BioWare’s ‘Jade Empire’ gets another shot at life on iOS
BioWare is virtually synonymous with Mass Effect and Dragon Age these days, but it has had its share of experiments. Remember Jade Empire, its China-inspired (and critically well-received) action role-playing title? Aspyr does — it just released versions of Jade Empire: Special Edition for the Mac and, crucially, iOS. You can now relive the story of a martial artist restoring balance to the world using your phone or tablet, not just your computer at home. There are simple controls in the iOS version if you’re not comfortable with a touchscreen, but you can also switch to an expert mode when you’re comfortable with using taps and swipes to defeat other warriors.
Both versions are available now for $10, which isn’t too shabby for a game that combines fast-paced fighting with signature BioWare elements like moral dilemmas. You’ll want to make sure you have plenty of free space, though. The iOS release chews up just short of 4GB, so you probably won’t be playing on a 16GB device unless Jade Empire is going to dominate your mobile life for the next while.
Via: Kotaku
Source: App Store, Mac App Store, Aspyr
Three Law Firms Join Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple Over iPhone 6 ‘Touch Disease’
Three additional law firms have joined a class action lawsuit against Apple over an alleged defect that causes iPhone 6 Plus touchscreens to become unresponsive and fail.
Back in August, reports began appearing from iPhone 6 owners describing an apparently latent manufacturing issue that causes a flickering bar to appear at the top of the screen and the display to become unresponsive or less responsive to touch.
A week later, three iPhone 6 owners filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court of Northern California after their devices presented symptoms of the problem – dubbed “touch disease” by repair website iFixit – which Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge.
Yesterday, Motherboard reported that lawyers who filed the class action complaint earlier this fall have now signed on three additional law firms to support their case, while an additional class action lawsuit related to the issue has been filed against Apple in Utah.
Richard McCune, an attorney in the California case, said he has been contacted by 10,000 people asking to join the suit, which accuses Apple of violating the state’s consumer fraud statutes, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied warranty, unjust enrichment, and other consumer act violations.
The “touch disease” flaw is thought to be caused by the touchscreen controller chips soldered to the iPhone’s logic board losing contact after a period of normal usage, because of Apple’s failure to incorporate a metal shield. So far, Apple has refused to repair the out-of-warranty iPhones without charge when the defect manifests. Worse, replacement refurbished handsets costing owners $329 have reportedly shown symptoms of the same problem within days or weeks of being issued.
Motherboard claims five separate current and former Apple Geniuses have confirmed that Apple is aware of the problem but will not tell customers about it.
However, Apple’s filed response to the most recent Utah complaint appears at least to signal a legal acknowledgement of the issue and the company’s lawyers have requested an “extension of time to respond to the Complaint” and asked that the Utah and California cases be combined into one.
Given the similarity between the [Utah] and [California] actions, it would unnecessarily tax judicial resources if these actions were to proceed in separate class action lawsuits—especially where the [Utah] and [California] Plaintiffs purport to represent the same putative class of all consumers who purchased an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
On Friday, McCune filed an updated lawsuit against Apple that includes several new plaintiffs and formally adds the three separate law firms to the legal battle. “Each of the firms (who had their own clients) brings strength to the case, including Stephen Larson of Larson O’Brien, who is a former Federal Judge,” McCune told Motherboard. “With these firms working with us, we believe it gives us the best chance of obtaining a positive result in the case for the owners of the phones.”
Related Roundup: iPhone 6s
Tag: lawsuit
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums
Users Report Some iPhone 7 and 6s Models Activation Locked With Wrong Apple IDs
An increasing number of iPhone users are experiencing an Activation Lock issue in which the device is linked to an Apple ID email address that does not belong to them, according to crowdsourced information from MacRumors and Twitter.
MacRumors reader Balders, who recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus, explained in our discussion forums:
Just received my brand new 256GB Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus. Looks immaculate, screen is perfect, machining all fine… Only problem is, it appears someone has already used it as the iPhone is asking for the account used to activate it — o…..@icloud.com. Apple say it needs replacing […] Now got to wait for an expedited replacement iPhone once I’ve returned this one.
