone in their possession to bypass iCloud's security feature and shut off Find My iPhone without needing to wipe the phone or perform any other drastic steps. You can check out the glitch in Bradley's video above, but it's pretty simple to pull off: Simply enter an incorrect password in the iCloud account information, then delete the "description" field. The phone then disables the "Find My iPhone" feature automatically, keeping anyone from finding the device using the iCloud tools provided by Apple. As MacRumors points out, the bypass doesn't seem to work in the beta version of iOS 7.1, which is due to be released shortly, so there's a good chance Apple already caught wind of it and has since plugged the hole.
iWork updates let you share password-protected files through iCloud
Many fans of cloud services are used to sharing secure files with their friends, but that surprisingly hasn't been an option for iWork users -- at least, until today. Apple has updated both iWork for iCloud and all its Keynote apps to let productivity mavens share password-protected documents through iCloud links. Appropriately, iCloud now offers a list view that helps you find shared documents. Whether or not you're the sharing kind, we'd suggest at least grabbing the Keynote update; both iOS and Mac users get better presenter display options, new transitions and more sophisticated charts. You'll find all the iWork upgrades at the source links. Update: New Mac versions of Numbers and Pages have since appeared that introduce password-protected sharing, alongside a host of minor tweaks.
Google's latest idea for Gmail will give you plenty of reasons to switch to iCloud
Once upon a time the informal motto of Google was "don't be evil." Now the motto seems to be "maybe sometimes evil is ok." The Verge revealed Google's latest "innovation" today, the ability to email a user's Gmail account, even if you don't have their email address. The new Gmail setting allows you to choose if you want to allow people to send you email using your Google+ profile. Of course they're not actually letting you choose. This is an opt-out feature, meaning it will be automatically turned on and left for you to turn off. Hot on the heels of their forced integration of Google+ into YouTube's commenting system, it seems that Google's never-ending quest to shove its social network into your life is now even infecting Gmail. The company started forcing anyone who signed up for a Google service to make a Google+ account back in 2012. You may not even remember that you have one. For a large number of users, a Google+ account is something we set up once to keep using services, and then forget about. This is where the Gmail/Google+ mashup becomes insidious. For countless users, this is simply opening a door to their email box to spammers, strangers and creeps. Now might be a good time to take a look at iCloud as your mail email service. It comes free with the purchase of any iOS device or Mac computer, and the only way to contact you through it is by having your email address. Best of all, Apple doesn't scan your email to better target ads to you. Take a look in your Gmail settings. According to the Verge, the new option will start showing up in users settings in the next few days. It may not be there now, but it will be there soon.
Avatron Kickstarts Everydisk project for secure personal cloud storage
The remote data field is dominated by powerhouses like Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, SugarSync and so on. Whether you're looking for a hardware network-attached storage (NAS) solution or a cloud-storage server, there's probably a vendor or 10 you've already heard of. Now, iOS/Mac development house Avatron is attempting to step into this crowded arena. Avatron's new Everydisk Kickstarter hopes to securely serve your files from your home system to wherever you are. The big selling point behind Everydisk is its unlimited NAS-like storage. You get access to your entire disk, not just a special folder, the way you would with Dropbox and not just a standalone drive, as you would with PogoPlug or Transporter. According to the Avatron team, Everydisk creates its own secure tunnel between your computer and your access point, using Diffie-Hellman key exchange, offering you a way to confidently grab the materials you need. Avatron's hoping its combination of heightened privacy, unlimited storage and full disk access will set it apart from the current crop of competition. It's built around the same Air Connect technology used for Air Login, an app many of us here at TUAW have used and liked. As Avatron founder Dave Howell puts it, "It's basically like Back to My Mac, but it isn't broken. And it's like a VPN except it's easy to use and supports Bonjour and other UDP-based services." Their Kickstarter has about three weeks to go and is currently at about 19 percent pledged. The available pledges offer discounted subscription access to the service once it ships. When we last checked, nearly all the super-discount early bird offers had been claimed, but there are still some excellent values to be had.
Help family members keep track of Apple ID/iCloud details with TUAW's fill-out form
Now that the gift-giving season is winding down, you may have a less tech-savvy relative who has suddenly found themselves with a shiny new Apple product. Whether they're getting started with an iPhone, iPad or MacBook, there's one thing they'll be needing (aside from apps): their Apple ID and iCloud account setup information. iCloud will help them keep track of their contacts, calendar, email and documents; an App Store account (which, of course, uses the same Apple ID credentials) will allow them to load up that iPad with great apps. But setting up an account requires first providing quite a bit of personal information. That information -- including easily researched or guessed answers to security questions, which, for safety's sake, should be faked anyway -- is something your family may need again someday, even if your relative has forgotten it or is no longer around to provide it. Apple even lets you include a rescue email address, which could be set to go to the "family IT lead" if that person is willing to take on the responsibility of screening password reset attempts. To that end, we've created a small PDF form; print it out and go over it together with your family member to keep track of all the important account setup info. Then, you may take a photo of it or scan it to hold onto (put it on an encrypted disk image, if you like) and your relative puts their copy in a paper file in a locked drawer or cabinet, with the house deed and the passports. You can't hack a piece of paper, and in the unlikely event that a password is forgotten or a security question misremembered, you can easily get back into the iCloud/App Store account with a minimum of heartache and recriminations. You can preview and download the form right here. Best of luck! Apple ID Account Details This post was inspired by J. Thanks!
