O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: 1.5

  • Code strings found in iOS 11.3 hint at “Tatl” display output, support for possible future AR glasses

    Apple’s iOS 11.3 code base has been studied and some interesting stuff has been found.

    Per iOS developer Steve Troughton-Smith, assorted strings of code in iOS 11.3 that contains a mysterious display output codenamed “Tatl.” The CoreUI framework can now request UI assets in meters, leading some to speculate that this might be referring to Apple AR glasses.

    There is one possible reference for it:

    Tatl
    Tatl refers to a fairy in the game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. In the game, Tatl helps the main character Link interact with the environment. She can provide information when you look at certain objects, people, and enemies.

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  • Apple releases iOS 11.3 update for newly-released iPad units

    Sometimes it’s the newest devices that get the coolest software updates first.

    On Wednesday, Apple released iOS 11.3, though only for the new iPad announced during Tuesday’s “Let’s Take a Field Trip” education event in Chicago. There’s no indication as to when the update will be available for other devices, but we don’t expect it to be much longer.

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  • First iOS 11.3 developer beta out the door, offers improved power management, iCloud Messages, additional Animoji units, other changes

    Following Tuesday’s release of iOS 11.2.5, which brought HomePod support, Siri news, and a fix for the Messages text bomb, Apple has offered preview access to iOS 11.3, which will include assorted nifty new features, including a toggle for CPU throttling on phones old batteries.

    Following the iOS 11.3 update, Apple says users will now be able to see their overall battery health, and will recommend if it needs to be serviced. You will also be told if your battery is triggering a chip slowdown, and can choose to turn that feature off. The switch will only be available for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

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  • Apple releases details about Swift Playgrounds 1.5, points to hardware that will be controllable via the update

    This could lead to something pretty neat.

    Apple released an update on Thursday in which it provided a detailed update as to Swift Playgrounds 1.5 will let students control robots, drone, and musical instruments.

    The announcement reads as follows:

    Apple® today announced that Swift Playgrounds™, its educational coding app for iPad®, will offer an exciting new way to learn to code using robots, drones and musical instruments. Swift Playgrounds is perfect for students and beginners learning to code with Swift™, Apple’s powerful and intuitive programming language for building world-class apps.

    Apple says Swift Playgrounds 1.5 will let students control Bluetooth-connected bots including “LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3, Sphero SPRK+, Parrot drones and more.”

    In the announcement, Craig Federighi says Swift Playgrounds already has over 1 million users around the world. Apple specifically details compatibility between Swift Playgrounds 1.5 and these products:

    — LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 are incredibly popular in schools around the world and give students the power to explore coding through real-life problem solving as they create and command their own robotic LEGO creatures, vehicles, machines and inventions. With Swift Playgrounds kids can code and interact with their creations’ motors and sensors.

    — Sphero SPRK+, a popular robotic ball, rolls, turns, accelerates and changes colors. Sensors provide feedback when Sphero hits an obstacle, and all of it can be controlled with Swift code.

    — Parrot’s Mambo, Airborne and Rolling Spider drones can take off, land, turn and perform aerial figures like flips, all under the control of code users create.

    — UBTECH’s Jimu Robot MeeBot Kit lets kids program their buildable robot to walk, wave and dance.

    — Dash by Wonder Workshop is an exciting, hands-on learning robot for students, designed to teach the fundamentals of coding, creative problem solving and computational thinking.

    — Skoog is a tactile cube that enables children of all abilities to have fun exploring, creating and playing music with Swift code.

    Cool stuff, albeit this begs the question: Where was anything this nifty when I was a kid?

    Apple says the new version of Swift Playgrounds will be available starting Monday, June 5. Swift Playgrounds is available for free for the iPad and requires iOS 10.0 or later to install and run.

    Via 9to5Mac and the App Store

  • Analyst: Java 1.7 zero-day less likely to affect Mac users due to lack of current installed base on platform

    Yesterday, we posted as to a new Java vulnerability that could open the gates for additional malware on the Mac.

    Today, there’s some better news regarding this.

    Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog, online backup service CrashPlan co-founder Matthew Dornquist had the following to offer about the new Java vulnerability and what it could mean for the Mac.

    In a recent study of a random sample of 200K recent users; Dornquist’s numbers showed that the overwhelming majority of CrashPlan’s Mac users are on Java 1.6 (92%) and a small minority on the older 1.5 version. The percentage on the 1.7 version targeted by the malware? Approximately zero.

    Research shop FireEye identified a Java zero-day exploit this weekend that is already targeting fully patched versions of the Java JRE version 1.7 running on Windows machines. The exploit attempts to install a dropper executable (Dropper.MsPMs) on the machines it attacks. In theory, a separate dropper could be crafted to attack Mac or Linux systems, although none has yet been observed in the wild.

    That’s a reason for Mac users to rest a little more easily, but it’s not the big one. As noted by CNET, the vulnerable edition of the JRE — 1.7 — isn’t installed by default in a stock configuration of OS X. The Java that Apple delivers on Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion is JRE 1.6 (and on Lion and Mountain Lion, it’s only installed on demand when needed to run Java applications); in order to be on 1.7 and be theoretically susceptible, you’d have to install the Oracle beta build manually.

    If you did install the Oracle build and you’re concerned about the new exploit, you can disable the Java plugin in each of your browsers individually, or uninstall 1.7 entirely. While it bears repeating that there is no evidence of a Mac payload for this exploit at this time, if you don’t have a specific reason to run the new version then it’s probably safest to stick with JRE 1.6 instead (or turn off Java completely if you don’t need it). In response to past exploits including Flashback, Apple’s Java web plugin is now set to auto-disable when it isn’t used for some time, further reducing the attack surface for Mac users.

    So, yeah, try to avoid manually updating to Java 1.7 on your Mac until this is sorted out and we’ll have additional details as they become available.