With the wrong Apple ID being displayed, users cannot sign in and are therefore unable to proceed with setting up the iPhone. The issue has primarily affected new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models upon being turned on for the first time, and iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models upon being restored to default settings, although older models appear to be affected to a lesser extent.
MacRumors user TheKricket said his iPhone 6s suddenly became activation locked:
I purchased an iPhone 6s full-price and outright directly from an Apple Store in September 2015. The phone was unlocked (I switched from T-Mobile to Verizon after I purchased it without issue). I recently purchased an iPhone 7 Plus and after that phone was activated on Verizon’s network, the iPhone 6s now indicates that it has an “Activation Lock.” It is also linked to some unknown iCloud account (not the account I activated it with or have been using it with for close to a full year).
The discussion topics above and others have received multiple replies from other MacRumors readers experiencing the same issue, while several Twitter users have also shared similar complaints. It is unclear when the Apple ID mixups first began, but user reports have gained traction since at least September.
Got my brand new iPhone 7 Plus… with an activation lock on it… WTF? Anybody else with the same problem?
— Manuel Aeberli (@the_street_ch) September 30, 2016
Got new iPhone, did reset of old one. Now old iPhone has activation lock with email I don’t own. Not just me: https://t.co/wKlS3wuIhT
— Mark Svendsen (@marksvend) September 17, 2016
Something weird is going on. Possible @apple security issue with iOS 10 & wiping an old iPhone, reboots to Activation Lock & unknown email
— Rick Daino (@Metagamers) September 22, 2016
A number of affected users said Apple was able to remove the Activation Lock on their iPhones upon providing the company with proof of purchase. This process can seemingly be completed at an Apple retail store by scheduling a Genius Bar appointment, or remotely by calling Apple’s support team at 1-800-MY-APPLE.
On rarer occasions, however, the Activation Lock screen linked to a wrong Apple ID email address reappears more than once. In these cases, some users report that Apple fully replaced their iPhones.
It remains unclear what is causing the Activation Lock issues. Apple has not publicly commented on the matter.
Related Roundups: iPhone 6s, iPhone 7
Tags: Activation Lock, Apple ID
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums
Google Pixel tools help you switch from an iPhone
We’ve seen many attempts at helping you switch from one smartphone platform to another, but Google is kicking things up a notch with its Pixel smartphones. The lineup will include software to bring over contacts, media and messages from other phones, including iPhones. It’ll even bring over your iMessages, in case you’re worried that all those blue chat bubbles will disappear while moving to Android. To that end, Google bundles an adapter to help iPhone owners make the leap. These tools aren’t that necessary if you store a lot of your data in the cloud, but it’s evident that Google wants to remove as many pain points as possible — it wants Pixel to appeal to everyone.
Click here to catch all the latest news from Google’s fall event.
Yahoo’s reworked mobile app is all about sharing news
When you’re browsing your Facebook feed (or Flipboard, or Reddit), you probably spend at least some time reading, sharing and commenting on the latest news. What if there was an app dedicated just to that? Yahoo is giving it a shot. It’s relaunching its core mobile app as Yahoo Newsroom, which focuses on following news “Vibes” like politics or sports, sharing stories in those threads (from anywhere on the web) and commenting on them. The more Vibes you follow and the more you interact, the more personalized your feed becomes.
Newsroom should be available today for Android and iOS alike. And in case you’re wondering: yes, Yahoo believes its app has an advantage over Facebook and other social networks. You can say what you like “free from social pressure,” Yahoo says. That is an advantage if you’re worried about judgmental (or simply uninterested) friends, although there is a concern that you may end up in an echo chamber where you only discuss a narrow range of subjects with like-minded contributors. Still, this beats rival custom news apps where you’re rarely more than a passive reader.