Mailbox for iOS now handles your iCloud or Yahoo email account
Mailbox has only handled Gmail since launch, but compulsive email checkers finally have a few more account options thanks to an update. The iOS app now supports both iCloud addresses (including me.com and mac.com) as well as Yahoo, with prioritization and push notifications intact. The upgrade also introduces background syncing, which should save iOS 7 users the trouble of downloading all their new mail at once. Those who've been waiting for expanded support to try Mailbox can give it a spin today at the source link.
TUAW video tip: Creating Contacts groups on a PC
Mac users have been able to create groups in Contacts (formerly Address Book) for years. It's a wonderful way to group together various contacts so that you can send an email or message to all the parties in question by addressing it to the group instead of the individuals. There's one little issue with the Contacts app in iOS, however -- you can't create groups on your iPhone or iPad. While this is not a problem for Mac owners, who can just launch Contacts on their Macs to create a group to be synced through iCloud to their iOS devices, it would seem to be a real issue for Windows or Linux users who also own iOS devices, since there is no native Apple/iCloud Contacts app for those platforms. Actually, there's an easy solution -- using the iCloud.com Contacts app from any desktop or laptop web browser, since it (like the Mac app) provides a way to create groups. We'll show you how in the video below, so you can put together that "Christmas Cards" group in time for the holidays next year. <
Dropbox CEO: Jobs wanted to 'kill' the service
Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston gave an interesting interview at the Dreamforce conference. He spoke of where Dropbox had come from and where it's heading in the future. One interesting anecdote was the story he told of when Steve Jobs contacted him and expressed an interest in buying Dropbox. Houston said Jobs was straight with him, telling him if he couldn't acquire Dropbox, he was going to come after it. As Brian Jackson writes for ITbusiness.ca: "I kind of couldn't believe it when the meeting was getting set up," Houston recalls from the Jobs encounter. Typing the address for 1 Infinite Loop, the Apple headquarters, on his iPhone for directions, he realized the address was already pre-stored on the device. Jobs struck Houston as a straight talker. He told him he returned to Apple because he was frustrated that a company that convinced customers to pay a total of $7 billion a year to use their products could still lose $1 billion. But he was also direct with Houston, telling him that if he couldn't acquire his startup, was going to come after Dropbox. Six months after that meeting, Houston was watching a Jobs keynote and saw him make good on that promise. "He was calling out by name and saying he wants to kill us with iCloud," Houston said. Dropbox has of course survived iCloud and thrived. While iCloud has been beset with a fair amount of troubles, Dropbox's service usually runs very smoothly. The company is planning to go public with its IPO in the coming months.
iCaltoGCal.com syncs your iCloud calendar to Google Calendar
If you have ever tried to add your iCloud calendar in Google Calendar, you probably saw this error: "Could not fetch the URL because robots.txt prevents us from crawling the URL." That's because the https://www.icloud.com/robots.txt file tells "web crawlers" not to index anything under /calendar/ which is a good idea if we're talking about something like Googlebot, but should not apply when done in response to an interactive action initiated by a human. However, for reasons unknown, Google decided that Google Calendar should follow Apple's robots.txt instruction.[1] I have looked for a solution for this before, but today I found one: iCloud Calendar Proxy. The service could not be simpler: 1) Get your iCloud calendar URL from iCloud.com. 2) Paste the URL into the field at iCalToGCal. 3) Copy the new URL to Google Calendar. Boom! Now your iCloud calendar is available on Google Calendar. That's all you need to do, but there are a few provisos, a couple of quid pro quos you should know about. First of all, this process requires that your iCloud calendar be made public. Now, it doesn't seem likely that someone would accidentally stumble across your seemingly random 64-character iCloud calendar URL, but it's at least theoretically possible. You do not have to make the calendar public on Google.[2] You should also be aware that Google Calendar only updates "every few hours" and there is no way to manually update the calendar, so the Google version of your iCloud calendar might not always be up-to-the-minute. Still, until there's a better way, this is much better than nothing. iCalToGCal is offered for free by Jason Funk, but he does ask for donations to keep the server running. He also made "the sharing core of icaltogcal.com" available on Github, which means that you can set this up on your own server, assuming that it runs PHP. I set it up on mine in a matter of minutes, and then added the URL to my PHP script to Google Calendar instead of using the custom iCalToGCal URL. If you know any other ways to sync an iCloud calendar to Google Calendar, let us know in the comments. There are any number of reasons why Google might have decided to do this, including: 1) Wanting to avoid the appearance of doing something nefarious that Apple might object to, 2) wanting to make it more difficult for people to use iCloud Calendar and Google Calendar together with the hope that more people would choose to use Google Calendar instead of iCloud or 3) some other reason entirely. I generally try to apply Hanlon's Razor to these types of situations, but given the history of animosity between the two companies, it's hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. ↩ Unfortunately for me, it does not seem possible to share only the "busy/free" information via Google calendar, which was what I was trying to do. That's not really relevant to the technical aspect of this; I just mention it in case anyone else was thinking of doing the same thing. ↩
