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Tag: API

  • Rumor: Apple to incorporate additional satellite-based features into upcoming hardware and software

    Rumor: Apple to incorporate additional satellite-based features into upcoming hardware and software

    Apple is betting on satellite access and features for the future.

    Per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and the latest “Power On” newsletter, Apple is looking to incorporate the following satellite-based features into its operating systems:

    • Apple Maps via satellite: Navigation in Apple Maps without cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity.
    • Photos in Messages via satellite: Support for sending photos in the Messages app using satellite connectivity.
    • Natural Usage: Satellite connectivity from indoors environments, without the need to physically point the device toward clear sky.
    • Satellite over 5G: Support for 5G NTN, allowing cell towers to use satellites for increased coverage.
    • Satellite API framework for third-party apps: An API that will allow developers to integrate satellite connectivity into their apps voluntarily. Not all features and services will be compatible.
    • There are apparently no plans to enable phone calls, video calls, or web browsing via satellite at present.

    Apple’s current satellite connectivity features are available for free, albeit it’s rumored that Apple will set up subscription-based plans between the customers and the satellite carriers for additional features in the future.

    Apple could also create a paid option for extended connectivity with a company like SpaceX. Gurman added that there have been discussions in the company about offering its own satellite service, but concerns that Apple shouldn’t act like a carrier have stifled that possibility.

    It’s thought that an assortment of the new satellite features in development will require upgrades to Globalstar’s infrastructure, which Apple helped to bankroll. Gurman said that if SpaceX acquires Globalstar, the necessary enhancements could roll out faster.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via MacRumors and Bloomberg

  • Apple releases iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 updates

    Apple releases iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 updates

    Monday proved to be an update-o-rama as Apple released its long-awaited iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 updates.

    The iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates contain the following fixes, changes, and new features:

    • Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention
    • Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings
    • Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US)
    • The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device
      Apple News
    • Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+
    • Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes
    • Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions
    • The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more

    Photos:

    • New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos
    • Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos
    • Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos
    • Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos
    • Ability to disable “Recently Viewed” and “Recently Shared” collections in Photos Settings
    • Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings

    This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

    • Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query
    • Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later
    • Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app
    • App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance
    • Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress
    • New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved, and Downloaded
    • Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life
    • Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library
    • Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automation

    Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu

    New emoji:

    • Face with bags under eyes
    • Fingerprint
    • Leafless tree
    • Root vegetable
    • Harp
    • Shovel
    • Splatter

    CarPlay updates:
    iOS 18.4 also makes a few improvements to CarPlay. On cars with a screen that is big enough, the CarPlay Home Screen will now show three rows of app icons instead of two. Apple has also added a new API that will allow sports apps to show scores on a new Now Playing interface.

    Finally, iOS 18.4 also adds the ability to set a default navigation app for users in the European Union. This applies to your iPhone and also to CarPlay.

    Where the macOS Sequoia 15.4 update is concerned, the update offers a significant redesign of its Mail app, which began on the iPhone and has now made its way to macOS. At the heart of the updated Mail app is a big change to the way your inbox works.

    Messages will now be automatically sorted into the following categories:

    • Primary
    • Transactions
    • Updates
    • Promotions

    The app also features a hidden All Mail view to the right of Promotions. The new Mail app also features a Digest View to help consolidate messages from the same sender into a single unified thread. Contact photos are now available inside the inbox, along with other UI updates and tweaks. If you’re not a fan of the changes, Apple provides ways to disable most of them and get the Mail app back to the way it was before.

    New Apple Intelligence features

    • The Image Playground app gets a new capability: you can now create images in a Sketch style, joining the existing Animation and Illustration options.
    • You can also now create a Memory movie in the Mac’s Photos app—a feature that first hit iOS last fall.

    Apple Intelligence has added eight new languages plus two freshly localized English variants, for 10 new options total.