Source: Yahoo (Tumblr)
Japan’s noisy iPhone problem
I cancelled my iPhone 7 Plus order last week. Yes, I still had a two-week wait before it was scheduled to arrive, but it wasn’t impatience that got the better of me. It was where I live: in Japan. iPhones sold here (and in Korea) hold the dubious honor of being customized for their markets. We’re not talking about extra mobile wallet functions, but a limitation; a constraint. Ever since the iPhone 3GS arrived in Japan in 2008, taking a photo and even a screenshot (ugh) has been accompanied by a mandatory shutter noise — one that iPhone users elsewhere probably turn off right away. Even switching to mute mode doesn’t halt the awkward ‘passht’ added to discourage covert photography. I’ll soon leave Japan and return to my native England, at which point I’ll reconsider upgrading. I’m not buying another Japanese iPhone.
The mandatory shutter sound has been a part of Japan’s camera phones almost ever since they went on sale back in 2000. This was the first country to sell camera-equipped phones that could send photos electronically. Kyocera’s VP-210 had what was then a cutting-edge 0.11-megapixel sensor: the era of camera phones had begun.
There’s a misconception that there’s some kind of legal provision to ensure smartphones (or feature phones), make a noise when you take a photo. That isn’t the case.
As these devices proliferated and people got used to attaching photos to emails (“sha-mail”), voyeuristic “up-skirt” photography became a concern — especially in crowded places like rush-hour trains. According to Akky Akimoto, writing for The Japan Times in 2013, people were discussing the issue online as early as 2001. There’s a misconception that there’s some kind of legal provision to ensure smartphones (or feature phones), make a noise when you take a photo, but that isn’t the case.
Over these years, sending photos became a core feature of modern cell phones, and wireless carriers took it upon themselves to ensure that all the models they offered came with built-in cameras with shutter sounds that couldn’t be disabled. NTT Docomo has said it was implemented “to prevent secret filming or other privacy issues.” A SoftBank spokesman gave me a similar answer: “When we first offered camera phones and the ‘sha-mail’ service around 2000, we requested that manufacturers make the shutter sound compulsory, even on manner mode.”
“This was done to prevent camera phones from being used in ways offensive to public morals. We continue to request handset manufacturers use the shutter sound,” the spokesperson continued.
Phone manufacturers and carriers have cooperated ever since, ensuring all phones sold in Japan make a sound for still videos, still photos and screenshots. While this might been seen as a well-intentioned move (and one that could discourage would-be voyeurs), the companies are protecting themselves against legal repercussions from anyone who gets harassed or sees photos of themselves online or elsewhere, taken without their permission.
Apple’s iPhone is the same. Worse, the iPhone 7 actually has the noisiest shutter sound yet — something that my Japan-based colleagues are blaming on the new stereo speakers.
Japan residents could buy an overseas model: Recent iPhone models share a lot of LTE bands across countries, and the company even displays all the radio bands of each iPhone model it sells. However, the iPhone 7 is the first Apple phone to work with the country’s well-established Suica contactless payment system, used in convenience stores, restaurants and the country’s national railway. The American variant (or the Hong Kong one, anywhere but Japan) doesn’t include the same contactless hardware.
The mandatory noise hasn’t solved the problem of cellphone voyeurs either. According to the Japan Times, which cites an NHK TV program from early 2013, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police had seen a 24 percent annual rise in “camera voyeurism” — up 60 percent from 2007. The majority of those (64 percent) had used cell-phone cameras, although there’s something to be said for the remaining percentage that were taken on cameras that weren’t forced to make a shutter sound.
Limiting creepy photographers with enforced smartphone sounds is worsened by the availability (especially in Japan and Korea) of “manner camera” apps where users can take photos on iPhones and other smartphones with no faux shutter sound. These are often slower, typically taking lower-quality pictures; you also can’t launch them from drop-down menus or the lock screen. Unfortunately, if unscrupulous types really want to take covert photos of unsuspecting people on trains and elsewhere, they will find a way to do so.