Tis the season to subscribe: What's on my annual service renewal lists
As November rolls around, it's generally time for me to take stock, look at my current service subscriptions (as opposed to entertainment subscriptions like Netflix and Hulu) and weigh what items I'm going to invest in for the next twelve months. Some of my subscriptions are annual choices. They time out after 12 months. Others are ongoing, so a time to evaluate and choose is especially helpful. Of course, services are a highly personal thing. The ones I subscribe to may or may not meet your needs and vice versa. So I've tried to keep my list of the services I'm considering fairly general and Apple consumer specific. If you have suggestions to add, please drop them in the comments -- and let me know if you run across particular deals that crop up near Black Friday. Offsite Backup. Time Machine, which I swear by, will get you only so far in life. Unless you're backing up offsite, you're exposing your data to enormous risk. Any physical damage to your workspace will probably affect your onsite backups as well as your main system. Offsite means greater peace of mind. Personally, I'm a Crashplan customer due to the unlimited backups and reasonable yearly fees. (Plus Mike Evangelist really sold me on the service.) Regardless of which provider you go with, you really should be thinking about adding an offsite plan to your Black Friday grab bag. Last year, Crashplan offered an insanely sweet deal for new customers (which I missed out on by two freaking weeks) so keep your eyes open for theirs and other deals on the day. VPN Service. If you lean towards the Wi-Fi lifestyle (and I do), when hanging out at Panera, Einsteins, Starbucks, and so forth, you'll probably want to consider picking up a VPN subscription for the year. There's a lot of give and take between Wi-Fi and onboard cellular, but the biggest difference is security. When you grab data directly over cellular, you can generally feel pretty good about privacy. Using shared Wi Fi means compromise -- speed, reliability, transparency. Using VPN enables you to shop, read mail, and perform other personal tasks without worrying about snooping. I've been using Witopia this year and it's been pretty good. I find it much better for light surfing and email when on the go than for privacy when at home, so about 90% of my use has been on my iPad and MacBook Air. Although I had intended to use VPN for day-to-day work, I found that heavy data loads (such as downloading new versions of Xcode) over VPN is just an exercise in frustration. Cloud. I want my data wherever I am. I'm a big fan of Dropbox and not such a big fan of iCloud but that's just me. Your mileage will, of course, vary -- and there are many new providers now out there in the field. This is a really good time of year to hunt for cloud deals for pro level accounts. Just be aware that real life stories like Everpix demonstrate why you need to be very, very careful as to where you trust your data. Online Apps. Unlike last year, this is the year that subscribing to cloud-based applications really took off. You might want to take a peek at Adobe, Microsoft Office, or Apple's iWork to see if their offerings might be what you need for next year. I'm intrigued by iWork in particular, and looking forward to seeing how well it transforms my work flow from desk-based to mobile. What services do you subscribe to? And which ones are you considering testing for the first time this year?
Apple updates iWork iCloud beta with new collaboration tools
The ongoing beta of Apple's iWork for iCloud received an update today that delivers new features aimed at improving collaboration. New features for Keynote, Numbers and Pages in iCloud are fully explained when you first activate the apps on iCloud.com, but we've got a list of what you can expect. Most of the feature additions are largely the same across the whole suite. Each app now has the following new features: Collaborator list: View the list of collaborators currently in a document. Collaborator cursor: See cursors and selections for everyone in a document. Jump to collaborator: Instantly jump to a collaborator's cursor by clicking their name in the collaborator list. Collaboration animation: Watch as images and shapes animate as others move them around. Print: Print your documents and presentations directly from the Tools menu. Folders: The ability to organize documents into folders. In addition, the beta for Numbers is now able to reorder sheets in a spreadsheet from the browser and add hyperlinks. Keynote beta users are also getting an extra feature; the ability to right-click any slide in the navigator to skip it during playback.