    The new options include:

    • French
    • German
    • Italian
    • Portuguese (Brazil)
    • Spanish
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Chinese (simplified)
    • English (Singapore)
    • English (India)
    • Apple Podcasts widget expansion

    For Apple Podcasts fans, the new version of the app has a Followed Shows feature that lets you easily access recent episodes from shows you follow, while the customizable Library widget can be configured to show different app sections, such as Downloaded or Saved.

    Quick Start has finally come to the Mac, along with proximity pairing. Whenever you’re setting up a new device, Apple has long offered Quick Start on the iPhone and iPad. The feature lets you scan a code on your iPhone or iPad to transfer settings from that device to the new hardware. Now in macOS 15.4, the Mac can be used for Quick Start too. The process works just like on other devices, with macOS showing a code that can be scanned to transfer settings over.

    As always, the newest iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Updates can be located, downloaded, and installed by navigating to System Preferences, and then choosing General > Software Update or Software Update and proceeding from there.

    If you’ve had a chance to try the new updates, please let us know about your experience in the comments.

    Via 9to5Mac (1, 2)

  • Wiz Research locates, publishes information as to DeepSeek security flaw

    Wiz Research locates, publishes information as to DeepSeek security flaw

    As nifty and attention-garnering as the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek may be, there may be some security concerns associated with it.

    A group known as Wiz Research has discovered an issue wherein more than a million lines of log entries were discovered within DeepSeek. The entries included chat histories and secret keys. For its own part, DeepSeek is currently under investigation in both Europe and the US over privacy and national security concerns. The app – which still sits at the top of Apple’s App Store – has been removed in Italy after the country’s privacy watchdog expressed concerns, a move likely to be repeated in other countries.

    Per Wiz Research’s notes:

    “Wiz Research has identified a publicly accessible ClickHouse database belonging to DeepSeek, which allows full control over database operations, including the ability to access internal data. The exposure includes over a million lines of log streams […]

    Within minutes, we found [the database] completely open and unauthenticated, exposing sensitive data [including] a significant volume of chat history, backend data and sensitive information, including log streams, API Secrets, and operational details.”

    The problem was that the company had created a ClickHouse database without any authentication at all.

    ClickHouse functions as an open-source, column-based database management system designed for fast analytical queries on large data sets. The technology was developed by Yandex and is used for real-time data processing, log storage, and big data analytics.

    It was in one of these datasets, log_stream, that the sensitive data was found.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via 9to5Mac and Wiz Research

  • ChatGPT gains Xcode integration/functionality

    ChatGPT gains Xcode integration/functionality

    If you love being able to use ChatGPT for coding, you’re going to like this. The ChatGPT app is now able to integrate with coding apps such as Xcode, VS Code, TextEdit, and Terminal, making life that much simpler on the developer end.

    When ChatGPT is given permission to interact with an app like Xcode through a new Work with Apps feature, a selection of code can be sent directly to ChatGPT alongside a prompt.

    TechCrunch, which was offered a demo of the feature, offered the following description:

    “In a demo with TechCrunch, an OpenAI employee opened the ChatGPT app and an Xcode environment containing a simple project modeling the solar system – although it was missing the Earth. The employee selected an Xcode tab within ChatGPT, which tells the AI chatbot to look at the app, and prompted the chatbot to ‘add the missing planets.’ The chatbot was able to complete the task, writing a line of code to represent the Earth that matched the rest of the project’s format.”

    As of October, GitHub incorporated Copilot integration to Xcode, Copilot providing assistance within the Xcode app. While ChatGPT’s integration is not that deep, and it is not able to write code in Xcode, ChatGPT can instead use the macOS Accessibility API for screen readers that allows apps to read text, which also means that it cannot interpret images or videos.

    The new ChatGPT for Mac feature is available for ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Teams users starting today, with Enterprise and Edu support coming in the near future. OpenAI has also stated that it plans to bring this integration to other apps.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via MacRumors and TechCrunch