With the current iteration of iOS 10, Japanese users can tinker with the phone’s accessibility functions to add a mute toggle to the screen that silences the shutter noise. But this is likely a bug that Apple will squash in a later update, which means my new iPhone order will remain cancelled for now. I’m not some kind of covert photographer; I just hate being so conspicuous when I use my smartphone. I can tolerate it in Japan, where everyone suffers the same fate, but anywhere else, where you can mute your phone, I look like an incompetent fool who got his first smartphone in 2016: “You can mute that, you know?” “No, I can’t..”
Cybersecurity firm offers $1.5 million for iPhone exploits
A previously undisclosed (aka zero-day) exploit can fetch enough money to buy its finder a house. Zerodium, a firm that buys security exploits, has announced that it’s paying $1.5 million for one that can be used to take over iPhones and iPads. That’s thrice what the company used to offer, though it did up the bounty to $1 million last year for a limited time. While that very much smelled like PR stunt, Zerodium did end up having to pay one group the full amount. Unlike that time, this price bump is permanent. Anyone who’s OK with the fact that Zerodium will sell their find to the government and to various corporations can cash in anytime.
Apple launched its own bounty program back in August, promising to reward researchers with up to $200,000 in cash. That’s far from the $1.5 million Zerodium offers, but as Ars Technica notes, the firm has more demands than a corporation-run program. It will only pay that much for an exploit that’s guaranteed to give attackers complete control over the device they’re targeting. The programs are also after different types of vulnerabilities.
As for why Zerodium decided to triple its bounty, company founder Chaouki Bekrar told Ars that it’s merely a response to how secure the latest versions of mobile platforms like iOS and Android are. And the reward for iOS exploits is a whole lot more than the $200,000 it’s offering for Android hacks either because it’s harder to crack iOS 10 than Android 7 or because the demand is higher. “The reality is a mix of both,” he said.
As you can imagine, companies like Zerodium are highly controversial. When it announced its million-dollar reward last year, Lance Cottrell, chief scientist of security firm Ntrepid, told us that whatever it snaps up is “almost certainly going to be used against people’s best interests.” The government could use it to monitor people other than terrorists and criminals. Companies could use it to keep an eye on their competitors. Bekrar argued, however, that the government and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI need these exploits for the sake of national security.
For the record, @Zerodium iOS bounty does NOT compete with @Apple as we focus on browsers+kernel while they focus on secure boot and enclave
— Chaouki Bekrar (@cBekrar) September 29, 2016
Source: Ars Technica, Wired
The CW’s New Apple TV App Doesn’t Require a Cable Subscription to Watch
As promised last week, The CW network today released a new Apple TV app that allows all fourth-generation Apple TV owners to watch new episodes of shows on the network for free with no cable authentication or login required.
All of the shows on The CW, including Supergirl, The Flash, Jane The Virgin, Arrow, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, iZombie, Supernatural, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The 100 Vampire Diaries, Reign, and The Originals are available to watch, with ads. Users simply need to download the app and click play on a show to watch, with no other hoops to jump through.
The CW’s iOS and Apple TV apps focus on only the newest episodes, with no archived content available from past seasons. Only five episodes from the most recent season are available to watch, but it’s all free and should be welcome news to cord cutters who are hoping other television networks might adopt similar policies.
On iOS devices, an update to the CW app introduces support for both AirPlay and Chromecast, allowing content from the iOS app to be streamed to a television set as an alternative to using the Apple TV app or as a way to watch The CW’s content on television sets without owning a fourth-generation Apple TV.
The CW can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Discuss this article in our forums
How to Discretely Monitor Someone’s iPhone without Jailbreak
Are you someone who is looking for a way to track a target person’s iPhone without jailbreaking? If yes, then you must try an app specially designed for spying on iPhone without jailbreak – XnSpy for example. However, there are numerous others available online and you can find them on the Google Play Store. The app we are using as an example maintains the stealth mode without compromising your monitoring activity using iCloud tracking. In order to succeed in monitoring a target person’s iPhone remotely, without holding it in your hand, you must follow three simple steps.
Three Steps for Spying on iPhone without Jailbreak
Step 1: First, you have to subscribe to the app of your choice. For this, you must visit the website, pay the due amount to subscribe to the service, and receive access to the control panel. Monitoring apps are mostly web-based apps, which means, that you need a browser to be able to access the control panel. The control panel is where you can see whatever you need to monitor on the target’s iPhone.
Tip: Make sure you subscribe to the non-jailbroken version of the monitoring app.
Step 2: Check the target person’s iPhone to make sure it has its data synchronized with iCloud. If this is not active, then enable it. This is a one-time thing. To do this, you have to enter the target’s Apple ID and password. You will see the “iCloud Sync” option, which will prompt you to “Merge” or “Don’t Merge” content. Hitting “Merge” will enable the data on the device to upload onto the iCloud account. Once you do this, you’re all set to start monitoring the target device remotely.
Step 3: Log into your control panel using the credentials you received in your email after subscribing to the app. You will be able to access the dashboard, which has all the different features the app offers. By clicking on each tab or feature on the dashboard, you will be able to see every activity you wish to monitor. Each monitoring app offers unique features, and XNSpy allows monitoring the following:
- Text Messages
- Internet messengers
- Facebook messenger and Instagram
- Photos and videos
- Apps installed
- Browsing history and bookmarks
- Calls and record surroundings
- GPS locations
- Geo-fencing
- Get alerts 24/7
- Use watch-list feature for contacts and words
- Emails
- Calendar entries
- Stay undetectable
- Remote access – lock the device, block installed apps, wipe off data
Crucial Information for Users
Spying on iPhone without jailbreak has become so much easier due to the advent of iCloud storage. Once the target’s device synchronizes with the iCloud, you can see all calendar entries, emails, contacts, text messages, photos, and videos, apps installed on the device, etc. This is how you can easily maintain discretion and the target wouldn’t suspect a thing.
The good thing about using a special version for non-jailbroken devices is that you don’t have to install the app on the target iPhone. In most cases, installation of apps makes the target device slower. This often causes the target’s device to hand or the battery to run down too soon. Such things are a major give away, and tech savvy people may suspect something is up. Although such apps disappear into the list of apps installed with a false name, the target may decide to factory reset the device. This is why, when it comes to monitoring a non-jailbroken device, using one with iCloud tracking support is best.
Before you move on, another important information users of such apps need to know is that only a few apps allow monitoring multiple devices. With XNSpy, you can monitor as many devices you want as long as they are iOS and Android devices. Besides, this app offers a demo for users to try before purchasing it. Therefore, you can get a clear idea about what the app can do before paying for it.
App Store Search Ads Go Live October 5, Developers Now Able to Purchase Ad Spots
Back in June, Apple announced some major changes to the App Store, including the addition of ads to App Store search results. App Store Search Ads have gone live as of today, and Apple is allowing developers to purchase ad spots. Ads from developers will be displayed starting on October 5.
Search Ads have been in beta testing since the feature was announced, and developers were previously able to participate in a beta testing program to provide ads that were visible to App Store users.
With Search Ads, developers can bid to have their app listed as the top result when certain keywords are used, improving app discoverability. Ads are available through an auction system, with one ad displayed to customers on each search result page. Ads are clearly marked and ad content is the same content that’s available on the App Store app description pages as it uses App Store metadata and imagery.
According to Apple’s Phil Schiller, Apple “thought about how to carefully” do search ads in a way that “customers will be happy with.” Apple also believes the ad auction system is fair to developers, including indie developers.
Developers do not need to pay a minimum amount to use Search Ads, so it’s possible to buy ads for a small sum of money. Apple prices Search Ads based on a cost-per-tap model, so developers only pay when a user taps on an ad. Apple displays ads based on a combination of bid amount and an app’s relevance to the search query, with ad matching done automatically.
Developers who sign up to offer Search Ads are being given a free $100 credit to get started with the program.
Discuss this article in our forums
AIVAnet 